It's hard to keep track of all her position changes regarding the rules, but let's see if we can try:
- Florida / Michigan: When the DNC voted to strip the states' delegates for violating party rules, she said nothing. In fact, she dispatched senior advisor (and DNC Rules and Bylaws committee member) Harold Ickes to vote in favor of stripping said candidates. Why? Because her coronation was scheduled to take place the night of Super Tuesday, regardless of how these two states voted. As we all know, however, Super Tuesday didn't go as planned, and ever since, she has been singing a different tune. Also, let us not forget that her campaign general chairman, Terry McAuliffe, faced a similar problem with Michigan in 2004 when he was DNC chairman. And according to his memoire, he threatened the same punishment! But now, he has experienced an awakening and no longer thinks the party should have any control over when the states schedule their primaries. (I keep expecting her to add that only one candidate should even be on the ballot, given how hard she's fighting to keep the DNC from awarding any delegates / votes to Senator Obama from Michigan.)
- Super Delegates: Boy, did she love those Super Ds! It was just a few short months ago when she was praising the DNC for adding Superdelegates to the mix, and now she thinks they should be removed from the equation. Does this change of heart have something to do with the fact that, back in March, she was leading in the Super race and now she's losing?
- Separate Primaries: In December, her campaign told us this thing would be over on Super Tueday, so confident were they that Senator Clinton would reach the magic number of delegates when fewer than half the states had voted. Since then, she's harped constantly about how "every voter should have a chance to vote." Now, she's taking her argument one step further. She now believes the national primaries should be bundled into a single day, so that no state is left trailing. Might her newfound respect for the "50 state" primary be somehow related to her big losses on Super Tuesday, and her campaign's inability to move beyond that disaster?
- One voter / one vote: This relates to the Superdelegate issue, as well as the bundled primaries idea, with another caveat. She wants to do away with the caucuses, as they are "undemocratic". I wonder if we should retroactively subtract Bill Clinton's overwhelming caucus wins from his tally? Also, her "one voter / one vote" theme doesn't seem to extend to the states of Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Maine, since she routinely "forgets" to count their votes in her "I'm winning the popular vote" claims. Which brings me, of course, to ...
- Popular vote: Suddenly, she thinks the popular vote is the metric we should use to determine the winner of this election. This is the strangest and most sudden departure for her. Just a few months ago, her supporters sent a scathing and threatening letter to Nancy Pelosi because she made the very same argument! She said she thought the Super Ds should respect the will of the voters in casting their votes, and Senator Clinton went off the deep end! Now, though, since her crazy new form of math shows her winning the popular vote, she's singing Nancy's tune! I certainly hope she apologizes for having been so horribly wrong all this time ...
Are there any other rules changes you can think of that I've missed?
Just to be fair, I actually agree with Senator Clinton on some of these proposed changes to the DNC nominee-selection process. But a candidate complaining about the rules she agreed to follow now that they don't favor her is just pathetic. Especially when she loved them so much just a year ago, when she thought they would help assure her an early, easy victory.
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