It took Hillary long enough to get here

That was my initial reaction to hearing the word earlier this week that the Associated Press (the same news-gathering organization that claims our city’s public transit elevated train system is the L and not the el) had proclaimed Hillary Clinton the presumptive winner of the Democratic presidential primary cycle.

 

CLINTON: The winner, it seems

Even though the people of California had not yet voted. Nor had those of New Jersey or the District of Columbia.

IN THEORY, THOSE places could have an impact on the purely committed number of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Bernie Sanders was certainly counting on them to influence the uncommitted delegates to swing over to his side and make him the winner.

But it would seem that ain’t a gonna happen when the Dems gather for their convention in Philadelphia – which is destined to become a Hillary Clinton pep rally.

Even though it is likely a significantly large number of people siding with the Democrats will not feel all that peppy, on account of the fact that they have been lapping up the Bernie Sanders rhetoric.

For all I know, they may well remain angry at the fact their guy couldn’t beat up on Hillary, who admittedly is a politician who can compete with likely Republican nominee Donald Trump for the title of “most off-putting politico ever.”

NOW AS I have written before, I wound up casting an Illinois primary ballot for Hillary Clinton only reluctantly. It was the sense that Sanders was little more than cheap talk; an uncompromising sort who would not have the skills to carry out any of the things that he actually promised.

Not only because he can be an un-disagreeable cuss, but also because he’s the democratic socialist who has no other democratic socialists in Congress who would be aligned with him.

I could see where he’d have an actively hostile Republican opposition (be honest, there’s hardly anybody those people really like) and a Democratic caucus that would feel resentment.

It really would be a do-nothing four-year time period, if he were somehow to get elected.

BUT IT SEEMS that’s not going to happen. Because the reality is that Clinton is taking the primaries in the larger states with solid Democratic Party organizations, while Sanders wins Democrats in states where the organizations are weak and barely existent up against Republican-dominated political structures.

But more importantly, it really is ridiculous to think that the superdelegates – the political party regulars, the establishment themselves, are going to turn on the woman who was supposed to be the inevitable choice of the Democratic Party in this election cycle.

Especially not for a guy who went out of his way to avoid using the Democratic Party label while serving in the U.S. Senate from Vermont. When you think about it, it makes no sense.

It would be the wildest of fantasies to see all those superdelegates suddenly turn on Clinton to pick Bernie Sanders as the party’s presidential nominee.

IT MAKES ME wonder if Sanders supporters are the same kind of people who seriously expected an all-Chicago World Series this year (a thought now completely absurd considering that the White Sox are struggling to maintain a winning record; First Place is a fantasy).

If there is a larger theme to this year’s election cycle, it isn’t going to have anything to do with Bernie. It’s going to be to figure out why Hillary had so much trouble wrapping this process up.

Of course, the whole Hillary Clinton image is wrapped up in confusion. To many people, she’s that b-word who planted all kinds of crazy liberal ideas into then-President Bill Clinton’s head. She’s liberalism incarnate.

While the Sanders supporters want to believe she’s still that Goldwater Girl at heart who somehow snuck her way into the Democratic Party to commit acts of sabotage against progressive causes.

THAT IS, FOR those people who don’t just view her as a dried up hag from the 1960s whose time has passed. Except that it seems it hasn’t passed – it’s going to be her against Trump come the November general election.

And may the least despised pol amongst the two come out as the winner!

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EXTRA: Lipinski has to be different

Dan Lipinski is a member of the Democratic caucus in Congress. Yet the public official from the Southwest Side and surrounding suburbs (he lives in Western Springs) always manages to be the exception.

 

LIPINSKI: Feeling the Bern?

He’s a Democrat because he was raised in Chicago, and his father served as both an alderman and congressman. He’s certainly not someone inclined to back the liberal leanings that Democrats often take.

SO WHAT SHOULD we make of the fact that Lipinski, who is one of the superdelegates from Illinois, says he’ll back Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination for president if given the chance.

I think he’s just inclined to not want to back Hillary Clinton, which is how the establishment of the Democratic Party in Illinois and elsewhere is leaning.

So he backs Bernie, even though Dan is as far removed from ever feeling “the Bern” as one can get. He just doesn’t want to give in to a Hillary Clinton support. Although he does point out that back in the March primary elections in Illinois, a majority of voters in his congressional district supported Sanders.

So maybe it makes sense? Or maybe he’s just being cantankerous.

EITHER WAY, IT’S not likely to matter much. Since Lipinski  said he would cast his support as a superdelegate for Sanders if the Democratic primary winds up being a contested elected.

Which is NOT likely to happen. For the Dems have the primary between two candidates, and no one else taking any significant support.

It’s not like the Republican primary cycle where it is very likely that no one will take a majority of delegates – and it really will become a matter of political maneuvering and gamesmanship to determine who will wind up winning the GOP nomination for president.

Now if Lipinski starts saying he’d rather have a Republican as president over Hillary, then we have a significant story. Otherwise, backing Bernie is more a matter of “What else is new?”

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Is Obama ‘tempting fate’ by declaring presidential primary victory too soon?

It’s a good thing that the political people from “The West Wing” are merely fictional characters. Otherwise the conduct of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama would be causing Toby Zeigler to throw a fit.

Zeigler was the presidential speechwriter with a cantankerous temperament played by actor Richard Schiff, and in one memorable episode of that now-defunct television drama about the White House staff, Zeigler engaged in a rant against his staff prematurely celebrating the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice backed by the fictional President Bartlett.

HE KEPT TRYING to tell his staff that “bad things” happen to people who “tempt fate” by declaring victory and celebrating before the political event actually happens.

I can’t help but wonder if we should hire Schiff to reprise his Zeigler character for one day so as to give the Obama campaign a lecture about how silly they could potentially look if they proceed with plans to declare “Victory!” after the Oregon primary on Tuesday.

I don’t doubt that Obama will prevail in the Oregon election-by-mail, just like I fully expect opponent Hillary R. Clinton will be able to declare a victory that same day in Kentucky.

At this point in the primary season, the results of individual states really don’t matter much. That it why it turned out to be rather irrelevant that Obama did so poorly last week in West Virginia. His 40-plus percent loss in the heart of Appalachia did not change the delegate count significantly.

IN FACT, OBAMA has continued to gain pledges of support from super-delegates, which is really the only thing that matters any more.

The plan is for Obama to say that after Tuesday, he will have a majority of the regular delegates who go to the Democratic National Convention pledged to support a specific candidate. Unless Obama were to lose both Oregon and Kentucky by about 90 percent to 10 percent margins, he will achieve that level of support this week.

But pledged delegates are not the complete story.

The simple fact is that neither of the Democrats will have enough support to automatically take the presidential nomination – not even after June 1 when Puerto Rico has its primary or June 3 when the primary season comes to an end in Montana and South Dakota (where Clinton and Obama likely will win another split of states).

THIS IS GOING to be the Year of the Super-delegate, where the party bigwigs’ worst nightmare will come true – they will have to put themselves on the record and actually pick a presidential nominee (thereby irritating half of the political party).

So it is going to be “a lie” when Obama says he has won the primary. It is going to sound as ridiculous as when Hillary has claimed in recent weeks she has a majority of the national popular vote.

That’s only true if one counts the disputed Michigan and Florida primary elections where Obama didn’t even run in one state (voters couldn’t pick him) and he did not campaign in the other (in accordance with the national party leadership’s desires).

Hillary Clinton has had to take some ridicule from people who say she is so desperate to make herself not look like a loser that she’s twisting the truth. Now, Obama is going to be guilty of the same offense.

THIS IS GOING to be the nominating process that won’t end until the Democratic convention in late August.

While I can understand why Obama wants to create the perception that he has “won” the race and can now divert his campaign’s attention to knocking around Republican opponent John McCain, it just has too much potential to go bad.

For one thing, it’s not necessary.

Obama already has created the perception amongst Democrats that he has won (or that the negatives that popped up about him came too late to overcome the early wave of Obama-mania that struck the country and caused a 12-state primary or caucus victory string).

HE CAN ALREADY focus on McCain in a credible manner. Some people think he already has done so, with the way he went after both McCain and President Bush the younger last week to reinforce the perception that the two are linked politically when it comes to Bush’s unpopular policies concerning the no-end-in-sight Iraq War.

Obama ought to keep hammering away with facts, not engaging in silly spin tactics that merely reinforce the disgust level felt by people who wanted Hillary for president and may turn out to be sore losers who sit out the Nov. 4 elections.

More dangerous is whether some other tidbit that the social conservatives opposed to Obama could distort into a “scandal” could come up, thereby causing Democratic super-delegates to support Clinton.

Obama may be gaining verbal pledges from these super-delegates that they will back Barack come the convention. But there is nothing legally binding them to their word – they can change their mind.

ANYBODY WHO EXPECTS a politico’s word now to hold for a convention floor vote to be taken in August is naïve. Making some statement this week that could be turned around into a premature comment would make Obama look like one of the most ridiculous creatures in the history of U.S. electoral politics.

So what will happen?

Obama is likely this week to have a press conference/rally, where he will formally claim a moral victory of sorts from the American people. He’ll be able to do it because the Oregon primary is a mail-in event, and most people have already cast their votes. The Obama campaign’s work is already done – there’s no need for him to be in Portland, and he certainly doesn’t want to be in Louisville Tuesday night.

The speculation is whether the victory declaration would take place in Iowa (the scene of his first primary victory) or in his adopted hometown of Chicago. For those of us Chicago political geeks, being able to attend the “victory” announcement (or watch it on television at a location we recognize) will be our one moment of election glory, since the Illinois primary got lost in the shuffle of Tsunami Tuesday.

OBAMA WANTS TO create the perception that if the Democratic Party later turns around and gives the nomination to Clinton, it will be an act against the will of the American people and a greater injustice than that which denied the U.S. eight years (or at least four) of President Al Gore.

For those who want Hillary back on Pennsylvania Avenue, the moment will motivate them to want to make Barack eat his words.

And for those of us who cast ballots for Obama, we will literally be saying our prayers that this act of “tempting fate” does not come back to bite us in the behind, just like Toby Zeigler so many years ago said it always does.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The Brits are more willing to buy into the spin that Barack Obama (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3953669.ece) can legitimately declare victory this week.

Obama already is hitting back against John McCain – engaging in the aggressive campaigning required if he is to take full advantage of McCain’s uncertain support (http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/obama_bushmccain_have_a_lot_to.php) among the social conservatives who make up the base of the Republican Party these days.

Obama should learn a lesson from the fictional “West Wing” if he ever hopes to work (http://www.tv.com/the-west-wing/six-meetings-before-lunch/episode/805/recap.html) in the White House’s real West Wing.

Super delegate 'theft' an Obama concern

If I were in Barack Obama’s position these days, I’d be less worried about the upcoming primary elections and focusing my attention on keeping my super-delegates happy.

Those super-delegates are the party big-wigs in states across the country, and it is plainly obvious that they are going to be the ones who ultimately decide who gets the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in the 2008 elections.

I WILL GO so far as to predict that Obama’s presidential campaign will win May 20 in Oregon and June 3 in South Dakota, while opponent Hillary R. Clinton will win Tuesday in West Virginia, May 20 in Kentucky and June 3 in Montana.

About the only questionable remaining primary is the one scheduled for June 1 in Puerto Rico. Political amateurs presume Hillary’s “Hispanic love” will get her the victory, but anyone who carefully notices the results of Latino voters in other states will note there is a difference in the views of Mexican-American voters and Puerto Ricans who cast ballots.

The former group is the basis of Clinton’s large Latino voter majorities in most states, while Puerto Ricans who live on the mainland have shown slight support for Obama. There’s also the fact that one of the biggest Puerto Rican politicos in this country is Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has been an Obama supporter since the beginning of the campaign.

But the last three paragraphs are really nothing more than political trivia. It doesn’t matter who wins what state. Whether I turn out to be 100 percent correct (or wrong) in my predictions doesn’t matter.

NEITHER OBAMA NOR Clinton will get enough of the pledged type of delegates to win the nomination. The party powers that be are going to be the ones who decide who gets to run for president this year, and they will do so the last week of August in Denver – even though the primaries come to an end in early June.

I do not expect Clinton to drop out of the race. She has dipped into the fortune her and former President Bill Clinton have amassed through advances on book deals and the speaking engagements the potential first gentleman can charge for his time these days.

She is going to spend the rest of the spring trying to win every single delegate she can take.

Then, while many of us will have thoughts of summer vacations, Hillary will focus her attention on delegate “theft.”

SOME OF THE super-delegates have gone so far as to declare which Democrat they would support for president, but we need to remember there is nothing that legally binds them to such a declaration.

There is no reason why Clinton can’t approach those people who have talked up Obama and try to persuade them to back her instead. In some cases, she may very well appeal to past political favors – and may go so far as to twist some arms (so to speak) to force people to back away from their previous talk in support of Obama.

For some people whom she has denounced, Clinton may very well offer an “amnesty” of sorts – vote for Hillary and your treasonous talk of the past few months might be forgiven.

Who knows? Maybe even New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will be forgiven if, in mid-July, he were to publicly say he suffered from a bout of springtime stupidity, and now sees the error of his ways and backs Hillary Clinton instead of Obama.

WITH SUCH PRESSURE ahead, it is no wonder that the super delegates who have yet to announce their preference (including Chicago’s very own Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.) are going out of their way to be extremely close-mouthed.

A little bit of pressure from reporter-types asking them who they support is preferable to the hard-core press Clinton would put on them, if they came out publicly for Obama.

This is a campaign that will go down to the final days. Ultimately, the only thing from a super-delegate that will matter is how he or she casts a vote on that day during the Democratic National Convention when the role call of the states is taken.

Obama is going to have to baby-sit his super-delegates all throughout the summer to ensure there are not significant numbers of individuals who experience “changes of heart” and decide to change their minds.

NOW SOME PEOPLE might think I am over-reacting. Hillary Clinton would NEVER stoop so low as to try to steal super-delegates. It’s not like she would dig into past favors or perhaps dredge up some negative information about individuals to pressure them into changing their minds.

Yeah, right. That’s exactly what I expect to happen.

This is the person who has dug up the GOP playbook and started off many of the negative attacks that the campaign of John McCain will perfect in the autumn months, should Obama become the Democratic nominee for president.

Of course, we shouldn’t follow into the trap of thinking of Obama as “St. Barack.” If the primary season ends in early June with Obama having only a slight delegate lead and a couple hundred super-delegates refusing to say anything until the last minute, I expect he will make his own appeals to the Clinton-supporting super delegates – trying to see if he can get some of them to change their mind and back him come the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

THIS IS POWER politics at work, and Obama is capable of playing hardball as much as any other politico. If he weren’t capable of doing it, he never would have gotten elected in the world of Chicago politics.

This is, after all, the man who won his first bid for the Illinois Senate by getting the incumbent senator from his home district kicked off the ballot for filing inadequate nominating petitions – thereby allowing him to run unopposed.

Alice Palmer might very well have had flawed nominating petitions (not enough valid signatures of support). But a true “goo goo” (good government type) would have talked of allowing “the voters” to decide, and would not have had the nerve to use a technicality to ensure his electoral victory in 1996.

IT WOULDN’T SURPRISE me if Team Obama were, at this very moment, searching the books related to election law, trying to find some way to legally force Clinton into backing down, because he knows she isn’t going to quit any other way.

Basically, he’s looking to do her in, before she can do him in.

That is the level of politics to which the ’08 presidential primary has declined – and it also is the reason that this is one of the few election cycles of our lifetimes that will be remembered by historians.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Here is a weblog devoted to keeping track of how many delegates and super delegates (http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/) each Democratic presidential candidate has. This site is going to continue to change throughout the summer months.

Hillary R. Clinton must be making the American people happy. The latest Gallup Organization poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/107029/Most-Democrats-Eager-Either-Candidate-Drop.aspx) shows three-fifths of the people surveyed do not want her to drop out of the primary election.

For those who think super delegates will overrule the will of the American people, it is important (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/14/superdelegates/index.html) to realize that the mood of the Democratic Party is split fairly evenly between Clinton and Barack Obama. Super delegates will be asked to break what essentially is a tie between the two.