Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's an interesting story. Longtime Dispatches reader Jeff Hebert emailed me this story of the Clinton campaign trying to get pledged delegates to change their votes at the convention. Full story below the fold:
I always enjoy it when someone tries to rewrite the rules to their advantage, only to have it turn around and burn them. I went to the Texas Democratic caucus for my precinct to try and vote for Obama, but unfortunately we didn't have enough people there for him to qualify for any of the precinct's share of delegates. I ended up being assigned as a delegate anyway (the turnout was pretty low), and said I'd vote for Hillary per the will of my fellow caucus-goers, since my guy didn't garner enough support.Yet, twice now in the last three days, the Clinton campaign has called me to try and convince me that as a delegate I don't have to vote for who I said I'd vote for, I'm allowed to change my mind if I want. Presumably they are doing this because they got their asses kicked in the caucus statewide by Obama, and so they want to get me to flip my assumed vote for Obama to Clinton.
However, they've achieved exactly the opposite -- I didn't know until they called that I even had the option, I thought I was forced to vote as the caucus had decided. Thanks to Hillary trying to change the rules after the fact and play dirty, I now can vote for my original guy with a clear conscience.
Be careful what you sow, for thereso shall ye reap, Mrs. Clinton.
Very interesting, don't you think?
Comments
Now I'm worried. This means The Mrs. is informing ALL the delegates of that option, and how many will vote for her?
I only hope those committed to Obama are savvy.
R
p.s. I really like referring to her as 'The Mrs.' It seems appropriate. Yuk yuk.
Posted by: Rod | March 29, 2008 10:04 AM
She shouldn't be trying to get people to switch their vote. How can someone call themselves a democrat and yet go against the will of the people in an election? I would have been willing to vote for Hillary if she won, but these dishonest tactics are pushing me to vote third party if she steals it.
Posted by: Shadowin | March 29, 2008 10:06 AM
I can't vote for Hillary. Too many negative memories of the first Clinton administration. This strategy of Clinton campaign just confirms a second administration will be no better.
Posted by: yoshi | March 29, 2008 10:22 AM
I'm hardly the biggest Hillary fan (by a long shot), but from what I've heard, she's not actually to blame in this case -- the Texas Democratics Party seriously screwed up the delegate lists they provided to the campaigns.
Posted by: Technogeek | March 29, 2008 10:50 AM
Technogeek wrote:
I fail to see how that would justify her trying to get delegates who were elected to vote for Obama to vote for her instead.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 29, 2008 11:23 AM
The crap Hillary is floating about coaxing super-delegates over to her side in Denver is nothing but a poor bluff.
My prediction is that she will be forced to drop out by Memorial Day, if not a week or two earlier.
Posted by: CHV | March 29, 2008 11:50 AM
Ed, if I'm understanding the link right, what's happening is that whatever list is being used to make the calls is supposed to be Hillary delegates only, but included a bunch of Obama delegates as well. I'd probably need a transcript of the calls Jeff is getting to be certain of this, admittedly, but the point remains.
Posted by: Technogeek | March 29, 2008 12:43 PM
Er, to be certain that this is what's happening here. My mistake.
Posted by: Technogeek | March 29, 2008 12:45 PM
Technogeek:
I think you misunderstand the situation. Why would the Clinton campaign call their own delegates to tell them they can vote for Obama if they want? They're targeting the Obama delegates, trying to get them to change.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 29, 2008 1:12 PM
Ed: Ah, my mistake, then. Guess I missed the second paragraph somehow.
Posted by: Technogeek | March 29, 2008 2:15 PM
Politics is a fun game sometimes. I'm teaching a political behavior class right now, where the focus is on strategic behavior. A couple weeks ago, one of my students summed up the class as, "think about what you're doing."
In numerous ways over the past several months, it's been clear that H. Clinton is not thinking about what she's doing. Her choices all seem to be "first stage" strategic--that is, if all that happens is what she intends to have happen, then all would turn out well for her. But she's not thinking beyond that to the second stage, how others react to her moves, and the new game that gets set up then.
Or, in a more shorthand form, H. Clinton is politically tone-deaf. Has been all along, as demonstrated by her phenomenally stupid bungling of the Clinton health care plan.
Posted by: James Hanley | March 29, 2008 4:54 PM
"They're targeting the Obama delegates, trying to get them to change."
Well, that's what they are trying to do.
But if the Texas Democrats are sending lists of Clinton delegates that are really Obama delegates, and vice versa, then the Clinton campaign thinks they are calling Obama delegates, but are really calling their own.
Sounds like dirty tricks to me.
Posted by: BaldApe | March 29, 2008 5:06 PM
That's an interesting observation James H, and it suggests that Clinton would be impaired as a president. After all, one of the most common mistakes made by politicians is assuming people won't react to their policies, expect in the ways the policy relys on.
Posted by: James K | March 29, 2008 5:10 PM
Delegates are elected to vote their conscience. Otherwise, you'd have delegates pledged to vote for people who dropped out of the race months ago. It's not pure democracy: It's a form of republican, representational government.
This goes on all the time in Democratic conventions, when races are tight. Delegates have a right to switch.
And, by the way, in the Fighting 23rd Senatorial District, we aren't getting calls to switch.
Any complaints about Texas being disorganized are completely unfair. In my precinct, four years ago my son and I were 2/3s of the people present, to select 23 delegates and 23 alternates for the SD convention. This year, more than 1,100 people showed up to select 55 delegates and 55 alternates. Four years ago we got about 400 people to our SD convention; today, nearly 10,000.
This race has energized people to get out and work for candidates. I have to fight for a state delegate seat, for the first time since 1992 (and that was not much of a fight). This is glorious, wonderful, a lot of fun, and Republicans should be soiling their pants if they have any sense.
Think about this: If these numbers hold up, not only will the Democratic nominee give McCain a run for the money in Texas, Sen. John Cornyn will be sent back home, too (by Rick Noriega, a great candidate).
Landslide! Hell! This is a very large planetoid hitting the place.
And you're complaining about parking? There is no reserved parking in a fully working democracy.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | March 29, 2008 7:08 PM
Honestly, I think that our current primary election system is the most screwed up, undemocratic system ever, and this story just proves it further. There's way too much ambiguity in it, too many ways to fuck with the system. It's seriously time for a frickin overhaul, but it's up to the individual party to make its rules, and I have no faith in that happening whatsoever.
Posted by: paul | March 29, 2008 9:04 PM
I'm back from the county convention. I spent the three and a half hours there trying to figure out if there was any way the Texas Democratic Party could have made this entire election process more complicated, but ultimately decided that it is, in fact, exactly as complicated as humanly possible.
All my hand-wringing over whether to change my vote was moot, because our precinct didn't even get a delegate in the first place. Why? Because apparently our precinct didn't cast more than 180 votes for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the 2006 election. Why does that matter? I have no effing clue.
You might ask, as I did, why we bothered having a caucus in our precinct if they knew ahead of time we weren't going to get a delegate out of it. The answer is, I have no effing clue.
You might further ask, as I did, why something like nine other precincts also didn't get a delegate, and yet held a caucus and sent people to a convention on a Saturday morning anyway. And the answer -- again -- is, I have no effing clue. Neither does anyone else, and yet there we all were.
At the end of the day, in what seemed to be a scenario composed of equal parts Doctor Seuss and MC Escher, everyone who showed up got to write down who they wanted to vote for, and a committee chose a proportionate share of delegates to the state convention based those who showed up today.
At the state convention, of course, those delegates can vote for whoever they want without regard to who showed up at the county convention.
And then those state delegates will go to the national convention, where again -- say it with me -- they can vote for whoever they want without regard to how the state convention voted.
I thought this was insane, until I realized that for all practical purposes, the same damn thing is true of most of the Electoral College delegates, too. In a nutshell, all of these votes I've been casting for all these years are sort of make-believe, contingent on someone I'll never meet doing what they said they'd do when the time arrives to cast a vote that actually counts for something.
What a weird way to run a country.
Posted by: Jeff Hebert | March 29, 2008 11:20 PM
The demand for a more democratic system led to the convention system, in which a lot more party members--the ones active at the state and local level--could participate.
But that still left out the mass of the electorate, and in the mid-to-late 20th century, the primary system developed as the push to make the nomination system more democratic continued. That same push is continuing today, with states opening up the primary system to blanket and open primaries, allowing any registered voter--not just those registered with the party--to participate.
So, ironically, it's the very democraticness of the current process that creates the problems it has.
Posted by: James Hanley | March 30, 2008 6:19 PM
It's most assuredly uncool to switch the vote.
I'm an Obama supporter however - it's whether you win or loose not how you play the game.
Posted by: Bubba | March 30, 2008 8:15 PM
The reason the Clintons are using GOP tactics is because that is what they are. We'll be doing our best here in Pennsylvania. Ain't no way will I ever vote for Hillary Shitbag Clinton
Posted by: Human | March 31, 2008 9:22 PM
The caucuses in the Houston area were total clusterf***s. Don't let anyone tell you different. And there were some shenanigans going on from the Obama supporters, so let's not pretend that one side is a gleaming pile of virtue.
Between the overly complicated Texas system and Florida's and Michigan's blatant attempt to disenfranchise their own voters by ignoring established primary rules, the Dems really make me wonder how we manage to ever elect candidates, much less get them voted into public office.
Posted by: Bouj | April 1, 2008 12:23 PM