Clinton plans to beg, borrow, and steal the delegates she needs

UPDATED

Some Democrats have been saying for years that the party needs its own Rove - some unprincipled thug willing to fight as dirty as they have to in order to win. I wonder if this is what they mean?

The Politico's Roger Simon reports that if Hillary Clinton can't win enough delegates - pledged, primary election delegates - to win the Democratic nomination, she will try to convince Obama's delegates to switch sides.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.

What? Isn’t that impossible? A pledged delegate is pledged to a particular candidate and cannot switch, right?

Wrong.

[...]

“I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates,” a senior Clinton official told me Monday afternoon. “All the rules will be going out the window.”

All the rules will be going out the window.

Nice.

At a certain point, this kind of naked ambition has to be off-putting enough for people to tell Hillary to take a hike. At least I hope so.

But be that as it may, we have to fix this system before the next election. With superdelegates able to vote any way they want, and pledged delegates being able to ignore the will of the voters in their states, how can anybody really say this is a government of, by and for the people?

This is no way to run a democracy.

UPDATE

A Clinton spokesman tells Marc Ambinder it just ain't so.

We have not, are not and will not pursue the pledged delegates of Barack Obama. It's now time for the Obama campaign to be clear about their intentions.

Why is it time for the Obama campaign to be clear? Obama's campaign wasn't quoted as saying it would go after Clinton's delegates - it was the other way around.

Pretty ham-handed attempt at redirecting the controversy.