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.

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.

Comments

[mornacm]

Referring to "Clinton's 300,000-vote win in Florida, where both candidates competed on a level playing field" is disingenuous at best. The Florida vote was at the beginning of the campaign, and there had been no campaigning allowed in the state. It was at a time when, in most minds, Hillary was a very well known entity and Obama was some new (black) guy who was testing the water, and probably didn't stand a chance of winning because he was, after all, a new (black) guy. How is that a level playing field?

And dividing the delegates in the same proportion as the vote went is not the answer. Nobody knows how the vote would have gone if the people had believed that their vote would actually count.

Also, when considering a re-do of the votes in Florida and Michigan, one comes up against some serious problems. What about the people who voted on the Republican side simply because they knew their Democratic vote wouldn't count and they wanted to have some say in something. If there is a re-do, these people, who would prefer to have their say in the Democratic arena, will be disenfranchised, because they won't be allowed to vote again.

Of course, nothing makes me laugh (cry) harder than watching Hillary Clinton (George Orwell) say that the vote in Michigan was "fair." That's a whopper to compete with her Bosnia story.

[jrterrier]

FLorida took place the Tuesday after the Saturday primary in SC. And Obama trounced Hillary in SC, a fact which was all over the news that weekend leading up to the Florida primary on Tuesday.

It took place after a week and one-half of Obama campaign ads that ran inside of FL because Obama said that the "national" ad buy could not excempt out FL. The nationals ads started running on Jan 15, with the MLK celebrations and did not end until after the FL primary.

FL voted the day after Ted and Caroline Kennedy held a rally at American U in DC, where they placed the Kennedy mantle on Obama and which was carried ad nauseam over all TV stations (that Sunday, Caroline had written a a beautifully written op-ed piece endorsing Obama.

In fact, recently it was reported that Obama spent $3 million in campaign advertising in FL as a result of his national campaign buy. By the way, I think that's the only national campaig buy he made.

So, if anyone had a leg up on FL, it was Obama. The turnout for the Fl primary broke all primary attendance records. Hillary received 1.7 million votes out of nearly 3 million votes cast by FL Dems. That's more votes than in most of the caucuses that Obama has won combined.

[jrterrier]

As far as MI, there was a concerted effort being reported prominently that both the Obama and Edwards campaigns were urging their people to vote uncommitted in large part to embarrass Hillary so that "uncommitted" would beat her. Congressman John Conyers, a leading Dem in Detroit, urged his constituents to vote uncommitted. Which is why "uncommitted" received nearly 40% of the vote to Hillary's 53%

[pgate127]

"It was at a time when, in most minds, Hillary was a very well known entity and Obama was some new (black) guy who was testing the water"

So, let's see if I understand what you're saying: record numbers of people got out of the barcalounger, in the car, to the polls and voted for Hillary as opposed to the "new guy", who had spent more money in Florida than any of the others candidates, even though it's "just" a primary, which in the past garnered about as much attention as a 3 am infomercial, because they hate Hillary Clinton so much that should she get the nomination they will pull the lever for McCain or just stay home so that they WON'T have to vote for her?

You guys REALLY confuse me.

[mornacm]

Well, you do sound confused! I don't think anyone said the Dem for a Day tactic was played in Florida. That brilliant idea came later in the season.

I'd really like to know where you get your information that Obama "spent more money in Florida than any of the other candidates ..." How can that be true? He didn't even campaign in Florida.

My opinion is that record numbers of voters are out there because they are so thoroughly fed up with George W. Bush. And, as the campaign has progressed and both Hillary and Obama have become more well-known, the record numbers appear to be overwhelmingly at his rallys - because he has the character to inspire and to lead, whereas Hillary seems most talented when it comes to dividing and polarizing.

[sssmith2]

There are no perfect plans, but the worst one is to deprive the MI and FL Dems an appropriate voice. You could argue that Obama's "let's split the votes evenly" and Hillary's "let's count the original vote" are equally unfair. That leaves a revote--but of course the Obama campaign fears that and has blocked efforts to implement it. They're all for democracy as long as it means the "will of the people" expressed by a handful of activists showing up at caucuses at night. If their candidate's plight was reversed, they'd be screaming that Hillary was trying to do a back room deal to deny these critical states a voice at the convention. But let's also note how many of them tell us on these blogs they won't vote for Hillary under any circumstances--you don't hear that from Hillary's supporters and it shows the level of their commitment to the party.

[chimpevil]

What nonsense that Obama's camp "fears" a revote in MI and FL. Why would it? There seems to be an assumption that Clinton would somehow win huge in these states, but even if she did prevail in both--which is not a given--I find it hard to believe that any net gain in delegates would be significant. The only thing that matters is that the DNC find a fair way to seat the delegates in these states so as not to risk alienating the Dem voters there. Oh and about your comment regarding the commitment to the party of Hillary's supporters, what about http://www.gallup.com/poll/105691/105691/McCain-vs-Obama-28-Clinton-Backers-McCain.aspx

[Dansden]

HuffPost's Pick

Finally,
the real cause and affectof the 'behind the scenes Repub shenanigans' in Florida and Michigan that we all knew was driving this nomination is explained and exposed!

That's why Sen. Clinton's campaign has found new life because millions and millions of women know they are being, once again, 'shoved back in the kitchen' while the BIG BOYS decide who will be the nominee...­..

[NetProphet]

BRAVO! Finally this Florida - Michigan play is beginning to make headlines. I salute Mr. Wayne Barrett. We've had nothing but trouble with the Southern state since JEB BUSH moved into it. All his comrades in posterity did a job on FL preventing (legally/illegally) to tie up the vote - - - rightfully Clinton's!

As for Michigan, I guess the GOPpers wanted to make sure the electorate wouldn't push neither Clinton nor Obama over the top. Besides, after the last two Presidential fiascos, they didn't want FL to look as though someone had a hand in it.

BY THE WAY.......­that "hand"? Any of these shenanigans point to Carl Rove? Nothing would please the current administration more than to DIVIDE & CONQUER. Divide the Democrats with bit stories on how Hillalry & Barack don't get along, while McCain gains ground in the race. BAH HUMBUG!!!

[TheRagingModerate]

GENDER PARANOIA ALERT, GENDER PARANOIA ALERT!

I simply cannot understand how anyone can possibly take Hillary's campaign seriously when it is so obviously kept afloat on the delusional backs of women who see only one issue in this campaign: gender.

Get over yourselves, middle-aged white women. It's not about gender. Hillary's problem is not that she's a "she" -- it's that she and her campaign epitomize everything that has become, ironically enough, traditional in American politics. Bill Clinton was quite explicit about it just last week when he said, "If a politician doesn't want to get beat up, he shouldn't run for office." That's why millions of solid Democrats (and millions of independents) are rejecting -- and, increasingly, beginning to despise -- Hillary. She and Bill and Geraldine Ferraro and James Carville and Mark Penn and the rest of the brass knuckles gang are attempting to bully her way into the nomination.

If I were to take the pro-Hillary womyns' approach to couching everything in terms of identity politics, I would say that the Clintons are trying to send this "uppity" candidate, Barack Obama, to the back of the bus. Clearly, he does not know his place. How dare he be so bold as to challenge the white woman. He should relax, right? The Clintons will tell him when it's his turn to be the nominee.

Now, isn't it ridiculous to view this nomination contest through such jaded eyes? This isn't about gender any more than it's about race.

[mornacm]

Agre with you!! Except I must point out, I am a middle-aged white woman, for Obama, as are many of my friends - of all stripes. Obama transcends race, sex, etc. and he has inspired many to do likewise.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

TRM,

I enjoy your comments immensely, and you are making a dent in my thick skull.

You fault Hillary or supoprters for what you say is a "vote for me because I'm female" theme, but I don't notice you faulting Obama or Obamanistas for an even louder "vote for me because I'm black" theme.

So I gotta ask: Got Misogyny, or simply a double-standard.

I know this comment is a late add, but I'll check back.

Cheers.

[Ramus]

Clinton's campaign has found what new life? Public opinion poll today shows Obama ahead by 10%..not that the polls matter much..the delegates matter. Obama wins.

[zeph]

Obama requested his named be removed from the Michigan ballot.

It was Obama's choice to remove his name. Obama did not have his name removed from the Florida Ballot because to do so he would have had to drop out of the race. Obama believed that Michagan and Florida were states he wouldn’t do well in so when MI and FL otherwise known as the rule breakers, were stripped of their delegates by the DNC, all candidates agreed not to campaign there.

Obama initiated the political power play to have the candidates agree to remove their names from the Michigan ballot in order to remove focus from those elections. Obama essentially catered to traditional early voting states like Iowa, N.H in deference to their historical role in the primaries and at the same time ensured that no attention would be paid to those Primaries where Clinton was favored. Why not make that power move? Obama loses nothing but has everything to gain at the time. The DNC already stripped the delegates. Obama also would enable himself to cry foul or unfairness in the event of a close race by claiming that he wasn’t even on the ballot. But why wasn’t he? He wasn’t on the ballot because he chose not to be on the ballot.

[Toerag]

As a Democrat, I think it's a bit of a slap in the face and disrespect by Sen. Clinton that she kept her name on the ballot in Michigan. The other front-runners agreed to stand by the DNC decision to not have the vote count and have their names taken off of the ballot. Clinton leaves her name on and then later, once it looks like the delegates might matter, cries foul? That's not how things work.

As for the bit in the article about the 2000 vote difference in Wyoming cancelling out the 300,000 or so that Clinton won by on Super Tuesday: that's smart campaign management on Obama's part. The point is to get the most delegates, and he takes every opportunity to do so, where Clinton thinks most of the states don't matter (traditional red states, caucus states, lower population states, states with a high AA population­...).

[biglover]

Wow!!! This is the biggest bag of lies I have heard since Hillary's account of landing in Tuzla Airport. Where do you come up with this.

Obama followed the rules - Hillary didn't. That's the big difference here.

[Aleka]

Do you have some kind of proof of this, or is it a tin foil hat theory that you thought you would share? After all, in the Clinton camp the motto is: Why rely on facts and proof when you can just make shit up.

[TheRagingModerate]

Zeph -- do you have any facts or sources to support this theory of yours? And are you seriously suggesting that back in 2007 when these decisions were made by the DNC, Barack Obama held greater sway over the Party than the Clintons? The Clintons all but own the Democratic Party machinery. I would be shocked beyond belief to find that the DNC's position on MI/FL was reached over the Clintons' objections. Unless you can cite some sources for your theory, I'll have to conclude this is just another Clintonian talking point and that you, like the rest of Hillary's camp, feel no allegiance to the truth for truth's sake.

It seems the only rules the Clintons will follow when it comes to campaign tactics are (1) don't breeak the law (this is pretty much all that separates the Clinton Gang from Rove, Bush, Cheney, et al - although, admittedly, it is a very substantial difference); and (2) make sure you always have a "plausible deniability" escape hatch whenever engaging in dishonesty or sliminess (here, the Clintons and the GOP are simpatico).

Besides, even if Obama did factor his own political strengths and weaknesses into his position on the DNC's handling of MI's and FL's deliberate rule-breaking, who cares? If that were all Hillary had done, I wouldn't have a problem with it. It's the fact that she CHANGES her position on the DNC's handling of the situation to evolve with her evolving politcal needs that is the problem!

[WilliamL]

Living in Palm Beach County and having watched this mess unfold, there were a few things over looked in this post.

Of the two reasons for the change in the primary date by a whole weak, the business of a paper trail never made it on to my ballot, the other being a change in property tax did. The idea that a vote on a paper trail even needed to make it to a vote by the public was non-sense and reflects how rediculous the whole thing was/is.

However, all of this was simply a smoke screen by certain folks in both parties to hide their arrogance and mis-place sense of self importence: the purpose of the support of the change was to impress upon the country "how importent Florida is in the election process," "a president can not be elected without the suport of Florida." .

The Democrats in this state acted as if the Rs had a gun to their head. After nearly 8 years since 2000, this is the best the FDP could do for this states voters and for the rest of the country as well. Fundamental to all of this is the overall arogance towards the rest of the country. This state delivered for the GOP in 2000, 2004, and likely will again in 2008.

A number of people in this state need their asses chewed and to be voted out of office/leadership positons in the FDP.

[TN]

One thing is for sure, the people in those states know exactly what happened even if the rest of the country can't keep up with the twists and turns.

[SamThornton]

Start with lots of opinion. Mix in a generous portion of spin-dried "facts." Add a dash of conspiracy theory. Half-bake for 20 minutes and serve to the great unwashed.

Uh-oh. Left out the beef.

[Duffs]

Well said.

[Amminadab]

Nice article. Very thorough.

[ibsteve2u]

"All Clinton-backer Granholm did, however, was a sign a bill."

lollll...a­ll Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich did was sign death orders...g­uess he - and his Party - should have gotten a free pass too, eh?

[barbarajoan]

As a New Yorker I am very familiar with Wayne Barrett's excellent work and this piece is reflectictive of that work. Why the DNC didn't just deprive both states of half their delegates as the Republican party did is really stupid especially in the case of Florida. But Michigan had a Democratic Govenor and saying she just signed a bill that was put in front of her doesn't quite pass muster. She could have just vetoed the bill! The Republicans don't have the votes to override a veto. If the DNC could ameloriate the rules and let them have 1/2 the delegates in Florida apportioned by the primary vote and figure something out along similar lines for Michigan the Democrats wouldn't look like a horses back parts. I'm a strong supporter of Barack Obama and Howard Dean as both these men have done wonders for the Democratic Party Lets hope the dems have a change of heart.

[publicinsanity]

I find it ironic that politcal opponents are trying to place the blame of this fiasco on Obama. He is not the one who broke the rules, he is not the one who applied the punishment. He is simply guilty of consistantly stating that he would abide by the rules.
Clinton even said at one point in time that the votes did NOT matter. This was, of course, before she started losing. Only now does she care so much about the people. She cares so much that in Michigan she offered - along with her supporters - to pay for the entire cost of a new primary. And Obama is critisized for having concerns about this? If that isn't trying to buy votes from people, I don't know what is!

[EinChicago]

He is teh one blocking any revote. Let's not get cute and ignore his manipulative vote suppressing.

[MichaelTenery]

Versus her request for the Supers to suppress the outcome in the other 48 states. Unfortunate.

[Aleka]

You know, you just make yourself look silly and gullible to spit out Clinton-speak verbatim. We all know she can't tell the truth about anything.

[TheEnticer]

Why are you silent on Hillary's pledge that the delegations wont count?

Are you suggesting that elections (if you can call them that) won without canvassing and rallying mean anything? BO didnt get the chance to campaign there..man­y people stayed home because it was an exercise in foregone fruitlessness.
Am not sure exactly how words (your article has too many infact) can replace substance (which your article lacks)....

In all fairness, BO played by the rules he signed to and she didnt after she started losing everywhere else.

Hmm...

[MetryJen]

"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."

Um. Hello? She both endorsed and signed it. That makes her, as the highest ranking Michigan Democrat in the state, directly liable.

[jungpatawan]

What this article fails to mention, as not one but TWO of my articles have, was the role played by the campaigns - Hillary's included - to push for the harder sanctions of Florida and Michigan (i,e, 100% loss of delegates) in exchange for the right to campaign (i.e. fundraise) there. The original rules barred the campaigns from fundraising.

What Mr Barrett also fails to mention is the role Iowa and New Hampshire played in crafting that "deal" as well, in order to keep their first in the nation statuses.

Gee, you'd think if a guy was going to have not one, not two, but SIX researchers and a GRANT just to do a hit piece on Obama, he'd at least get the story straight.

Oops, I forgot. Like their tearless leader, Clintonistas aren't wedded to a quaint concept like "the truth."

For a more accurate view, read my interview of DNC Rules and Regs member Michael Steed, who is also a Clinton superdelegate. I didn't have any help, nor any money, in producing that accurate SOURCED story. Boy, am *I* a dope.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chip-collis/maryland-superdelegate-di_b_92516.html

JP

[vipersdad]

Long, tedious article - now there are tons of comments back disputing the timeline and facts.

Long story short - facts and spin notwithstanding - the DNC owes it to ALL states to have their primaries represented. The problem for BOTH candidates is that they were told the primaries didn't count, so they didn't put much of an effort into either state.

The issue now - is what to do? It's broken, for sure and Florida and Michigan deserve to be seated, but no one (NOT HRC, NOT OBAMA) feels the ACTUAL results represented a fair effort.

So all this handwringing and historical analysis is a fairly moot point - what do we do now?

[MichaelTenery]

Actually, one of the candidates has gone on record in her own words that both Michigan and Florida were fair contests and should be seated as they are, despite the fact that Obama's name wasn't on the ballot in Michigan. Her argument was he had the choice to remove his name or not from the Michigan ballot (he did not have that choice in Florida).

One lived up to their signed pledge that Florida and Michigan would not count and one did not. First having one opinion when it suited her for vote raising in Iowa and New Hampshire and then reversed herself after those contests.

However all that said, none of that fixes it. We have passed the point where they can get primaries together in either state. Their legislature and party people have decided not to hold new contests. That leaves one final arbitrager, the credentials committee. They will be seated in that committee in some fashion. Probably 50/50 or by the overall national popular vote. It s just too late for anything else, sadly.

[janicen]

When one considers the damage Howard Dean has done to the Democratic party, one has to be relieved that he wasn't elected President of the United States!

[Subway]

What absolute hogwash. Howard Dean has been the best thing to happen to the Democratic Party in a damned long time. You'd have to be a DINO or a DLC stooge to think otherwise. I sincerely hope that Barack Obama has the wisdom and the foresight to choose Howard Dean as his running mate.