The Politicker

After Mississippi, a Renewed Clinton Push for Florida and Michigan

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The day after losing badly in Mississippi, Hillary Clinton's team is back to an aggressive push on seating Michigan and Florida delegates, with or without a revote.

Not only did Maggie Williams write a letter to David Plouffe this morning, but the Clinton campaign just sent out a release with remarks Clinton made at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. this morning. According to the release, she said both that “[t]he results of those primaries [in Michigan and Florida] were fair and they should be honored,” and that “there are two options: Honor the results or hold new primary elections.”

The first statement is highly arguable. There is more consensus about the second statement, and the Obama campaign has expressed some willingness to seat delegates from those states, and even hold a revote.

Over the weekend there was a great deal of discussion about a mail-in primary, but the Obama campaign said yesterday that they didn’t like the idea, and last night the Florida congressional delegation issued a statement saying they are opposed to any re-do of any kind. That leaves Senator Bill Nelson of Florida as one of the few politicians within the state to be vocally supporting a revote.

Here's the full release of Clinton's remarks:

Hillary Clinton made the following statement at the Hispanic Chamber Of Commerce earlier this morning:

“If you are a voter from Florida or Michigan, you know that we should count your vote. The nearly two and a half million Americans in those two states who participated in the primary elections are in danger of being excluded from our democratic process and I think that’s wrong. The results of those primaries were fair and they should be honored. Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about what we should do to ensure that the voters in Florida and Michigan are counted.

“In my view there are two options: Honor the results or hold new primary elections. I don’t see any other solutions that are fair and honor the commitment that two and a half million voters made in the Democratic primaries in those two states. Whether voters are clamoring for solutions to the challenges that we face or not, or whether people are coming out in droves to be heard, we have a basic obligation to make sure that every vote in America counts.

I hope that Senator Obama’s campaign will join me in working to make that happen. I think that that is a non-partisan solution to make sure that we do count these votes.”

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HILLARY/FERRARO STINK (not verified) says:

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Hillary will work harder, now, to STEAL the nomination.

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Anonymous (not verified) says:

Question:

If Michigan goes against Hil, will it be resized by the Clinton race-baiting Campaign as a unimportant, small state?
Will Gerry "Fundraiser to the Mob" Ferraro make the comment that if there were more white people in Michigan, Hil would have won.

renatam (not verified) says:

Ferraro vs Jesse Jackson - April 15, 1988 (The cite is a Washington Post story - byline: Howard Kurtz, - available only on Nexis).:

“If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race,” she said.

Here’s the full context:

Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don’t ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his “radical” views, “if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”

Asked about this at a campaign stop in Buffalo, Jackson at first seemed ready to pounce fiercely on his critics. But then he stopped, took a breath, and said quietly, “Millions of Americans have a point of view different from” Ferraro’s.

Discussing the same point in Washington, Jackson said, “We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got North to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I’m making history.”

Byron (not verified) says:

We don't need you to re-post stuff from the Drudge Report on here, renatam. Okay?

renatam (not verified) says:

Olbermann Slams Clinton in Special Comment: "You Are Campaigning As If Barack Obama Were The Democrat And You Were The Republican"

Huffingtonpost.com

Tonight, as promised, Keith Olbermann attacked Senator Hillary Clinton in a ten-minute "Special Comment," saying that he was not endorsing Barack Obama but that "events insist" that he speak and stand against her "tepid response" to the controversial remarks of Geraldine Ferraro wherein she said that Obama wouldn't have been as successful if he were not black. Last night Olbermann decried the statements as "clearly racist"; tonight, he followed up with a doozy in which he accused her of "campaigning as if Barack Obama were the Democrat and you were the Republican." In so doing, said Olbermann — in letting the opportunity to forcefully oppose Ferraro's comments pass her by — Olbermann said that Clinton had "missed a critical opportunity to do what was right."

Geraldine Ferraro has stood by her comments and denied that they were racist, saying on "NBC Nightly News" tonight that they were response to a specific question about why this election was special, and saying that it was the Obama campaign that was playing "this type of a race card." (See related video here.)

Olbermann chose to frame his comment in terms of bad choices on the part of Senator Clinton, stopping short of calling her inherently racist, instead casting the matter in terms of her receiving bad advice from the "tone deaf" and "arrogant" members of her campaign ("they are killing your chances of becoming president...[and] slowly killing the chances for any democrat to become president"). He characterized Ferraro's remarks as "a blind accusation of sexism and dismissing Senator Obama's campaign as some equal opportunity stunt," and decried her comments both in this instance and historically, pointing to the "cheap, ignorant vile racism that underlines them."

He also blamed her advisers for not pushing her to repudiate those comments immediately — unlike the remark by Obama advisor Samantha Power, who had called Clinton a "monster" and who was "gone by sunrise" from the Obama campaign. Olbermann specifically fingered (but did not name) Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams, saying that instead of repudiating Ferraro's words — "words that should make any Democrat retch" — she was instead "letting her campaign manager bend them beyond all recognition into Sentaor Obama's fault...thus giving Ferraro nearly a week to [send the dialogue] back into the vocabulary of David Duke."

"Do you not see, Senator?" Olbermann asked. "Senator Clinton, this is not a campaign strategy. This is a suicide pact."

Olbermann took the opportunity to mention a number of other matters (or, in recent campaign parlance, to 'throw the kitchen sink' at Clinton), criticizing her also for the "shell-game about choosing Obama as Vice-President," as well as her husband Bill Clinton's comments about Jesse Jackson after the South Carolina primary, the "racial undertone of the 3 a.m. ad" and the "moment's hesitation" in her much-parsed answer on 60 minutes and said that after all the accrued episodes in which race had been implicated, people now "see a pattern" of racially-tinged remarks and associations with Clinton — though he carefully stopped short of definitively asserting its existence: "False or true, they see it," said Olbermann.

He was far more definitive about Ferraro, and that's where the comment returned in its final few minutes as Olbermann implored Clinton not to allow herself "to be perceived as standing next to — and standing by — racial divisiveness," and once again brought it back to her campaign members and what they had wrought. "Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice before it is too late," said Olbermann. "Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth....your only reaction has been to disagree and call it "regrettable." Unless senator you say something definitive, the former congresswoman is speaking with your approval."

Said Olbermann, in a callback to Clinton's own stand taken at the last Democratic debate: "You must reject and denounce Geraldine Ferraro."

He finished with "Good night and good luck

renatam (not verified) says:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/12/olbermann-slams-clinton-i_n_912...

Rachel Sklar Huffingtonpost.com link - Keith Olberman video

renatam (not verified) says:

Karl Rove said on Fox News tonight that Geraldine Ferraro's comments were RACIST and not helpful to the Clinton Campaign or the Democrats. DNC and "Super-Delegates" -- what does THAT tell you? Bill O'Reilly said Barack had done everything possible to NOT run on race, define himself racially or to define Hillary by gender. Dah???

Now we have REPUBLICANS, INDEPENDENTS and more than half the DEMOCRATS against Hillary Clinton, revulsed. DNC, where are you??? Democrats don't send the DNC another dime until they rein the Clintons in! Not even KARL ROVE wants to be tainted by this kind of campaigning. Turn the page!

Drudge Rulz! (not verified) says:

Bryon - If it wasn't for Drudge, the Observer would be a backwater.

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