attn: wingnuts

Fenian, I'd honestly like an answer to my question.

Are you OK, as a Democrat, with the HRC campaign deliberately trying to drive down turnout? OK with a former president lecturing college students not to caucus, though it's within their rights to do so? OK with waiting until you see which side the CUW comes down on before you file a last-minute court challenge to a system you helped design when you thought you were getting that endorsement?

Forget all the other garbage.

I'm asking if you think Democrats should run on a platform of trying to exclude people from the process.

 

I don't believe that tactics are a "platform".
I don't believe that something like this -- done in the open, with an actual lawsuit that can -- and likely will -- be defeated -- is what you say it is. This isn't a secretary of state engaging policies on the dime of every taxpayer to suppress turnout, or a US Attorney using the color of law to do the same. Yeah, I"m "OK" with all this happening, in no small part because I don't think it will work, and because I think it will do more harm than good to the campaign in general. What I am not "OK" with is moralistic bushwah about how everything the opposition does is either no-fair-no-fair! or, sub rosa, racist. I am not OK with Democrats behaving like angry nuns.

 

I'm sure that's an answer to someone's question, it just isn't an answer to mine.

 

Actually, it's a rejection of the premises of your question.
I believe every campaign works to get more of their voters the polls than the other campaign's. I don't think this lawsuit ought to have been filed -- as I've said, it has its merits, but not compelling ones -- and I guess I'd say that Bill Clinton's comments were ill-timed, but all of this is done out in the open and the voters of Nevada can decide whether or not they want to respond to this kind of campaigning so, no, I don't have a problem with either of the two events under discussion.

 

Well, I can live with that.

Myself, I tend to be fond of Democrats who work to build the party.

And, whether this suit has merits -- and any merit it would have would have to apply to the caucus process itself, since as I understand the law right now, political parties are free to award their delegates in any way they see fit -- it doesn't seem to matter to those who filed it that the effect would be to drive down turnout in a democratic caucus -- essentially, a party building event.

And whether the former president's remarks were "ill-timed," I think he's on shaky ethical ground in making them anywhere, at any time. A former president should not be misleading young voters about whether they can vote or not.

 

Please include a link to Clinton's comments, because I can't find them anywhere.

 

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/12/question_of_iowa_student_voting_flares_into_major_issue.php


Bill Clinton, stumping for his wife at Grinnell College last night, said that it was a "matter of conscience" - that students should participate if they consider themselves "Iowan" - a standard that exceeds the legal requirements here.

 

THAT'S telling students they "shouldn't vote"? THAT's "misleading them" How? he's not saying "don't vote" or "you can't vote" or even "you shouldn't vote." He's telling them to examine their consciences about whether to pack the caucus. They're well within their rights to tell him to fuck off. O certainly would have. These are college students, not sheep.
OK, please tell this campaign to get a thicker skin so it's ready when the real nut-cutting begins.
And how, politically, is asking a student from Pewaukee to come back early and help pack a Iowa caucus that much different in the purest hardball sense from filing a lawsuit to jack with your opponent's campaign in Nevada? All of it's inbounds, for my money.

 

You mean besides the first being within the rules of the caucus and the second seeking to change the rules of the caucus? And you also mean besides one having the effect of raising turnout and encouraging young people to be part of the political process and the other attempting to tamp down turnout and disengage people from the process?

Those distinctions seem pretty clear.