Say It Ain’t So… Hillary Clinton in Pay for Play Scandal…

14 comments ↓

#1 mamabroad on 01.05.09 at 10:22 am

You jump to conclusions and you just lost yourself a regular reader.

#2 Carmelo Junior on 01.05.09 at 12:06 pm

I like Hillary but I started to lose my respect for her when she went on the tank for extremist Obama, against her own principles(to save face, her career or have her couple millions debt forgiven). Principles should guide any politician. What a difference with you know who…SP. SP bravely defended herself and called her nasty opponents by their names(liars, cowards, ridiculous, two faces, etc, etc) without being scared of losing fans, money or support.

#3 mbander on 01.05.09 at 12:19 pm

I don’t particularly care who or which party pulls this kind of crap. There is WAY too much of this going on in Washington. Our representatives seem to think their only job now is to pass out OUR hard earned money to their friends and contributors. Wait until the new stimulus package gets passed and their buddies will be awarded fabulous contracts, compliments of US – the taxpayer.

I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!!

LET”S TAKE OUR PARTY BACK – LET”S TAKE OUR GOVERNMENT BACK.

#4 WasHRCnowPalin on 01.05.09 at 12:40 pm

mbander,

With you!

#5 OC-Libertarian on 01.05.09 at 2:30 pm

I think this type of thing goes on all the time in Washington. Politicians spend more time seeking political contributions than proposing legislation these days.

#6 Also2 on 01.05.09 at 3:11 pm

Wow,

Having been an Obama supporter since the Iowa caucus (when I first started to take him seriously as a candidate), the last thing I ever thought I’d be tempted to do would be to defend Hillary Clinton from a vast right-wing conspiracy…go figure

#7 Carmelo Junior on 01.05.09 at 4:07 pm

Also2 writes:

“Having been an Obama supporter since the Iowa caucus (when I first started to take him seriously as a candidate)”

Perhaps you did not even care to look into this man’s 20 years prior of winning the Iowa caucus. That is sad! And to think there are 69 millions like you out there! It is scary!

#8 Also2 on 01.05.09 at 4:35 pm

Actually, I was very well aware of Obama prior to his Iowa win. I first learned of him when he gave the keynote address at the 2004 DNC. What I meant by that is, prior to his caucus victory, I didn’t think he had any real shot at beating Hillary, even though I liked him. When he won Iowa, I finally “took him seriously” (as in, first considered him to be viable as a candidate) and thus I became a supporter of his.

#9 Sheryl on 01.05.09 at 5:12 pm

He did’nt win, not really.. The DNC gave him the primary. He fought all summer not to count the votes in FL and MI… With MI and FL Hillary wins.

#10 Also2 on 01.05.09 at 5:27 pm

He didn’t win the Iowa caucus?

..and by the way, the DNC stripped FL and MI of delegates long before Hillary won there. While campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, she denounced FL and MI for having early primaries, saying “It’s obvious that Florida and Michigan won’t count for anything”. It was only after she won there that she suddenly gave a damn about them. Her hypocrisy was sickening.

#11 mbander on 01.05.09 at 7:21 pm

OC-Libertarian,

But aren’t you absolutely LIVID about this going on? You are right, they spend more time seeking out campaign contributions and the only legislation they pass, hands out our tax dollars to these contributors.

It has to stop, and until we quit electing these people in the Good Ol Boys Club it won’t. Regardless of party, we need to vote these people out. They have clearly forgotten who they work for. These people must be held accountable. If there is wrong doing, they need to be “fired”.

#12 Sheryl on 01.05.09 at 10:38 pm

Also2, yes, he won Iowa, i was merely stating that Hillary won MI and FL in the Primary as well. You had stated you were not sure he could beat her. I live in MI, regardless of what the Democratic party said or did, Michiganders had the right to vote. It was the state legislature that changed the primary date, not the electorate. He did not put his name on the ballot here, he didn’t campaign here, but he definitely showed up to campaign in the general election. His supporters who voted for him had to vote “uncommitted” Hillary won the state primary, and he absolutely was going to have those votes counted for her until the race was very close between him and her and he fought all summer to have them not seated. Everyone always new the state would be seated as FL would be, but the Democratic leadership acted as if that would never occur. The people of the state had a right to have the votes counted. In the end the delegates were split evenly between the two giving him the nomination for President, had she retained her delegates she would have been the nominee. He won the state in the general election so all must be forgiven, and she supported him and took a position so all must be well there too.

#13 Also2 on 01.06.09 at 1:55 am

Of course, voter disenfranchisement is never, EVER a good thing. And your right, I don’t think anyone actually expected the FL and MI delegates to be kicked out of their seats in Denver.

That being said, it was extremely important that FL and MI not count, and play a role in deciding the nomination for a few reasons.

1. No one (save Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel) campaigned in those two states. That put Obama at an extreme disadvantage, since in the absence of a meaningful and competitive race, voters were obviously going to default to the known quantity (Hillary). Almost everywhere, Hillary was outpolling Obama in 2007, before the campaign really heated up, simply because Obama didn’t have the same recognition, giving Hillary a lot of “soft” support (from people who supported her only for lack of alternative, like me pre-Iowa). Obviously, as the campaign heated up, and Obama made himself more and more well-known in the places he campaigned, his support began to increase at Hillary’s expense. Because no one campaigned in FL and MI, Obama never had the opportunity to expose voters there to him in any serious way, and they defaulted to Hillary.

2. Should the delegates from those two states be allowed to participate and be decisive, what would that say about the DNC? The DNC set a firm rule that no primaries or caucuses could occur before Super Tuesday, with the exceptions of Iowa and New Hampshire out of respect for tradition, and Nevada and South Carolina in order to allow blacks and hispanics a greater role in the early part of the campaign. Florida and Michigan received no such approval from the DNC, and so these “rouge primaries” had to be dealt with accordingly, so as to prevent other states from doing the same thing. If states are allowed to move up their primaries and ignore DNC rules, there would be nothing stopping states from having primaries in December, November, October, etc, a full year before the general election, leading to a primary campaign that would be horribly and unnecessarily drawn out over at least a full year. The DNC had to make sure that this did not happen, and thus they had to punish the states which did attempt to get a jumpstart on the nomination process.

3. All major candidates agreed that these contests would not count. Hillary did, Obama did, and Edwards did. Had Hillary wanted to argue for the inclusion of FL and MI, she could have in the months before those primaries, when the DNC decided to punish them in the first place. Instead, she, like everyone else, went along with the decision. It was not until she won these contests that she said anything about including them, which is why I accused her of hypocrisy. Had Obama (or Edwards, for that matter) won these contests, I find it hard to imagine that she would be out in front leading the protests to seat and count the delegates. It all seemed like opportunism.

#14 OC-Libertarian on 01.07.09 at 5:43 pm

Sorry I didn’t expand earlier. Many of my other posts state what I think about politicians. Frankly they are worse than the common street hooker in my opinion.

Unfortunately I think voters are both apathetic to the situation and celebrate it as well. Why would you want someone like Kennedy or Steven or Byrd for the matter to be replaced by someone new. There’s a heirarchy in congress and the senate which provides many benefits to their state constituents in terms of funding.

I’m in California and collectively we must be a bunch of idiots because we keep voting for people who fail to secure more dollars for our state, despite their lengthy time in office. I’m definitely not a fan of the liberal politics of feinstein and boxer, but the least they could do is fight more for the money we send to Washington. (I do have a some respect for Feinstein because she’s stood up to her party in the past).

In my perfect world, we’d keep the money in state. Government doesn’t need to be more powerful than it already is and they don’t manage much of anything well. However, if I have to be in the real world, I’d like our reps to fight more for California.

I have a real problem with the way the primaries are held as well as the caucus process. It puts too much emphasis on a few states and completely ignores others. Moreover, it influences votes and delegates (another issue i have with the presidential election process). Is it me, or does the delegate vote process potentially foster more of the ugly insider negotiations and more of the pay to play issues we’ve been talking about? Does anyone think that Richardson’s appointment to Commerce Secretary was payback for his endorsement? Of course that doesn’t matter now given the controversy, but still smells funny to me.