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“So-Called Pledged Delegates”
She wasn’t misspeaking this time. Hillary Clinton truly,
honestly believes that pledged delegates are going to change their minds and
this will help her win the nomination.
When she said
this in her Philadelphia Daily News
interview the other day, I figured it was a fluke:
And also remember that pledged delegates in
most states are not pledged. You know, there is no requirement that anybody
vote for anybody. They’re just like superdelegates.
But then she repeated it in a curious
new interview with Time’s Mark
Halperin:
[A]s you know so well, Mark, every delegate with very few
exceptions is free to make up his or her mind however they choose. We talk a
lot about so-called pledged delegates, but every delegate is expected to
exercise independent judgment.
That’s right. “So-called pledged delegates.” So now, we’re to assume, it’s not just superdelegates who will
overturn the pledged delegate count. Pledged
delegates are going to help overturn it, too. At this rate, why hold elections in
the first place? Let’s skip the rest of the primaries and go right to the
convention, where all the so-called pledged delegates can get down to the
business of ignoring the people’s votes.
The Clinton
camp vehemently denies
that it will actively pursue Obama’s pledged delegates. But then why float the
possibility? It makes zero
sense strategically. True, no one puts a gun to the heads of pledged
delegates and forces them to vote one way or another. But most of them would
never go switch their vote—that would mean burning bridges, betraying friends,
and reversing the will of their own constituents. And from a PR perspective,
it’s disastrous. The Clinton camp has been
screaming “disenfranchisement” in Florida and Michigan. Do they really
want to push an idea that would flush real votes down the toilet?
What began as a series of casual asides—first by Harold
Ickes, then by Clinton herself—is now starting to look a coordinated effort. We don't ask this question lightly, but what are they smoking?
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