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Florida Delegate Fight Continued
Whoever wins Florida in November will probably be the next president of the United States!
That's the overwhelming opinion expressed by the Sunshine State media, political insiders, analysts -- even those many angry Democrats, still fuming over the national party's refusal to seat delegates in time to select the nominee.
Why else would Sen. John McCain continually float the name of Gov. Charlie Crist, the little-known Southern moderate, as his vice president?
Why else would both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spend most of the final week of May in Florida, when there are primaries elsewhere, and when the State may not even have a say in selecting the nominee because it held a primary 7 days in advance of party rules.
Florida, with 27 electoral votes, is the fourth-largest state in the nation and the only one of the top four in population considered a swing state -- neither red nor blue. The others - California and New York for the Democrats and Texas for the GOP -- are considered hardly much of contests. That's why!
The political importance of Florida once again (remember 2000 and the hanging chads?) is touted by local media.
"Crist, Florida Key for McCain" was the lead story of Sunday's Miami Herald, explaining that, whether or not the governor "ends up on the ticket, the Republican presidential candidate needs him" to win the State in November.
The Fort-Lauderdale based Sun-Sentinel headlined on page one: (Rep. Robert) "Wexler's Clout Is Key for Obama," referring to the South Florida's Congressman's backing to help the potential Democratic nominee to win over Jewish voters, who are believed to be 10 percent of those casting ballots in Florida in November.
The Orlando Sentinel was more general in its page one coverage: "Middle Class Losing Its Grip on the American Dream," it said, politicizing the "tough times" caused by the economic slowdown, particularly the mortgage crisis.
The Sunday editorials also were reminders of the full-fledged election season, ending a week of almost non-stop political coverage by newspapers and local television from Miami to Tallahassee. Senator Obama campaigned on the Florida West Coast, in Miami -- a vote-rich Cuban-American population center, and in the Boca-Raton-Fort Lauderdale area, where elderly voters make up for the state's most Democratic constituency. So did Sen. Clinton, who brought out huge crowds from the silver-haired condo communities in the tri-county area of South Florida. And, McCain made another of his frequent Florida visits, this time before the Cuban-American Foundation in Miami, and a fundraising expedition.
The almost constant political news on the airwaves, in print media and on the Internet stimulated conversation from the liberal Florida Keys to the conservative Gulf Coast Panhandle, even at social gatherings during Memorial Day..
One lady -- flipping hamburgers at a 55-and-over barbecue in suburban Weston -- admits to leaning towards the McCain campaign. She says it was the televised remarks of Obama's former pastor which caused her shift in allegiance, but went on to say, that if Clinton were on the Democratic ticket "then I might return to the fold."
Much of the frustration with pre-November politics comes from the Democrats, particularly aimed at the National Committee's bungling of the Florida primary results. Florida was supposed to get 211 delegate votes at the Aug. 25-28 convention in Denver, but the DNC says it won't settle seating the Florida delegation until its Credentials Committee meeting in Washington D.C. on May 31. Initial public pronouncements say it may give Florida l/2 vote per delegate, which would have no impact on the nomination process. Clinton is urging the Credentials Committee to give Florida its rightful 100 percent delegation strength, while Obama's representatives say Florida should be punished for breaking party rules. Party Chief Howard Dean has said Florida -- which was won handily by Clinton -- will be seated once the two candidates are in agreement, but there is a general feeling that he is just delaying a decision until all the primaries are over on June 3 or until a nominee is selected by the other 48 States (without Florida and Michigan, which also broke party rules).
The "winning" number of delegate votes has been publicized by the media as 2,025 excluding Florida and Michigan. With Florida and Michigan in the mix, a nominee would need 2,209 votes at the convention.
"We will not be satisfied with one-half a vote," says delegate Barbara Effman, president of the West Broward Democratic club, the largest Dem-club in Florida. "Our vote is worth just as much as any other in the 50 United States."
Effman, a Clinton supporter, and Percy Johnson, an Obama delegate, joined with State Sen. Steve Geller and filed a federal lawsuit last week, asking the court to recognize the more than 1.75 million Democratic voters who went to the polls in January and to have their votes counted in selecting the nominee. They seem to represent a growing chorus indicating that the one-half vote solution would be met with stiff opposition A separate lawsuit filed by Tampa activist Victor DiMaio is pending.
Although the Democratic National Committee won't meet until May 31, most observers are now saying the DNC will probably not want to antagonize Floridians any further and may relent by seating the entire Florida delegation "in some manner."
The Republican Party stripped its Florida delegation by 50 percent, but with McCain already anointed to carry the GOP banner, it didn't matter much. Counting Florida for the Dems could be an entirely different matter. Although DNC Chief Dean has put the controversy up to the two candidates, some Clinton delegates -- despite signing pledges to support the eventual nominee -- say that if Obama wins the nomination, he must select Clinton as his running mate "or face a shellacking."
In addition, Florida Democrats have internal problems which must be solved. The final meeting to choose Florida delegates left bruised feelings when leaders of the Gay/Lesbian alliance -- representatives of a huge voting bloc in South Florida -- complained that they were only given half of the promised slots despite "affirmative action standards."
GLBT leader Michael Albetta -- a major voice in party politics -- admittedly was unhappy with the delegate allocation, and so were delegate-hopefuls representing the elderly and war veterans. A special meeting has been called for June 14 (the same day of the fundraising Jefferson-Jackson State Dinner) in Hollywood to organize a Veterans Caucus to help ease the anger.
Despite opposition to the half-vote proposal, the pending lawsuits and general uneasiness over Florida convention prospects, superdelegate Jon Ausman of Tallahassee will appeal to the DNC Friday-- still time, he says, to keep Florida in play for the general election. His proposal, he explained, could eventually give the state its full 211 delegates, but would start with Florida getting half-votes per delegate and then appealing to the Convention Credentials Committee for the remaining portion of delegates "to bring us up to 211 votes." However, unless the DNC acts prior to June 3 (when all the primaries will be over), the nominee could be selected without Florida and Michigan. Most activists say that Ausman's plan is too little, too late.
Without "100 percent recognition now and without being part of the nomination process," some are saying they will organize a convention floor fight.
Floridians going to the Democratic convention say that Chairman Dean must recognize every Florida vote before a nominee is named, noting each day of delay is hurting the party. Delegates continue to be irate, not only because no one knows how their power will eventually be allocated, but because the DNC even refuses to designate a hotel for them, creating travel plan difficulties.
'This is childish," says a delegate.
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Seriously, I have questions about the supporters going to DC.
1. Who is paying for this trip? Who foots the bill?
2. Who would pay the bills of any possible legal services should the need arise?
Certainly, I would expect that the Democratic Party or, indirectly, paying democratic supporters not be held responsible for these expenses.
A new record! Yes! Hillary has broken a record! She now holds the record for the most votes cast against a candidate in primary elections! Wow!
I put the timeline for this mess on my blog www.jemiltd.bravejournal.com so that readers can understand how we got here.
My conclusion: In spite of allegations to the contrary, Senator Obama had nothing to do with the exclusion of Florida and Michigan delegates. This insidious mess was created by the DNC, although the Republicans of Florida, and both the Democrats and Republicans in office or on committee in MIchigan got their hands dirty in creating this problem for the true victims: the actual voters. It would appear to me that the DNC need only create a new plan for the future that would hold the state primaries by quadrant regions , and each schedule each quadrant by lottery. In other words, pick number 1 - 4 out of a bag. And then no one state would matter over another. Equal opportunity with no more of this nonsense. That said, I would encourage the DNC -- because this is, after all, their responsibility to resolve, no matter who is to blame, -- to seat fifty percent of the "committed delegates" from both Michigan and Florida and split those delegates between Senators Obama and Clinton AND then seat all of the "uncommitted delegates" from both Michigan and Florida (if there were any uncommitted in Florida) and let them decide who to cast their votes for. And add those delegate numbers to the delegate vote requirement. No one will see this as being fair, but everyone will grudgingly agree that this is right.
The behavior of Clinton and her supporters are a previewe of her administration. Watch Reocunt and ask yourself honestly which candidate she is behaving like and ask yourself if you want 8 more years of that.
Peperminttwist, my question to you: Why is it you feel that you have more of a right to vote than someone, who understanding the rules and followed them, did not cast a vote for the Democrat nominee? If you feel that you should be granted leave to have your vote count, knowing that your vote was not supposed to count in the first place, why should it be honored? You do realize you have no right to vote in a Political Party nomination, right? You also realize that millions of people didn't mark a selection for the candidate of their choice, right? You also must realize that it was your elected officials that made this decision, and must pay for any perceived slight, right? If not, and you feel that they should be able to avoid punishment for breaking the rules in the first place, and if you feel that you have more of an entitlement to have your vote count over the others who didn't vote, then why should your vote count? Why should your voice be heard? You feel that rules should not apply to Hillary, your Government, so why pray tell must you be granted your vote? Rule breaking does and can apply both ways, you do realize this, right?
Those who chose not to vote have no sympathy from me. They knew that Dean's insane, unfair decision to strip away all the delegates was being fought and would probably be reversed. Our own state party here in Florida urged us to vote with a page on their web site called "Make it Count", including a pledge for voters to sign, stating that we would vote in the primary. Virtually all the political pundits were saying, at the time that Dean went off his meds and issued his unfair, draconian decision, that it would certainly be reversed and the delegates would be seated at the convention. So most of us here in Florida hoped that our delegates would be restored when we went to the polls and voted. Anyone who didn't vote chose to assume that the delegate situation would not be resolved. That decision is their responsibility. The voters of Florida and Michigan violated no rules and thus did not deserve our voice in selecting our nominee to be taken away. You keep referring to rule breaking, but we broke none. It was the Republican-controlled state legislature in Florida that set the primary date. Should they have violated the rule? No. But should the voters be the ones punished for that? NO. Again, I hope a system of fair, rotating regional primaries will be put in place in future to avoid this party-devastating situation in future.
FIRST PART OF P.S.
P.S. And another thing: you state, quote: " If you feel that you should be granted leave to have your vote count, knowing that your vote was not supposed to count in the first place, why should it be honored?" I and millions of other Florida and Michigan Democrats most certainly did not and do not "know that our votes were not suppoesed to count in the first place." I am a lifelong, loyal voting member of the Democratic party. It was Howard Dean who decided that my vote was, quote "not supposed to count", not me! I never stipulated to it and never accepted his decision because it was unfair, draconian and misdirected at the wrong people. What Dean should have done is cut the delegates in HALF, as the rules originally recommended. That would have effectively chastised the offending states, which I agree with you, he had to do, yet it would have left the innocent VOTERS with a voice, which he obviously should have done.
SECOND PART OF P.S.:
And that is probably what is going to end up happening afterall, but at this point, Dean has really damaged our party and hopelessly flawed this entire primary season in terms of the integrity of the process. There is no way to truly make it a fair process to all at this point. The best we can hope for is to figure out what the fairest thing would be, which I believe is to restore all or at least half of the delegates to Florida, based on the actual election results. Michigan is a trickier story due to Barack CHOSING to remove his name from the ballot (no, there was NO rule saying he had to). But in the case of Florida, all or at least half of the delegates should be restored and should be allocated based solely on the results of the election, which contained all candidates on the ballot and had a record turnout at the polls. As for Michigan, they will have to work something out that is as fair as possible, but ultimately, those delegates should be seated, too.
AND, finally, one last thing: I do feel bad for anyone who chose not to vote so it wasn't entirely accurate for me to say such a person gets "no sympathy from me", but here's the thing: All we could do at that point in terms of fighting Dean's unfair ruling was to vote and keep fighting it. If you DIDN'T vote, then you surely have NO shot of having your vote count, that's the only thing anyone could know for sure at that point. So, that is why I don't feel very sorry for such folks, because everyone here in Florida knew that the ruling was being challenged on multiple fronts and also the "expert" thinking among pundits was that surely the nominee would seat the delegates and that the nominee would be all decided WAY before the convention (I never thought that, and I always felt that was beside the point because, if the nomination was decided before the convention, then who CARES if our delegates are seated, but anyway...moving on). What we knew here is that Dean's ruling was unfair and we were fighting it and the most important way to fight it--or one of the most important, anyway--was to get out there and VOTE, which is what we did, in record droves. Peace out.
I really, truly hate to tell you this, because you seem to be on a roll. But Chairman Dean did not make the rules, the DNC Rules Committee made them. That committee included as many Clinton supporters as it did Obama supporters (actually, I believe there were more Clinton supporters). This included Harold Ickes, the guy that now wants to change the rules.
The rules were approved by the committee, and the candidates signed the pledge to honor the rules. All the candidates did honor the rules, except now, one candidate wants to change them after the fact. That's what is going on.
Everyone wants to blame Gov. Dean, but it is a lot more complicated than that.
Have you ever played a game against someone that wanted to change the rules because they were losing or argued with you about it?
why doesn't the media cover the real truth of the delegate mess. it wasn't just FL and MI that moved their votes up. so did Iowa, NH and SC. yet only MI and FL were penalized. and then, instead of imposing the ordinary sanction for moving up their primaries, which would have taken only 1/2 of their delegates, they imposed the extraordinary punishment of taking all their delegates.
read the DNC delegate rules (Rule 11 for the required scheduling rules; Rule 20 for the appropriate punishment) at: http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/5465
each time i write "punishment" that takes away the vote, i find it wholly inconsistent with what DEMS are supposed to be about. it's as if we've been taken over by scalia followers -- forget the vote of the people, follow the rules.
RIGHT ON, JRTERRIER! I LOVE YOUR POST SO MUCH THAT I HAVE TO USE ALL CAPS TO SAY IT! ...Okay, back to normal sentence case *LOL*! But I'm DEFINITELY a fan of jrterrier! Yay for your post!
You actually should read the real rules that are located on the DNC site.
PART II OF MY POST, CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST...
However, not seating the delegates at all or, God forbid, deciding on the worst idea of the bunch which is arbitrarily splitting the delegates 50/50 thereby effectively MISrepresenting the voters (as opposed to just not representing us at all with no delegates), will result in a floor fight at the convention. But I do think that just giving us half our delegates (or, really, all the delegates, but each one would just have a half vote) is a fair and representative solution. I certainly hope that our party will work out a fair system of rotating, regional primaries for the future so that a situation like this NEVER happens again! And, while we are at it, we need to remove Howard Dean from office because his draconian, "Dean Scream 2008" decision to strip the two states of ALL our delegates is what led to this deadlocked, disenfranchising, snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory mess in the first place.
Agreed, kind of.
What I am upset about is the fact that lots of voters did not even put a check by any presidential candidate's name because everybody (EVERYBODY, darn it!) said the votes did not count. So, allowing the votes - as voted - disenfranchises the people who relied on the statements of our leaders and did not bother to vote for a presidential candidate.
And, remember this; Hillary did not complain about the FL voters until she desperately needed their votes. She did not sound any alarms about it. In fact, she agreed to it - in writing. And she did not start screaming for the votes to be counted until it was her only chance of winning the nomination.
It wasn't Dean who decided. It was a rules committee who had this option in the standard and current rules.. A similar event happened to Delaware back in 96.
It was the FL legislators (DEMS) who foisted this on you. They knew the consequences and went ahead anyway. You should see the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIXBtHfr0C8
The reason this was a big issue is that some states were considering pushing into DECEMBER of 2007 trying to be first or near first.
now, what about those MILLIONS of voters who did not turn out because it "was just abeauty contest?"
Yes, looking at the data of voter turn out, it would have been extremely higher if the primary were to count.
Me again (after I said my last post was my final one--my bad!). Gotta say one other thing in answer to:
"Peperminttwist, my question to you: Why is it you feel that you have more of a right to vote than someone, who understanding the rules and followed them, did not cast a vote for the Democrat nominee?
I don't feel I have "more of a right to vote" than they do. We all had an equal right to vote. The difference is, I chose to exercise my right to vote and they didn't. We all knew that the delegate situation was up in the air and being challenged. So those who didn't vote (and the turn-out was RECORD, but anyway) don't get to complain if their voices aren't heard. However, those of us who did exercise our precious right to vote DO get to complain loudly if our party continues to opt for the path of disenfranchisement.
Okay...now I'm really done. Peace out.
These are PARTY primaries, not general elections. The Party could dictate that only one-armed dwarfs names Phil can vote in counties with more palm trees than pine trees, and that would be the rule. Voting rights, right to vote, do not play into it at all. You have no voting rights in primaries, no one ever has. Your local politicians screwed you over. Elect better ones - in a general election, when you actually do have the "right" to vote.
PART ONE OF MY POST:
I am a Florida Democrat and a person who has been screaming my head off about Dean's draconian and idiotic, unfair decision to strip FL & MI of ALL our delegates for the violation of an arcane and arbitrary rule by the REPUBLICAN-controlled legislature from the moment he made it. My outrage has zero to do with which candidate I support (I've been up in arms about this since before a single vote was cast) and everything to do with the disfranchisement of millions of innocent, loyal rank and file Democrats over something we had no control over. All that said, I want to go on record as saying that I, for one, would be satisfied with each delegate getting only a half (.5) vote. I think this would be the fairest solution at this point. It would give the voters a representative, albiet understandably diminished voice. So seat all our delegates or seat half, either way is okay with me.
...CONTINUED IN PART TWO...
It was the FL legislators (DEMS) who foisted this on you. They knew the consequences and went ahead anyway. You should see the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIXBtHfr0C8
Unfortunately, I think giving each delagate is the only "fair" solution. It's what they should have done in the first place, and if they'd had, results would have been more accurate because voters wouldn've gone knowing their votes did matter. Unfortunately because they didn't the votes are scewed, so getting a half a vote is about as fair as you can get.
Why don't the self-righteous leaders in Florida care about the millions of Floridians who did not vote for a president during the primary?
Some of those leaders misled the voters by telling them their votes would not count.
So, if a voter believed those leaders and left the president slot blank, he/she is disenfranchised - and the leaders do not care at all. I simply don't understand this.
the 1.7 million who voted in FL was a record turnout.
Not correct!
The 1.7 million includes those who voted in the Republican primary as well. The Democratic primary had one of the lowest percentage turnouts of this contest because EVERYONE was told AD NAUSIUM that ANY votes in the Democratic primary would not count. They were told this in the run up to the elction over and over and, again, when they showed up to the polling stations and announced that they wanted to vote in the Democratic Primary.
Even if it were true (which it is not), don't ya think Hillary is being a bit sanctimonious not wanting to help the disenfranchised voters who did not vote?
No need to answer. We know the answer...
Because of the ballot initiative on property taxes. A lot of people that did not own property did not vote.
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Posted May 26, 2008 | 09:24 PM (EST)