Oh the Humanity! The issue of seating the Florida/Michigan delegates at the Democratic Party national Convention in August has reared its ugly head yet again. Senator Clinton is beating the conspiracy theory drum- boom boom you guys are just trying to cheat me of my victory. The reality is considerably more complex than that.
Back in the day, The Democratic National Committee was trying to exercise a little control over the structure of the primary season. They issued a warning that none of the states were permitted to move their primary dates up front of a certain date, and that any state doing so would face the mess of not being represented at the Convention. Michigan and Florida, for some reason, chose to ignore the warning. Obama chose to honor the wishes of the DNC and refused to campaign in either state. Clinton now wants to portray this as a plot to disenfranchise the voters of the two states. Not so. When you flout the rules, the results are invalid. It's as simple as that.
The root cause of this mess is the essential concept of Presidential elections in our nation. It is not what it should be, a national election wherein the candidate who wins the popular vote gets the White House door key. No, it is a winner take all contest on a state by state basis. We already saw one of the problems that results from this structure back in 2000, when the winner of the popular election failed to win the electoral college vote. Here is another problem- state political parties jockeying for political influence by playing games with the schedule of primary elections, then whining about unfairness when their national political party calls their bluff and slaps them.
It puts both candidates in a confused mess. Clinton perceives it as one of the few remaining "straws" she can grasp in her effort to avoid defeat in her bid to gain the nomination. It's probably not enough of a straw to do the job, but try telling her that. Some have accused her of willingness to say or do anything that will get her that nomination. Untrue, she has not killed anyone yet. Obama, on the other hand, is being put into a situation nearly as bad. He is only around 60 delegates shy of the nomination as things stand, so naturally he is tempted to play tough and fight to keep the Florida and Michigan delegations out of the convention. On the other hand, he needs to win those states in the general election in November- and that becomes less likely if you deliver a slap to the voters of the states in question by running a risk of being perceived as hostile to them. He is therefore being forced to walk a tightrope over a tank of hungry sharks on this one.
Why did Michigan and Florida lack the common sense to avoid creating this situation? The Dems do have an amazing ability to shoot themselves in the foot. The Republicans on the other hand (except for an occasional yammer from the Limbaugh coterie about staying home if the candidate selected fails to pass certain political litmus tests) pretty much seem to march in lockstep and fall into line and swallow their pride and yank the voting both lever for the nominee. At a certain point there is something to be said for that. It has kept them in the White House for 20 of the past 28 years.
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Comments: 21
Everyone gripes about the electoral college claiming the popular vote is the way to go. If that were the case, unless you live in a major metropolitan area, you might as well stay home on election day.
As far as Fla and Mich, what a mess. Why hasn't Jimmy Carter weighed in on this? Isn't he the worlds election monitor?
While I respect Hillary, I think she is being selfish and hypocritical with her call to seat these delegates. What message does it send to the world when you agree to a certain set of rules at the beginning of the contest, and then try to change the rules when it is in your favor to do so? Isn't that what we have dealt with for the last eight years? We've been suffering under a president that thinks all the treaties and agreements the U.S. has signed over the past century do not apply to him. Now she wants to continue along the same vein?
However, they (DNC/Dean) sure made themselves look really bad, the voters pay the price with no voice; embarrassing actually looking back....
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"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively.
"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."
He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.
"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.
"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."
We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.
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Only when it does not work in their favor
Both states entered a calculated risk for two reasons. First was to gain a share of the influx of money, spent by the campaigns and the news media, that comes with being an early primary state. The second was to gain influence by voting before Super Tuesday, a day most thought the race would be over.
While Floridians have something of a gripe since the decision was made by a republican state government, Michigan has only itself to blame . The democratic governer could have vetoed the legislation that moved the primary date and avoided the mess altogether. My bet is that if elegible, she gets re-elected.
Hillary needs to be reigned in before she irreparably fractures the democratic coalition. Trading off fickle white, blue collar Reagan Democrats for historically loyal black vote is a losing proposition and just plain dumb. Half of the Reagan Democrats will go over to McCain no matter who is the nominee and if HC wins using the tactics she is pushing at the moment, the black vote stays home. Swing states to McCain, game set and match!
It tells to the other world leaders that as VP or worse, president, her words don't mean a thing. Can you imagine her, telling to a foreign leader "you have my word?" They will tell her what she can do with her words. I've tried to like the lady, I can't. Yesterday turned my back to my hostility zone towards her when she compared us to Zimbabwe.
Here is what Floridians were saying:
"On January 29th, 2008, Florida Democrats will go to the polls and express their preference for the Democratic Presidential Nominee. We will do this before most of the other states have done so. After our votes are counted, and they will be counted, the rest of the country will hear and will be influenced by the Florida results.
That is exactly the goal all Floridians have had in mind when the whole discussion of moving the primary date up began. Floridians were sick and tired of having our nominees selected by small, non diverse states. We were getting stuck with candidates whose plan to win in the South was to win New Hampshire. My apologies to my friends in Massachusetts, but Democrats lost two presidential elections we might have won because these small non diverse states picked nominees who could not win in Florida. Now Floridians are going to have a real voice in who our Party's nominee is going to be."
They were in it. I did not bother to go vote and I think it should not count. I did not vote, the party told me I should not and many others did not vote. Why should we count the votes of the 1.5 million when 2.5 probably would have voted? What about those 1 million? Aren't disenfranchising them by counting only the votes of the other group, mostly Hillary supporters?
Well the party is not to blame for this fiasco. BOTH parties had rules on this and the GOP choose to ignore, waive or otherwise disregard their own rule as to this date thing when those two states moved their elections up. The states decide when they will hold their primary elections. I haven't checked into Michigan but I did research Florida - It became a prime objective of their state speaker of the house, or pres of the senate I dont recall, Last Fall to move the date up. It was then got it's final nudge by their governor. Yes these two are Republicans.
So what we have with Florida is a clear case of the state Republicans who were in charge of setting up the elections moved up the date to violate the DNC and GOP rules but the GOP, nudge, nudge, wink wink, decided to waive the rule and allow those states to count.
I personally think there should be stronger questioning of the people who sought to move up the date and why they did so, and why the GOP is , once again, not even following their own rules. Sadly so many GOP supporters don't care why they aren't following their own rules, lie cheat steal whatever it takes and then hold everyone else accountable but their ownselves.
Last I heard the DNC does intend to seat the delegates from that state but no final decision on if they will let them count their regular delegates.
The Republicans on the other hand (except for an occasional yammer from the Limbaugh coterie about staying home if the candidate selected fails to pass certain political litmus tests) pretty much seem to march in lockstep and fall into line and swallow their pride and yank the voting both lever for the nominee. At a certain point there is something to be said for that. It has kept them in the White House for 20 of the past 28 years.
Did you mean to say that for the majority of the last 20 to 28 years because the above statement as is is incorrect.
7 years of W (soon to be 8) but each day is like a day in Dante's 8th level of hell. - R
8 years of Clinton - D
so if you go back 15 years the Dems have the majority for a short while longer
Go back 20 and you add in 4 years of Bush - R and he was only elected on the tailcoats of Reagan who served 8 = 27 almost 28 years
That extra year if you care was a D- Jimmy Carter. So they have not held it for 20 to 28 years. Fuzzy math'll get you every time.
Of course if one goes back and includes Carter then the score is only 20 to 12 in favor of the Republicans. But then again if one goes back into Nixon/Ford, you get the total of 28 years for Republicans, and only 12 years for Dems.