Ah, it’s the political season and I can smell hypocrisy in the air. I’ve been hearing for weeks now about how Hillary Clinton has to get out of the race. After all, it’s for the good of the party. This recommendation has come from several sources, including the mainstream media’s talking heads that deliver the pre-packaged news and George McGovern, a former Clinton supporter who recently turned tail and defected to Obama. I really hate to be the one to point this out to those so much more politically astute than myself, but it isn’t about the Democratic Party. It’s about the people. The process of electing the next president belongs to the people and that is exactly what is in jeopardy.
Clinton’s determination ensures us that there’s still a race. According to the latest CNN estimates, Obama has 1,845 delegates, to Clinton’s 1,686. That’s a difference of 159 delegates. Neither Obama nor Clinton will win the 2,025 delegates needed to take the nomination.* The pundits spend their days spinning mathematical probability theories, but the fact remains that there is absolutely no reason for Hillary Clinton to quit. Every single citizen’s vote should count, and there are still people who support Hillary Clinton and have a right to cast their votes. I am not referring to the not so super ‘superdelegates,’ nor the out-to-pasture former Democratic demagogues, like George McGovern. These flip-flopping career politicians have long abandoned supporting those best suited for the job. Their support blows whichever way the party strategy goes. Let’s face it. The Democrats haven’t exercised the greatest campaign strategy in the last two elections.
The supporters I am referring to are the voters. (Those who do not exercise their voting rights forfeit their right to complain.) These are the people who have to live in the real world with Washington’s decisions. Even Nancy Pelosi weighed in on the subject after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries saying, “The people should all have the opportunity to speak as long as two candidates wish to compete in those primaries and caucuses.” Our elected officials are in direct defiance of the Constitution when they put systems in place to manipulate the outcome of the election and take the voting power away from the people.
The superdelegates are a corruption of the democratic process. This virulent strain was developed so that Democratic Party ‘elitists’ could maintain control over and influence the outcome of the election. Superdelegates consist of members of Congress, governors, party leaders, and current and former office holders, like Barack Obama. They are not bound by the will of the people, yet these 796 delegates account for about 40% of the delegate votes needed to win. They are capable of stealing the election from the American people. I’d call that unconstitutional.
The superdelegates are whining that the pressure is going to end up being on them. That’s why they’d like Hillary to pull out. There are two possible solutions to this problem. The less desirable is to keep the superdelegates but require them to declare their positions immediately after their state’s primary is over rather than on the convention floor. There is another requirement: They cannot go against the will of the people. However, if they can’t steal the election, they’re of no use. So, the most desirable solution is to get rid of the superdelegates altogether.
The insiders are crying wolfThe latest political propaganda is that the primary has to end now or we won’t have a unified Democratic party. Honestly, this election was the Democrats’ to lose. If they are now in a precarious position, it’s because of their dismal performance since the mid-term election. The Democrats have failed to end our involvement in Iraq, something they vowed to do. They have refused to advance articles of impeachment against what has to be the most corrupt administration in history. Regardless of who wins the Democratic primary, one would hope that the party is intelligent enough to pull itself together in unity to defeat a common enemy (read: The Republicans) instead of defeating themselves. I have doubts about this.
Hillary Clinton is not the first Democrat determined to take her case all the way to the convention. Gene McCarthy (1968), Ted Kennedy (1980), Gary Hart (1984), and Jesse Jackson (1988) came before her. And it wasn’t always pretty either. There was a bitter fight for the nomination on the convention floor in 1968. The Democratic party survived. For the sake of preserving the democratic process, the primary must move ahead. The election should not be hijacked by a bunch of self-serving political insiders.
*Obama can win the 2,025 with the ‘uber corrupt’ superdelegates included.
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