Okay people. Some interesting things are making a stir at Gore-related sites today.

[lildreamer316]

However, I warn you they may seem like grasping at straws. I saw this mentioned as significant on more than one site, so I'm posting about it. Make of it what you will.

Seems Dean was on Meet The Press today. Here's a DUer's summary of what he said. I also saw a basically same summary at another site. If you want me to dig for exact quotes and vid, I can; let me know.

Thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=5703786

Summary:
"Sounds like Dean is changing his tune ..Now he is saying that the Super D's don't have to consider the elected delegates. They will consider who is most electable. Sounds like Hillary's argument to me. He did dismiss the idea of popular vote. He did add that as long as he has been going to conventions that the super delegates have not voted against what the elected delegates said. However, Tim asked him several times over and over again if the Super D's could basically overlook who had the most support (meaning elected,popular votes,etc) and he said yes. He was also asked did he think there would be damage if they took it away from the person with most pledged delegates and Dean said we should not look at it like that. He said the rules say the most delegates."

at the other site, the comment was: "Meet the Press ... Dean. He said that Super Delegates are no different than Delegates and if they nominate the candidate without the popular vote is fair and just."

So it seems that Dean is possibly starting to make the case for the supers voting for who they think is best, etc. It seems to have pricked up some ears,anyway. I'll be watching the blogs for further mention. Right now many are taking it as a way of shooing Hillary in the door, but I don't think they are seeing the big picture.

ANYway, the other thing that happened today was on Stephanopoulos's show. Donna Brazile was on. According to the watcher comment:
"
Did anyone catch {him}asking Donna Brazile in a roundtable discussion about the Gore scenario?
She avoided the question directly, but she did say about how the popular vote is important, but the Super Delegates want to win (or something like that)."

So someone else replied with a link to the video. The relevant part is around the 10.30 minute mark.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4734533

This person thought that if you watch the entire segment, Donna is actually making arguments in favor of Gore throughout the whole thing, but without actually mentioning his name.

So, I offer these extremely small tidbits for your chewing pleasure. Make of them what you will, or nothing at all, but I thought they might be worth a note.

[rodbailey]

1. Just watched the clip

(and thank you lildreamer for the link). George's question was along the lines, "Is there just a little chance that someone like Gore could come in and heal the divisions and be a compromise candidate. I hear that mentioned sometimes." (That's not an exact quote at all, but sort of close). Brazile was a bit evasive in her answer, but did say the the Supers wanted to win. I don't know whether I'd go so far as to say Brazile was making the Gore argument throughout, but clearly she and other supers she talks to are conflicted about how things are developing.

For me, I found it encouraging that a MSM person like Stephanopolus (remember, he was in the Clinton WH) would be the one to bring Gore's name into the conversation.

[Andrea]

2. Thanks for bringing this together

I didn't have time to watch the Sunday morning shows yesterday (they are on my DVR waiting for me) because I'm busy working on our web site, but I did see the headlines about Dean on MTP. I did think that he was continuing to toe the regular line (SDs should decide by June), but at the same time acknowledging that the job of the SDs is to pick someone electable. I also think that it shows that Dean knows full well what the process is, what the rules are and what the point is, as I have said all along. If he starts to acknowledge these things in the media, he could be laying the ground work for something like that "Denver Plan" you mentioned the other day. It's good to hear that Brazille is talking that way, too. (Although, if we do end up with a Gore nom, I hope he chooses someone else as campaign manager this time. Then again, maybe her skills have improved.) As Rod said, it's also good to hear George S. bringing it up. The longer this thing goes on, the more people will bring up Gore, I'm sure.

Speaking of the Denver Plan, I have been all over trying to find anything about that. The only mentions I can find are on various message boards that refer back to the same post on dKos that you found for us. I wish I knew where that came from. There was one thread on here last week, started by OrangeRevolution, about it. S/He did not refer to the dKos posting, but said he had been hearing it locally from people in both campaigns. I contacted him/her to ask what locality it was and it's northern Georgia. If anyone has anything else on this, I'd love to hear it.

[Pastiche423]

3. An important aside -

"(Although, if we do end up with a Gore nom, I hope he chooses someone else as campaign manager this time. Then again, maybe her skills have improved.)"

Let us not forget that Donna Brazille has been a luncheon date w/Karl Rove on many occasions.

[lildreamer316]

4. Well, I guess nevermind.

I'm confused.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24350198

Dean: Clinton or Obama must drop out by June
DNC chair says once voters have had say, move must be made to unify party

updated 8:51 a.m. ET, Mon., April. 28, 2008

WASHINGTON - Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Monday that either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama must drop out of the Democratic presidential race after the June primaries in order to unify the party by the convention and win the election in November.

But Dean didn't say which candidate should drop out, only that it should happen after primary voters have been to the polls.

"We want the voters to have their say. That's over on June 3," Dean said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Dean also said that while the party rules say Democratic superdelegates can wait until the party's Aug. 25 convention to make up their minds, that would be too late to unify the party and defeat the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain.

"We really can't have a divided convention. If we do it's going to be very hard to heal the party afterwards," Dean said. "So we'll know who the nominee is and that'll give us an extra 2 1/2 months to get our party together, heal the wounds of having a very closely divided race and take on Senator McCain."

...more.


Guess I was really grasping at straws.

[rodbailey]

5. But, realistically,

can you see Hillary dropping out after June 3, unless she loses every primary left? She will probably take IN by a little (3-5% is my guess), lose NC; win KY and WV; lose OR and MT; win PR. I think I've left a couple out. She'll be down by maybe 100 in pledged delegates; still arguing that if you count the popular votes in MI and FL then she is ahead in popular vote. There will probably be at least 200 still uncommitted super delegates, so neither one will have the delegate count to win as of June 3 when the primaries are over. If Dean and others can pressure all the supers to declare by the end of June (which is the other thing he has been saying should happen) then, if the majority of them went to Obama, he would probably have enough votes to win on the first ballot. On the other hand, there are the John Edwards delegates (20 some, I think) who he has not released; and there may be enough super delegates who don't want to declare by Dean's deadline which will keep this thing going.

In the meantime, of course, our effort will be flooding the super delegates with letters telling them to sit out the first ballot and then draft Gore on the second ballot. KEEP THE FAITH!!