(thanks, John!!)
TEXAS CITY — The battle between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama about caucus delegates continued Thursday in Texas City. The chairwoman of a precinct caucus there, an Obama supporter, had to go to the home of a Clinton supporter and plead with her to turn over the results of a caucus that heavily favored Obama.
Today’s Worst Person in the World (apologies to Keith Olbermann) is Bennie Matthews of Texas City, TX, who single-handedly almost managed to disenfranchise an entire precinct (Texas City’s Precinct 337) of their right to vote. Matthews, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, recognized that her candidate was going to take a thumping in her precinct. So what did Matthews do? She took the caucus results home with her. Well, she recognized that her candidate wasn’t going to win, so how else was Matthews going to ensure that Barack Obama didn’t win her precinct?
This is the kind of thing that makes me think that we’re just one short step away from being just another banana republic. If Hillary Clinton can’t win by playing the game by the rules in place, she needs to find a new game. Yes, I realize that Clinton didn’t personally instruct Matthews to do whatever it might take to ensure that she won Precinct 337, but as I’ve said before, a campaign’s tone is set by the person at the top. Hillary Clinton’s name is the one on the yard signs, stickers, buttons, and ballots. This happened on her watch, primarily because her campaign didn’t have the decency to instruct their volunteers to play nice. You’d think that you wouldn’t have to tell adults to play by the rules, but sadly this ethically void, win at any and all costs mentality seems characteristic of the Clinton campaign in general.
The Barack Obama campaign instructed their volunteers to play by the rules. I know this because I’ve spoken with a precinct captain in Texas, who informed me that it was made clear that their was to be no funny business. The instructions were simple: play by the rules. A simple concept, but one that so many Clinton supporters (like Bennie Matthews) proved incapable of or unwilling to grasp. If you can’t play the game by the rules, isn’t it time to find a new game?
And you wonder why my esteem for Sen. Clinton decreases with each passing day?
