Attention

One of these days I'm going to resist the temptation to talk to myself about politics here. I used to get frustrated about having no outlet, even a semi-imaginary one, like this blog. Now I'm seeing hours go by better spent in other pursuits. Oh well.

I also know that people are getting really sick of this campaign. So I am really. But Hillary struck fear in many hearts on Wednesday by going to Florida and raising the stakes on her insistence that Florida and Michigan primaries be counted, even saying in an interview that she's willing to take all of this to the convention. Some of her aides speaking anonymously said she doesn't really mean it; another one, on the record, said she does.

That she stepped on Obama's message in his Florida speech (20,000 heard him in Tampa) attacking McCain for his ties to lobbyists--a very important issue to raise at this moment--is enough in itself to annoy the Democratic Party leadership starting to gear up for the general election behind Obama. But she probably raised some other alarms. Either she is talking tough to get a better deal coming out of the Rules Committee on the Michigan and Florida delegates apportioned, or this is a real threat that could seriously wound the party's chances.

She said she would pursue this if the states in question weren't satisfied, and while Michigan seems eager to make a deal, she could be in league with Florida. Michigan has more Obama supporters and support. Florida's Dem leadership has been taunting the party over this for some time, and they may throw in with Clinton on this. It's suicide all around, so it's hard to see whose interest is really served.

Some are suggesting that Obama simply agree to seat all the delegates in the proportions reflecting the outlaw primary results, and he'll still win. But though the Rules Committee likely will defer greatly to Obama and Clinton, what isn't mentioned in this discussion much is that the Committee is set up to deal with party rules, and there are members whose loyalty is to the party. If Michigan and Florida aren't penalized at all, even though they violated the rules and the party (led by Clinton loyalists) voted for sanctions, then the party's authority means nothing.

Clinton's argument likening "counting all the votes" in these contests to the 2000 elections, not to mention Civil Rights and the Magna Carta, is disingenuous in the extreme. These weren't elections, because everyone involved knew they weren't supposed to count. This Floridian notes that even the party called their primary a "straw vote." The sheer meaninglessness of the exercise kept an unknown number of voters home. And in Michigan, of course, Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot. Counting these votes as if this were a real election would be the real injustice, and lots of Democrats know it. So we'll see if the Democratic Party actually has a backbone, because the party and its super-delegates can stop this.

There's another way to look at this, and that's as one of the last ways Clinton has to get attention. Billary made news Wednesday, even though they lost the morning headlines which emphasized Obama passing the majority threshold of delegates by votes. And while Clinton got the attention of Obama supporters and probably of party insiders, it's not clear how much she got elsewhere. Said this Reuter's report: " Attention, whether from button sellers or the national media, is leaving the fading presidential candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton behind as the former front-runner faces what most see as impossible odds to win the Democratic nomination...While Obama and McCain spar -- the two clashed this week over whether the United States should talk to leaders of hostile nations -- Clinton's struggle to collect votes in Florida that were cast months ago but invalidated feels like a sideshow."

Attention may be a problem for Clinton after today. There are only three contests left, and the next one (Puerto Rico) is almost 2 weeks away. Though she is favored to win it, little is really known about it, and several Kos posters have suggested it may not be a lock. In any event, it's unlikely to be a blowout. And then Montana and South Dakota are likely Obama victories.

All she's got really is the May 31 Rules Committee meeting to use to make news and stay in the media/public eye. We'll see how successful she can be. But while Hillary talks about the sexism her campaign has suffered, I find it interesting that while most male commentators believe she's going to go gracefully and support the nominee in early June, it's women--led by Rachel Maddow--who are convinced she'll stop at nothing.