The Democratic Party Race: The Beat Goes On...and On...and On

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

The next big primary in the ongoing Democratic Party race is on April 22. The Pennsylvania contest will apportion 158 delegates and is the biggest single state left in the fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Though Obama has won the endorsement of Bob Casey, one of the state’s senators, Clinton has the support of Governor Ed Rendell and most of the party establishment there. She leads Obama in the polls and is predicted to win.

Despite that, many pundits and politicians think that Clinton’s fight to gain the Democratic Party nomination is all but hopeless. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said in an interview carried by National Public Radio March 27 that Clinton should quit the race because she has hurt Obama “more than anything John McCain has said.”

Of course this assumes she feels bound to play by the rules. But what if her sense of entitlement is so strong that she is willing to break them if necessary? In an e-mail she sent out at the end of March, and quoted by the Washington Post, Clinton declared she would not be “bullied out” of the race by the “big boys.”

In an interview with the same paper during a campaign stop in India on March 29, she declared that “I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests.”

In fact, she went further. Clinton told Time magazine that even pledged delegates are not legally bound to support the candidate to whom they are pledged: “Every delegate is expected to exercise independent judgment.” Which translates as, my delegates are mine, but his are mine to poach.

As well, 20 well-heeled backers of Clinton’s have sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, chastising Pelosi for declaring that the super-delegates should support the winner of the pledged delegate count. Clinton’s backers went so far as to threaten to cut off their financial contributions to the party.

Many of the extremely wealthy people who signed the letter benefitted from legislation passed during Bill Clinton’s presidency, and are happy in return to scratch the Clintons’ backs.

The Clintons’ 28 year old daughter Chelsea, for example, in 2006 took a job analyzing investments at Avenue Capital Group, a hedge fund run by banker Marc Lasry, a loyal donor to Clinton-related Democratic causes. Her salary is in the high six figure range. Lasry was one of the 20 signatories to the letter.

When another prominent Democrat, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, endorsed Obama, he was denounced as a “Judas” by one of Clinton’s political operatives, James Carville.

Carville told the New York Times on Good Friday that the endorsement was an “act of betrayal” that “came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out (Jesus) for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic.”

Carville seems to regard the Democratic Party as a Clinton family enterprise, much as the Pakistan Peoples Party belongs to the Bhuttos. No doubt he’ll be expecting loyalists to support Chelsea Clinton when she seeks office in the future.

If you compare Obama’s endorsements with Clinton’s, one thing becomes evident: one side consists primarily of people with integrity, while the other side is dominated by ethics-challenged hacks.

As she grows ever more frenzied in her pursuit of the nomination, Hillary Clinton is fast becoming the Mwai Kibaki of American politics. (Kibaki is the Kenyan leader who stole the presidential election from a rival last December.)

What’s next, a coup d’état if Barack Obama wins the nomination?