The Ghost of 2000 Will Haunt Obama [Reader Post]

So the Democrats have chosen their nominee.

He didn’t win the popular vote.

She has earned more votes than anyone in the history of the Democratic primaries-more than 17 million. And when the primaries conclude on Tuesday, Hillary will maintain her popular vote advantage.

They did not count all the votes.

To jeers and boos that showcased deep party divisions, Democratic Party officials agreed Saturday to seat delegates from the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries at the party’s convention in August but give them only half a vote each, dealing a setback to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The decision by party bosses was made in a smokey back room.

The agreement, reached by the rules committee of the Democratic National Committee behind closed doors and voted on publicly before a raucous audience of supporters of the two candidates, would give Mrs. Clinton a net gain of 24 delegates over Senator Barack Obama. But this fell far short of her hopes of winning the full votes of both delegations and moved the nomination further out of her reach.

Of course, Obama is an illegitimate nominee. We know this because on January 4, 2001, we read an article entitled Black Leaders Slam ‘Illegitimate’ Bush Presidency.

A group of prominent African-Americans has challenged the electoral victory of Republican President-elect George W. Bush after a ballot exercise marked by numerous charges of selective disenfranchisement of black voters.

Denouncing what they described as ”massive voting irregularities” in the November polls, eight prominent black leaders have vowed to aggressively contest two of Bush’s cabinet nominations, to protest his inauguration on Jan. 20, and to pursue comprehensive electoral reform in the courts and in Congress.

A ”national emergency summit” was announced for Thursday at Howard University in Washington, which will involve the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, the Nation of Islam, the National Urban League, and other leading African American groups. [snip]

In Florida, nearly 10,000 ballots cast by heavily Democratic- leaning black voters were disqualified. These spoiled ballots had a crucial impact on the election since Bush won Florida by a mere 537 votes, and winning Florida gave him the presidency under the electoral college system, even though he lost the popular vote.

Hmmm. Florida votes were not all counted, people were disenfrachised, and it cost the other candidate the election even though he won the popular vote. Heh.

So Obama was selected, not elected. Dems love this line. Here is Hillary in October 2002, two years after Al Gore lost.

We’ve heard from Hillary Clinton again. There she was, just last week – the fundamentally dishonest junior senator from New York, telling a bunch of her Hollywood pals that President Bush merely had been “selected” president, not elected.

Well, we know Hillary has a long memory for this kind of thing. Now she can save a little cash on speech writers and just dust off that old line for Obama. And this time it will be true.

More from Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room