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MIAMI: Invoking Democratic nightmares of the 2000 Florida
presidential recount, Hillary Clinton demanded the revival of two
voided primaries as she sought to halt Barack Obama’s march toward
the party’s nomination.
The Democratic rivals canvassed the key
battleground state of Florida on Wednesday, but with different races
in mind.
While Obama traded blows with Republican
presumptive nominee John McCain in a preview of their potential
matchup in the November general election, Clinton pressed for the
Florida and Michigan primaries to be reinstated.
The former first lady was in a feisty mood at a
rally in Boca Raton, warning her party had deprived voters of basic
rights by stripping the two states of national convention delegates
over a scheduling dispute.
“You learned the hard way what happens when
your votes aren’t counted and the candidate with fewer votes is
declared the winner,” she told supporters. “The lesson of 2000
here in Florida is crystal-clear: If any votes aren’t counted, the
will of the people is not realized and our democracy is
diminished.”
Clinton’s hopes of becoming the first female
presidential nominee were dealt a blow Tuesday after the two
candidates split the latest primaries in Kentucky and Oregon,
leaving Obama just 67 delegates short of claiming the nomination.
Clinton, trailing Obama in every metric of the
race, needs a solution to the Florida-Michigan imbroglio to claim
victory in the popular vote and bolster her claim that she is the
rightful nominee.
She won the discounted primaries, though neither
candidate campaigned in Florida and Obama took his name off the
ballot in Michigan.
Moreover, Democratic Party rules state that the
total of elected delegates in each state is the measure of
victory—not how many total votes were cast.
“We’re willing to work to make sure that we
can achieve a compromise,” Obama’s chief strategist David
Axelrod said.
Even if Michigan and Florida delegates were
reinstated at a party meeting in Washington on May 31, Clinton would
still trail Obama in the decisive count.
Clinton’s comments evoked the plight of
ex-vice president Al Gore, who many Democrats believe was deprived
of the White House when the Supreme Court stopped a Florida recount,
handing the presidency to George W. Bush.
-- AFP
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