Texas Democratic Party Chairman Criticises Clinton Campaign

Found on reddit:

Below is a statement by Texas Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie regarding the Delegate Selection Process:

The Texas Democratic Party and local Democratic Party organizations around our state are working to turn the enormous opportunity created by the record Democratic turnout experienced on March 4th into a positive outcome for Texas Democrats this fall and in 2010. We are proud of both our Presidential candidates who helped create that turnout. We ask now that the campaigns work with us rather than become an impediment to this extraordinary opportunity to build our party.

On March 4th, our Democratic precinct conventions experienced record turnout of roughly one million precinct convention attendees, a ten-fold increase from the previous high attendance mark. As expected in any record turnout involving hundreds of thousands of people, there were reports of problems caused by long lines and crowded facilities. These problems are not unique to Texas. Similar problems, in proportionately similar numbers, occurred in pure caucus states like Iowa and Nevada.

The overwhelming majority of problems reported in Texas do not affect the legitimacy of delegate allocation. It is important to remember that the precinct conventions are just the first of three steps where delegates and alternates are selected. "Final results" will not be determined until June 6-7 at the Texas Democratic State convention. And at each convention step, Texas Democratic Party rules provide a credentials process to address problems and provide an avenue to register complaints and make formal challenges

For that reason, the Texas Democratic Party will not do as suggested by one campaign and circumvent Party rules to set up an unnecessary, ad hoc "verification" process that could effectively disqualify delegates selected at their precinct conventions after the fact. The Party has never stated any intention to set up a verification process of this nature because Party rules already provide for "verification" through our credentials process. Candidates who wish to disqualify delegates must pursue formal challenges based on evidence filed appropriately in accordance with our party's rules.

The Texas Democratic Party plans to conduct our district and county conventions on March 29 and our June State Convention in accordance with procedures set forth in Texas law and party rules. Both campaigns have the opportunity and responsibility to do their jobs by documenting evidence, filing challenges if warranted, and turning out their delegates in a system that rewards such an effort when final delegate results are determined at the State Convention in June.

Clinton's winning strategy is based on hypocrisy

The Clinton position on delegates is this. To summarize her nomination strategy:

1. The states we've won are the states that matter.
   
2. The states Obama has won are either irrelevant or unfair. Obama does well in the caucuses. These are a) undemocratic and b) unlike the Presidential electoral process, and therefore irrelevant.
   
3. Therefore, although Obama has more votes, more states, more caucus delegates and more primary delegates, he is not fit to be the presidential candidate.
   
4. Therefore, we must convince the superdelegates to ignore Obama's lead and vote in large enough numbers to overturn the apparent will of the party to make her the winning candidate.
   

How are superdelegates more democratic? When did Hillary come to realize that the caucus system was unfair? Was it before or after she started losing them? Did she make any attempt to change this system before she agreed to the rules and started her campaign for nomination?

Just like her U-turn on Florida and Michigan, she is quite happy to reverse her position and change the rules when it suites her. 

In fact she has even attempted to take advantage of the caucus frailties that she simultaneously decries!

Infighting: How Obama and Clinton Compare

Following Hillary Clinton's apparent success in using negative campaigning techniques in the March 4 primaries, both sides have been urged by the mainstream media to step up the personal attacks: Obama, because he should be seen to be fighting back; Clinton, because her attacks coincided with her first successes in 12 primaries.
So how do their attacks compare, and does Obama have do sacrifice his 'new style of politics' strategy in order to achieve victory?

Let's start with Hillary. Her most controversial argument, suggesting that Barack Obama has no substance to his campaign, insufficient experience and that McCain would make a better Commander in Chief has been seen as political heresy by many within the Democratic party.
Meanwhile Barack countered Hillary's attack by arguing that 1) Experience is not what counts - it's judgement that is important; and 2) Actually, Hillary's has overstated her experience, and the experience she has has not really prepared her for the job. Here, though, Barack has been more subtle: His criticisms relate to something he has already pointed out is irrelevant - experience. The argument he makes can counter Hillary's and at the same time allow him to remain consistant when confronting McCain - the Democrats' common foe. He has not attempted to suggest that Hillary is worse than McCain, or even that she would be a particularly bad President, merely that he is the better choice.

In other, more personal attacks, Barack's spokesperson called Hillary a 'monster' and immediately tried to backtrack. Within hours Barack had accepted her resignation. On the other hand Hillary's spokesman, Howard Wolfson, likened Obama to Kenneth Starr and Geraldine Ferraro claimed that Obama's success was because he was black (and in fact had done so previously, and made similar comments about Jesse Jackson in 1988). Here Hillary, in fact supported Wolfson and simply stated that she disagreed with Ferraro's comments that have such offense but would take no action. Ferrero, meanwhile hit back and claimed that she was only being criticised because she is white.

It's seems clear that Obama's campaign can claim a consistency in applying the same standards to its own campaign as it demands in it's rivals. Hillary has had a harder time in both cases. She asserted that Obama is not ready for the CiC role whilst touting him as a viable VP candidate, a position that Obama quickly picked apart; and demanded Power's resignation whilst refusing to condemn Ferraro's.
Hillary's attacks, however, may be more media savvy. Power's resignation gave a talking point around which the media could focus, making her "monster" remark higher profile. By providing a subdued response to Ferrero's racist comments there is less of a story for the media to pick up on, particularly on a day when Spitzer is dominating the headlines.

Who would you prefer?

Update: There is another theory on Ferrero's remarks - that they are a sanctioned attempt to bring up the race issue in Mississippi, where racial divides are more prominant. Voting results do suggest that voting was more polarized than usual. Olbermann has also voiced this opinion.