Unity Takes Two

You can't make a horse drink from water he doesn't want, you can't make someone accept an outstretched hand toward unity if they just plain don't want it, and you can't convince people of facts and realities they just refuse to accept.

Ickes on CNN complaining that Obama Hijacked 4 Delegates from Hillary

In this video Clinton's Campaign Manager Harold Ickes accuses the Obama campaign of theft, and even suggests the Hillary could still win the nomination with the support of the remaining uncommitted delegates. As of now she needs 240 out of the remaining 290 total uncommitted Super and Pledged Delegates.

That's 82.9%

In what bizarro upside-down world is that likely to happen?

Ickes has to know that Hillary can't win this, that everything he's doing and she's going will make the eventual Big Walk Back for her campaign ans supporters harder and harder.

There's only one way to look at this left - they have no intention of walking it back, ever!

All this Sturm und Drang is over 4 Delegates. FOUR. This is the sword they choose to fall on?

The more moderate supporers of Hillary will certain join with the rest of the party but the most rapid of Hillary's Evil Mob knows that this won't be over in another two days. It won't be over in Denver. The Humpty-Dumpty Democratic Party is broken and won't be coming back together despite the clearly noble efforts by Henry Wexler, Karl Levin, Donna Brazile and others this weekend to do exactly that. The most vapid of Hillary's supporters aren't going to listen to the facts or the reality, they aren't going to consider this to be a fair compromise or a generous gesture, they're going to listen Ickes when he says...

Ickes: They Hijacked - they just reached in and took four delegates from Hillary. It's unprecedented. It's unheard of. It's quite incredible.

...

Hillary got 73 delegates (out of Michigan) and Uncommitted got 55. Mr. Obama decided for strategic and tactical reasons to withdraw his name from the ballot. He didn't have to, nobody asked him to. He did it for his own strategic reasons. And now he says "Oh my goodness, I want these Delegates" - not only do I want the 55, but oh, by the way, I want the four of Hillary's

After these kinds of fighting words, accusing Obama of being a craven manipulative thief, they aren't unifying with anyone. Certainly not with Obama supporters and the Democratic Party once he becomes the nominee.

Let's be clear first of all every candidates except Hillary, Chris Dodd and Mike Gravel took their names off the ballot, which includes Obama, Biden, Edwards and Richardson. (Kucinich sued to be taken off, but wasn't) They did it because Iowa and New Hampshire asked them to honor the DNC decision. If Ickes wants to call those states "Nobody" - that's his call.

As things stood prior to the RBC meeting - no one was going to get any delegates. Clinton now has 69 more than she did before, but apparently that just isn't enough for her, she wants all 73 and she wants Obama to get ZERO - even ignoring the "Fair Reflection" of 30,000 voters who specifically Wrote Obama's Name In.

Other's have been over this in far better and greater legal detail than I can achieve but the core point is that the RBC decision not only re-instated the votes of those who directly voted for Hillary, but also the 30,000 who specifically voted for Obama even knowing and expecting that their votes wouldn't count. Those 30,000 votes happen to match up fairly directly to the 4 delegates that Ickes says belong to Hillary.

The 30,000 write-in votes, which a Clinton supporter (Ickes, I think) admitted during the meeting were likely mostly for Obama, were over 5% of the total votes cast. They were not counted. Just adding those actually cast votes to Uncommitted (rather than throwing them out, as happened), dilutes Clinton’s percentage of the total enough to knock her down from 74 delegates to 70.45 of 128. Knocking off the extra vote we started with (74 instead of 73), Hillary’s 70.45 translates to 69.45, or about exactly what the R&BC awarded her. Hmmmm.

So whose really trying to steal whose votes and delegates here?

It might be argued that some of those uncommitted votes might have been for Edwards or Biden or Richardson, accept that only Edwards was still in the race at the point and assuming he would have reached the 15% threshold he (and Richardson and Biden have) endorsed Obama - so Obama would get all those delegates even if there had been some way of truly splitting them up accurately.

It's clear that Ickes and Clinton aren't the "Victim" here - they are the ones trying to steal delegates from Obama.

It's naked, it's blatant and that's what it is.

The fact is by not having his people fight for the 64/64 compromise, which he would have narrowly won, Obama put forth a positive gesture and effectively granted Clinton Five Delegates More than she would have had.

We don't have to be afraid that we'll offended the Clintonies by saying this - it's the truth, they need to know it and acknowledge it. Running around on tip-toes isn't going to change that. How many times can you put your hand out in friendship and "unity" only to have it slapped away again and again until you realize the other size doesn't deserve it anymore?

At a certain point, the Democratic party is going to have to rid itself of the Hillacratic Party. We won't have to push them out. They're going to go on their own, some are already effectively gone. Maybe they'll stay home in November with their arms folded clinging bitterly to their preferred losing candidate in a huff, maybe they'll go to a third party candidate like Nader, maybe Bob Barr, maybe to the Republicans. They do seem to certainly like Republican styled campaigning - meanwhile we are moving in a new direction.

They have to face the truth, Hillary has Lost, and so do we.

Hillary is going to win Puerto Rico. She's probably going to win the overall popular vote (as long as you ignore the Caucus States), but then again having the popular vote and $5 will barely get you a Coffee at Starbucks. It certainly didn't do anything for Al Gore.

In fairness, as I have mentioned several times before, Ickes is correct about the Electoral Map favoring Clinton. The latest polls have her leading McCain 327 to 194 on the electoral college. She is leading in eight states that Kerry didn't get in 2004.

In contrast Obama is only leading McCain by 276 to 238 and only picks of a measly fives states that Kerry didn't win. That's what we're arguing over - winning in November by eight states or just five?

His argument is that the path to the White House is easier with Clinton involved. On that point he may be technically correct, but here's the rub. Do we really want to start off a new democratic era by taking the shortest and easier possible path to victory?

Is the Low-Road really the best coarse to take?

Or, do we feel it's worth it to take the Best Road? It may not be as easy, it may not be as fast - we might have to fight with difficult and complex truth instead of easy to understand innuendo and double-talk. We have to take a serious look at whether we want to continue to fall into the old patterns, push the same old buttons, run from the same old fears that we have for generations or do we want to have the courage to do the hard thing? To do the Right Thing?

Wouldn't taking the High Road and Still Winning Be all the Sweeter, all the more worth it?

Do we have the guts to take a stand, and risk the possibility that some of our (soon to be former) Democratic brethren might never seek to join us on that path? That we'll never truly have "Unity" again?

I think we have no choice but to recognize some, like Ickes, and the Old New York Lady yelling at the cloud are simply too far gone, we can't expect and don't need "unity" with the likes of them. Instead we need clarity of direction and the conviction to get where we need to go.

Washington DC. The White House.

With them or without them, we're going to get there. No more Mr. Nice Giaus.

Vyan