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Could the Republicans Pick the Democratic Nominee? -- The Untold Story of How the GOP Rigged Florida and Michigan
Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean came out of hiding last week to announce that there is no reason to rush to resolve the fate of Florida and Michigan. He said he was confident that these delegations, disqualified in 2007 by Dean's own Rules Committee, would be seated at the August convention -- but, apparently, only after a nominee is chosen, which he predicted would occur by July 1. This modern-day Metternich, whose two-fisted handling of this two-state controversy has already had more impact on the 2008 race than his candidacy did on the race in 2004, is promising to mediate the dispute once it's already settled.
The Dean plan is that these two swing states -- big enough to decide the nomination or general election -- will eventually be granted "virtual" seats at the convention because, as Dean imaginatively put it in an AP interview, "the campaigns believe that kind of deal is premature right now." Since one campaign (Hillary Clinton's) was amenable to redoes, even financing Michigan's, and the other campaign (Barack Obama's) opposed every feasible proposition, it is, in a strange way, true that the two sides weren't collectively ready for a deal.
In all the buzz about the media's pro-Obama tilt, its indifference to his resistance to including these states in the "actual" nominating process is its most disturbing favor, especially since this brand of "conventional politics," as Obama would put it, flies in the face of his contention that "the people" should pick the nominee. Obama's only proposal so far has been to split the delegates evenly, just like he and Michelle parcel out Christmas presents to their two daughters.
Of course, the column inches and moments of air time spent on how and why these two states and their 366 delegates have been banished adds up to less than the attention devoted to, say, the Wyoming caucus, where a 2,066-vote Obama margin gave him a big enough delegate boost to virtually cancel out Hillary Clinton's 329,000-vote margin in the five March races.
The body count that the mainstream media has regurgitated out of Florida and Michigan is that 2.3 million Democrats voted in primaries that broke the rules, leaving the DNC with no choice but to level both villages, even if the collateral damage might include the party's prospects of carrying those disenfranchised states in November. The DNC and the MSM appear to have simultaneously concluded that even Clinton's 300,000-vote win in Florida, where both candidates competed on a level playing field, shouldn't be counted in the popular vote tally, a calculation that appears nowhere in DNC rules and turns 1.7 million Democratic voters into ghosts.
The irony is that the drumbeat for Clinton's withdrawal -- coming on the heels of her recent wins and right before what may be her biggest in Pennsylvania -- is rooted in the collapse of the effort to redo Michigan and Florida. The theory is that she should quit because there is no way she can win, and that there is no way she can win because two states she could win, at least one of which she actually did win, will not be counted until she gets out. Barack Obama would thus become the nominee -- not because of an honestly earned if precariously narrow lead in the final national vote, but because of two elections he would not let happen.
If that sounds like a curious way to end a nominating contest that 30 million to 33 million voters will participate in before it's done, even stranger is that the DNC is following only some of its rules -- and that the real culprits who caused this debacle are Republicans, who are now relishing the catfight they provoked.
Dems Take the Hit for the GOP
The Republican role is not some irrelevant anecdote. The DNC is charged, under its rules, to determine whether the Democrats in a noncompliant state made a "good faith" effort to abide by the party's electoral calendar, and to impose the full weight of its available penalties, namely a 100 percent takedown of a state's delegation, only if Democratic leaders in that state misbehaved. So the fact that it was Republicans who fomented the move-up of primaries in both these states to dates out-of-line with the DNC calendar is at the heart of the matter.
The rules also demand that the DNC's 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee conduct "an investigation, including hearings if necessary" into these matters. The purpose of such a probe is to figure out if Democratic leaders in a state that did move up "took all provable, positive steps and acted in good faith" to either "achieve legislative changes" to bring a state into compliance or to "prevent legislative changes" that took a state out of compliance. A DNC spokesman could not point to any real "investigation" the party conducted of the actions of "relevant Democratic party leaders or elected officials," as the rules put it. All that happened with Florida, for example, was that two representatives of the state party made a pitch for leniency immediately before the Rules Committee voted for sanctions.
What a probe might have discovered was a rationale for doing, at worst, what the RNC did to its own overeager primary schedulers in the same two states -- cutting the delegations by half. That's precisely the penalty specified in DNC rules, but the committee, exercising powers it certainly had the legal discretion to exercise, upped the ante as far as it could. In a bizarre reversal of public policy, the RNC, surely aware that the principal miscreants in both states were Republicans, applied a sane yet severe sanction. The Democrats opted for decapitation.
The presumption of much of the national coverage about Michigan, to start with, has been that the Dems did this one to themselves -- a presumption based, in large part, on Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm's endorsement of a January 15 vote, a date far ahead of the anticipated February 9 primary. All Clinton-backer Granholm did, however, was a sign a bill. The bill originated in a Republican-controlled Senate and passed by a 21-to-17 straight party-line vote -- with every Democrat casting a no vote.
Florida's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, is, like Granholm, seen as a prime player behind the state's acceleration of the primary calendar. But Crist isn't half the Florida story; Marco Rubio, a Jeb Bush protégé who runs the nearly 2-to-1 Republican Florida House, drove that bill through the legislature like it was a tax cut limited by law to top GOP donors.
Indeed, the tracks under this train wreck trace back, in each case, to Republican maneuvers in state legislatures, political no- man's-lands for all who've blithely dismissed the disenfranchisement of the millions of registered Florida and Michigan Democrats.
Michigan: Republicans on the Bench and in the Statehouse
Let's start with Michigan, whose Democratic chair Mark Brewer is a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the national party and in that capacity voted to sanction Florida -- a pretty good indication that he wasn't a great champion of challenging the DNC calendar in his own state. Brewer in fact declared the Republican-sponsored move-up bill unacceptable from the start.
When it weaved its way through the divided Michigan legislature last August, only 29 of the state's 75 Democratic legislators (in the House and Senate) supported it. A week after the bill cleared the Senate over unified Democratic objections, these 29 Democrats in the House voted for it, precisely the same number that voted against it or abstained (22 and seven). It was 38 Republican yes votes in the House that made it law. While Democrats like the governor, U.S. Senator Carl Levin, and DNC committeewoman Debbie Dingell favored moving the primary date up, it was a Republican state senator, Cameron Brown, who proposed the January 15 date. Levin and Dingell only supported that date when they concluded that the DNC was allowing other states, like New Hampshire, to defy the party's prescribed schedule while threatening Michigan with sanctions if it shifted its date.
And Levin and Dingell certainly weren't calling the shots for the Democrats in the legislature. Andy Dillon, the Democratic House speaker who'd voted for the move-up initially, walked away from the early primary in November, almost a month before the DNC voted to strip the state of its delegation. When two court rulings found the move-up bill unconstitutional for technical reasons, giving Democratic state legislators who initially voted for it a chance to reconsider, they took it. Dillon and his House Democrats refused to support a bill that would've protected the January 15 date from threatened judicial cancellation by correcting the technical deficiency. The Senate, again voting along party lines, quickly adjusted the bill to the court decisions, but Dillon refused to allow a vote in the House. All of this suggests a "good faith" effort to block an early primary -- as required by DNC rules.
Had not the state's highest court overturned the earlier decisions by a 4-to-3 vote just days before absentee ballots had to be mailed out, the early primary would not have been held. Significantly, all four of the judges who voted to allow the election were Republicans, and two of the judges who voted against it were Democrats.
In fact, it was a Democratic political consultant who brought the lawsuit that almost killed the primary. While the Republican state party filed an amicus brief in support of the bill, the Democrats took a barrage of editorial potshots in the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News, the Flint Journal, and other papers for refusing to stand up for the state's interest. Salivating over all the attention and revenue that would come with an early primary, the papers accused Democrats of "withering," "carrying water for presidential candidates," and "blocking a bill to rescue the election." State GOP chair Saul Anuzis declared: "The Michigan Democrats and the House Democrats in particular appear willing to blow up the primary for petty, political, selfish, self-preservationist motives, to protect their hides."
Even before the court rulings, 19 Democrats in the House co-sponsored an October bill to repeal the one that authorized the election, including eight members who'd initially voted for the January 15 date. That bill was doomed from the outset since the Senate would never agree, but it was a measure of how fiercely Democrats had come to oppose the early primary. The ultimate result in Michigan, with a triumphant Clinton the only major candidate on the ballot, is, without a doubt, a Republican result.
In Florida, Crushed by a Republican Supermajority
The Republicans don't just control both houses of the Florida legislature. Their combined 103-to-57 majority allowed them to dictate the terms of the bill that moved the primary to January 29. It is true that all but one of the state's Democratic legislators supported the bill. But a closer look reveals that vote to be more an indication of a realistic and productive compromise with the ruling Republicans than any intent to breach Democratic rules.
Florida's leading news outlets, just like Michigan's, converted an early primary into a matter of state patriotism, and that point of view, coupled with the mathematical inability to even slow the Republican push, forced Democrats to roll over.
Another factor attracting Democratic votes in the legislature for the bill was one the DNC should certainly appreciate. Governor Crist threw a reform long sought by Florida Democrats into the bill: a mandatory paper trail for all votes cast in future elections. "The Democrats have been fighting for a paper trail bill since 2000," said State Senator Nan Rich, "and Governor Bush never would support it. So finally we got a governor who was willing to support it and it ended up connected to the early primary bill. That was unfortunate. If the paper trail hadn't been there, I believe we Democrats would've all voted no. Still, if all the Republicans had voted one way and all the Democrats had voted another way, the bill would've passed." (This Christmas tree bill -- whose title alone was 154 lines long -- had something special for everyone. It would even enable Crist to run as John McCain's vice presidential candidate, revoking a ban against state officials running for federal office.)
But "the driving force behind the move," as the Tampa Tribune put it, was 36-year-old House speaker Marco Rubio, who announced that pushing the primary up was a top goal before he took over the House at the start of 2006. Branded a "Jeb acolyte" by the Florida press, Rubio, a Cuban from West Miami married to a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader, was given a gold samurai sword by Bush in a passing-of-the-conservative-mantle gesture in 2005. Rubio is a member of a wired Florida law firm whose chairman is so close to Bush that he rushed down to the county jail when the governor's daughter Noelle was arrested on a drug-related charge. When Rubio's term as speaker ends later this year, he is slated to go to work for a think tank headed by a Jeb Bush business associate. The primary bill originated with Rubio and ultimately passed the House unanimously -- but only after Democrats made what they knew would be a losing effort to alter it.
Martin Kiar and Mary Brandenburg, House Democrats who were cosponsors of the bill, tried to amend it. "We offered an amendment on the floor shifting the date to one within the Democratic party rules," said Brandenburg. "The Democrats all voted for it, and Republicans all voted against it." Actually, the Kiar/Brandenburg proposal did not completely comply with DNC directives, but it was a signal of the concerns Florida Dems had about the move-up legislation. Said Kiar: "No matter what, whether we supported it or cosponsored it, the Republican majority was going to push it through."
When the DNC sanctioned Florida, it critiqued the efforts of the Democratic leaders in both houses, suggesting that they'd merely gone through the motions of feigned opposition. But the House cosponsor of the bill, David Rivera, literally laughed on the floor at the Democratic amendment, according to the House Democrats. Going through the motions was all the outgunned Democrats could do. A DNC critic of Florida Democrats was reduced in a recent New York Times op-ed to citing remarks supporting the early primary made by state leaders after it was a fait accompli, likely because she couldn't make a case about their conduct before the Republican legislature set the date.
Some Democrats Are More Equal Than Others
The Democratic national committeeman who introduced the motion on the party's Rules Committee to deprive Florida of all its delegates -- a precursor to the Michigan decision a few months later -- was Ralph Dawson, a New York lawyer who was Howard Dean's Yale roommate and an advisor to Dean's 2004 campaign. Dawson's role was seen as a signal of Dean's appetite for a kick-ass rebuke.
As much as the DNC tries to pretend otherwise, it had choices. In fact, it later showed understandable leniency to three other states who changed their primary dates--New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina -- seating all their delegates. The tough love treatment was reserved for Michigan and Florida.
The national party had tried -- before New Hampshire's case wound up on its docket -- to leave the impression that zero tolerance was automatic once violations of the schedule occur. Back in June, a DNC spokeswoman, for example, told the Associated Press that neither Dean nor the Rules Committee "has the power to waive the rules for any state," explaining that "these rules can be changed only by the full DNC." Yet a few months later, on the same day that the Rules Committee stripped Michigan of its delegates, it waived the rules for New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina, each of which had also moved up their primaries.
Though Dawson and others on Rules now say, as they did in recent interviews, that states whose contests were always scheduled before February 5 were free to shift dates without sanction, that's not what the delegate selection rules adopted in 2006 say. Those rules provided an automatic 50 percent loss of delegates for any state party that moved its contest to any day "prior to or after the dates" spelled out by the DNC.
That's why Rules powerhouse Donna Brazile said she would "grudgingly support the waiver," warning New Hampshire shortly before the December committee vote that "the days of 'privilege' may end soon."
Not only did "first-primary-or-die" New Hampshire switch from January 22 to January 8, it moved ahead of Nevada, whose January 19 caucus had been deliberately scheduled by the DNC to precede New Hampshire's. But New Hampshire's Democrats got a DNC waiver because their back was up against the wall, due to a decision by the South Carolina Republican Party to move its primary up to January 19. That unilateral decision -- which the Carolina Democrats declined to join in -- forced New Hampshire's hand. The waiver was, in other words, a reasonable response to a Republican provocation. What's unclear is why one Republican provocation is more equal than another. (Once New Hampshire moved, Iowa had to adjust as well. South Carolina Democrats ultimately made a minor switch for other reasons.)
While the DNC implicitly challenged the "good faith" of the Democratic opposition to the Republican moves in Florida and Michigan, it seemed far less interested in gauging what New Hampshire Democrats were doing. The head of the South Carolina GOP actually traveled to Concord, New Hampshire, to announce the decision to move his state's primary up. He stood in the Executive Council chambers of the statehouse with Secretary of State William Gardner and Representative James Splaine, a Democrat who led the legislative efforts to protect the state's first-primary tradition.
Democratic governor John Lynch was at a funeral when the press conference occurred, but his spokesman said Lynch "has faith in Bill Gardner" and "supports whatever Bill decides." And Lynch, who had already derided the DNC decision to put Nevada ahead of New Hampshire, was clearly pleased that the acceleration of the South Carolina Republican primary date was giving Gardner all the justification he needed to squeeze back ahead of Nevada. New Hampshire officials even called the maneuver an "alliance" with South Carolina Republicans. Gardner promptly chose a new date 11 days before Nevada, defying the schedule that the DNC had issued.
The RNC, a veritable model of consistency in these matters, stripped New Hampshire of half its delegates over the date change, even though it was unmistakably prompted by the Republican maneuver in South Carolina. But Howard Dean and company held their fire this time, examining extenuating circumstances with an understanding they refused to extend to Michigan and Florida. In the end, they changed the rules in the middle of the game, throwing the book at some states and discarding it altogether for others.
The inconsistency on New Hampshire aside, DNC officials have come up with one other argument for why they were so tough on Michigan and Florida. Dean's spokesman Damien LaVera said in an email to Huffington Post that, despite the unmistakable references in the rules to testing the "good faith" of a state's "elected officials" and examining a state's "legislative" efforts, the DNC's rules "apply to a state party plan, not state legislatures or elected officials." LaVera insisted that the only standard their Rules Committee judges compliance by is what state parties do, and that the parties in Michigan and Florida had options other than the state-designated primaries. A DNC official claimed that the Michigan party had sponsored so-called "firehouse caucuses" in the past and could have set their own date and done them again, ignoring the state-run January 15 primary. The Florida party, the DNC source added, was "offered $880,000" by the DNC to host their own caucus on a date in compliance with the DNC schedule and chose to participate, instead, in the state-financed primary, a "bad faith" decision.
But Florida party officials said the $880,000 would've only covered the cost of 150 caucus sites, with the capacity to draw a maximum of 150,000 voters out of the state's 4 million Democrats. "It wasn't a real offer," a spokesman said. Michigan's party would have had to self-finance caucuses, which, even with added Internet and mail voting, drew only 165,000 voters in 2004, a fraction of the 600,000 who voted in 2008. Stripping both states of their full delegations because the state parties in each refused to run these limited-participation caucuses--which would have occurred a couple of weeks after an official, state-financed primary -- is a bit like punishing Democrats because they like democracy.
Obama's Backers--and the Road to the Nomination
The DNC critique of Florida's noncompliance included a reference to the fact that a Democratic state senator was the initial sponsor of the move-up bill in that house, which was seen as a sign of eagerness on the part of some Democratic leaders to break the rules. That senator was Jeremy Ring, an Obama supporter. Obama even named Ring's 2006 campaign manager to run his statewide Florida effort. Ring was such a champion of the early primary that when Obama, like all the other candidates, supported the sanctions and agreed not to campaign in the state, Ring withdrew his endorsement.
When Governor Crist signed the bill at a ceremony in West Palm Beach, the man at his side was Bob Wexler, the chair of Obama's Florida campaign. Wexler wasn't there because he wanted to defy Howard Dean. He was there for the same reason that almost all the Democrats in the legislature voted for the bill. He is the state's leading foe of paperless voting systems and filed two suits against them. He saw the bill as the governor's fulfillment of a campaign pledge "to make Florida a model state for the nation in terms of our election system."
Similarly, all three of the House Democrats who endorsed Obama -- Coleman Young II, Bert Johnson, and Aldo Vagnozzi -- voted in favor of the bill to push the Michigan date forward. When Obama later took his name off the Michigan ballot, Young and Johnson became sponsors of the bill to cancel the election they had just voted to authorize.
The support of Obama's principal backers in both states for the move-up bills was hardly consequential, but it does raise questions about his current opposition to any counting or recounting of these states. If bad faith is the DNC's standard, Obama doesn't have to look too far to find alleged examples of it, and to recognize that the national party might be unfairly characterizing what the leaders in these states did.
Imagining a convention without delegations from these large and politically volatile states has become the nightmare of every thinking Democrat. Polls indicate that a nominee who refuses to count the 1.7 million Floridians who voted in a level-playing field primary, or to find a way for them to vote again, will wind up wasting whatever time and money he or she spends there in the general election campaign. As close as the general election vote in Michigan has been in recent years, even a small margin of voters disgruntled by the state's Democratic lockout could push it into the GOP column. Obama's stonewalling about both states may offer short-term advantages, but two delegations denied seating because of his maneuvers may well be seen as contrary to his populist rationale now -- and crippling to his candidacy in November.
Ed Pozzuoli, the Republican chair of Broward County, recalls the Florida showdown of 2000, when he says Democrats taunted Republicans, insisting that they should "let every vote count." He gloats now: "I guess that's changed in eight years." He's hardly the only one chortling over the likely consequence of what he calls the "draconian" Democratic spiking of his state's delegation.
What started out years ago as Howard Dean's 50-state organizing strategy for the national party now looks like a 48-state electoral one. Michigan and Florida could become the Ralph Nader of 2000, the great regret that delivers the country once again to four years of darkness.
Wayne Barrett has been a staff writer and senior editor at the Village Voice for 30 years. He's written four books, including Rudy! An Investigative Biography and Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 (with Dan Collins).
Research assistance by: Kimberly Chin, Shaunna Murphy, Shea O'Rourke, Marguerite A. Suozzi, Adam Weinstein and John Wilwol.
Research support for this article was provided by the Nation Institute Investigative Fund.
Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
75 Comments so far
Show AllIt seemed like there was going to be a race for who could have their primary the earliest. This made no historical sense. Iowa has had their caucuses and New Hampshire has had its primaries, but I can not recall a race for what state would be first to have their primary.
I think that some national guidelines for Presidential primaries are needed. This is the highest executive office in the U.S. If some states have loose laws that change the out come, it affects us all.
In the past each state did what they wanted, as if they were electing a governor. They are not electing a governor, they are voting to nominate a candidate for President of the entire U.S.
Hey sophia1729 - I live in GA - 44 yr old white male - voted for Obama in our primary which was moved up as well although according to DNC rules and approval. If Billary steals this election via superdelegates and Bill's strong arm tactics (recently yelling at superdelegates and cursing Gov. Richardson) I can guarantee I will vote McCain. He will be far better economically than she will. She has the Clinton trademe\ark - lying when her lips move. So no 3rd party candidates here and I used to like McKinney - even as late as 2002. I may just write in Obama anyway instead. Billary is only interested in obtaining power at any cost. She will be just another politician like GWB - my way or the highway. A female dictator - how democratic!! She will also never get us ou of Iraq either. How can anyone believe anythong she says now? She has repeatedly voted for war as a first option and now claims to have been duped. Do you really want someone who was stupid enough to get duped by GWB to be our next President?
Mr. Barrett,
It is interesting to me that you lay a lot of blame on the frontrunner, Sen. Barack Obama, but curiously not on Sen. Clinton. Why is that? You do know that Sen. Clinton went along with the rule the Democratic Party set before the people of one of those states, and now is going back on her word. This article smells a little . . .
I think we have seen "who is who" in this race, but who could have imagined
Hillary being supported by Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Laura Ingraham?
Bill Clinton was the best Republican the Democrats ever put in office, and
Hillary is showing every sign of following suit.
For the record: I would love to have a woman president, but where were you, Barbara Boxer?
Hillary Clinton in her self-aggrandizing remarks about landing in Bosnia and running from snipers has ultimately created her own swift-boatable gaffe that guarantees in advance her loss of the general election if she's nominated.
There is no way the U.S. Military has ever allowed any first lady since WWII to land anywhere under any threat whatsoever. And cavalierly stating that they have, aside from being a provable lie, is the most profound insult to the forces that can be imagined. Hillary is so ignorant as to not know that the "insult to military people" is even an issue. Veterans, however, will not forget this and the swiftboat effort to defeat her would (will) be easy as pie on this one issue.
So whatever is done about Florida and Michigan must be done in a way that does not nominate Hillary. Otherwise, the DEMS just lose again. I hope and actually think that both Howard Dean (at the party) and Nancy Pelosi (at the convention) are smart and already "get" this but wish to avoid talking about it too much (since doing so would be like advertising for the Republicans for free.)
The most disingenuous line in the article (and repeatedly so) is that Florida provided a "level playing field", though only Hillary violated the agreement and campaigned there (though it depended on what the meaning of campaign is) the night before the primary. And to even consider seating delegates from an election with only one name on the ballot, and on which "undecided" came in at 45%, is ludicrous, yet that is exactly what Hillary argued for, using new elections as only a fallback position. I don't think the DNC should have allowed the original situation to occur; it was incomprehenibly stupid, but then that's the Democrats for you; but Hillary played it cynically for all she could. Now the candidate arguing for the elections not counting in 48 other states is playing the hero in 2. Well la de da.
Smells like Karl Rove to me.
I started to skim this article, and encountered the following:
"The DNC and the MSM appear to have simultaneously concluded that even Clinton's 300,000-vote win in Florida, where both candidates competed on a level playing field, shouldn't be counted in the popular vote tally..."
WHAT level playing field? WHAT WIN? Back in January Hillary had almost TOTAL name recognition and Barack Obama was virtually unknown. Neither of them campaigned in Florida. The primary was a farce.
The author has no credibility on this issue.
Surreptitiously attempting to lay the blame on either of the Democratic candidates for the problems that presently exist is absurd!
This problem with whether or not the delegates from Florida and Michigan will be seated and counted has absolutely NOTHING to do with either candidate!
It is the fault of the states Democratic parties that decided that they didn't care what the National Democratic Party said--they were going to hold their primaries whenever they wanted—because the DNC couldn't tell them what to do!
So—now that it has become apparent that those two states delegate count will be needed to put either candidate over the top—they are begging to have their delegates count.
Each and every person who voted knew full well that the DNC had said that if these two states violated the RULES their delegates would not count.
So how many folks decided not to vote?
I'm not sure I would have. Luckily I live in WI so I didn't have to make that decision.
To attempt to blame any candidate is not only wrong but contemptible.
I believe each candidate feels an obligation to have the votes count—but each candidate sees things differently. How can this be done fairly so that those who voted and those who did not vote because they thought their vote wouldn't count have the opportunity to vote and have their vote count?
Place the blame for this MESS where it belongs!
With the STATES who decided to not follow the rules!
Stop trying to tie the problem to the candidates!
The fault does not lie with either!
I am not a Democrat or a Republican—I am an American voter who is tired of all this laying of blame on the part of pundits and those favoring one side or the other. Place the blame where it belongs!
The states of Florida and Michigan Democratic party!
It is obvious from the first couple of paragraphs--which is as far as I was willing to go considering the spin, that this is a Clintonista whining about Dean and Obama.
The rules that everyone agreed to --including Clinton who has brazenly sought to seat the delegates from a illegitimate contest only to her own benefit have now been twisted into disenfranchisement. You think she would've cared a fig if she was where she imagined she should be today? Why, it would be unthinkable--which is why her campaign flounders about without a plan, with no message to promote Clinton, poorly managed, hurting for funds. Kudos to Dean for standing his ground--what good is it if precedence is set that there is no consequences for breaking the rules? And it is wise of Obama not to bend to the desperate Clinton machine who would privately fund elections--never a good idea--or only allow those who did not officially cast a vote in an unofficial election to count.
The problem isn't the Republicans--it is the Dinos who aid and abet them.
"Ralph Nader of 2000" - Florida was won by disenfranchizing of African American voters to the tune of 90,000 people who were illegally removed from the voters list by ChoicePoint, a Houston Texas company hired by Jeb BUSH. Today ChoicePoint has been rewarded with numerous government contracts and has grown by over 10,000 percent in annual revenue.
Wayne Barett is only muddying the waters even further in this article by blaming individuals for something the Democrats did as a party and should stick with it as a group.
So what if the GOP steals elections? The Democrats have now been in charge of congress for 1 year and done jack sh*t about NOTHING. Who cares?
You vote will be nule either way.
VOTE SHEEHAN, VOTE THIRD PARTY.
Wayne Barrett, you're full of it. It's easy to see you're a Clinton backer and fairness be damned. The Michigan governor didn't have to sign that bill. Clinton didn't have to leave her name on the ballot "just in case", or go back on her word to honor the DNC rules. She didn't have to support a plan to disenfranchise any Democrats who gave up and voted in the Republican primary since they didn't have any choice of Democratic front runners. The voters had been warned that write-ins would be thrown out. Obama has supported revotes, but Clinton wants to tweak them to favor her. If Obama had come out ahead in those states, there's no way in Hell Clinton would be howling for their voices to be heard, she would have been sanctimoniously insisting rules are rules.
It's a very valid point that there was no campaigning in Florida except for Clinton conveniently showing up the day before the primary, and starting out with the advantage of name recognition.
It's most unfortunate that the electorate pays for party leaders' manipulations, but what else is new?
kathyodat
If the Democrats were a serious opposition party they would have refused to start the race for the 2008 election prior to January 1, 2008.
By falling into the trap of starting the campaign in November 2006, they assured that only candidates that raised boatloads of corporate money to sustain a 24 month campaign rather than a 10 month campaign could stay in the race.
Combine that with a primary season spread out over 6 months and the Democrats will 1) not be in a strong position to beat the Republican candidate, and 2) will be in hock to the corporations if they do win the general election.
The repukes want to run mccain against hilary. What better reason could anyone have to support Obama? Even if the mighty O was useless - which he's not - the endorsement by repukes like limpbaugh, coulter and R voter's who switch party affiliation to vote for H. Clinton should tell you all you need to know.
Obama would have the best chance of the three to pull the us' head out of its arse. Clinton won't win against McCain, Obama will.
"It is true that all but one of the state's Democratic legislators supported the bill." Then I say the one who didn't gets to be Florida's delegation and that's it. The rest opposed the DNC's rules.
Republicans. Democrats. Both wings of the MONEY PARTY.
Geez.
For all the discussion on this site, no one wants to admit the truth.
The fix is in. HRC is doing her damnedest to destroy the Democratic party if she can't be the nominee.
NO MATTER WHO YOU VOTE FOR, THE GOVERNMENT WINS!!
It's not choosing the lesser of two evils. It's just choosing which evil will get to kill you first. It doesn't matter if you have McSame, or Billary,or O-HAM-a. The corporations will still be calling the shots, the resource wars will continue, and global warming will still be being debated as the coastal cities flood and the weather turns on us like an NFL quarterback's rabid pitbull.
There is about to be a national truckers strike. No trucks, no food. It's that simple. Any bets that Directive 51 won't be put into full force against food rioters? Wanna bet that the various candidates will be fully on the side of 'law and order'? Even if it means gunning down your own populations, or herding them into the Halliburton built camps?
Billary agreed to keeping them out and then changed her mind when she was desperate (since she expected to win because she is Clinton).
Just as she would be wailing all the time for B Hussein O to get out of it if she was ahead in the delegates.
I bet if she isnt the nominee she will endorse McCain.
Here is a question for you, Mr. Barrett...and you, dogmatic feminists:
Was Margaret Thatcher good for British women? I rest my case.
"Obama's only proposal so far has been to split the delegates evenly, just like he and Michelle parcel out Christmas presents to their two daughters."
The author implies that Obama prefers a paternalistic form of government with dimished public participation. I agree with Poet's comment that something smells in this article.
the article was too long and verbose for the subject matter...
Peaceseeker67 April 1st, 2008 12:21 pm
"It is the fault of the states Democratic parties that decided that they didn't care what the National Democratic Party said–they were going to hold their primaries whenever they wanted"
exactly, right on the mark peaceseeker...
the primary schedule is twisted and needs to be replaced with a sensible primary calender that holds 4 or 5 regional primaries on a rotating schedule, or replaces the state by state primaries w/ a national primary day in the spring. but the rules for 2008 were in existence before the game started and clinton/obama should abide by the rules and not seat the FL/MI delegates.
also presidents aren't allowed third terms in USA.....
....peace....
It is not right to blame either Obama or Clinton for this mess in Florida and Michigan. They did not cause it, so put the blame on the crooked bureacrats that figured it out in the first place.
This is just another case of Repug tampering with the election structure and the Dems being too slow to see what was going on. Howard Dean is not up to the job, so the Repubs along with their conservative media will manipulate another election.
Well, no matter, if you are rich and have no kids to be drafted into another war, it will be another great 4 or 8 years.
Governance is not supposed to be filled with such garbage. It's not a practical idea when it carries so much baggage.
Republicans pick the Democratic nominee, you say?
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j-yFl91SZQSuxY6iahMsbW_3FCHAD8VP7GEG0
So what ever happened to one person one vote?
what the hell is an electoral college?
what the hell are Super Delegates?
Are American Voters so dumb, they can't put an X beside someones name?
Seems mighty simple to have one or two days where you go to the voting place .. put your X beside the name you want for Prez.. couple days for all the X's to be counted .. DONE.
What the hell do you need all the other crap for?
people have been voting with an X on a paper for years and years.. remember "NEW" doesn't always mean "BETTER".
Being from FL I can tell you most people I know did not vote since their vote was not going to count. Everyone seems to forget that Hillary was in FL the day before and the day of the Primary. So she broke the rules. Give FL to Obama and let them split Michigan. She didn't even do that well in Michigan where she was the only candidate on the ballot. Wasn't she supposed to remove her name just like the other guys did? So she basically cheated in both states.
The issue of seating delegates for Michigan or Florida would have been a non-issue if, as frequently happens, one candidate had secured enough delegates to ensure the nomination by April or May. That is now not the case, and will likely not be the case even after the primary season is over.
So, it will either be the decision of the "super-delegates," i.e., essentially old time party back room dealings, or the redo of the Michigan and Florida primaries that will decide the nominee. Obama is advocating the former and Clinton the latter.
If Obama receives the nomination through the super-delegate process without a clear participation of the voters in Florida and Michigan, his presidential campaign could be seriously hampered. The last thing the Democrats need to is to be charged with unfair election dealings and not counting votes in states like Florida.
I am not a Clinton supporter, but the Senator from Illinois and his campaign need to think this through and provide more leadership on this and not depend upon Howard Dean to do so.
As a Michigan Dem/independent, I find it silly and downright insulting for Wayne Barrett to wail that popular grassroots anger over this convoluted, needless primary election fiasco will cause dumb Dems or fickle swing voters to stay home, go third party, or vote for McCain in the general election out of spite, thus making Florida and Michigan "the Ralph Nader of 2000, the great regret that delivers the country once again to four years of darkness."
Once the dust settles on the nominating process, come fall the two-party system will once again become a one-on-one personality contest like Bush vs. Kerry and Bush vs. Gore and nearly all of the presidential contests that have gone on before. Voters in my state and presumably even in the wacky environs of Florida will forget all about the cluster fug of the convention credential dust up and concentrate on more important things - like whether they'd rather drink a beer or leave the kids home for babysitting oversight with "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bombbomb Iran", or with somebody like Barack Obama.
I'm glad that Barrett pointed out the GOP instigation of this mess, however. I think the Dems should penalize Michigan and Florida's delegations like the Republicans apparently have: take away half their convention clout, and divvy up the delegates proportionately to the popular vote. That's still unfair to Obama, but it's better than what we've got now.
Bill from Saginaw
Obviously a Clinton Backer.....the tone says it all
The only fair way is Obammas solution, split the delegates
If Clinton steals the nomination from Obama, which is entirely possible, most of his supporters will justifiably desert the party and that, in and of itself, will lead to her easy defeat by John Wanker McCain. Even if she skated to the nomination she'll lose simply because of who she is and her gender. Never, never, never underestimate either racism or misogyny in this country; they are profound. If Obama wins the nomination, pull out your videos of Harold Ford's run for the Senate in Tennessee in '06 and see how he was defeated. Obama will experience this a thousand fold - and it will work. If you're wondering how the Democrats will once again lose the upcoming election . . . they already have. John Wanker McCain may very well make George Wanker Bush look like a librarian. More war, more death, more crushing debt, more lies, more bloody fantasy of Uncle Sam and his 50 inch chest and 30 inch biceps, more pitching excrement at the rest of the world's leaders for having the temerity to criticize us, the last best hope of humankind. I'm still waiting for a spaceship to come and take me out of this shithole!
It's possible that the Florida Dems traded away their primary for a paper trail in November. At the time there was no way to know if the primary would matter anyway. A good trade I think.
Oh and I am sick of the Republican tactic of throwing mud like crazy from one side and then in fair and balanced fashion calling it both sides. It's one side throwing the mud and her name is Hillary, her party, I'm not sure.
Mordechai -- Careful there, didn't you ever hear that joke about Hell, where the dude visited during "break" time, so he thought Hell looked so much better than Heaven?
Obviouusly a planted story by the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Caucus) to undermine its inter-party rival, the DNC chaired by Howard Dean. The DCCC is controlled by the Clintons - and represent a 'rightist' view of all things wrong! They strongly opposed the DNC's 50 state strategy because it decentralized decision making power and put it in the hands of the party regulars in the various states. Gee - does this sound familiar? Kinda Bushie, huh?
I am 58 years old and would never have believed I would live to see a Democrat use the tactics that Billary has used in this campaign. She and her husband should be expunged from the party (they already are ideologically), and, much like the statue in Baghdad - have all likenesses broken into little pieces and swept into the dust bin of history.
Well they need a re-vote if they are going to count the votes in a fair way. And I certainly think they should do a full re-vote (even though both states have ruled that out - it seems.) There is no way that either election was fair.
In Michigan, no candidates except Clinton and Kucinich were even running.
And the "word to the voters" before both elections was "this election isn't going to count." You are obviously going to get a much larger and truer cross-section of eligible voters if the voters believe they are voting in an official election instead of an "election that isn't going to count." 'Nuff said.
if the dem party allows the two bad kids to have thier cake and eat it too?
and basically gives those votes to one candidate. since many dems voted gop in both places and obama wasnt even on the one ticket!
the GOP will have an easy time smearing us in Nov.
the war ? bah
the current poop will be about faking the vote.
americans wouldnt be able to trust the dems past our noses either...and at least the gop will kill for america.
not pretty but reality often isnt.
from a homeless disabled (also now no longer a person)
Blah, blah, blah. The voters of Michigan and Florida have their state representatives to blame. The only sensible solution is to divide the delegates equally because to do otherwise is to pander to states that don't follow the rules of the party.
I wonder, did the Commondreams editors include this article because it's April 1st? It's certainly a foolish article.
Well I didn't read it. I started to, then thought I'd try to skim it, then saw how looooog it was and thought I'd try to read the comments to get a feel for it. Seems like a lot of blah, blah, blah to me and not worth spending time on.
Why did Hillary win by 300,000 votes in Florida?
I live in this God-forsaken place, and will explain.
We knew going in that our votes in the primary were not going to count. OK. BUT, also on the ballot was a very important referendum issue that promised to reduce property taxes for some people rather significantly.
So who voted in Florida's primary? Homeowners, that's who. Mostly middle-aged and elderly homeowners looking to reduce their property taxes. And they marked the entire ballot, which consisted of two questions: the primary contest and the referendum on the taxation amendment. Hell, I voted for John Edwards, figuring it would be my only shot to vote for the guy, and I was well aware my vote wouldn't count. As was everyone else.
Who didn't vote? Young people, college students, a large percentage of minorities, the working poor, renters...most are not homeowners and very few of these folks had a dog in this fight. Thus, they stayed home.
So Hillary "won," because nobody else campaigned here, she had the most name recognition, and most people just didn't give a damn about a primary that wasn't going to count, or so we were told!
Another Florida voting travesty.
The solution to all this crap is to make sure Ralph Nader is allowed into the final debates,so the American people will be told the truth.
The Dems have to follow the rules they made. To count Florida or Michigan votes would be just a sign of "things to come." In fact, we should look closely at those who want to overlook the Democratic vote to exclude states that don't abide by the rules for setting primaries.
AND, by the way, get rid of the caucus in Texas. Two votes per person? I thought my one machine vote (without a paper trail) was plenty...and I have no idea if either of them counted. Delegates at my caucus were self-evident before the voting. They just took over.
Its important to note that Hillary only has as many delegates as she currently does because over 100,000 republicans voted for her.
She's slithering.
I quickly read the whole article, and like other realized that Mr. Barrett, although offering a lot of information, it all eventually was slanted in HC favor.
It really seems that to restore faith in our democratic election system we need a 'Manhattan project' (maybe a constitutional convention) to establish rock solid non partisan ground rules for our political campaigns and elections. Lets all sit down and come up with a 10 (or 20 - whatever it takes) list of positive rules to restore the very heart (now on a respirator) of our democracy - it's campaign and election system.
Yeah sure, and if I lose the poker game, I want my money back! If I win I demand we stick by the rules. Is this article for real?
In the end, all that matters« is that a certain large number of democrats will vote for McCain but not many republicans will vote for the democrat. There are those who don't want a woman, and those who don't want a black man who 10% of people think is Muslim! Once again, the democratic candidate will be done in by the democrat electorate. And Nader will be blamed because denial is all-american.
It was the Dem's here in MI who 'rigged' our Primary (and, I suspect the same for FL). This was deliberate (and, exactly the same-crappola they pulled in 1984, when Jackson was beating Mondale) -- and, so that "Super-Delegates" would push-through for Hillary [who will 'win', unfortunately -- and likely have Al 'Carbon-Taxation' Gore as her 'surprise-VP'].
Not that it 'matters' who wins -- between BO/HC/JM...our 'corporations and foreign-controlled Banks' will be the "real-winners" (as per-usual). [And, these neo-Lib's will do more harm to both the Economy-here and the to-be-starved Poor overseas than Bush EVER 'wished-to or Could' with his military-alone...]
First, the Hillary campaign agreed to and in fact helped create the rules. Secondly, it's a moot point. Even if she wins both states, she doesn't have enough to get nominated. It's time for Hillary and the faux Democrats/Republican trolls to step aside.
PA is a closed primary, but voters can switch registration then switch back. Because the GOP nomination is a wrap, some repubs are doing just that.
It is amazing to me how many people are blinded by their allegiance to one candidate or another. Many people who apparently tried to finish reading this article could not because they thought it was critical of Obama. Obama is not the second coming, okay people, get a grip! He is a politician who will do whatever it takes to get elected - if this means some below the belt moves then so be it. Every serious politician is the same way. Bush beat Gore in 2000 using everything at his disposal, including the Supreme Court. Bush did it again in 2004 against Kerry with strange happenings in Ohio and the swift boat nonsense. Johnson and Kennedy each had their tricks, to help elections along, in the sixties. Obama is a politician, not Jesus Christ.
Are we still pretending like we have real elections in this country and that our votes actually decide anything? How many rigged elections will it take?
What you are watching, friends, is the 2008 Made-For-TV election show! So exciting with all the twists and turns, but then, the swift boat, and the polls that show what was once a huge lead is now narrow, and - oh wait, now the Repug is winning by a slim margin in some polls but it is just too close to call. Cut to the day after the election when, despite the exit polls and thanks to a whole lot of dirty tricks - we have our new President McCain. Then all the democrats will promptly go off and beat themselves up for just not being able to "frame" things correctly and the MSM and DNC will all blame Nader. But, golly gee, maybe we'll get 'em next time!
Cheney and his cronies haven't been pushing through all these moves to increase Executive branch power so they can hand it over to a democrat -- wake up and get real!
A very informative piece, your blatant bias toward Hillary Clinton and glossing over of the fact that her campaign agreed with the decisions on Florida and Michigan aside. But the great part about the Republican meddling is that getting Florida and Michigan eliminated from the Democratic count may be what prevents the person they really want to run against, Clinton, from becoming the Democratic nominee.