I didn't get a chance to write about this last week, but as we continue to hear complaining about the fact that Michigan isn't having another vote, it's important.
There was just something incredibly unseemly about a group of Clinton supporters offering to raise the money for the Michigan primary re-vote. It literally reeked of trying to buy an election ("Dear Michigan, your vote finally counts because Hillary paid for your election"). I mean, seriously, that sounded like something you'd expect in a third-world dictatorship, not the United States. So for all of Clinton's feigned outrage over no progress in Michigan, the fault lies with her and her wealthy backers:
Michigan officials bear considerable responsibility for the mess they have helped to create, and a revote is one way out, though that looks increasingly unlikely given the political stalemate. But Rendell and Corzine took matters into their own hands without thinking through the consequences. Their letter to Granholm creates the impression that a Michigan do-over would be Clinton-financed contest designed to save her candidacy.
The integrity of the Democratic nomination contest already is in question -- remember, they are supposedly still counting votes in the Texas caucuses that were held on March 4 -- and this only adds to public cynicism.
It does look like Clinton's big dollar funders were going to buy the re-vote. It just looks that way. You have to admit, when Clinton's supporters look like they're trying to buy a new election for her, it really does diminish all that moral outrage she's been spewing about holding fair elections.
(John Edwards, are you paying attention? This kind of profligate spending by monied special interests is exactly the kind of thing you railed about during your campaign.)
