The Daily Background

Ugh:

Hillary Clinton compared her effort to seat Florida and Michigan delegates to epic American struggles, including those to free the slaves and win the right to vote for blacks and women.
[…]
Clinton, at times sounding like a modern history professor, praised the abolitionists, suffragettes and civil rights pioneers and talked about her own efforts to fight legislative redistricting and voter identification initiatives that she said dilute minority voting power.

“This work to extend the franchise to all of our citizens is a core mission of the modern Democratic party,” she said. “From signing the Voting Rights Act and fighting racial discrimination at the ballot box to lowering the voting age so those old enough to fight and die in war would have the right to choose their commander in chief, to fighting for multi-lingual ballots so you can make your voice heard no matter what language you speak.”

Dear Hillary:

African Americans were denied franchise for most of American history because of the prejudice of the ruling class, not because they had done anything wrong. Legislators in Florida and Michigan broke party rules and were sanctioned as a result of this. They moved up their primary in violation of the rules knowing full well that if they did, it would mean a complete stripping of their delegation’s credentials and they did it anyway, hoping that the DNC was bluffing and would back down.

Ironically, their primaries would have had a much bigger impact if they just kept the (later) dates they had originally chosen. But they didn’t and they got punished accordingly. That’s what happens when you break rules. And if the DNC doesn’t enforce its own rules when it comes to scheduling, we’ll have primaries held on Halloween the year before the election next cycle.

Now, it looks like Obama’s campaign is looking to seal this compromise as soon as possible, and it is likely that a portion of the delegates (perhaps half) from Michigan and Florida will be seated, but this won’t happen until the DNC credentials committee meets, and it’s already too late for Clinton to surpass Obama even with 100% of Florida’s and Michigan’s delegates seated (and that won’t happen). But comparing this situation to the Civil Rights Movement really diminishes the Civil Rights Movement. That’s just ridiculous.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog