Today’s Globe and Mail article Does no one remember Hillary? made a false comment about the president-elect:
...his one real accomplishment: outplaying the most determined and prepared politician he's ever faced [Hillary Clinton].
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081107.wcomurph08/BNStory/specialComment/home
I disagree with that. A better analogy is three against one. In one corner was Obama, the media and the DNC. In the other corner was HRC. She had to fight Obama and the others at the same time. And in the end she won the most votes, so I offer her my congratulations for winning the nomination even though it was taken away from her.
The media were extremely in the tank for Obama. For example, Slate recently published a study that found that their journalists favored Obama to McCain 55-1 (http://www.slate.com/id/2203151/pagenum/all/). I wonder what the odds were for HRC and Obama. Maybe they favored Obama to HRC 55-1. The men and women journalists overwhelmingly favored Obama and they often hid damaging information about him, especially during the crucial first primaries, and they emphasized anything they thought would make him more popular. Furthermore, they portrayed HRC in a sexist manner (http://www.allseasonsgallery.info/hrc/hrc.sexism.html). Voters are very influenced by the media and that made that media’s attack a very difficult attack that HRC had to face.
And the DNC twisted the rules to minimize HRC's delegates and used rare or first-time procedures that increased Obama's delegates and decreased HRC’s delegates. For example, when five states violated Rule11.A the states that seemed to favor HRC were punished twice as harshly as what the rulebook advices, but the states that seemed to favor Obama were given waivers therefore not punished at all. The two states where HRC was rated highest in the polls, Florida and Michigan, were punished, but I recall Obama polled high in the three states (Iowa, South Carolina, and up until the time near the election New Hampshire) that received a waiver. Thus, states that heavily favored Clinton were extremely punished while states that had favored her competitor were given waivers even though all five states broke Rule 11.A. and according to Rule 20.C.1.a. they should have been punished the same (http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/11/144234/675).
And astonishing, and probably without precedent, the DNC gave Obama delegates for states that he skipped during the primaries. It's common practice for candidates to skip a state but I've never heard of any candidate being given delegates for the states they didn't compete in. Furthermore, when it became increasingly likely that HRC would win the popular vote-which she did-the DNC pressured her to drop out of the contest. And HRC didn't actually compete during the convention role call because she made it clear she had dropped out, would support Obama for president, and gave up (released) her delegates before the role call. So Obama didn't compete against anyone at the convention. None of the candidates had enough pledged delegates to win when the primaries were over. HRC won by the best measurement: she got more votes.
Popular Vote (w/MI): Obama-17,535,458, 47.4%, Clinton: 17,822,145, 48.1%
Estimate w/IA, NV, ME, WA: Obama-17,869,542, 47.4%, Clinton-18,046,007, 47.9%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html
The state vote totals are certified and are now historical documents, so the history books will recount that the first time a woman presidential candidate won the most votes, her own party blocked her from getting the nomination and worked against her from the beginning. That’s a national tragedy. Going forward, we should remember the sexism against a historic woman candidate to prevent it from happening so that ASAP we can get a woman president.
