2012 and Beyond

If, heaven forbid, the Democrats lose in '08, or face a quasi-open primary in '16, we might do well to remember crap like this--

You guys have seen the latest Clinton craziness, right? The freaking out over the "four delegates" that were supposedly wrenched from their hands by the DNC's RBC committee this past Saturday. To hear them say it, Obama is evvvviiiilllll because he denied Clinton four delegates she "won" in Michigan's potemkin one-candidate "primary". Why couldn't have Obama been magnanimous and just given Clinton those extra four delegates? He's going to win anyway, right? Would the four delegates have made a difference?

Of course, the issue isn't the four delegates. The Clinton campaign made clear a long time ago that they don't view this as a delegate fight. Not since she lost the lead in delegates. Now, they view it as a popular vote fight.

Had the DNC handed out delegates based on January's sham vote, it would've ratified the election as a legitimate one (as ended up happening with Florida, by the way). Hillary and her acolytes would've then had a greater claim to her Michigan "victory" of 328,309 votes to zero for Obama. As is, at the Michigan Democratic Party's insistence, the DNC threw out the election and invented a new split out of thin air. Obama had the vote for a 50-50 split, but threw Clinton a few extra delegates to try and ease bruised feelings.

But again, Clinton doesn't give a damn about those extra delegates. She wanted to ratify the Michigan election and claim that 328,309-vote advantage for her tally.

So when you see Clinton surrogates in a rage about those "four delegates", understand that their rage has nothing to do with four delegates. It has to do with the blow it dealt to their propaganda efforts.

And crap like this.

If the Clintons think they can bleed Obama to death between now and November and expect to show up in '12 or '16 and cash in their presidency-entitlement ticket (like they tried to do this year), they shouldn't act surprised if their reception is a little less than gracious. (h/t Andrew Sullivan).