Rumour crushing - re: Hillary Clinton's pledged delegates

[illusionofjoy]

There is a fine distinction between suspending one's campaign and conceding to one's opponents in the race. When John Edwards initially suspending his campaign, he kept all of his pledged delegates. Had Edwards not endorsed Barack Obama and conceded the race to him, those delegates would still be pledged in first round of voting at the convention to cast a ballot for John Edwards. As it stands, Edwards' pledged delegates are free to vote for whomever they wish (though, in light of the endorsement, many may chose to vote for Obama).

There has been a rumour going around that Hillary Clinton has released her pledged delegates. This is entirely false, as she has not conceded the race, she has merely suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama. The reason she is holding onto her delegates is for leverage: by keeping these delegates, she guarantees herself a spot on the floor of the convention where she can give a speech and continue to push her agenda after the first round of voting. Then the second round of voting can commence (where the delegates are no longer pledged), which will very likely result in Obama transitioning from presumptive nominee to actually nominee. There is nothing uncommon about this. In past campaigns, candidates with far fewer pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton suspended their campaigns and retained their delegates for exactly the same reason - and they stepped aside when the time came for the presumptive nominee to be officially nominated.

One pledged delegate to Hillary Clinton spoke anonymously to The Confluence about his current status:

[Harold] Ickes spoke about how the delegates would still be coordinated by the campaign (that may be the only part of the campaign that’ll probably have jobs until August, I guess!). And, I thought this was interesting…he stated that the reason that Hillary technically ’suspended” her campaign was so that she could still receive the superdelegates votes from the other primaries. I don’t know which ones he was referring to specifically, but he said that if she had conceded (I forget what word he used), those 190 delegates (don’t ask me where this number comes from) would have gone to … him. But by merely suspending her campaign, those Clinton votes would be reflected by those 190 delegates.

Still pledged, as the campaign is suspended, not conceded. So, why the deception? Why the mindfucking? Mary Boergers, a pledged delegate for Clinton from Maryland speaks to No Quarter:

I was on that conference call and there was nothing in Hillary’s comments to indicate that she was releasing her delegates and urging them to vote for Obama on the first vote in Denver. In fact what Harold Ikes said was that the campaign would like to keep Hillary’s delegates together so that she can more effectively fight for issues like universal health care to make sure it is included in the party platform.

This seems like deliberate misinformation. (Sound familiar!)

One of the super delegates who was in London in fact complained about the strong arm pressure from the Obama campaign to immediately (last Friday before Hillary’s speech) switch their vote to Obama.

So to me the strategy is clear. The Obama folks want to try and prevent us from nominating Hillary at the convention and voting for her at the convention. We need to STOP this. Historically losing candidates always have their names put into nomination, give a great speech and then there is a roll call vote. The presumptive nominee gets the majority and then there may be a call to make it unanimous.

So, the questions are: who is behind this misinformation campaign and why? If Obama's people are behind it, the "why" becomes even more perplexing. As the "presumptive nominee," surely he has nothing to fear? He's won the big prize of round one and gets to go on to do battle with John McCain - there's nothing stopping him at this point. Why should he fear letting Hillary Clinton have a platform to speak at the convention? Why would he be against something that has been par for the course for decades?