The Old Eighteen

Quote of the day

I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.

-- Howard Dean

They write letters

Harry Reid is a true profile in courage.  He understands that the Democratic nominee needs to be decided sooner, rather than later, so the party can begin the process of unifying and preparing itself for the general election.  He also acknowledges that high-ranking Democrats like himself will have a key role in nudging superdelegates to make their choices known as soon as possible.  So being a man of action, he is suggesting a bold, aggressive approach to the problem of getting superdelegates to commit - sending them a tersely worded form letter.  I shit you not:

Reid said he would consider writing a joint letter with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) demanding that superdelegates make their endorsements public.

“The three of us, we may write a joint letter [to superdelegates],” said Reid. “We might do individual letters. We are in contact with each other.”

It's good to see that Reid has taken his daring strategy of sending letters with passively worded requests, which has been such a key component of his largely fruitless efforts to curtail the Bush administration's most egregious abuses of power, and adapted it to the problem of uncommitted superdelegates.  He should use a serif font and occasionally type in all caps to show that he REALLY MEANS BUSINESS!!!!

This is just a guess, but I'm betting that someday, when future historians begin the task of enumerating the reasons for the decline and fall of American civilization, there will be at least a few paragraphs devoted to Harry Reid.

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(via Poll Dancing)

Hillary's flying monkey squad attacks Howard Dean

You may recall that DNC Chairman Howard Dean issued a call on Thursday to superdelegates to make up their minds as soon as possible about which of the remaining presidential candidates they support, so the party can settle on its nominee before, say, Christmas.  Well, that didn't set well with Hillary Clinton, and as she often does when a prominent Democrat does someting that displeases her, she has unleashed her fundraising allies on Dean with orders to whine and cry until he says "uncle":

Two of Hillary Clinton's most prominent fundraisers tore into Howard Dean in interviews with me today, sharply criticizing the DNC chair for saying yesterday that super-delegates should say which Dem candidate they support "starting now."

"Governor Dean should do what he has said he will do -- refrain from injecting himself into the primary process, as millions of Democrats have yet to cast their votes," Hillary national finance chair Hassan Nemazee, one of the most influential fundraisers in the Democratic Party, told me today.

"If he wishes to do something productive," Nemazee continued, "he should exhibit the leadership necessary to resolve the Florida and Michigan impasse, which has disenfranchised millions of Democratic voters."

A second prominent Democratic fundraiser, Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic National Committeeman and key Hillary fundraiser, sounded a similar note in an interview with me today.

"Howard Dean is more committed to pressuring the super delegates to make up their minds before the voting is done than he is to ensuring that Michigan and Florida's votes are counted," Zimmerman charged.

He added that Dean could "best ensure that we have a strong Democratic nominee and a united party" by focusing on those two states, rather than pressuring super-dels.

No indication that they threatened to withhold donations from the party if Dean doesn't back down, as they did with Nancy Pelosi a while back.  But even if the threat isn't stated, it's obviously being implied, and in response Dean needs to do what Pelosi essentially did, and politely tell them to go fuck themselves.  Indeed, that's what Dean seems to be doing by proxy thus far:

Asked for a response, DNC spokesperson Karen Finney said: "Governor Dean's position remains the same and is consistent with what he has said for weeks now, that ideally he'd like super-delegates to continue to make their preferences known by the end of June."

Howard Dean has been a great chairman for the Democratic party since taking the position after the 2004 elections.  If Hillary Clinton somehow manages to steal the presidential nomination, there should be little doubt that one of the first things she will do is replace Dean with a loyalist, someone like Harold Ford who shares the DLC's disdain for Dean's 50-state strategy.  This would be disastrous for the Democratic party and do perhaps irreversible damage to its viability, which is why it should never be allowed to happen.

Dean notches up the pressure on superdelegates

With the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination continuing to descend further into the gutter, DNC Chariman Howard Dean is increasing the pressure on superdelegates to make up their minds, so the party can get its nomination fight behind it and focus its energies on the Republicans:

An increasingly firm Howard Dean told CNN again Thursday that he needs superdelegates to say who they’re for – and “I need them to say who they’re for starting now.”

“We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time,” the Democratic National Committee Chairman told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “We’ve got to know who our nominee is.”

Dean is absolutely correct, and Wednesday night's debate is a painfully reminder of that fact.  John McCain was the real winner of that debate, and he continues to benefit with every day that this nomination battle drags on.

The ball is in your court, supes.  End this damn thing, now.

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(via heyhellowhatsnew at Daily Kos)