so what exactly do you think conventions are for anyway ?
"so what exactly do you think conventions are for anyway ?"
Lots of balloons?
you know it won't be so scary or funny if it wasn't the case that a lot of folks seem to believe thats largely what conventions are for.
I have ALWAYS believed that.
"you know it won't be so scary or funny if it wasn't the case that a lot of folks seem to believe thats largely what conventions are for."
I'm not entirely sure what you meant by that, but for the record I was going for "funny."
The ones I go to are mostly about wireless technology.
Seriously though. I'm not saying Senator Clinton drops out. I just believe that any indication of militancy in handling this nomination process hurts the party. Particularly from the campaign that pleaded with the superdelegates to use their better judgment, now that they're breaking to Obama, that should be respected.
Another point, it is fact that no vote will be cast by a pledged or unpledged delegate until the convention. We all know that. But as the pledged delegates' affiliation goes without saying, and if the majority of supers are to throw their weight behind Obama, giving him the majority needed to secure the nomination in August, then we have to proceed with the assumption that he is the nominee.
All the talk of electability and the ever so talked about "October surprise" must take a back seat to what only a few weeks ago was cemented by the Clinton campaign as the key to the nomination: the superdelegates.
With all the delegates she has amassed and the millions of voters she has , it would be expected she would be at the convention anyway . Infact it would be a travesty if she doesn't take up issues at the convention floor.
Either pushing her agenda if she is not the nominee or fighting for a resolve to issues she thinks are unresolved.
Ted Kennedy was a 1000 delegates short and he was still at the convention , she is just a mere 150 delegates in the hole and somehow she is not supposed to take it to the convention.
Actually she is about 200 delegates behind now, FYI.
157 pledged delegates according to realclear.
177 including supers if we want to be exact.
She's behind by 166 pledged, and 20 super.
That's 186.
http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/
In all fairness...You are a leaner...You have strong passions about the GOP and their Military/National Security agenda. I am fully behind ANY Democratic candidate, and a convention floor flight would all but do us, Democrats, in for our goal of capturing the POTUS.
Conventions are for the party to make their case to the American people that they should be elevated into majority status. That's why disorder and chaos are no longer acceptable at conventions.
Would you have liked it if Barack Obama, trailing by 150 delegates, took his case to the convention, and asked the party platform to include something like, "We firmly believe that the Iraq War should never have been waged, and we admonish all elected officials who voted for its authorization in 2002?"
Quit being a sore loser. Barack Obama has spent his entire political career fighting for the core idea that brought Hillary Clinton into politics in the first place -- the idea that we are interdependent of one another, and government should embody the idea of family -- while John McCain has spent his entire political career opposing this grand idea at the top of his lungs. This is what should be shown at the convention -- not poor Hillary, who likes to advocate winner-take-all, now wanting something when she lost.
Your rantings don't make much sense.
...if the tables were turned and Obama was the one behind, would you stll be arguing that Obama has every right to "take it to the convention?"
Somehow I doubt it.
I wouldn't use the phrase "His entire political career", to try to prove a point. It was so short, and not that impressive.
Neither was that ex-one-term representative named Abraham Lincoln particularly distinguished in 1860. Particularly when compared to his predecessor, James Buchanan, who had 10 years of experience as a House member, 10 years as a U.S. Senator, was a minister to Russia and a minister to Britian, and was Secretary of State for four years before becoming President. Now which person made a better President?
Well then, we shouldn't even consider experience in voting for president. What were we thinking? I vote for Joe Schmoe the next time around, he works in a factory, and has never voted,even. But he seems like the best pick to me because he has no experience which is even better than we could ever dream of in a president.
Also, voting to authorize one of the nation's greatest foreign policy failures, and refusing to own up to that vote is so distinguished?
The Convention "floor fight" is a mythological sort of deal for Democrats. There have been some special Conventions, where no candidate arrives with any sort of even a close majority and it takes several votes to figure out who it will be.
1968 was the anti-Vietnam War protest elevated to an art form and McCarthy first getting 42% to Johnsons' 49% in New Hampshire primary. Johnson announced he was going to not run for a second term. Robert Kennedy got into the race, Hubert Humphrey the VP got into the race, and when RFK got shot the night of the California primary (winning it), it threw the Convention into turmoil. MLK had been shot on April 4th. One hundred cities rioted and looted. Another war supporter, Humphrey managed to get the insiders to pass by a discouraged RFK contingent and a Eugene McCarthy in Chicago to get the nomination.
The police were sent around the delegates hotels to keep order. Senator Abraham Ribicoff in giving a speech placing McCarthy's name in nomination scolded and told of Daley for his tactics. The NY and California delegations, after Humphrey succeeded in getting the nomination, lit candles and swayed singing protest songs right on the floor of the Convention. Dump the Hump!
It was a unpopular choice. Nixon won by a small margin. HHH was linked too closely to Johnson , and no enthusiasm for him was seen in most areas. TV coverage of the controversies to people who didn't get what was going on proved a bigger help to the Republicans. Their convention was very orderly.
Convention excitement is overrated. Unfortunately a troubling picture will create negatives among low-info voters.
No party has won the Presidency in modern history after taking the campaign all the way to the convention?
I agree with you, in principal, that the convention is technically there to "choose our nominee;" that being said, it is not very pragmatic to take the campaign that far when all evidence suggests that to do so will help McCain lock up the presidency...
that is, no reason to do so unless you would rather McCain be President than a Democrat other than Hillary.
