Florida Ankles Re-Vote

As anticipated, the opposition to a mail-in primary was too fast, too furious, and John Singleton can't direct this thing to a stop yet.

The Florida Democratic Party sent an e-mail entitled "537" to its list -- the number of votes that separated George W. Bush from Al Gore in 2000.

A party-run primary or caucus has been ruled out, and it's simply not possible for the state to hold another election, even if the Party were to pay for it. Republican Speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio refuses to even consider that option. Florida is finally moving to paper ballots, which is a good thing, but it means that at least 15 counties do not have the capacity to handle a major election before the June 10th DNC primary deadline.

This doesn't mean that Democrats are giving up on Florida voters. It means that a solution will have to come from the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee, which is scheduled to meet again in April.

When this committee stripped us of 100% of our delegates last year, some members summed up their reasoning by saying, "The rules are the rules." Unfortunately, the rules did not apply to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina when they, too, violated the DNC calendar by moving from their assigned dates.

Actually, the RBC won't meet in April (though there may be an emergency session), and in any event, what the FL Dems are referring to here is the credentials committee process, which lasts through the summer.

I know it sounds as if the state party has given up on the idea of a new primary, but .. we shall see.

Comments

Simple solution:

Decide the Primary before the convention.

Do whatever it takes for one candidate to emerge.

Then at the convention, allow the delegates from FL and MI to be seated (after it doesn't matter).

That was the original way it was suppose to work.

Posted by D | March 17, 2008 8:10 PM

The Loony Lefties, led by Dean (who made the mess in the first place), and Pelosi, will do everything to SUPRESS THE VOTE OF FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN DEMOCRATS to benefit Obama.

They should not be allowed to get away with STEALING THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE in order to clear the way for THEIR NEWEST CULT FIGURE.

Posted by robert ethan | March 17, 2008 8:13 PM

Ahhh, it is so sweet to know Hillary's firewalls are falling one by one.

Imagine the poor aide who had to tell her that there would be no revote. Hide the ashtrays!

Posted by Sally | March 17, 2008 8:29 PM

If Hillbilly don't get nominated, and she has no further (gag) political ambitions (except as Governor of NY?), will that mean that she will have no further use for Bill?

I can just see that happening...

Posted by D | March 17, 2008 8:37 PM

I live in FL and trust me: no one cares about this except for the party leaders and political junkies, the pundits, and Crist and the GOP, who want to sabotage the Democrats. Most people don't even understand the exact details.

There will not be a single person in FL to stay home or change their vote because of this. That is foolish.

And the delegates will be seated: one a nominee is decided, the delegates will be seated and will probably vote for that nominee.

Plus, let's face reality: any revote would be a huge logistical undertaking to make sure it would be legitimate and honest. It's not like this is a trivial task. To try to undertake this on the fly would likely only create a worse fiasco.

This is a controversy hyped by the media to get attention, and hyped by the Hillary camp to try to steal the nomination.

But the media will continue to hype this, on their orders from Hillary, and to get ratings.

Posted by cm | March 17, 2008 8:40 PM

Hillary actually will have a very good case to make to the Super Delegates. Among the points she should make clear to them:

1:She will have earned more delegates through primaries than Obama. His huge delegate lead is all based on his blowout caucus wins which as we've seen in TX and WA (that had both a caucus and a primary) are in no way reflective of the popular will in a given state.

2: She will have won more delegates through primaries in states that went Democratic in 2004. Obama leads in delegates from states that went for Bush

3: She will have won more delegates from states that had closed democratic primaries where only dems could vote and not have Republicans and Independents muddy the waters

4: Exit polls show her winning the democratic vote. Obama leads overall, but only due to his large margins among independents and republicans

5: She leads him overhwlemingly among Hispanics, a key and growing voting bloc. If Obama continues to lag among Hispanics and McCain can equal or even better Bush's 39% from 2004, the GOP wins in November.

6: She leads him among key dem constituencies such as women, women over 50, women over 65, working class whites. His dismal performance among this bloc in Ohio will only be reinforced by the results in Pennsylvania. Again, the dems can't win if he continues to get such low numbers from these voters

7: Among the 10 largest states electorally(CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, OH, MI, NJ, GA) she will have won 8 to his 2. Even if you don't count FL and MI it's 6-2 and one of them is his home state of IL. If you take away home states and FL and MI, it's still 5-1 for her.

8: If you add up the electoral votes of the states they've won, she beats him in a general election with over 300 EV.

There are a few other points but she has a lot of strong reasons for the Supers to back her

Posted by Jack | March 17, 2008 8:52 PM

That's satire right Jack? It is funny whether intended or not. It is this type of fatuous argument that is undermining HRC irrevocably in the party.

I don't recall anyone saying back in January that IA was no big deal, its only a caucus, or SC was a big win for BHO b/c its a primary. NV was a big HRC win, I recall, not many "talking points" about the lesser value of the caucus win in those days.

This is such patently obvious post facto reasoning, designed for no other reason than to flip the result of the contest to the loser.

Let's face it, superdelegates are profoundly undemocratic by nature. What if someone suggested allotting senators, governors, congressman and other "party leaers" electoral votes? Would anyone here support that?

Now if the establishment of the "Democratic" Party wants to overturn the results in the electoral contests, it clearly has the legal right to do so, but don't pretend there won't be hell to pay, as well there should be.

Posted by Michael K | March 17, 2008 9:11 PM

Re Jack's post:

A long version: 1. WA had a caucus that awarded delegates and a beauty pageant primary; it's representative of FL, if anything. 2. You can't argue that only Clinton will win MA. Please. 3/4. Heaven forfend you have a candidate who appeals to independents and cross-over voters. 5. So we disenfranchise everyone to superenfranchise Hispanics? 6. The general election is not limited to OH and PA, no matter how hard Mark Penn spins. 7. Yes, she's run on the "only big states count" strategy, and she's losing. That is not an argument to let her run the general. 8. *rolls eyes* You had to hunt really hard for one like that. Obama still does better than her against McCain, nationally and within states. Yes, even Ohio.

Short version: The supers don't want to be seen ignoring the will of the voters. And that's what all those big state, hispanics, independent-voters-are-yucky arguments come down to.

Posted by Deborah | March 17, 2008 9:12 PM

It's perhaps worth while recalling why Florida Democrats supported holding a primary earlier than the party rules allowed. Jeremy Ring explained:

"If the choice is Florida is relevant and has no delegates versus being irrelevant and having delegates, I'd choose being relevant with no delegates. We did this so 18 million Floridians could take part in the presidential primaries, not so a few hundred people can go to a party in Denver."

And that's what happened. Florida voters got to choose a candidate prior to Super Tuesday. But it looks like any folks from Florida who go to Denver won't have to take time out from partying to vote for the next Democratic nominee.

Posted by Kenn | March 17, 2008 9:21 PM

Jack, Jack Jack - There is no way superdelegates are going to weigh primary delegates more than caucus delegates and big state delegates more than small state delegates, and blue state delegates more than red state delegates - it simply is not going to happen.

The apportionment of delegates to states has taken into consideration every conceivable variable that the Democratic Party thinks is credible in deciding the nominee. That's why delegates are apportioned in the first place according to districts and how they voted in the last election.

What Hillary is saying is that Democratic Party really doesn't know what it's doing in its apportionment of delegates.

That may fly with the general public and the media, but it is not going to fly with the supers who very reason for being is to maintain the integrity of the Party.

Hillary doesn't want to maintain anything but her bid for the White House.

At the end of the day, who ever has the most pledged delegates period - wins.

Posted by C.B. Todd | March 17, 2008 9:40 PM

CB Todd,

I actually agree with you. I think Obama will win the nomination. I was just pointing out some arguments Hillary could make to the Super Delegates.

And if Obama does win, I think it might be at least somewhat disconcerting to the Super Delegates as well as others that he won the nomination having ended his campaign with double digit losses in both OH and PA(his PA defeat likely larger than his 10 pt OH loss), possible losses in revotes in MI and/or FL.

That according to exit polls, Hillary actually won the majority of democratic votes cast.

That in losses in both OH and PA, not to mention states like TX and CA, Obama showed great difficulty in winnig White votes and Hispanics and in particular white demographics that the Democrats need to win in November

I'm just saying that if the supers start to examine how is more likley to win in November it may be a tougher decision than it now appears.

That said, I still think Obama will win. If the Supers vetoed his 100+ delegate lead and gave it to Hillary, that would be the end of the Democratic Party as we know it and that just won't happen

Posted by Jack | March 18, 2008 12:56 AM

If Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina indeed did move their calender dates earlier than expected, shouldn't they be deprive of their delegates too? Why are only Michigan and Florida punished?

Posted by StevenT | March 18, 2008 1:12 AM