March 26, 2008 -
So GP got this e-mail last evening from the Hillary Clinton campaign. It ran under the headline:Liberty City Democratic Club Endorses Hillary Clinton
Wait, we thought.. That can't be right. Hillary is most game-legislating of all the presidential candidates and Liberty City, well, that's Grand Theft Auto territory.
As it turns out, this Liberty City group is a political club for the LGBT community in Pennsylvania, where the April 22nd primary is looking more and more like a make-or-break situation for Clinton and opponent Barack Obama.
UPDATE: I've been thinking... GTA IV launches in a month. Hillary has had a lot to say about GTA in the past, especially in regard to Hot Coffee. April Fool's Day is next Tuesday. Still, the group's website looks legit and so does its domain registration. What do you think, GP readers?
Comments
PA is -not- "make it or break it" for the campaigns. This campaign, by the numbers, is already over.
Senator Obama leads Senator Clinton by a vast margin of delegates and within the popular vote itself - roughly 850,000 votes, to be exact.
For perspective, the PA Democratic Party just broke their registration record, with 4,000,000 votes registered with the party. If by some amazing, impossible chance, PA has 100% Voter Turnout, AND Senator Clinton wins by 20 points, she will still not surpass Senator Obama in the popular vote. And PA is the last large-state stronghold left for Clinton.
PA is "make it or break it" for Clinton's media narrative, as the only plausible way for her to take the election at this point is via Superdelegates overriding the popular vote. Not gonna touch the politics of that here..
Save a massive campaign implosion on Obama's part, this campaign has been wrapped up for a month and a half, and isn't changing save in the event of Coup by Superdelegate.
So if it's a joke, it's a REALLY elaborate one. ;)
worst article ever.
Wouldn't Liberty City be a trademark of Rockstar? They could probably demand that the LGBT group change their name.
@GP: Why did you get this email? Was it just random political spam, are you signed up for any press release newsletters waiting for the inevitable "Ban fun, for the sake of the kids!" announcement or was someone in their office also thinking it sounded GTA-ish?
Clinton can stay away from my liberty........... the city too........
That would have been far more entertaining. Hint hint.
You mentioned the site and registration looked legit. If there's any concern of April Fool's, what about the e-mail headers from the e-mail that alerted you?
I, as an informed citizen of this democratic nation, need to know.
You're right when you say this is "make or break" for Hillary. She needs a strong win in Pennsylvania to have any shot at winning once all the back room deals begin at the convention. She needs to be able to say, "I won all of the big states" to have a case. If Obama wins, she's probably toast.
Heck, I even saw a theory that Gore could still end up being the nominee with Clinton or Obama on the ticket as VP. (If I can find the link again, I'll provide it.)
@ Matt and Dog_welder
The limit on Primary delegates will not be met to declare either candidate as the PResidential candidate. If one had met that mile stone, there would have been no need to focus on super delegates unless the popular vote was not what the democrats wanted running. No matter what happens in PA, it will all come down to the Super delegates, which last I heard Hillary had a slight lead, but there were still a large number of undecided.
I, as an informed citizen of this democratic nation, need to know."
LAWL! Brilliant.
As GP explained, it's not really that Hillary's groups contacted a pro game site, but that he himself signed up for Hillary's campaign newsletters.
The Democratic leadership does not want Hillary Clinton. Granted, they are being very careful about it, but it has become pretty clear that Nancy Pelosi does not like what Hillary is doing in this race. Several Democratic party leaders have said something to the effect of, "Whoever has the most pledged delegates should receive the nomination" or "The superdelegates should not overturn the votes of the pledged delegates." Since Barack Obama will have the lead in pledged delegates by the end of the race (no matter what else happens), that is an implicit endorsement of his nomination. These are professional politicians we're talking about, so they know what they're saying and how it will be read.
@Dog_Welder
Actually, Michigan and Florida change nothing. If they were counted (and if Obama got all the "uncommitted" votes from Michigan since his name wasn't even on the ballot), Clinton still wouldn't have enough to make up his lead. If you worked out the math, you would see that she would still be insurmountably behind. Moreover, the magic 2,024 number would change because if Michigan and Florida were counted, the total number of delegates and superdelegates would change, too.
Certainly it's true that it's up to the superdelegates to decide this, but over the past month, Barack Obama has gotten the support of 60 superdelegates while Hillary Clinton has only managed 2. There's no reason to believe the trend will not continue regardless of what happens in Pennsylvania. The superdelegates can see the math. Matt is correct in saying that this nomination is over. Hillary's own campaign aides have estimated her chances at 10% (according to David Brooks of the NYTimes). It's merely a question of how long Hillary wants to slog it out and when the superdelegates will decide to step in. My guess is they will give it to Obama after the North Carolina primary because it will be most politically tactful to do so right after he has a big win.
On the liberty city democratic club: It all smells kind of fishy to me, I don't know if the rest of you have noticed, but LGBT organizations gather partners like plague. They're always lining up to support each other. How many partner organizations does this particular organization purportedly have? One - "LibertyPA" Linking through to libertypa.org is a placeholder/misleading adver-site. Smells like R* is at it again.
Maybe Hilary will too? Hrmm..
http://goatse.cx
Liberty City Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club was founded in the Fall of 1994 by activists who wanted to build lesbian and gay power and involvement in the Democratic Party.
The following goals of Liberty City remain the primary objectives of the organization.
Register, educate and mobilize lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) voters
*THIS IS WHAT I THINK THE JOKE IS:*
Elect openly LGBT candidates for public and party office
Support LGBT-friendly candidates and work to oust anti-gay office holders
Promote legislative issues of importance to the LGBT community
Provide a forum LGBT voters to meet candidates and officeholders