Two of HRC's most important supporters appear to be...um...stepping back a bit from the incendiary breach that has been promised by HRC's campaign advisors. I haven't seen this posted elsewhere. I thought this was important and diary worthy however. Per the story below, Rangel, at least, is painted as questioning Hillary's current reliance upon the superdelegates.
I'm not quite so sure as to what these statements portend. To me, however, it portend much and signals that both Schumer and Rangel can read the demographic writing on the wall and intend to do what's best for the Party. I think it significant that two such staunch supporters would question Hillary's strategy. I think they are signalling the light at the end of this tunnel.
Well, what the hell am I talking about? More after the flip.
Here's something from Newsday, via the Charleson Observer:
MILWAUKEE - Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., one of Hillary Clinton's most stalwart black defenders, is apparently questioning her reliance on unelected super delegates to stay competitive with Barack Obama, saying they may not reflect the "will" of Democratic voters.
"It's the people (who are) going to govern who selects our next candidate and not super delegates," Rangel said Sunday night at a dinner for the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators conference in Albany, N.Y.
"The people's will is what's going to prevail at the convention and not people who decide what the people's will is," he added...
Earlier Sunday, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., another major Clinton supporter, expressed his discomfort with her willingness to battle Obama for delegates on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August. New York's senior senator, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," called on Clinton and Obama to agree on a winner after the final caucus in Puerto Rico, saying a protracted fight will rip apart the party in a year when they're favored to win the White House.
"I don't think either candidate wants - or can even get away with - forcing their will down the throat of the other," Schumer told host Tim Russert. "At the end of the day, on June 7, for the sake of party unity, (Democratic National Committee chairman) Howard Dean and the two candidates will have to get together if neither candidate has 2,025 . . . and come up with a strategy. Each candidate will have to have buy into that strategy."
Rangel and Schumer Step Back from Brink
Now, maybe I'm reading too much into this. It's all tea leaves, after all and I don't have my soothsayer license yet. But if these Clinton stalwarts are not hewing to the line that is being put down by Mark Penn and his triangulators (nice band name, eh?), it suggests that they are putting down their weapons and looking to pound them into plowshares. Implosion, anyone?
To step back a bit further: I also think it important that this is the spin the media, Newsday at least, is giving these comments.
It is inconceivable to me that the Democratic Party leaders would allow someone who is so underperforming (at least at this point) and losing so heavily to McCain in the polls, blow up the party. I've been familiar with other such horrific moves by the Democratic Party in the past, however, so my concern is genuine. This gives me hope that we aren't the Dems of my youth (and middle age) however.