The powers that be in Florida have declared defeat.
After weeks of negotiations, the Florida Democratic Party said Monday it will not hold a second primary in the state….
“We researched every potential alternative process — from caucuses to county conventions to mail-in elections — but no plan could come anywhere close to being viable in Florida,” said state party chairwoman Karen Thurman in an e-mail sent to Florida Democrats late Monday afternoon.
Pathetic. There’s still hope in Michigan, where a June 3 redo remains in the works, though it’s not yet a done deal:
Democrats in Michigan moved closer to holding another contest on June 3. Legislative leaders reviewed a measure Monday that would set up a privately funded, state-administered do-over primary, The Associated Press learned.
Let’s hope the Michiganders can work it out. Meanwhile, Florida’s failure guarantees nasty, high-profile battles in front of obscure DNC committees stocked with folks who most likely aren’t used to (or up to) handling matters of this level of importance. Let’s start the betting pool now on just how well that’s going to go.
Oy. Could Florida once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?
I mean, just because we thought of it doesn’t make it a bad idea.
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p>When the two parties entered their joint suicide pact last year and said they would sanction any state that jumped before Fed. 5 – the GOP just stripped those states of half the delegates.
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p>Why wouldn’t that work in MI, FL and SC for you as well? The states get to participate, but not at the level they would ordinarily.
i mean here we have the dems trying to be more authoritarian than the republicans.
can they pull off delegate tough love? stay tuned for news at 11!*
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p>*on August 25, 2008.
but maybe not why we didn’t.
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p>The DNC made a decision on rules, and ought to stick with it. Perhaps they should have made a different decision, but changing the rules mid-game is problematic.
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p>Maybe the RNC change is working because you’ve got a nominee. What if Romney had taken FL, MI, WY, et al, and was currently neck and neck with McCain? Don’t you think he’d be arguing that half the delegates is unfair, that Michigan should have more delegates than Nevada, that Florida should have more delegates than Missouri? The 1/2 delegates rule just sits too much like the three fifths compromise of 1787.
…Florida and Michigan are like women before they got to vote. I mean hey, that was the rules.
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p>Seat the Florida delegation as is. No one campaigned, everyone was on the ballot. It looks like that is as equal as this is going to get with dropping the revote…… and then let Michigan re-vote.
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p>Disenfranchising both makes about as little sense today as the 3/5 compromise and disenfranchising half the population before the passage of the 19th amendment.
Women didn’t break any rules that resulted in their discrimination.
Black people didn’t break any rules that resulted in their discrimination.
FL & MI broke rules and are being given a chance to make amends. It’s their choice.
…that caused it.
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p>I don’t put the FL issue on the same par but a stupid rule is still a stupid rule. The hypocrisy inherent in its okay for Iowa and NH to go first because that’s the way it’s been speaks for itself (especially in light of 1787 and the 19th amendment). The Democrats National Committees (along with everyone connected who agreed with the decision) failure to understand that is the problem. (Or just another example of how dysfunctional electing anyone is or conducting Government in the US has become.
The Democrats are not electing a politician. They are selecting the candidate that they will support for an election.
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p>Furthermore, is it hypocritical that Hawaii has to vote last on every single POTUS election? After all, they’re six hours west… sure, it’s the same calendar date, but why do East Coast states get to vote first every single election?!
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p>I don’t like that IA and NH always go first. However, it is perfectly appropriate for the 50+ contests to occur at different times, and it’s perfectly appropriate for the DNC to have rules by which the contests must take place. The DNC is a private organization, and they’re entitled to control how they select their candidate.
The DNC can do it any way they want.
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p>The bigger point here is that FL and MI were told in advance what would happen and they went ahead anyway. It’s not as if they changed their dates and were surprised by the outcome. Personally, I think it would be a big mistake to capitulate to them now.
That’s why I used and instead of or. My point is that if he were neck and neck and MI and WY et al were suffering from “half disenfranchisement”, I suspect we’d be hearing the same hemming and hawing w.r.t. the GOP.
Romney much outside of his home states, the Republicans had another advantage–winner-take-all primaries rather than the byzantine proportional system which the Democrats adopted in order to ensure “fairness” (thought it doesn’t always work that way) and which this year has contributed a great deal to the stalemate.
which would amount to the same thing in terms of influence, is the most appropriate. And I’ve been saying since this foolishness started that the Republicans have shown a lot more sense, here. For one thing, their candidates got to run around Florida instead of the cold places for the last week of January…frankly, I think that’s what Iowa and NH are most afraid of. If you had a choice of being in Iowa City or Florida in January, where would you go….?
There are many people in USA, of whatever stripe, that somehow have come to the conclusion that rules are meaningless. Actions are without consequence, the powers that be will “come around” and give us what we want—we’ll wait them out.
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p>An endemic problem now plagueing America.
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p>I applaud Gov./Dr Dean for sticking to his guns. Perhaps folks will get the message. But, very likely, if the democratic party does not prevail in November he will be pilloried and reviled for his authoritarian manner and torpedoing the parties chances of success.
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p>Time for a little honest introspection. The last democratic party chairman, Terry McCauliffe, makes Dean look like a shrinking violet.
Changing the rules in the middle of the game like the spoiled brat on the loosing team playing kickball in the schoolyard is not how we should be when we’re all grown up.
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p>Rewarding the angry child who just slapped his mom with a hug to calm them down is not the way to instill respect and authority.
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p>FL and MI broke the rules and there should be consequences.
If there are not, what is there to prevent this mess from happening again?
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p>I am ALL FOR re-votes in both states and I would even agree that FL could be counted as-is with a decreased delegate count. I would be willing to compromise there.
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p>There has to be a way for the votes to count, but to do so without consequences is just bad parenting.
The national party is a creature of the local parties, and not vice versa. State parties must find this attitude to be obnoxious in the extreme.
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p>To the extent that the national party is “parenting” it is doing it exceedingly badly. “If you don’t clean up your room then I’m going to throw out all your toys and you will be grounded for 7 years!” The room was not cleaned up, and the parent now has the option of backing down, or attempting to enforce an unenforceable punishment.
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p>If you issue an ultimatum that blows up in your face, it is your fault. Dean’s attempt to be Mr. Tough Guy has now blown up in his face, and it is his own fault.
that is, the 48 state parties not located in FL and MI find the idea that those two states could ignore the rules that the other 48 states followed…
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p>The punishment is certainly enforceable. In fact, the de facto standard is that it will be enforced. Maybe the rules committee will flip later, but it’s doubtful IMO.
But no whining about the unfairness of it all when Democrats in Florida and Michigan aren’t as interested as Democrtats elsewhere in November, and these swing states swing the wrong way.
The DNC can promulgate rules, but only if the convention goes along. It is also perfectly within the rules for the convention to determine the credentialing of delegates. I don’t know exact procedure, but my understanding is that the convention can do what it wants and has the final say. This was known to all involved ahead of time just like the provisional DNC rules and MI and FL were probably betting on taking their cases to the floor.
I hope that the Florida democratic leadership (for lack of a better word) is barred from the convention.
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p>”No plan could come close to being viable in Florida.” What a pathetic self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Florida revote was always unlikely given multiple legal, financial, and technical problems.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03…
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p>The varous proposals have given reporters one more story to follow, but as the NY Times article makes clear several Florida counties are in the middle of changing their voting systems, and five because of past voting rights problems must receive Justice Department clearance, and that does not even begin to address the issue of who will pay for this in a state with massive economic problems stemming from the real estate bubble and bust.
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p>As for Michigan the article again reveals problems that are almost great, including the fact that some voters might not be able to vote in a redo primary and the fact that a 2/3 vote in both houses of the state legislature is necessary, and the Michigan lawmakers are about to take a two week vacation.
in either MI or FL, if the state Dem leadership had wanted to overcome those problems. But, they’ve both dug in their heels, and without cooperation it wasn’t going to happen.
But an ad-hoc re-do of a legally-valid election was bound to be a fiasco, especially considering that the plan was to throw it together in a few weeks, it would be totally handled by private firms (not sure how they would be selected–not much time for getting bids), God knows where the money would be coming from, etc. Most of all, though, is that the fact that we had a huge turnout on the day of the primary and have already elected delegates based on the result of that primary–there was a huge turnout for the delegate selection caucus, too, quadruple or more what it was in 2004. I know several of the elected delegates from my county and will be personally angry if they are not seated after all they have done on behalf of their candidate and on behalf of our local Democratic party.
I wanted to re-emphasize that the state Democratic leadership has no access to the state election machinery (whatever you may think of it). The state of Florida, which is still controlled by Republicans (we gained a few House seats in 2006 and now have a Democrat as CFO) has definitively said no to any public aid of a Democratic primary re-do. I don’t know what the problem is in Michigan (other than money, which is a serious problem–only the candidates seem to have enough of it).