Hillary: Lying, Cheating, Stealing

Remember the neighborhood kid who always bossed everybody around, loudly demanding that everybody obey the rules, only to go behind your back and cheat to get ahead?

Well, she's all grown up now and she's running for president. But she knows she can't draw enough real votes to win if she plays by the rules, so she's cheating.

No, I'm not talking about New Hampshire ballots; I'm talking about Michigan primary delegates. Hillary is stealing them.

156 delegates is more than Hillary has acquired from actual voters so far. And it's 156 more than she actually earned in Michigan.

Last year, the Democratic National Committee, in a desperate effort to prevent states from moving their primaries back before Halloween, dropped a sanctions anvil on Michigan and Florida.

For the crime of moving their primaries ahead of Stupid Tuesday (h/t, salon commenter "sforme"), the DNC stripped both states of all their delegates. Go ahead, hold your primaries whenever you want, the DNC said; come the convention, your count will be zero.

All the Democratic presidential candidates went along, agreeing not to campaign or compete in either state. John Edwards and Barack Obama went so far as to have their names removed from the Michigan ballot.

Hillary did not. When Michigan democrats voted on January 15, the only names on the ballot were Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich. Hillary took 55 percent of the votes. Which is actually pretty pathetic, considering that "uncomitted" got 40 percent.

But it doesn't matter because those delegates don't count, right?

Today, Hillary announced that she will demand the DNC seat Michigan's and Florida's delegates. Delegates that only she - in violation of DNC rules - competed for. Delegates that her underhanded manuevering kept away from Obama and Edwards. Delegates she lied, cheated and stole to get.

She also admonished Edwards and Obama to keep their promise not to campaign in Florida, whose primary is next Tuesday. Convenient for her, that they should not have a chance to counter her blatant delegate-pander to Florida voters.

Playing hardball with your competition is fine, but playing the voters for chumps is likely to backfire.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.