And the Clinton campaign's desperation gets more unseemly by the day. On their new web site meant to convince folks that Benjamin Franklin will cry if they convention doesn't ignore the expressed will of the Democratic primary voters and select Hillary Clinton, they offer "five facts about Democratic delegates." Some actually are facts, like the one noting that pledged delegates and superdelegates each count for one vote. And then we get, "FACT: Florida and Michigan should count, both in the interest of fundamental fairness and honoring the spirit of the Democrats' 50-state strategy." It's almost as if they thought putting it after two real facts, and after the word "FACT," would be like a Jedi mind trick. "There are not the fake delegates you're looking for," says Obi Penn Ickes. But it's not a fact. It's an opinion, and a wrong one at that. Indeed, you want a fact? "Clinton's own senior adviser, Harold Ickes, voted as a member of the DNC committee to not recognize these two state delegations because they violated the rules of the primary scheduling process. Now as a Clinton campaign representative he's making the case that they should count." There's your fact: Hillary Clinton's representatives helped make the very rules Hillary Clinton is now breaking. Even more insulting is what comes beneath their "FACT" -- lies, like the campaign's contention that though Hillary Clinton was literally the only candidate on the ballot in Michigan, "she had no intrinsic advantage over her opponents other than the will of the voters." Right, and I had no intrinsic advantage finishing first out of 6 billion in the Ezra Kleinathon, even though I was the only individual on earth who competed. What's really a pity about all this is that Hillary Clinton's campaign is by no means dead. They may still win. But it's unlikely they're going to win because of these shenanigans. Instead, she'll have to rack up some impressive victories in the next few primaries, or see Obama stumble and the superdelegates decide him a bad bet. Either scenario could result in a Clinton victory. But along the way, gambits like this one will have soured many decent people on Clinton's campaign, and rendered her win an ugly and divisive one. She's cheapening her own prize here, and for no good reason.
