Clinton touts support from 'white Americans'

[Lazie]

CNN) — In what appear to be the New York senator's most blunt comments to date regarding a racial division in the Democratic presidential race, Hillary Clinton suggested Wednesday that "White Americans" are increasingly turning away from Barack Obama’s candidacy.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Clinton said in an interview with USA TODAY.

Clinton cited an Associated Press poll "that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Exit polls from Tuesday's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina show Clinton won about 60 percent of the white vote in both states. That percentage is down from the Ohio primary on March 4, in which Clinton won upwards of 65 percent of the white vote. Meanwhile, Clinton garnered 63 percent of the white vote in Pennsylvania on April 22.

Speaking with the paper, Clinton rejected the notion her comments were racially divisive in any way.
"These are the people you have to win if you're a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election," she said. "Everybody knows that."
Obama spokesman Bill Burton called Clinton's statements "not true and frankly disappointing."

[Lazie]

Clinton supporter pressures Pelosi

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Hillary Clinton supporter Harvey Weinstein threatened to cut off contributions to congressional Democrats unless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi embraced his plan to finance revotes in Florida and Michigan, three officials familiar with their conversation said.
Weinstein and Pelosi talked on the phone late last month, the sources said.
The three officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the conversation.
They said Weinstein, a top supporter of Clinton's presidential campaign, appeared determined to buy Clinton more time in her battle against Sen. Barack Obama by pushing for the revote. He was also pressing Pelosi to back off her previous comments that superdelegates should support the candidate who's leading in pledged delegates in early June, the sources said.

[Islandman]

Looks like Clinton has no plans to go quietly. Power seems to be the ultimate drug for people like her.

Seems as if the light at the end of the tunnel for the Dems may very well be an oncoming train .
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not long after the polls close in the May 20 Kentucky and Oregon primaries, Barack Obama plans to declare victory in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

And, until at least May 31 and perhaps longer, Hillary Clinton's campaign plans to dispute it.

It's a train wreck waiting to happen, with one candidate claiming to be the nominee while the other vigorously denies it, all predicated on an argument over what exactly constitutes the finish line of the primary race.

The Obama campaign agrees with the Democratic National Committee, which pegs a winning majority at 2,025 pledged delegates and superdelegates--a figure that excludes the penalized Florida and Michigan delegations. The Clinton campaign, on the other hand, insists the winner will need 2,209 to cinch the nomination--a tally that includes Florida and Michigan.

"We don't accept 2,025. It is not the real number because that does not include Florida and Michigan," said Howard Wolfson, one of Clinton's two chief strategists. "It's a phony number."

Wolfson said they intend to contest the DNC's 2,025 number "every day," as well as any declaration of victory made by Obama based upon that number, because it does not include Florida and Michigan.

In January, Clinton won both states by wide margins when Obama did not actively contest them. The two states were stripped of their delegates for holding early primaries not sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee.

Obama will not reach the 2,025 magic number on May 20. Rather, on that date he is all but certain to hit a different threshold--1,627 pledged delegates, which would constitute a winning majority among the 3,253 total pledged delegates if Florida and Michigan are not included.

"On May 20 we're going to declare victory," said an Obama senior advisor who asked that his name be withheld to speak candidly, adding that after those contests they will be "the ones with the most pledged delegates and the most popular votes."

While the nature of that declaration of victory is "still developing," in the advisor's words, the Obama campaign contends that the winner of a majority of pledged delegates should be the party nominee.

"Senator Obama, our campaign and our supporters believe pledged delegates is the most legitimate metric for determining how this race has unfolded," wrote Obama campaign manager David Plouffe Wednesday in a memo to superdelegates. "It is simply the ratification of the DNC rules - your rules - which we built this campaign and our strategy around."

But the Clinton campaign's insistence on counting Florida and Michigan would alter not only the overall delegate math, but the pledged delegate math as well. Because if the two states are included in the count, the total number of pledged delegates would rise from 3,253 to 3,566--which means the magic number for a majority rises to 1,784, not 1,627 as the Obama campaign asserts.

By hewing to that interpretation, the Clinton campaign would thus be able to raise doubts about a May 20 declaration of victory by Obama.

Since the earliest possible resolution of the Florida/Michigan dispute is May 31, when the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet in Washington to address petitions from Michigan and Florida DNC members, the 11-day period between the May 20 primaries and the RBC meeting could produce a chaotic stretch where Obama claims to be the party nominee while Clinton argues otherwise.

Already, the two campaigns are gearing up for the battle.

"With the Clinton path to the nomination getting even narrower, we expect new and wildly creative scenarios to emerge in the coming days," wrote Plouffe in his memo. "While those scenarios may be entertaining, they are not legitimate and will not be considered legitimate by this campaign or its millions of supporters, volunteers, and donors."

"You can declare mission accomplished but that doesn't mean that the mission has actually been accomplished," Wolfson said.

Avi Zenilman contributed to this report

[OJ]

I think more and more electability is a code word for white

[Islandman]

The thing is, her team is basically now saying that even if he wins the nomination at the ballot box, give it to her because they will never elect him because he is black. Does she and Bill realise what they are doing to thier legacy by taking that position?

There is just a small step from there to a Republican saying to the Supreme Court even if he wins the presidency don't give it to him because his father was a Muslim, or something like that.

[Peter R]

Hear dem two fool yah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyJKJtN65Y8

[Don1]

Hear dem two fool yah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyJKJtN65Y8

I just want to know this....... which one is Maudib?

[Peter R]

Woeee!! BOABDL! (Buss out a big dutty laugh)
pr

[Assasin]

Maudib have more lyrics than that

[Baddaz]

you think... come on oj... it has always been the code word for white... i knew it from the first time i heard it... thats one of the reasons i have lost respect for the clintons... i have always wanted someone to ask her what exactly does she mean by electability... so far no one has asked her to explain that constant 'electability' reference... it only came about when obama took the lead from her... hillary clinton is racially and politically polarizing...

[Baddaz]

Does she and Bill realise what they are doing to thier legacy by taking that position?

their legacy will go down in the annals of american history as closeted racists... the longer this goes on is the more pitiful she looks... its embarassing to even watch her refrain...

[Gamma]

agreed......if she doesn't get the nomination now, unless obama loses in in november, her ambitions will be deferred until at least 2012.

DESPITE all the elecability issues she has raised....HE has a virtually insurmountable lead.....FACT is not only black people voting for him. This puts paid to the lie......

if SHE couldn't win it in the primary, how the backside that means she is more "electable"?!!

[Muadib]

I think I might have the answer to this issue..

Actually we should probably blame Karl.

Is his tribute to her he probably told her she was DElecatable.. more than likely due to the accent she heard the wrong thing and the rest as they say is history...

[Baddaz]

and it goes both ways, which clearly she is in denial... it has long since been held that for the democrats to win a general election, they need a high turnout of blacks... what she has conveniently omitted is the corollary... if she cannot get the black votes needed, she is just as unelectable as he would, if we were to follow her coded 'electability' premise...

[Mosiah]

What if she is right? What if McCain strides into the White House because, no matter how the democrats prefer Obama, when it comes to choosing the person who will send your sons to the battlefield, and will deliver your State of the Union and will be the (gulp) face of the nation, they just can't bring themselves to do it. In other words, what if Obama is indeed unelectable?