It all depends on what the meaning of "votes" is

The current Hillary Clinton campaign strategy could have easily been predicted back in 1999 when her husband, questioned about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, famously said "It all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

Yesterday Hillary and surrogates started blathering about her having won more votes than Barack Obama. To her, it all depends on what the meaning of "votes" is.

While most of us who are keeping track, including Democratic Party officials, see Barack with more delegates and more of the popular vote, Hillary – like her husband – calculates things differently. She doesn't count the actual votes from some of Obama's caucus wins, and she counts the votes from both Florida and Michigan. Since Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan, it is impossible to even see that as a contest where votes should count. And since she agreed ahead of time that Florida and Michigan wouldn't count, she's pulling a Bill Clinton by wanting to count them now.

She's also trying to change the rules of the game – rules the Democratic Party set up and she agreed to - in other ways.

For instance, she thinks popular votes should count more than number of delegates.

She thinks the votes in large states should count more than votes in small states.

She thinks she should be nominated because she has won in the states the Dems need in November.

She thinks pledged delegates should be free to change their votes from Obama to her.

She thinks superdelegates should overrule the pledged delegates if necessary for her to win.

Some people who are calling Clinton on her dishonest tactics say she is trying to move the goal posts, making it impossible for Obama to get a touchdown and put this game away. Since Americans like to use sports analogies, let's use two more to explain what Clinton is doing.

She's saying that free throws shouldn't count in basketball because they give the shooter an unfair advantage.

She's saying that a baseball team should be able to win a game if it put more people on base, rather than got more people to home plate.

Here in America, we use sports metaphors for a reason. We like the idea of fair play, of adhering to the rules of the game. Clinton, however, is not playing by the rules. She is trying to change the rules in mid-game, and most Americans reject those kind of tactics.

She IS not playing fair. But then, I guess it all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is.

Lessons from New Hampshire

We are going to learn a lot of lessons from this election season. We've learned a few already:

1. An African American man can win in a white state and have a very strong showing in another white state (if he runs as a Democrat).

2. The polls can be wrong.

3. Women can be a formidable and unpredictable force in an election.

4. People make up their minds at the last minute. (And it's still "a woman's privilege" to change hers.)

5. Evangelicals don't yet rule the country.

6. Individual voters count.

All of these lessons are good news for democracy. All of them remind us what this is all about: the people - not the polls, not the media, not the pundits, not the preachers - choosing a president.

The split vote between Iowa and New Hampshire assures us now that there will not be a media coronation but a real tough primary fight, in which the candidates have to prove their endurance and their ability to the voters. The biggest winners in such an election season are the citizens, who have decided to make up their own minds, unswayed by polls and blowhards like Chris Matthews.

Biggest lesson of all: It ain't over till it's over.

Decision Time

Yesterday I got my voter pamphlet in the mail in preparation for the February 5th primary.

This is it – the beginning of a month of caucuses and primaries that will determine the 2008 nominees for president.

I have long believed that the fix is in and newspapers, corporations and Democratic power brokers are determined to make Hillary the nominee. That's how I think it works. No matter how much a populist candidate like Edwards or Obama, or Dean last time around, captures the imagination of the people, the media, the corporate power structure, and the party machine are simply too strong to allow the great unwashed masses to have their say.

I hope I'm proved wrong. It's not that I don't think Hillary would make a competent president. She would be entirely competent if she ever became president. But there are two huge problems with a Hillary candidacy, the first being that I fear she can't win. No one can run dirty, smear campaigns like the other party, and they despise Hillary Clinton more than they despised John Kerry, and they pretty much made mincemeat out of him. Could she overcome that and win anyway? She might be able to squeak out a narrow victory depending on who the Republicans nominate, but many of us would suffer enormous anxiety until the results are in.

The second problem is that even if she wins, she won't bring the kind of change that most of us in the party want to see. Her presidency won't be a transformational one, an inspiring one, a unifying one. Under President Hillary Clinton the corporations will grow stronger and the middle class will grow smaller, and the divisions in the country will continue and possibly grow wider.

Will I still vote for her if she is the nominee? You bet your life. I may think she is the worst choice for the democrats, but even the worst choice on my side is better than the best choice on the other side. At least Hillary would do something to protect the environment and to repair our reputation around the world. Under a Clinton presidency something would be done about health care and the budget deficit. And a President Clinton, being an attorney and a former Senator, would understand how important it is for the president to obey the law and honor the Constitution.

None of those things (environmental protection, international cooperation, health care, sane economic policies, and a rededication to the Constitution) would be a sure thing in any Republican nomination. Just listen to the candidates.

So while I will be disappointed if Hillary wins in both Iowa and New Hampshire and then goes on to win in the primaries on February 5th, I will still support her. I will, however, be enormously disappointed that we democrats, by not choosing the populist Edwards or the inspiring and brilliant Obama, missed a real opportunity to say "no" to the media, the corporations, and the democratic machine. And I will be fearful every day until the national election that the choice of Hillary may mean four more years of republican destruction of the middle class, refusal to join the international community, environmental disaster, and the horrible specter of war.