Globe columnist Joan Vennochi’s April 17 column about Democratic women meeting with our state’s U.S. Senators and Governor urging them to ensure all Democratic Primary votes will count in the Party’s nomination process struck a familiar chord. The issue is clearly principle, not candidate preference or adherence to party rules that make no common sense.
It doesn’t matter who you support for president. It doesn’t matter what your gender or race happens by fate to be. As Democrats, we must speak up for a principle we claim to believe in, even when it may not advantage our favorite candidate.
Ironically, my first taste of presidential politics came back in 1980. I had just finished Masters work in American History. A state senator supporting Sen. Ted Kennedy for President asked me to do some research to find precedent for breaking the F3C rule at the Democratic Convention in NYC. Overturning that rule would free delegates to break their commitment to malaise-damaged Jimmy Carter “for the good of the party and a November victory with Kennedy.”
When the rules vote came to the convention floor and the Kennedy insurgents fell short, the die was cast. He could not change the rules to increase his chances but he sure tried hard to do so and we worked hard to help him. In the end, Kennedy got to give the best speech of his life but the presidency slipped through his hands. That November, as we predicted, our party lost to an old but affable conservative.
That state senator brought me back a souvenir from the NYC Convention for my efforts: a button with a big robot, “NO F3C” on its chest, with a red strike-through line across it. It sits in a political button collection in my den. This morning I thought I heard that robot mockingly laugh as I read Ms. Vennochi’s column about Massachusetts women urging our Democratic leaders to speak out in favor of counting every vote, including and especially the Florida primary votes.
Vennochi makes a good point about the potential blow back. I hope that our party leaders don’t believe that all of these “cranky women,” as they have been called by those who want to dismiss their cause, will forget and fall in line, yet again, in the future. Like the F3C rule and the robots it made of us, that time has passed.
I have listened to the “can’t change the rules”, “they broke the rules, must pay the price” arguments. But “they” are the Republican Governor and Florida state party poobahs who bucked the DNC, not the 1.7 million Florida Democrats who trudged to the polls, saw every candidates name on their ballot and cast an honest and fair vote. All the expressed reasons for punishing Florida don’t amount to one acceptable excuse for punishing its Democratic voters.
If we fail to count Democratic Primary votes in Florida, how hypocritical does the echo of our demands to count those hanging chads in 2000 sound? And, how hollow will our arguments be in November if we bang the same drum of “count every vote!” in some yet to be known close battleground state?
Congressmen Tierney and Markey and Congresswoman Tsongas are thus far neutral in the presidential race, free from any appearance of candidate bias in calling on our Party to uphold this basic principle. I sincerely hope that they will step up to demand in the strongest possible way that every Democratic Primary vote count.
We are Democrats. We believe every vote counts. It goes way beyond candidate preference to our core belief as a political party. A group of Democratic women in Massachusetts should not be standing alone to insist on upholding this principle. Our leaders should stand with them, openly and loudly… we should all stand with them…or wonder why not.
http://www.boston.com/bostongl…
