Thursday, July 3, 2008

Is Hillary getting railroaded?

I've heard rumors from a few Hillary Clinton supporters that Howard Dean is trying to remove her name from the ballot at the Democratic convention. I haven't been able to find much of an authoritative source to back this up. It seems to have been started over this paragraph from a June 7th NY Times article:
When Mr. Dean reached out to Cynthia Ruccia, who started an organization of female Clinton swing-state voters threatening to vote for Mr. McCain, Ms. Ruccia asked that the Democratic convention include a symbolic first ballot for Mrs. Clinton’s delegates. Mr. Dean discouraged the idea on the grounds of unity.
It's not very clear what the Times means about a "symbolic first ballot," or even who the source was on that anecdote.

I'm guessing this whole rumor just isn't true and never was. There will be a ballot and Sen. Clinton's supporters will have a chance to register their support for her. Obama will, of course, win on the first ballot, and then, maybe, there will be a motion to record the vote as unanimous. They should probably work that out beforehand, since it would be embarrassing if such a vote failed on live TV.

But it is interesting to see how much animus is still out there among Clinton supporters, despite the unambiguous signals of unity from Hillary herself. I'm wondering how long this will continue.

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