RUSH: This is Fast Eddie Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, going up against the Puffster, Tom Daschle. This is yesterday on Meet the Press. Russert said, ‘Fast Eddie, if in fact Barack Obama goes to the convention in Colorado in August with the most elected delegates, having won more contests and a higher popular vote, the cumulative vote, could he be denied the nomination?’
RENDELL: Well, sure, Tim, because number one, Hillary Clinton has won states with about 260 electoral votes, Barack Obama has won states with about 190. And we decide the presidency not by a popular vote, we decide it by the electoral vote, and the traditional role of the superdelegates is to determine who’s going to be our strongest candidate.
RUSH: Whoa! Did you hear Fast Eddie there? You hear Fast Eddie? Fast Eddie said screw all these primaries, doesn’t matter, screw the delegates, it’s the superdelegates that count. This is where Sharpton says he’s going to march, by the way, if the superdelegates don’t give it to Obama, because Fast Eddie is saying she’s won 260 electoral votes, she’s won in states that she carried, she won 260 electoral votes. I guarantee you that’s never been an official criteria of the Democrat National Convention or the party as to who gets the party’s nomination. Now, the superdelegates, you know, may have thought that way in the past and so forth, but doesn’t appear so. But about these superdelegates, let’s talk about rules here. Do you know what the purpose of the superdelegates is? Honest to God, folks, the purpose of the superdelegates is rooted in the Democrat Party’s and liberals’ total lack of trust in average people to vote right. So the superdelegates are there to make sure that the party gets what it wants regardless what the voters do. Now all of a sudden there’s pressure on the superdelegates. The superdelegates I think date to 1980. I think they date to 1980, after Ted Kennedy. I have to look it up, but I’m pretty sure my memory is accurate on this. At any rate, so now all of a sudden there’s pressure on the superdelegates to go along with the rest of the voters, the pledged delegates.
Now I have to ask a question as a man of integrity and character. If the superdelegates, by definition, can vote however they want, which they can, then why all this Nazi-like pressure to make ’em vote in a uniform way? What’s the purpose of having superdelegates if at nut-cracking time it’s not going to be superdelegates doing what they want, but they gotta follow some formula that somebody puts out there? So why have them? It seems to me the superdelegates should be able to vote independently, however they want, for whatever outcome they want, which candidate will pay ’em the most — that’s happening, by the way. The superdelegates are being paid by both Obama and Clinton campaigns. They are! I know for people of integrity and character, it’s hard to believe that such things would happen in America, but it is happening. Okay, so here’s Fast Eddie. Fast Eddie says, ah, screw everything else, she’s got states here with 260 electoral votes so far. Russert said, ‘Well, would you accept the caucus in Michigan, Fast Eddie?’
RENDELL: No. Caucuses are undemocratic. That’s another thing. We talk about superdelegates being undemocratic. If you’re a caucus, older people can’t vote, older people who vote by absentee ballot. There’s no absentee ballots in a caucus. Tim, if you’re a shift worker, and a lot of our workers, because they’re low income workers, are shift workers, you can’t vote in a caucus. So we want primaries; that’s the way we elect presidents. We don’t have caucuses to elect presidents in the fall. Let’s have a primary, let’s decide this, let’s hear from the Obama campaign about a revote in Florida and Michigan.
RUSH: Do you understand, folks, what’s happening here? The first in the nation Democrat vote is a caucus, and Fast Eddie is just saying those are irrelevant — this is chaos. We have got Democrats beating up on Democrats, Democrats beating up on their traditions. He has just said no, to hell with caucuses. Caucuses are not Democratic, especially because that’s where Obama does best. He does best in caucuses. By the way, Fast Eddie, I really love his fealty here to the Electoral College, because his candidate, Hillary Clinton, has often said we need to abolish it, after Florida 2000, remember? And after Florida 2000 they got all bent out of shape, popular vote, popular vote, popular vote, we’ve been screwed by the Electoral College. Then John Kerry 2004, why, he lost the popular vote by four million votes, but he said, ‘If I could have just found a way to get 55,000 votes in Ohio, I could be president.’ Well, that would mean using the Electoral College, Senator Kerry. See, folks, they’re going to do whatever they think they have to do to win. I’m not advocating that what they do is right or ethical. But you don’t sit there and fight this with one arm tied behind your back, and you don’t have to be unethical to beat them. I’m not suggesting anybody has done or should do anything unethical. Now, here, Puff Daschle, who is Obama’s guy, has had to sit here on Meet the Press and listen to some of this most outrageous BS from Fast Eddie. So Russert says, ‘Senator Daschle, a proposal from the Clinton campaign to have new primaries in Florida and Michigan paid for by private donors.’
DASCHLE: Well, first of all, Tim, I think it will come as a real shock to Iowa and to Nevada and to many other states that they don’t have a democratic process. I think that it’s very democratic, and we saw yesterday in Wyoming, we had a lot of seniors and older people participate, people from all walks, they were participating in unprecedented numbers. So I don’t concede that point at all.
RENDELL: What about shift workers, Tom? What about shift workers, people who can’t get out of their homes?
DASCHLE: No, I think —
RENDELL: What about people that can’t get out of their homes?
DASCHLE: We’ll accommodate that.
RUSH: Daschle just said in his mild-mannered way, ‘Well, Tim, first of all, I think it would come as a real shock to people in Iowa and Nevada that they’re undemocratic.’ The first time Daschle starts scoring a point old Fast Eddie is in there, ‘What about the shift workers?’ (laughing) Okay, one more from the Puffster. Tim Russert says, ‘Senator Daschle, would Senator Obama be willing to be vice president?’
DASCHLE: Well, Tim, it’s really a rare occurrence, maybe the first time in history that the person who’s running number two would offer the person who’s running number one the number two position. What Barack has said is that’s way premature. He doesn’t have any interest in being vice president. Look, Hillary Clinton was a great first lady. But it would be hard for me to draw some degree of connection between being a first lady and having experience to be the commander-in-chief. I don’t think anyone can look at her experience as first lady and say for some reason that qualifies her to run for president of the United States.
RUSH: Whoa! Folks, this is delicious, delectable. Now you’ve got Puff Daschle, the Senate majority leader for a period of time when Hillary was in the Senate saying her experience as first lady counts for diddly-squat when it comes to being commander-in-chief! Then this business of ‘First time, Tim, in history I can remember a number two offering the person who is running number one the number two position.’ Tom, it’s the Clintons. You know them, you knew this sort of stuff. It was fine and dandy when they were screwing us, but now that they’re trying to toy around with you guys, why, this is just horrible. And those of us, the screwees of the nineties — (laughing) — we love this.