Reply #5: It's not within the purview of a presidential candidate to interpret [View All]

the rules of a Presidential election, or a primary leading thereto. Just as the Supreme Court intervention into the 2000 election controversy was a political intervention, not a legally-justifiable one, (read Justice Stevens' dissent on that), it is, when a candidate anoints him or herself to interpret the rules, that's a political intervention, not a Constitutional remedy. It's obvious to all who are not interested in the Constitution, however, that no one can justify this obvious conflict of interest in Hillary Clinton interpreting the law as to whether Florida votes should be counted of rejected.

Her speech in Florida was outrageous. Her comparison between this situation and the Florida 2000 recount debacle was laughable on its face. Egregiously missing in her statement "count every vote," referencing the Florida Supreme Court opinion in that situation, was beyond appalling.

Counting every legitimate vote was the issue, not every vote. Counting literally every vote can be construed as condoning ballot box stuffing ...

The Constitution of the United States delegates the authority to conduct elections to the individual states. The State Legislatures outline the rules of those elections in order to elect a Slate of Electors to be counted as representative of the vote of that state. These laws enacted by the State Legislatures are embedded in each State constitution, and can only be changed by amendment by that Legislature, not declaration of a candidate running for President. It's mind-boggling that Hillary would interject herself in this process for the benefit of overtaking an opponent in the primary process.

Someone from the Obama camp needs to address the legality of these issues in a way that's acceptable to the voting public. Hillary's remarks needed to be rejected unequivocally as inappropriate and self-serving. Just as the Senate has the authority to reject a Slate of Electors from a particular state when Constitution violations occur, the Democratic National Committee, under the auspices of which these state primaries were run and to which the state politicians are willing members, has the authority to reject those votes which were illegally registered. By violating the rules, the state politicians of Florida rendered the votes registered during the primary as illegitimate. Punishing Hillary's opponent in this election for that irregularity is no more fair than the Supreme Court negating the votes of 51 million people through the United States in 2000 in order to avoid giving a "disproportionate amount of weight" to those votes counted in a recount over the votes of those whose votes were counted in the first round. Yes, that's a convoluted argument, but I didn't make it, Rehnquist, Scalia, et al,, did, and I am just revisiting it.

In making the speech this morning in Florida that Hillary made, she in essence appointed herself to act as the ruling body on this issue, interpreting the law as she saw fit, much in the same role as the Supreme Court allowed itself to play in 2000. Unbelievable.

I could not help but wonder if Al Gore was doing a slow burn as he heard Hillary the candidate this morning interpreting the election laws to suit her own candidacy. But as someone whose vote for Al Gore was negated by the Supreme Court in 2000 because of election irregularities in the State of Florida, I KNEW I WAS AFIRE WITH FURY listening to Hillary compare the two situations.

I POSTED THIS EARLIER IN ANOTHER THREAD, BUT WANTED TO REPEAT MY POINTS HERE SINCE I TOO REFERENCED AL GORE. I hope you do not mind.

Sam