Hillary Clinton stepped up her level of contempt for democracy on Friday night. 

In a speech to a crowd of more than 17,000 in Grand Forks, North Dakota's Alerus Center Arena, Clinton finally threw out any remaining pieces of the facade which was once strong enough to make the American People believe she cared about them.

Before anyone gets excited about the fact that there were 17,000 people attending a Clinton speech in Grand Forks, North Dakota, a town of little more than 50,000 people it bears mentioning that the gathering was the North Dakota Democratic State Convention; at which Barack Obama was previously scheduled to be the key-note speaker.  Clinton invited herself and attempted to ride Obama's coat tails.

She took the podium after Obama and for the first time during this campaign she openly and publicly attempted to convince pledged delegates to do what she has been privately pushing them towards doing since at least March 3^rd; switch their vote.

Say what you will about how anti-democratic the Superdelegates are in the Democrats' nominating process, but asking pledged delegates to switch sides is downright evil.  It reeks of arrogance and complete disregard for the will of the people. 

According to Clinton "There is no such thing as a pledged delegate, the whole point is for delegates, however they are chosen, to really ask themselves who would be the best president and who would be our best nominee against Senator [John] McCain. And I think that process goes all the way to the convention."

Clinton also reasoned that while pledged delegates are generally expected to follow the will of their state's voters, they are not legally bound to do so.

The implications of what Clinton is saying here are enormous.

In a state like North Dakota, with a small population and only13 pledged delegates at stake, a switch of just two of those delegates would completely overturn the will of the voters. 

With 61% of the vote in the North Dakota caucus on Super Tuesday, Barack Obama won 8 of the 13 pledged delegates in North Dakota.  In other words the score was Obama - 8, Clinton - 5.  If Clinton were able to talk just two of those delegates into switching the score would become Obama - 6, Clinton - 7 and the vote of the people of North Dakota on February 5 would mean nothing. 

Clinton's win-at-all-costs, bridge burning, scorched earth campaign is getting out of control.  Imagine if she was actually successful in pulling this off. 

Imagine if we woke up to a news story tomorrow morning that told us Clinton had succeeded in changing the delegate outcome in North Dakota.  Now imagine that for some odd reason Obama's pledged delegates nation-wide decided to follow suit. 

Of course the chances of this actually happening are worse than slim to none, but it is clearly what the desperate Clinton Campaign is aiming for.  Why else would they do it?

Again, what would happen if Clinton succeeded with this strategy?

What would we tell the millions of young Democratic voters who have not only registered, but who have already participated?  What would we tell the Iraqis, whom we have forced democracy down their throats "for their own good?"  What would we tell the rest of the world?

A Clinton victory under these circumstances would be a complete, utter disaster for The Democratic Party, for the United States of America and ironically, for Sen. Clinton herself, but she doesn't care, and neither does her campaign.

Mark Penn, Maggie Williams and Terry McAuliffe don't care.  They just care about being on the winning side, regardless of whom or what gets hurt in the process.

This shortsighted approach to politics is exactly why Terry McAuliffe is 0-for-2 in elections against the incompetent George W. Bush.

I am no longer surprised by what Hillary Clinton will say or do in order to get elected, but I am consistently amazed by her ability to reach new lows.  When I wrote a post titled "Clinton Team Shows Contempt for Democracy" at the end of last month I never imagined how gross of an understatement that would turn out to be.