Hillary’s Backers Will Be Heard in Denver

At Real Clear Politics, Stephen Ohlemacher reports that Clinton backers will be making noise at the Democratic convention in Denver.

In other words, Mr. Ohlemacher, they’re still refusing the dictates of party leaders to sit down, shut up, and get with the program?

Ohlemacher writes:

'"The Clinton and Obama campaigns have pledged in a joint statement to 'ensure that the voices of everyone who participated in this historic process are respected" at the convention.

"They have not, however, decided whether Clinton's name will be placed in nomination.

"'The only way a Democratic Party will have the credibility to elect a Democrat in November is if the party uses a legitimate process to choose its nominee," said Heidi Li Feldman, co-founder of The Denver Group. 'We are not per se a Clinton support group, we are a Democratic Party get-your-act-together support group.'

"Some of the activists complain the Obama campaign manipulated party caucuses; others feel the media treated Clinton unfairly. Nearly all are still angry over how the party divvied up delegates from the Florida and Michigan primaries.

"With the agreement of all Democratic candidates, the states were initially stripped of all their delegates for violating party rules by holding early primaries. None of the candidates campaigned in the two states, but Clinton won the two primaries and thereafter tried to get all the delegates seated.

"The national party reinstated the delegates in May, but gave each a half vote. And it awarded Obama some Michigan delegates, although he had taken his name off that ballot because of the party's initial decision.

"With the nomination clinched, Obama said this month that he would seek to give both delegations full voting rights."

Read more.

Campaign Counsel Supports Clinton’s Key Points On MI and FL

The Clinton campaign has released a letter from campaign counsel Lyn Utrecht making a detailed case for Clinton's key points: That the Rules & Bylaws Committee has the right to seat the full Florida and Michigan delegations, and that it should. Read the full letter here.

Peter Daou Shatters Myths from the Obama Camp

Wow! Over at HuffingtonPost this morning, Peter Daou is breathtaking as myth buster. Daou shatters three major myths about the Democratic race. First off he nails the Obama camp with the same charges I’ve been repeating endlessly for weeks now:

“MYTH: Barack Obama is running a positive campaign that will unite Americans.

“FACT: Barack Obama and his advisers have conducted a divisive "full assault" on Hillary's character.”

Daou explains:

“While talking a lot about the politics of hope, change and unity, Sen. Obama and his campaign have been conducting a relentless and singularly personal assault on Hillary's character. They have blanketed big states with false negative mailers and radio ads and have described Hillary and her campaign as ‘disingenuous,’ ‘divisive,’ ‘untruthful,’ ‘dishonest,’ ‘polarizing,’ ‘calculating,’ ‘saying whatever it takes to win,’ ‘attempting to deceive the American people,’ ‘one of the most secretive in America,’ ‘deliberately misleading,’ ‘literally willing to do anything to win,’ and ‘playing politics with war.’

“This ‘full assault’ on Hillary's integrity and character has reached a new peak since Hillary's victories on March 4th. One of Sen. Obama's top surrogates equated President Clinton with Joe McCarthy; another called Hillary a ‘monster;’ and his campaign manager held an angry conference call claiming that Hillary is ‘deeply flawed’ and has ‘character issues.’ That's neither unifying nor hopeful. If Sen. Obama really is the prohibitive favorite some say he is, these negative attacks make absolutely no sense. Why would a frontrunner seek to attack and divide? If Sen. Obama can't unify Democrats in a primary, how can he unify Americans in a general election?”

Allow me to repeat Daou’s question: “If Sen. Obama can't unify Democrats in a primary, how can he unify Americans in a general election?”

In the second myth, despite what all the pundits are saying – Howard Kurtz’s column in yesterday’s WaPo was titled: “Hillary’s Last Rites?” – Daou shatters this one as effectively as he did the first:

“MYTH: The delegate ‘math’ works decisively against Hillary.”

“FACT: The delegate math reflects an extremely close race that either candidate can win.”

Daou explains:

“‘The Math’ is actually very simple: with hundreds of delegates still uncommitted, NEITHER candidate has reached the number of delegates required to secure the nomination. And EITHER candidate can reach the required number in the coming weeks and months. That is indisputable. No amount of editorials, articles, blog posts, charts, graphs, calculations, formulas, or projections will change the basic fact that either candidate can win. Pundits who confidently proclaim that Hillary has no hope of winning because of ‘the math,’ have counted Hillary out of this race three times before. Each time they based their sober assessments on 'facts' and 'realities' -- and each time they were wrong.

“In a campaign with dozens of unexpected twists and turns, bold prognostications should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Look no further than Sen. Obama's ‘full assault’ on Hillary's character to judge whether he thinks this election is over. The fact is this: Hillary and Sen. Obama are locked in a very close, hard-fought campaign and Hillary is demonstrating precisely the strength of character required of a president. Her resilience in the face of adversity, her faith in the voters, her capacity to rise to every challenge, are part of the reason she is the best general election candidate for Democrats. And it is why she is increasingly strong against John McCain in the polls at the same time that Sen. Obama is dropping against Sen. McCain.”

Finally, Daou shatters the myth about the superdelegates:

“MYTH: For Hillary to win, super delegates must ‘overturn the will of the people.’

“FACT: The race is virtually tied, the ‘will of the people’ is split, and both candidates need super delegates to win.”

Hint: As Daou explains, the election is not over yet:

“The Obama campaign and Sen. Obama's surrogates have engaged in a sustained public relations effort to convince people that the election is over and that if super delegates perform their established role of choosing a candidate who they believe will make the best nominee and president, they are somehow ‘overturning the will of the people.’ They have the audacity to make this argument while quietly and systematically courting those very same super delegates. They are courting them because they know that Sen. Obama needs super delegates to win. The Obama spin is being parroted daily by pundits, but it is patently false. The race is virtually tied; the ‘will of the people’ is split. By virtually every measure, Hillary and Sen. Obama are neck and neck -- separated by less than 130 of the more than 3,100 delegates committed thus far and less than 1% of the 27 million+ votes cast, including Florida and Michigan. Less than 1%.
“An incremental advantage for one candidate or the other is hardly a reason for super delegates to change the rules mid-game. Despite the Obama campaign's aggressive spin and pressure, the RULES require super delegates to exercise their best independent judgment, and that is what they will do. Even Sen. Obama's top strategist agrees they should. If not, then why don't prominent Obama endorsers like Senators Kerry (MA) and Kennedy (MA), and Governors Patrick (MA), Napolitano (AZ) and Richardson (NM) follow the will of their constituents and switch their support to Hillary? After all, she won their states. And if this is truly about the ‘will of the people,’ then Sen. Obama's short-sighted tactic to run out the clock on a revote in Florida and Michigan accomplishes exactly two things: it disenfranchises Florida and Michigan's voters; and it hurts Democrats in a general election. Apparently, for the Obama campaign, the ‘will of the people’ is just words.”

Note: Peter Daou is the Clinton Campaign’s Internet Director.

Does Clinton Have the Edge in the Democratic Race?

Photo credits: Getty

Despite Obama’s recent wins in Wyoming and Mississippi, Rick Klein at ABC News suggests that with six weeks to go in the run-up to Pennsylvania’s primary, Hillary Clinton might have the edge.

Klein reports:

“The Clinton campaign plans to use the coming six-week gap in primary voting to aggressively push its case that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., lacks the necessary experience to be president as the superdelegates loom by far as the most important voters in the race.

After Obama's Tuesday win in Mississippi, the strategy of defining the Illinois senator while the delegate count stays essentially frozen reflects a belief by Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign advisers after withstanding perhaps the roughest month of Clinton's presidential campaign that the New York senator now has a powerful ally on her side: time.”

Klein reminds us that “Clinton's campaign has proved more adept at seizing control of the race when no one is voting.

Just in the past few weeks, Clinton has kept pressure on Obama with a stinging TV ad suggesting he's unprepared to serve as commander in chief; left him on the defensive over NAFTA and controversial comments made by a high-level foreign-policy adviser; and made headlines by suggesting publicly that Obama could be considering as her running mate.”

Adding up Clinton’s advantages, Klein continues:

“The lull in the voting action is likely to include several debates in Pennsylvania, a format in which Clinton has typically excelled.
“It will also allow the Clinton campaign to work to find a way for Florida and Michigan to have their votes count; both states favor Clinton demographically, and a solution that allows those state delegations to be seated at the convention is likely to cut into Obama's delegate lead.

“And the next primary on the calendar -- Pennsylvania, April 22 -- is in a large, diverse state that's similar to others that have leaned toward Clinton.

“Clinton has maintained a solid lead in Pennsylvania polls, and Obama's advisers acknowledge that their candidate is the underdog in the Keystone State.

“A win there would add to Clinton's delegate count, pull her close in the overall popular vote and strengthen her campaign's argument that she's best suited to carry the important states on the presidential map.

“‘It could be, to some extent, a split decision,’ said Steve Grossman, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who is backing Clinton. "There should be no rush to judgment now, since we have a lot more evidence to gather."’

Read more:

Obama and Clinton: The Countdown for Delegates and Superdelegates

Obama and Clinton split the delegates from Obama’s win in yesterday’s Wyoming caucus 7-5, netting Obama just two delegates. The two Democratic candidates will face off again in Tuesday’s primary in Mississippi, which Obama is also expected to win. Both candidates are looking ahead to delegate-rich Pennsylvania on April 22, where polls show Clinton with a solid, double-digit lead.

Obama now has a total of 1,578 pledged delegates compared to 1,468 delegates for Clinton, according to the Associated Press. Of the 719 known superdelegates, Clinton has the support of 242, and Obama has the backing of 210. A group of 77 “add-ons” will be named later by state party leaders.

Dan Balz reports in today’s Washington Post: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's trio of victories over Sen. Barack Obama last week appears to have convinced a sizable number of uncommitted Democratic superdelegates to wait until the end of the primaries and caucuses before picking a candidate, according to a survey by The Washington Post.”

Balz desribes the superdelegates as “a cross-section of the party, young and old, women and men, of all races and creeds, famous and obscure. They approach the role with more caution than gusto -- and they are now among the most closely monitored Americans on the planet, the focus of elaborate courting and tracking inside the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

“By one analysis provided to The Post, half of the uncommitted delegates are elected officials, almost a third come from states that have not yet held primaries or caucuses, a third are women, and about a fifth are black or Hispanic. Others say there is no real pattern to who has taken sides and who remains on the fence.”
Read More:

Still Leading Obama in Delegates, Clinton Beefs Up Her Campaign

Photo Credits: Associated Press

Despite Barack Obama’s recent wins, CNN calculates this morning that Hillary Clinton still maintains a 27-delegate lead over Obama, 1,148 to 1,121. CNN includes an ongoing tally of superdelegates in their count.

To beef up her campaign, Clinton raised more than $10 million in the past few days, and she recently brought in longtime aide Maggie Williams to replace Patti Solis Doyle as campaign manager. Solis Doyle will stay on as as a senior advisor to the campaign.