It is with a large sense of schadenfraude that I learn of the amusingly ironic fact that despite winning the popular vote, Hillary Clinton lost the Democrat Presidential nomination to Barack Obama - despite the party employing a proportional representation system to avoid such an eventuality.
Frustratingly, the media don't seem to be particularly animated about the fact that Obama is the nominee, despite losing the popular vote. Back in 2000, the popular vote was deemed sacrosanct, indeed it was considered more important that the rule of law. The U.S. Constitution and over two hundred years of federalism was declared to be irrelevent and out-dated, the popular will of the American people should decide who is the President.
Perhaps I am too cynical (a distinct, though in my opinion unlikely, possibility) in suggesting that the reasons for this lay in the respective positions of the media's overwhelmingly preferred candidate (Gore in 2000 and Obama in 2008). In 2000, it was Gore who was the unfortunate, "rightful" winner of the contest, the victim of a conservative, Republican inspired conspiracy involving the Supreme Court "picking" the President; this all in spite of the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court simply upheld the law, which liberals on the Florida Supreme Court had decided to ignore to allow their candidate more time and more recounts to try to drag Gore over the finishing line. Following the eventual acceptance and inauguration President Bush (43), there were calls from many on the political Left replace the electoral system in favour of a more democratic and European style politics, based around proportional representation overturning centuries of tradition, states-rights, federalism and the foundation of the American republic - the defining characteristics of U.S. government and society.
Contrast this to the present day, in 2008 the popular vote has subsequently and mysteriously transformed from the be-all-and-end-all, the requirement of "true" democracy to an irrelevant, procedural trifle that is barely worth considering; all of this, because the "right" candidate won. This instance, as well as the debacle over Michigan and Florida out of which Mrs Clinton herself hardly comes smelling of roses, proves the mentality of the Left, that the ends truly justify the means. When you accept that your ends are more important that the means you use to get there, you quickly become quite unscrupulous, willing to do almost anything to win, sacrificing truth and ethics at the altar of victory.
Throughout this whole fiasco, the primacy of power, not principle, resounds.
Frustratingly, the media don't seem to be particularly animated about the fact that Obama is the nominee, despite losing the popular vote. Back in 2000, the popular vote was deemed sacrosanct, indeed it was considered more important that the rule of law. The U.S. Constitution and over two hundred years of federalism was declared to be irrelevent and out-dated, the popular will of the American people should decide who is the President.
Perhaps I am too cynical (a distinct, though in my opinion unlikely, possibility) in suggesting that the reasons for this lay in the respective positions of the media's overwhelmingly preferred candidate (Gore in 2000 and Obama in 2008). In 2000, it was Gore who was the unfortunate, "rightful" winner of the contest, the victim of a conservative, Republican inspired conspiracy involving the Supreme Court "picking" the President; this all in spite of the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court simply upheld the law, which liberals on the Florida Supreme Court had decided to ignore to allow their candidate more time and more recounts to try to drag Gore over the finishing line. Following the eventual acceptance and inauguration President Bush (43), there were calls from many on the political Left replace the electoral system in favour of a more democratic and European style politics, based around proportional representation overturning centuries of tradition, states-rights, federalism and the foundation of the American republic - the defining characteristics of U.S. government and society.
Contrast this to the present day, in 2008 the popular vote has subsequently and mysteriously transformed from the be-all-and-end-all, the requirement of "true" democracy to an irrelevant, procedural trifle that is barely worth considering; all of this, because the "right" candidate won. This instance, as well as the debacle over Michigan and Florida out of which Mrs Clinton herself hardly comes smelling of roses, proves the mentality of the Left, that the ends truly justify the means. When you accept that your ends are more important that the means you use to get there, you quickly become quite unscrupulous, willing to do almost anything to win, sacrificing truth and ethics at the altar of victory.
Throughout this whole fiasco, the primacy of power, not principle, resounds.
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