You know a candidate has jumped the shark when his/her own supporters start saying in public that the candidate is showing signs of desperation. And the pro-Clinton Governor of New York state has said just that:
New York Gov. David Patterson, a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s White House bid, said Friday the New York senator is showing signs of “desperation” in her continued push to get the full delegations of Michigan and Florida seated.
“I would say at this point we’re starting to see a little desperation on the part of the woman who I support and I’ll support until whatever time she makes a different determination,” Paterson told New York radio station WAMC, according to the New York Daily News. “I thought she was the best candidate and I thought she had the best chance of winning.”
The comments come a day after Clinton delivered a fiery speech in Florida demanding that that state’s delegation, as well as Michigan’s, be fully seated at the party’s convention in August. The party stripped both states of their delegations last year after the state legislatures there voted to hold their primaries before February 5.
Clinton won both states’ primaries, though Barack Obama removed his name from the ballot in Michigan. Clinton uses popular vote totals from both Florida in Michigan in her claim that she is beating the Illinois senator in the overall popular vote.
Patterson, who has a reputation as a straight-shooter did not mince words but still supports Clinton — but not her position on the two disputed states:
Patterson, a Democratic superdelegate, said he disagreed with the party’s initial decision to penalize the states, but added he thought the party should now “leave it where it is.”
He also noted none of the presidential candidates — including Hillary Clinton — objected to the penalty when it was imposed last year.
So hopefully this will (and I know it won’t) spare me the angry emails and comments saying that our posts on this issue showed (a) we didn’t understand the real facts, (b) we don’t want a woman President and (c)that posts critical of Clinton are due to Hillary Clinton Derangement Syndrome. Patterson, a log of list pundits and bloggers are calling the situation as they see it — one in which Clinton is steadily upping the rhetorical heat after she earlier moved the goalposts, hoping her supporters would go along with whatever her position was earlier, and that others would forget.
The first is happening.
The second isn’t.
P.S. Note that Patterson is a superdelegate. If a superdelegate who supports her sees it this way, how are the superdelegates who are wavering or torn perceiving this?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.