The DNC's idea of democracy: MI & FL primary voters = 1/2 a person

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applesanity

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/31/dems.delegates/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After a day of wrangling in front of a sometimes unruly crowd, the Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws committee reinstated all of Florida and Michigan's delegates to its party convention, with each getting a half-vote to penalize the states for moving their primaries earlier than the party had approved.

The move will leave front-runner Sen. Barack Obama's lead over rival Sen. Hillary Clinton intact.

"This results in Sen. Clinton obtaining a substantial number of additional pledged delegates, but I also understand that many members of the Florida and Michigan delegations feel satisfied that the decision was fair," Obama said after a campaign event in Aberdeen, South Dakota. "Our main goal is to get this resolved so we can immediately turn the focus of the entire party on winning Florida and Michigan and delivering on the needs of the people in Florida and Michigan -- states that are enormously important, states where a lot of people are struggling."

The Florida decision, which follows the pro-Clinton results of that state's primary, was greeted by virtually all sides as an acceptable compromise on a thorny issue. But Clinton backers vowed to fight the Michigan decision, which gave the New York senator a 10-delegate edge over Obama in a state where his name didn't appear on the primary ballot.

"Today's results are a victory for the people of Florida, who will have a voice in selecting our party's nominee and will see its delegates seated at our party's convention," said a joint-statement from Clinton advisers Harold Ickes and Tina Flournoy. "[But] we strongly object to the committee's decision to undercut its own rules in seating Michigan's delegates without reflecting the votes of the people of Michigan."

With no Michigan or Florida delegates included, Obama led Clinton by 202 delegates.

The committee's ruling gave Clinton 105 pledged delegates from Florida and 69 from Michigan, with a total of 87 votes.

Obama received 67 pledged delegates from Florida and 59 from Michigan, casting a total of 63 votes.

That tally leaves Obama ahead by the equivalent of 174 delegates.

If each delegate had been granted a full vote, Clinton still would have trailed Obama.
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(Story continues, but it's really boring)

I suppose, as their own institution with their own crazy rules, the DNC can do whatever the... heck they want with their votes. Although I feel the voters in Michigan and Florida won't like the fact that in the eyes of the DNC (and because the MI and FL state dem parties messed up so much), they now count as half a vote.

This solution is going to lead to a lot of resentment among dem primary voters in FL and MI. Either they'll tow the line come November (it's such a long time away) or they'll sit home. Maybe if they're really pissed, the FL voters will spite the DNC by voting for Pat Buchanan! Anyway, I just love how if the DNC went by RNC rules for primary voting, Hillary would have won a long time ago. It's just too bad that the divisiveness in amongst the Dems isn't really helping McCain as much as I'd like, because he's being squeezed out of the headlines.

My first thought about this weekend's ruling was really wrong. But I can't resist. So here goes:

Well, it's not really fair to Hillary and the MI and FL voters that they only count as half a vote each. However, the DNC can't really give them a full vote each because Obama would never agree to it, thus leading to stalemate and no resolution. How about this compromise: Michigan and Florida Democratic primary voters should count as three-fifths.
 
FL and MI Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for violating the rules of their party. Nobody thought this would draw out so now it is an issue. All I know is there is NO good answer at this point for them and that is fine with me!
 
I can see the Republican campaign sloguns in both states this year...

"Vote Republican, we consider you a full person!"
 
This solution is going to lead to a lot of resentment among dem primary voters in FL and MI.
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No, it won't. The voters of MI and FL should be happy they get to be counted as half a person, since they agreed not to be counted at all. This decision was reached as a result of severe pressure from the Hillary campaign to steal the election from Obama.
 
As a Florida resident, I can say this: It is none of the Republican or Democrat parties' business when we choose to have our primary. Maybe we should just prohibit political parties altogether.
 
It's certainly some of their business if you want to have a say in who their candidate is.

Rather than prohibiting political parties, we should merely "disestablish" them, stripping them of all legal privileges. There's no good reason taxpayers should pay for party primaries, or that parties should have any advantage over individuals in getting access to the general election ballot.
 
As a Florida resident, I can say this: It is none of the Republican or Democrat parties' business when we choose to have our primary.
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I'm fairly OK with having staggered primary voting. If there were 1 national primary voting day (i.e., Super-Super Tuesday), then low-budget candidates would never stand a chance. Going one state at a time means that smaller candidates (John McCain) can raise enough funds to win one state, move to the next, and continue. On the other hand, one national voting day means that only the likes of Mitt Romney can wage such a battle.

If everyone wanted to have the first primary, the end result would essentially be a national primary day.

However, I don't like that only a few states can sway a presidential election. How about a rotating schedule, or schedule by lottery? Each state takes a turn being the first or second to vote in primary season, then in 4 years, it gets bumped back to mid-June?

Three-fifths: it's better than being half a person.
 
This decision was reached as a result of severe pressure from the Hillary campaign to steal the election from Obama.
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This is great...

Deal with the fact that if Hillary wins she wins. There is no "stealing" if she gets the most votes in the DNC's system.

Watching these people shred each other is priceless. Obama will win the nomination with enough Dems ticked off so much they will vote for McCain. At the same time he can't get his own, former, church to shut up (even though he counted on them for every race till now!).

Finally you have the morons running the Democratic Party in MI and FL who chose to ignore all the established rules and now expect the rest of the party to pay for a redo, or accept votes from states where the candidates had not even run after an agreement NOT to do so since the votes would mean nothing.

This is great. As bad as the RNC is with a candidate who can only be considered partially conservative if he is in a room with Hillary or Obama the Dems have managed to piss off two key states, divide their party and scare the hell out of independents with a presumptive candidate (Obama) who has a cart load of racists and hate mongers attached to him for 20 years.
 
IIRC, a primary / caucus is not a vote like in a general election. SO you cant be denied your right to vote. This is supported by a court case that primaries are disputes between 2 parties, in this case state and national level democratic parties. So, no one is being denied their right to vote, and no one is 1/2 a person.

Everyone knew when this pony show got started that MI and FL would not count, even Clinton. Now that Clinton is losing, she ,in typical Clinton fashion wants to "change the rules in mid stream.."
 
The party should have stood their ground. The people knew their votes didn't count when they went to the booth and pulled the lever. Clinton however was smart enough to leave her name on the ballot where Obama had his removed. The results of the vote are entirely invalid as a true determination of the consensus in those states anyways as many people who otherwise would have voted stayed home because the knew their vote didn't count. This would be especially true for Obama supporters.
 
This decision was reached as a result of severe pressure from the Hillary campaign to steal the election from Obama.
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Pflueger? Is that you?

Although I don't support her, Hillary leads by far in the popular vote. If it wasn't for shady primary games and superdelegates voting against their constituants Obama would be out of the race.

It's obvious Mr Benign.Neglect that you're a big Obama fan, but don't you think that there's something rotten about a system that railroads a loser in the popular vote to the head of the pack? Affirmative action should not elect presidents.
 
It's certainly some of their business if you want to have a say in who their candidate is.
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And just whose tax dollars are paying for the election? Not the political parties. The Florida taxpayer foots the bill. Yet another example of someone else deciding what to do with MY money.

ETA:

I do find it interesting that the party that has been crying for 8 years about how every vote should count, how the Republicans disenfranchised voters, and how we should be abolishing the electoral college and allow a popular vote, yet Obama is winning the primary, even though Clinton is leading in the popular vote. Clinton would be leading the delegate count, except that Florida voters are being disenfranchised.
 
The voters of MI and FL should be happy they get to be counted as half a person, since they agreed not to be counted at all. This decision was reached as a result of severe pressure from the Hillary campaign to steal the election from Obama.
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I agree 100%. Not that I like either one of them, but the only fair thing to do is count them as zero, since Obama didn't campaign there and Hillary DID. Gee, it's almost as if she KNEW ahead of time. Perhaps? Conspiracy theory anyone?

But Hillary would never be deceptive. Just ask her about ducking for cover under sniper fire in Bosnia.
 
Although I don't support her, Hillary leads by far in the popular vote.
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You mean when not including caucuses but including MI and FL?

In any case, the primaries do NOT use a popular vote to determine a democratic candidate. For that matter, the general election isn't determined by popular vote.

The complaint is simply that Hillary agreed to DNC rules not to allow MI and FL because they moved their primaries, yet now wants to change the rules.
 
Florida voters are being disenfranchised.
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Well, technically, only voters that voted in democratic primaries are disenfranchised. However, primaries are not votes in the general. The result of a primary is not someone being put into an elected position. I'm not even sure that disenfranchisement can even be claimed...
 
It only took 8 years to forget the we'll count every vote pledge.
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A) please cite your source, I don't believe you
B) by 2004 it was clear votes still weren't being counted correctly.
C) The implied alternative of NOT taking such a pledge is somehow better? Failing to live up to a promise does not indicate hypocrisy.
 
I'm not really dissappointed in the 1/2 vote bit. I was expecting it eventually.

I hear criticism about the state leadership fumbling the ball on this one, but I'm not entirely certain that they have. Michigan's had a very tough 10 years. Moving the primary was an attempt to draw attention to a situation that feels more and more desperate. We had very little to lose I think.

The Democrats have handled things...not as well as they could have I think. Michigan and Florida handed them a bag of poop (In other words, the situation was going to stink for them no matter what) but the DNC has pretty much managed to drop the bag and soil themselves pretty throughoughly.

Republicans should smell an opportunity.
 
Given that

the RNC assessed exactly the same penalty for both states, they'd be wise not to talk about it.

Pot, meet kettle. Feel free to discuss your respective hues.

--Shannon
 
No, it won't. The voters of MI and FL should be happy they get to be counted as half a person, since they agreed not to be counted at all. This decision was reached as a result of severe pressure from the Hillary campaign to steal the election from Obama.
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Really, how did they "agree" to that? You're telling me that the average voter had any say? C'mon this is just Obamapologetics.
 
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