The Daily Background

Just days before the Nevada caucus (and hours after the most powerful union in the state endorsed Obama), the Nevada State Education Association sued the state Democratic party over their voting system, which had been agreed upon months in advance (the Clinton campaign claimed they had nothing to do with the suit, even though the NSEA’s leadership is overwhelmingly supportive of Clinton and one of the plaintiffs was among those who approved Nevada’s suddenly-controversial caucus system beforehand). Still, Bill Clinton defended the lawsuit, which was eventually thrown out of court for being wholly unmerited.

Now, just before Texans cast their vote (and with Obama surging in Lone Star State polls), Clinton’s campaign is threatening another lawsuit:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign has raised the possibility of a challenge to Texas’ primary and caucus rules just days before the contest, drawing a warning against legal action from the state’s Democratic Party.

Top strategists for Democratic rival Barack Obama said Friday they supported the party’s action, suggesting the Clinton campaign was trying to block the reporting of caucus results.

Aides to Clinton said earlier this week they were alarmed at the lack of clarity about many of the caucus rules and expressed their concerns on a conference call with Obama’s staff and state party officials. Texas has a two-step voting process, with a primary and then caucuses shortly after the polls close.

Lemme get this straight: they were fine with the Texas system which has been in place for decades (and which Bill Clinton won twice in the 1990s), until days before the vote takes place? That’s awfully hard to swallow.

Especially considering that Hillary herself claimed that her campaign has been planning for the Texas contest for a year now:

REPORTER: People look at what’s happened in your campaign, Senator Clinton, and they say, what has happened? All of last year you were the front runner, you were the presumed, you were headed for that nomination and then January comes along, boom, Senator Obama starts winning primaries. He has now won eleven in a row. How do you explain what’s happened?

MRS. CLINTON: None of this is surprising to me. You know, last spring when I looked at how the race was shaping up, I knew that it would be a close contest and I assumed it would be with Senator Obama and at that time I said we have got to start thinking about Texas, we have to start thinking ahead.

Oddly, Hillary is now saying of Texas’ system: “I had no idea how bizarre it is… We have grown men crying over it.”

So either Clinton’s campaign is disastrously incompetent (in which case we wouldn’t want them running in a general election anyway), or they’re lying about it and have only had a problem with Texas’ system now that Obama is threatening to win the state on Tuesday.

Or could it be a combination of both?

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog