I don’t belong to an organized political party; after all, I’m a Democrat. Case in point: Florida. A state that should be tilting strongly toward my party in 2008 is somewhat up in the air because the Democrats have decided to follow through on a decision concerning a situation over which they have no control. Donna Brazile sounds the biggest kind of fool when she says, “This is about a process we’re trying to keep some control over.” The fact is DNC never had control over the process, and the rule-making committee.
Fearing likely attempts by big states like Michigan and Florida to disrupt the parties’ primary calendars with early dates in 2008, Republicans and Democrats ruled at their 2004 conventions that states trying to butt in before Iowa and New Hampshire would lose half their delegates. The Republicans left it there. The Democrats decided to try and fix things. The Democratic National Committee’s rules committee was tasked with bringing order to the chaotic primaries. Twelve states applied for two additional early primary slots, which were awarded earlier this year to South Carolina and Nevada. Democrats in other states could not vote before February 5.
That created a sticky situation for Florida Democrats when, to nobody’s surprise, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law in May scheduling the state’s primary for January 29. (In most states, primary dates are set by the parties.) The primary date was wrapped up in a bill mandating a paper trail for the 2008 election–a popular measure the minority Democrats could not afford to oppose. Besides, the loss of delegates was largely a toothless penalty, since according to precedent the Democrats’ eventual presidential nominee controls the seating of delegates–and surely wouldn’t alienate folks from the nation’s largest swing state by turning them away.
But the DNC did not leave it there. In August the rules committee voted to strip all the state’s delegates unless Florida came up with an alternative to the January 29 voting. “I understand Florida’s dilemma,” DNC rules committee member Donna Brazile told me later. “But this is not about states’ rights; this is about a process we’re trying to keep some control over.” Two weeks after the DNC vote, Democratic chairs in the “First Four” primary states jacked up the ante with their notorious “four-state pledge” demanding the candidates focus exclusively on them. The signees–including John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton–agreed to do no campaigning in Florida or any other state that might try to jump the gun. And under party rules, “campaigning” means just about everything: e-mail messages; calls to voters; TV, radio or newspaper ads; rallies; hiring campaign workers; holding press conferences. The only thing Democrats are allowed to do in Florida–where folks have been complaining for years, with some justification, about being used as an ATM for the party–is fundraise.
–Mb
afertig says
I’m sorry but moving up Florida’s primary is only to give it even more influence in the process. The only reason other states move up their primaries is because by the time their elections are held, the winner has already been decided based on momentum of the early states.
<
p>But Florida already has a lot of influence on elections. Besides being a huge state with a ridiculously high population/delegate count, it’s a swing state with a good amount of influence in the general election as well. (Hmm..I’m trying to think of an election that may have hinged on Florida in recent years…)
<
p>And it has a negative effect: as Florida moves up its primary, other states are pressured to move up their primaries as well. The result? Iowa and New Hampshire, wanting to continue to have the influence they do, move up their election dates. So now, Iowa is on January 3rd–essentially as close to 2007 as possible. NH is not to far after. Meaning that we’ll essentially know our nominees by the beginning of 2008, further elongating the “permanent campaign.” Now, I’m a firm believer that there has always been such a thing as the permanent campaign, but it’s just not been as heavily covered. But there is a decreasing amount of time to actually govern in part because of this compressed schedule. More, it increases the effect of Iowa because the bounce that the winner receives doesn’t have as long to taper off, or at least doesn’t give that much time to other candidates to recover. That, too, I believe is a bad thing.
<
p>The DNC made a rule: move your primary before a certain date, and you lose your delegates. And please, could you show me any evidence that Florida Democrats made a good faith effort to keep with the DNC rules, but Republicans simply overrode them?
<
p>I can understand small states or non-swing states wanting to move up their primaries — they have less influence than other states and few campaigns pay real attention to them. Take Maryland, for instance — exactly why would a campaign focus on the needs of that state? It’s probably gonna go Democratic in the general election and it’s primary isn’t even close to first. But Florida? Cry me a river.
yellow-dog says
I agree with you on Florida’s influence, and I agree that moving up the primary sucks. I don’t know what you count as evidence, but I’ve quoted from The Nation (the link is in my post).
<
p>Q: And please, could you show me any evidence that Florida Democrats made a good faith effort to keep with the DNC rules, but Republicans simply overrode them?
<
p>A: Here’s The Nation:
<
p>Mark
afertig says
And that’s what I was responding to.
I haven’t heard any reports that Democrats actually tried to get it out of the legislation, and most Florida Democrats I’ve talked to are happy that they’re moving the primary up because they think that will give them more influence. I don’t think the Dems down there tried very hard to change that legislation at all. In fact, as Sabutai pointed out, ALL the Democrats voted for that legislation. They knew the rules, they voted for the legislation, they’ve got to take the punishment. The DNC needs to do these kinds of actions, fumbling though they seem, to send a strong message that we can’t continue this arms race of moving up the primary dates. It’s insane.
yellow-dog says
And if they had voted against the measure and lost and looked bad for voting against the other voting measures… and then the DNC punished them, that would be good how?
<
p>You give the DNC more authority than they deserve.
<
p>Mark
trickle-up says
This practice probably is not super smart. (But hey, how do you enforce the “fairer process” that everyone says they prefer to the status quo?)
<
p>But please, wring me no hands about the 50-state strategy.
<
p>In November of 2008 the voters in Florida and elsewhere will make their choices based on many screwy things, but how the DNC tried to enforce its delegate-selection rules ten months earlier will not flap the wings of a single butterfly ballot.
mrstas says
I’m not sure stripping Florida of delegates is the best way to resolve the matter, but can we PLEASE stop pretending that it’s going to influence voters?
<
p>Convention delegates are arguably the most hardcore, committed Democrats you can find – is the argument that they won’t vote for the nominee? Because if delegates to the convention won’t vote for the Democratic Party’s nominee, we need new delegates!
<
p>Or is the argument that the critical swing voters we all covet will all of a sudden run from the Democratic party to the arms of the Republican party (which is going to strip Florida of half of its delegates)?
<
p>That second argument is entirely bogus. Swing voters DO NOT pay attention to internal party squabbles to decide how many chairs each state gets at the convention. We know that the nominee will of course be decided by convention time, so the presence of delegates is a formality. No swing voter will care about this issue.
bob-neer says
This is an idiotic move on the part of the DNC, which has demonstrated a repeated ability to fumble at the goal line. The arguments above suggest Florida should be the first primary, if anything … not the nothing primary.
sabutai says
The official line, even on the state committee’s official page about the primary is “dear me, those mean Republicans MADE us move the date! We didn’t want to!”
<
p>But…
<
p>The Florida House vote to change the date was unanimous, including all Democrats present. Then the state party sued the DNC. And from some of the state’s heavy-hitters, we hear:
<
p>”On Jan. 29, 2.5 million Floridians are going to go to the polls, and that’s more telling than any caucus in Iowa. We’ll be damned for it by some, but I think we’re doing the right thing.” — Miami-Dade County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Garcia.
<
p>”I’m not concerned with the DNC,” –Broward County state committeewoman Diane Glasser, who also serves as state party first chair
<
p>source
alexwill says
The Florida legislature screwed both their parties: neither one will fully count. Perhaps the DNC should have given Florida more latitude than the Michigan Dems who were just intentionally screwing with the process, but it’s hard to see what to do. Could they make it an event to pick delegates to a state convention that will pick delegates to the national convention?
<
p>Anyway, they could have done a lot more earlier to fix the primary date situation, instead of acting surprised now.
peter-porcupine says
..this is worth looking at.
<
p>http://www.nass.org/index.php?…
<
p>BTW – NASS doesn’t seem to think that the parties control the primary date, even if The Nation does.
yellow-dog says
think the parties have control over the process. It’s the legislature.
<
p>Mark
peter-porcupine says
<
p>I agree, Mark – Secs. of State and Legislatures control primary dates more than parties – unless they are thinking of caucuses?
raj says
The fact is DNC never had control over the process
<
p>is correct. The National Conventions have control over whether to seat a delegation, and if there are competing delegations, which delegation to seat. That was clear from at least the 1960s, when there were competing delegations from several Southern states.
<
p>FL can hold a primary election whenever it wants, but that doesn’t mean that the National Convention is required to seat the winning delegation. As far as I can tell, the state party can elect to select another slate of delegates whenever it wants, and it will be up to National Convention to determine which slate to seat.