Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Nancy Pelosi: "It's Not Been About The Popular Vote"

In a statement harkening back to Democratic complaints about President Bush's victory in 2000, Nancy Pelosi had this to say on The New Hour With Jim Lehrer (a PBS show) today:

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, in fact, Senator Clinton said she's very much still in the fight. She's emphasizing the fact that she -- if you count those disputed votes in Michigan and Florida, she says she's ahead in the popular vote.

REP. NANCY PELOSI: How delegates are selected is by a process, and the person who has the most delegates becomes the nominee of the party. It's not been about the popular vote.

So we can have an elementary discussion, if you wish, but at the end of the day, someone will have the winning number of delegates. The delegate vote is the currency of the realm at the Democratic National Convention.


Just as the electoral vote is the currency of the realm in presidential elections, not the popular vote. It's good that Madame Speaker recognizes that the rules of the democratic process matter, even if she's a bit late to the party.

14 comments:

  1. I'm so confused by Hillary. She must know by now that if she wins on a technicality people will defect from the Democratic Party. I know I won't vote for her if she ends up the nominee, along with a number of Democrats I know. Winning without the popular vote is fine, but don't try winning on the chance that a rule reversal changes the game at the end.

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  2. Is it just me, or does this read like some lost episode of "Dallas". I mean you have your mean harridan, your noble minority, your evil rich guy pulling the strings....seriously, I am wondering just how long it's going to be before they admit that the fix was in back in January.

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  3. Anonymous3:44 AM

    There's no fix until Saint Hillary pulls the rabbit out of the hat. That's the big worry I think; what happens if/when Hillary does pull the rabbit out of the hat? And what the *heck* could she possibly do to accomplish the feat?

    One thing I think is worth noticing is that Hillary's gone from the sainted one, the walker on water to a bothersome spoiler.

    She used to the rock star that set off waves of excited shrieking and without much notice, she's been transformed/transformed herself, into the annoying spoiler who won't yield the stage to the new, really, truly, exciting rock star.

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  4. Hey perhaps my memory is wrong, but weren't the Democrats complaining the last time around because we didn't base the election on the popular vote? And now they don't want to base it on the popular vote? And what's this nonsense about "super delegates" anyway-are some people's votes and opinions more worthy of accepting than others? And who is in charge of deciding that?

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  5. Yes, yes, yes, incumbents.

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  6. Anonymous5:06 AM

    > Hey perhaps my memory is wrong, but weren't the Democrats complaining the last time around because we didn't base the election on the popular vote?

    Your memory is correct but your judgment is flawed.

    Some people are, by virtue of their surfeit of virtues, the natural leaders of humankind.

    In another age that quality would've resulted from descent from royal lineage but in our diminished age that fitness to rule emanates from intellectual and moral superiority or at least assumed intellectual and moral superiority.

    > And what's this nonsense about "super delegates" anyway-are some people's votes and opinions more worthy of accepting than others?

    It's the partisan equivalent of the electoral college the popular vote having kept the Democrats out of the White House for thirty-five years.

    I'm excepting Bill Clinton since his legendary political skills allowed him to finesse the extreme left of the party that's been responsible for one unelectable, left-wing extremist presidential candidate after another.

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  7. So you are saying...Ted Kennedy should be king? Somewhere Sam Adams is spinning in his grave.

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  8. Ellen, I hope you recognize Allen's satirical commentary.

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  9. I was hoping it was satirical, but then again, these days, who can tell?

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  10. Anonymous2:53 AM

    Actually, I'm not being satirical. Ted Kennedy, and all liberals, see themselves as royalty. That's "royalty" defined as "possessing of an arbitrary fitness to rule".

    Whether it's the divine right of kings or a dictatorship of the proletariat, the constant characteristic of all lefties is that they're better - more intelligent, more sane, more good, more pretty, more stylish, more sophisticated - then those with whom they disagree.

    Dubya's stupid not because of a low IQ but because he has to be so that all lefties can be smarter then him. Sneering condescension's a valid response because it establishes the appropriate relationship between the sneerer, the leftie, and the sneeree, the mullet-sporting, NASCAR hat-wearing, domestic beer-drinking, Walmart-shopping, double-wide-inhabiting, gun-owning, bible-clinging, bitter, fearful conservative.

    The issues may come and go but it's the establishment of the relationship that's important. Who you're better then and thus fit to rule.

    The popular vote served the purpose of establishing who's better then who but now the popular vote stands in the way of establishing who's better the who. So it's the popular vote that has to go.

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  11. What I meant is that you were jeeringly stating what lefties believe, not that *you* believe they're royalty.

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  12. Anonymous9:02 AM

    Reminds me a bit about something Dave Barry once wrote. As I can't find the quote, I will paraphrase:

    America fought the Revolutionary War so that we didn't have to be ruled by these divinely chosen, blood-sucking looneys and so that we could be ruled by our own, duly elected, blood-sucking looneys.

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  13. Sorry, Ellen, I deleted your comment instead of posting it. Can you do it again?

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  14. Anonymous4:39 PM

    > What I meant is that you were jeeringly stating what lefties believe, not that *you* believe they're royalty.

    I don't believe lefties are royalty, lefties believe lefties are royalty. And by "royalty" I don't mean crown and ermine robes and all that nonsense. I mean an arbitrary, inherently illegitimate, as in by an accident of birth or as a result of an elevated opinion of one's self, claim on governance.

    I'm not being sarcastic but I have to expand the generally accepted definition of "royalty" since I can't find any other single word that encompasses the idea I'm trying to articulate.

    A very well known leftie metaphor, one that was dusted off for the Clintons is....Camelot. The Kennedys are not infrequently referred too as America's royal family. Leftie policies are inevitably aimed at reducing individual freedom and increasing governmental power and thus the power of those in political office.

    The irresponsibility of the left, as embodied in many of the policies they champion, policies that have been repeatedly shown to be failures, results from the circular rationalization of those whose claim, by virtue of their superiority, a fitness to rule - the leftie espouses the idea because it's a good idea and the idea's a good idea because the leftie espouses it.

    > America fought the Revolutionary War so that we didn't have to be ruled by these divinely chosen, blood-sucking looneys and so that we could be ruled by our own, duly elected, blood-sucking looneys.

    And that's all the difference that's necessary.

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