Legal Commentary

Hillary on Pledged Delegates and the Popular Vote

By Jeralyn

Hillary Clinton was on This Week with George Stephanopoulus this morning. I received a transcript from the show by e-mail. Here's what she had to say about pledged delegates and the popular vote.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Despite this record, Senator Obama getting more than 90 percent of the African-American vote. Perhaps that's to be expected. It's virtually impossible for you to overtake him now in the pledged delegates.

And a lot of people in the African-American community, including the third highest ranking member of the House, Jim Clyburn, say that, if you overturn the will of the pledged delegates, it is going to cause an irreparable breach with the African-American community. Isn't that a problem?

Hillary's answer is below:

CLINTON: Well, first of all, I think both Senator Obama and I have made it very clear that we will have a unified Democratic Party, going into the fall elections. I have said that I will work my heart out for him...

STEPHANOPOULOS: How is that possible...

CLINTON: Well, but...

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... if you overturn the will of the pledged delegates?

CLINTON: But George, I've said that I would work my heart out for him. He has said he would do the same for me. So we will unify.

There are a number of factors that people look at. We have delegates selected by millions of people in primaries and delegates selected by a few thousand people in caucuses. I'm ahead in the popular vote, if you include Florida and Michigan.

STEPHANOPOULOS: He wasn't on the ballot in Michigan.

CLINTON: Well, that was his choice. And his campaign and the other campaigns...

STEPHANOPOULOS: It was the rules of the DNC, though.

CLINTON: Well, but the rules said we shouldn't campaign. But there was nothing saying take your name off the ballot, and there was nothing saying that, eventually, we wouldn't give the voters, 2.3 million of them, in Florida and Michigan, 2.3 million of them, a chance to participate in the process.

The so-called automatic delegates -- they have to make up their minds based on who they think would be the best president and the best candidate to go up against John McCain. That is the process. So we're going to go through the next contest. And obviously, we're looking forward to Indiana and North Carolina. And then, when the process finishes in early June, people can look at all of the various factors and decide who would be the strongest candidate.

But I think there will be no doubt that, however this turns out, we're going to have a very strong campaign in the fall.

And I've often said that people who support me -- and they support me passionately -- and people who support Senator Obama and support him passionately -- they have much more in common than they do with Senator McCain and the Republicans.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 04, 2008 (boomark / email).