I can see that Obama doesn’t like the idea of primaries in places with a large Hispanic presence, and many blue collar, loyal Democratic voters. The demographics don’t suit him, and he got fairly well creamed the first time around. In Florida, where Obama snuck some ads on tv in contravention to the rules he professes to value, he got killed by Hillary 49% to 37%.
But let’s look at the math: CNN has Obama leading Clinton in delegates by a margin of 142 1,621-1,479. Florida would have 185 delegates up for grabs, and Michigan 128. A total of 303.
This is a close, tightly fought battle. In large, expensive states such as Michigan and Florida, neither Clinton nor Obama are likely to get more than 60%. In primary states where both sides compete, Hillary has yet to crack that number. But just for shits and giggles, let’s say everything falls Clinton’s way and she gets 60% of the vote in each state. That means that she would gain 61 delegates on Obama’s lead.
That’s right…Hillary would cut off 1/5 of Obama’s lead. One fifth. A whopping 20% in the final stages of the race.
Now, while I can understand that Obama fears Hillary gaining any momentum should a perfect Hillary storm arrive, it’s not as if letting the two states vote would be his death knell. It would be a minor — minor — change to his path, particularly in the wake of Bill Richardson’s endorsement.
For safeguarding those 60 delegates, what is Obama willing to forsake? Michigan is now a general election toss-up because of this foolishness. Democrats need to win Michigan’s 17 electoral votes in November. It would also be nice to win Florida’s 27 electoral votes as well, but 24% of Floridians polled say that if the Obama boycott succeeds, they would be less likely to vote Democratic in the general election. That doesn’t even get into the damage of the Democratic Party brand in those states, and the down-ticket impact.
Most Democrats would be happy to lose 1/5 of their delegate lead in order to get a leg up on gathering those 44 electoral votes. Most Democrats would be happy to shave their primary lead a wee bit to widen a lead in November.
Yes, these states broke the rules. And yes, there are times when the forest is more important than the trees. This is such a time. Make the delegates blow up all the convention balloons. Better still, demand an apology at the convention from Governor Granholm and Senator Nelson. I don’t care.
Obama: ditch the Kerry/Gore “play-it-always-safe” strategy — it’s a loser. And join us in trying to get Florida and Michigan in our column.
It makes no sense. I predict that MI and FL will get seated somehow. They either revote and give Obama a fighting chance, or they seat the delegates chosen in the early primaries which Clinton won. It might be moot now, but if I were in the position to give Obama an ultimatum I’d say revote or January results, take your pick.
not the concept of one, but if that ends up killing the revote, perhaps the distinction will not matter so much.
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p>I do think that there are a range of options between the two you suggest, such as seating half of the delegates or allocating the delegates 50/50 in each state, or counting the delegates but giving all of the non-Clinton delegates to Obama. All of those options would take the original votes into account. Given that Clinton was the only person on the ballot in MI, I think it would be highly unlikely that the original results would be allowed to be included without modification.
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p>In any case, I fully expect to see delegates from MI and FL at the convention through some mechanism or another.
đŸ˜‰
to me, he looks like he’s stalling to make sure the vote doesn’t happen, so he’ll basically be able to say “aw, shucks” at the end of this all. Now, that may not be the case, but he should know better – and know that it will certainly look that way to a huge part of the population. I really feel as though that if Florida’s delegates aren’t seated at the convention according to the results of either the election that already took place, or a new one, then we’re going to have no chance of winning that state in the general election. That’s a serious problem.
before we were even in this mess, I was telling anyone that would listen that the best thing BO could do would be to fight to allow the MI and FL delegates to be seated. Since he didn’t win in those states he would look VERY magnanimous and that would give him a boost before other important primaries. Since HC did win those states, she couldn’t ask for them to count (early on at least) because it would look self-serving – but now enough time has passed and the delegates have become such an issue that they are fair game for her. He’s missed his opportunity.
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p>Everyone knows that it’s important to have your vote count and the individuals that voted on those two days didn’t have a say as to when they voted or that their vote didn’t count. He could have courted the disenfranchised-feeling voters in other states with that gesture. IMHO that was a big mistake for his campaign and now that he’s trying to fight against those primaries he’s not doing himself any favors come the general election. I’ve heard tales of folks saying that if he isn’t going to fight for them now, how is he going to fight for them as President.
that because of the stupidity and arrogance of the Michigan and Florida Democratic elected state and party officials, Barack Obama is responsible for disenfranchising Florida and Michigan primary voters.
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p>So, let’s start with Florida:
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p>I know the Florida Democrats and Hillary Clinton are blaming the early primary on Republicans as if they fought it tooth and nail and were outvoted. But that’s simply not the case:
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p>Miami Herald: http://www.miamiherald.com/418…
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p>
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p>There was an offer made to Florida Democrats by the DNC, once this thing passed – if you go ahead with an early primary which you (idiots) all voted for, we award you only half the delegates you would have had if you had followed the rules (to be divided up proportionally to each of the candidates – so Clinton would have still gotten the most delegates), and all candidates can full-throttle campaign in this sanctioned election. The Florida Dems rejected that. So the DNC said, fine, all the candidates agreed not to campaign or participate in the election, and FL you lose all your delegates. The RNC made the same offer the FL Repubs, and they said yes, which is why they had a primary that counted. Florida Democrats and elected officials decided to play a game of chicken with the votes of their constitutents, and now they cry foul (or fowl) when the votes they pissed away won’t be counted. The Florida Dems appear to be, frankly, messed up. They are disorganized, fighting amongst themselves, and have the minority party mentality (Debbie Wasserman-Schultz won’t even support the three Democrats recruited to run against 3 of her Republican colleagues, out of loyalty to the Republicans!) There are people accountable for the Florida mess, and a lot of them are those same Florida state Democrats standing behind Hillary Clinton. I wish Florida had smarter Democrats in leadership, but, clearly, they don’t.
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p>It’s spin to blame this on Barack. And it seems to fit into the Clinton team pattern of trying to gin up blame for everything onto Obama, and build up resentment among Florida voters (who were screwed by their own state officials) toward the probable nominee of the Democratic Party. The delegate count, even if you awarded her delegates on the basis of the 49% vote she “won”, would not likely alter the elected delegate outcome with Obama ahead, when all is said and done. The truth of this is, that Clinton wants the popular votes counted more than the elected delegates, because she can’t win on elected delegates and she believes she has a slim chance on a popular total plurality if FL and MI count. (I don’t agree that she will win on popular either, I’ve tried a number of scenarios.)
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p>I actually have an ethical problem with “winning” by popular cumulative vote in this cycle (a new Clinton threshold) because it disenfranchises the voters of states with sanctioned caucuses. Case in point, my mother, who always votes in primaries, switched her party just to vote for Obama. Hawaii has a caucus. At 93, she is too frail to attend a caucus, but if it had been a primary, she would have voted absentee for Obama, as would 7 other members of my family here. Only one family member was able to attend a caucus and she voted for Clinton. The outcome of a Hawaii primary vote would surely have been greater for Obama than the 29,000 caucus votes he won (out of 37,000+ cast) that a cumulative vote scenario would count. So do we hold re-votes in all states with caucuses? So true popular votes can be counted? Or does team Clinton plan to “piss off” all the voters of caucus states and thereby cede all those states to McCain?
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p>But glad you are still plugging away there for your candidate. We don’t agree on this but I admire your passion and your persistence and dare I say, your hope?
With due respect to your impressive knowledge of the issue (and yes, I mean it), why should the voters of Florida be punished for the actions of their elected representatives?
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p>The Democrat voters of Florida have only periodic, and even very limited, control over their elected representatives. The (Un)DNC should punish them, which they could do in various ways in the next election. As senator, the voters of Sarasota (if my geography serves)aren’t represented by Jeremy Ring, yet they should be punished for his actions?
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p>The actions of the (Un)Democratic National Committee were catastrophically stupid, the actions of fools unaccumstomed to power. It seems that they thought the gambit of not seating delegates would be enough to prevent Florida from moving up its primary. They were obviously wrong. They risked their authority, now they are resorting to undemocratic collective punishment.
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p>It’s not Obama’s fault Florida and Michigan have happened, but as a leader and candidate, it’s his responsibility to act on it.
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p>Mark
An essential premise of electoral democracy is that participants agree to abide by, and accept responsibility for the outcome, regardless of whether or not it is the outcome they hoped for. Of course, exercising the rights to protest and to lobby are also part of this acceptance of responsibility.
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p>Further, it is perfectly within bounds for the DNC to enforce its rules and protocols, byzantine, unfair and exasperating as they may sometimes seem.
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p>It is unfortunate but true that just action and political expedience are not always in consonance.
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p>Get over it. Then change it.
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p>
There are two issues here, one idealistic, one practical:
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p>1) Democracy is the reason the (Un)DNC shouldn’t have disenfranchised Florida voters. If they had followed it as a guiding principle, this entire mess would have been averted.
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p>2) The effect of disenfranchising Florida voters matters is practical. If Delaware had received the treatment, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. The decision is harming the primary process, and the electoral chances of the Democratic Party.
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p>I am not arguing DNC didn’t have power to make up the rules nor am I contesting the obvious fact that justice and politics are somehow consonant.
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p>Mark
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p>P.S. Please tell me you aren’t telling me to get over it.
The premise of a representative democracy is that if your elected leaders make a mistake, you bitch and moan and kick and scream until they fix it. Yes, it’s within the DNC’s rights to stop Florida from revoting, but it’s going to cost us the state in the election, and perhaps even the election. It’s insanely stupid on every single account. If this actually happens, and we lose Florida and the election, I’ll never forgive Howard Dean or Obama.
It is not definite, but it is something to worry about. On the other hand, caving to them doesn’t win us the state either.
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p>In any case, I was not aware that Obama was putting up roadblocks to the FL revote, just the MI one.
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p>Exaggerated response. Do you really think that there are thousands of ardent voters sitting at home stewing over the fact their delegates won’t be seated at the convention? They’re not. This is the sort of infantilizing of the voter that the average voter gets pissed off about. People take their presidential elections seriously, and the buffoonery of state party types doesn’t mean shit to most people. People will vote for the nominee when it comes down to brass tacks. November is a long way away and putting one of our candidates next to McCain makes that decision even easier. All this handwringing will be long forgotten.
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p>The people, i.e., Democrats, of Florida take their responsibilities seriously, and to suggest that they are so childish and petulant that they will let McCain have the state because their delegates weren’t seated doesn’t make much sense. The state will be lost or won on the merits of each party’s final candidate and nothing less.
i think you’re probably right that most voters don’t care about delegates per se. However, if they feel that the nominee was responsible in part for killing their favored candidate’s chances at the nomination, they may be less likely to gotv. people do know when they’ve been used as pawns in major political maneuvers. And if they don’t, the press will be sure to remind them.
People were pissed off when Howard Dean flamed out, but those folks didn’t stay home on election day. They voted for John Kerry because they understood that another Bush administration would be a disaster. The numbers of people who really convinced themselves that it was better to stay home is miniscule–and they are certainly not Democratic Party activists of the sort who normally invest heavily in a primary candidate.
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p>People expect to be pawns to some degree. Few voters are naive enough to believe that there aren’t powers that be, i.e., party officials, elected officials, etc., who are controlling the strings at levels they cannot access. Are these people angry when it doesn’t go their way? Sure are. But do they stay home on election day when we are facing what may be the most critical election of our lifetime? No. The only folks who stay home after they’ve been “burned” is the purity voter who is a) usually a campaign’s unwanted voter and b) too unstable to be counted as a viable vote to be begin with.
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p>
i firmly believe that most dems will get behind whoever the eventual nominee is. i just don’t like to tempt fate with pivotal states is all. why lessen our own odds?
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p>as for dean, the comparison isn’t really fair. his flame out was a media-driven affair, not due to any chess-like public maneuvering by kerry that we see happening between obama and clinton. this round is a whole new scenario.
Dean had a cultish following much like the followings we see for both candidates today. Dean’s people always had their undies in a bunch over the dirty tricks Kerry’s people, Clark’s people, Gephardt’s people were playing on the campaign. Every negative story in the media could be traced back to one of the other Dem campaigns. Because so many of Dean’s supporters were supporters because they hated Kerry, the dynamics were essentially the same. We’re just seeing it writ more largely today because both candidates have tremendous appeal and are running neck and neck. That is the difference.
but I don’t think that’s quite accurate. There’s an enormous difference between Mr. Dean flaming out and the disenfranchisement of two (huge) states. Mr. Dean lost in various primaries as candidates do in the course of events. The MI/FL issue is entirely different – and call it petulant – call it what you will – when people think the powers that be are screwing them over, they will stay home. They’ve done it before.
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p>So – let’s see what happens in this grand experiment? You want to stick to your guns on the rules…let’s see what column those two states fall into. Perhaps if the DNC had applied the “rules” to all the states, instead of dropping the hammer on 2…the perception of “getting screwed” wouldn’t be there. BTW, have you actually read the press coverage on MI and FL on this thing? I’d read public opinion shaping views before I cast my feet in cement on this. Hopefully the DNC is.
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p> BTW – in a tight race – what is an “unwanted voter?” Every vote counts, Light. There are no unwanted voters anymore. “All politics is local,” and many a campaign has lost thinking they didn’t need a certain segment. We need them all, the purity voters, the security voters, the screw you voters, the soccer moms, the enlightened Starbucks drinkers, the Dunkins drinkers, the spaghetti on Wednesday crowd, the public service sector, the 6 PM Cosmo drinkers…and so on.
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p>And another thing, I think you’re wrong to say that people expect to be pawns. That’s exactly what they don’t like and your candidate is preaching against the “politics as usual” shite. You’d do well not to forget that.
i think that article may be a bit one-sided, since i read elsewhaere (sorry, no time to dig up link now) that dems did indeed vote unananimously for the bill, because it was attached to a larger piece of important legislation about regulating voting machines. i believe it was the repubs who stuck the primary and teh the voting machine bills together into an omnibus sort of thing. anyway, if the dems had voted no, they would have also voted against an important voting reform bill which florida despirately needed.
not only that, but the Democrats voted in unison to keep the two things separate. They should have voted no on the combined bill, but the fact of the matter is it’s not as if this was a measure they were jumping up and down for… they just knew the voting reform bill was a) more important and b) would get them in trouble if it looked like they were voting against it, I’m sure.
(and a little more on the popular vote issue)
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p>There is no Republican legislature to blame this one on, the MI party & state elected DEMOCRATS own this doozy. Again, anger should be directed to the state party who knew the rules, like Florida Democrats, and chose to piss away their constituency’s votes in a misguided attempt to be more relevant.
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p>I hope folks haven’t forgotten that the CW up to this election was that only the early states “counted”, and so this pushing and shoving to move their (FL & MI) state’s primaries up, so candidates would campaign and the party & elected officials would be important. Little could they have know how relevant even DC, Wyoming, and Rhode Island would become without being early primaries.
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p>But back to MI, can we agree that Hillary Clinton violated her own signed agreement with the DNC not to “campaign” or “participate” in the Michigan election by leaving her name on the ballot? This transgression isn’t about buying national advertising on CNN, and oops FL happens to be part of the nation (you can kick his ass for that); This was a clear violation of her own signed pledge. Why did John Edwards, Barack Obama, or for that matter, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, not “participate” in that election? Why were their names not on the ballot? Should Clinton be penalized? for breaking her signed pledge? How? Should she have delegates deducted? Should she be fined and caused to pay for any revote? Of course not. But, jeez, how different would this issue have been if no Dem was on the ballot? Astoundingly, Clinton stated that she was entitled to all the elected delegate allocation and the popular vote in MI because she “won” it. Do you really think Obama would have gotten 0% votes if he had been on the ballot? Sounds, to me, a bit like cheating on a test, and then demanding that the “A” count toward GPA, because the teacher won’t re-test. But that’s just me, and I’ve been known to get it wrong.
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p>One problem with a Michigan revote is eligibility: who gets to vote in a revote? Does anyone who wants to register that day to vote in the Dem revote get to do so? What about people who already voted in the Repub primary? Do they get to revote? A number of Dems crossed over to the Repub primary because they were told (and Clinton repeated this on the stump in NH) that their votes wouldn’t count. How do you tell the difference between a “real” Dem crossover voter and a Republican who wants to vote in both the Repub and Dem primaries to mess with the Dem primary? Wouldn’t you be disenfranchising Dems who crossover voted because they were told the Dem primary wouldn’t be counted, if you disallowed double primary votes for them? How would you even be able to tell? What about all those Limbaugh Republicans who voted for Clinton in Ohio and Miss? With a whole bunch of Repub crossover voters how would you know what the will of the Michigan Democrats was?
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p>I don’t buy the argument that Dems will lose Florida and Michigan because there isn’t a revote. If we lose Florida and Michigan it will be for more substantive issues like the War, or the collapsing economy, or health care or national security or jobs…not because the FL or MI Dems screwed this up, not because there wasn’t a revote, not because it’s Barack Obama’s fault or even Hillary Clinton’s fault. This is inside baseball stuff, and do I think that 24% of the people who say their pissed off enough not to vote for us or who threaten to vote for McCain, will really do so? No, do you? really? People on both sides of this election are threatening to sit it out or vote for McBush, but do think they will? Maybe it’s true but I don’t buy it, everyone knows there’s much more at stake in this 08 election than a FL & MI revote. Remember in MI, McCain is ardently proNAFTA, he is for the 100 year war, he hasn’t a clue what to do with the economy. FL? I haven’t a clue what Floridians will do, and the Repubs will probably steal it again anyway.
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p>Forest for the Trees: (A little math housekeeping – your delegate counts differ from the CNN link you provided, and your delegate count includes the less reliable superdelegate count: the current CNN link shows: pledged + supers 1622-1485 with a difference of 137; on pledged delegates alone the totals are 1413-1242 with a difference of 171.) My guess is that the DNC will seat both a Fl & a MI delegation. My guess is that FL will seat at 49.8% Clinton, 32.9% Obama (I note you list him at 37%, your NYT link says 33%), 14.4% Edwards with a 50% across the board penalty – with the majority of Edwards delegates moving to Obama as they have in Iowa; MI, my guess is that it will be split 50/50, perhaps also with a 50% atb penalty. The states will receive elected delegate representation but their popular votes won’t count, because the elections weren’t typically what would be considered fair (only one candidate on the ballot, no one allowed to campaign). This will seat both Fl & MI delegates at the election. My guess is that ultimately everyone will take something, rather than end up with nothing.
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p>But back to the popular vote issue, which is perhaps just my issue and no one else’s: My problem with this new Clinton threshold is that if we accept that this should be the true determinate of our primary selection then why not have made that case at the beginning of the primary season? Why make it now? Why didn’t Hillary Clinton say at the beginning of this thing that caucuses are undemocratic so she would refuse to participate in them? Would states that had caucuses have chosen instead to have primaries to increase their states’ popular votes impact on the outcome? What about all those people in early states that voted for non-viable candidates? Shouldn’t they be allowed to revote, so they will not be denied a voice in which of the two remaining candidates should be our nominee? You know there are a lot of good reasons to reconsider how Democratic nominees are selected. I just think if you’re going to change the threshold in a way that dilutes the impact of those states that held sanctioned caucuses by a candidate claiming the nomination on total popular votes (using totals from both primary and caucus states), you do it in an above board fashion, and tell the voters in those states before, not after, they have their elections. If this had all been primaries would Obama be ahead by 700,000 votes? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. We can speculate, but we can’t know that for sure, unless we redo everything. And for good or for ill, it’s too late for that.
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p>Democrats 2008! And, Yes, I have just moved on to General Election mode. I am ready to come together. And kick McBush ass, instead of each other.
As we are once again reminded that finger pointing is not something you warn your children not to do but is the underlying principle of this degenerating primary electoral process that is the real question and everyone involved has mud on their shoes over this dirty carpet of FL/MI. Mud is usually at the bottom and is never found on the high ground.
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p>Karl Rove continues to dance his jig.
Of the Clinton’s willingness to do and say anything to win. It is the ultimate case of spin for Hillary and her backers to now make this a case of “disenfranchisement” when she was quite clear that the vote in those states were meaningless to her when she was riding high in the polls.
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p>Read this great politico article. It’s time to move on. Let’s close ranks behind Obama.
of bad, bad reasoning.
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p>Demanding a re-vote in Michigan and Florida is not amoral. Your candidate may not want a re-vote now that he is ahead.
on something like this is not a sign of “being willing to say and do anything to win,” any more than Barack Obama switching positions on “clean coal” proves he is willing to say and do anything to win.
do to win? Commendably, he didn’t throw Rev. Wright under a bus, but would he not do so in the future if it were required?
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p>This idea that Hillary will do anything to win, and Obama would not, is an unscrutinized Republican talking point. I have no doubt the GOP will do anything to win. As Kosmo pointed out in his previous post,this is politics and ideals rarely conincide.
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p>As someone supported Edwards, voted for Clinton, and was ready to get behind Obama, I have to say that I am continually alienated by the sanctimony of his supporters who think the Democratic primary is an equation they already have the answer to. If I do you an injustice I apologize, but these dismissive calls to “move on” and “give it up” are unlikely to get the rest of us behind Obama any time soon.
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p>Mark
and I think you are doing a deep disservice to Clinton to implicitly suggest that she would.
Tom said Hillary would do anything to win. He was explicit.
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p>Mark
Rather than contradicting him you seem to imply that Obama is just as bad.
that both of them would do quite a lot to get elected. That’s generally how politics works. How that is a disservice to either candidate, I do not know.
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p>Mark
You did not say “quite a lot”, you said “anything”. I don’t think either candidate will do “anything” to win, and I guess you don’t either, but that is what you implied.
No one wants to alienate even one potential voter in a battleground state, but in the course of the primary campaign candidates inevitably say and do things that can hurt them in the general.
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p>The greater damage is in the fight for the nomination, where fighting not to recognize votes (however flawed) and not to permit revotes contradics his core message of inclusiveness and not-politics-as-usual.
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p>It also strengthens Clinton’s claim that superdelegates should vote fer her, the true (according to her) choice of the rank-and-file voters as a whole, including those who have been disenfranchised by (again according to her, but not without some justification) Obama.
If MI and FL are not seated and I were a GOP strategist, I would go into those states with the message: Democrats don’t believe in counting your vote while Republicans made sure your voice was heard. Granted Republicans cut their vote in half, but this could be potent especially with the perceived hypocracy in FL compared to 2000 when the Democrats were saying (rightfully) “Count every vote!”
Here’s your answer:
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p>14 impeachcheneythenbush Says :
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p>
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p>Clinton is trying to cheat if she can get away with it and it is nauseating. It seems appropriate that this post comes from crooksandliars.com.
you reference someone who is a BO fan and said that he and another voted and everyone else he knew (all BO fans) stayed home. Not once is there any reference in this personal poll of any HC fans that did or didn’t vote. Yet you are using this as a reference that every HC fan went out and voted and every BO fan stayed home. Then you blame HC for cheating. By this persons own admission, they voted went out and for BO so your reasoning is more than shot from the get-go.
the turnout by dem voters was phenomenal. compared to past primaries, dem voters came out in droves. iirc, clinton got more votes than mccain did. hard to convince me that people stayed home. i rather think they made a point of getting out and voting. and they were successful in being heard, even if not counted.