Thursday, March 06, 2008

Florida and Michigan

So back when the various states were jocking around and trying to become relevant in the primaries, Florida and Michigan tried to leap frog NH and Iowa. Before they did this, the DNC - which runs the primaries and scheduling - told them that if they did this their primaries would not count and their delegates would not be seated. They went ahead and did it anyway.

Now, even before the primaries started all the candidates knew that FL and MI broke the rules and thus, were not in-play. In fact, all of them pulled their names off the ballots in both states and didn't campaign there at all except for HRC. So when FL and MI held their pointless primary, HRC won. Big surprise.

So now we are in this situation where you have the HRC people demanding that those delegates be counted. How very fricken convenient that she was totally unopposed in those elections. Actually, I think the MI one had the Undecideds make up something like 30% of the voting electorate.

Anyway, this is what it boils down to. That whole demand is bullshit and playing unfairly. If FL and MI wanted to count they shouldn't have broken the rules. It isn't like they didn't know what the consequences were going to be. A straight reseating of delegates that were elected in an unopposed primary amounts to gaming the system and cheating.

Therefore, if the states want to pay for the primary let them have one in June and make it a real primary. Both campaigns should actually, you know, campaign in those states and give the voters the option to actually vote for the candidate they want, not just choose between HRC and Undecided in a primary that didn't count.

This whole ploy by the HRC campaign is just another example of what bothers the crap out of my about the way they are running. It's underhanded and cheap.

Play fair, win fair, or go home.

10 comments:

James said...

Personally I think it is a travesty that these primaries were held in the first place when the votes didn't end up counting. What a huge waste of taxpayer money! Was it worth it to close down all the schools, mobilize all these volunteers and election judges, do the counting, etc. when the results were going to get thrown out anyway (and this was pretty much known in advance)? Ridiculous.

Another interesting point I'd like to hear your thoughts on was the point that Ralph Nadar made on The Daily Show Tuesday night, that the current two-party system makes it extremely prohibitive in most states for smaller party or independent candidates to even get on the ballot. On the surface, it doesn't seem very democratic.

Ryan said...

Yea, I agree that running the thing at all was crap but there it is. There are some stories I didn't link to that had the party bosses in MI telling HRC to stay on the ballot for nefarious reasons, but whatever.

Anyway, I think Nadar makes a good point. I also think the primary system as a whole needs to be reworked. But both of those issues are out-of-reach right now, unfortunately. :(

SuperMel said...

Personally, I think Hil's stirring it for the free press coverage. She's on a budget.

James said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
James said...

Thought you might find this interesting (now that I shortened the stupid link so it won't get cut off in blogger comments):

http://tinyurl.com/36rfkg

Ryan said...

Thats really interesting. It fits really well with ActBlue which funnels citizen money to dem candidates and fields primary challengers to encumbents who don't take a progressive stand on the issues. So far it has been pretty sucessfull in either bringing some encumbents more into the fold with the people they represent or getting them kicked out all together. Al Wynn's loss in Maryland is a good example of that.

The badges would fit right into that progressive stand.

James said...

Here's an interview with Lessig on the same topic: http://tinyurl.com/2bc8mx

I find him to be a very fascinating guy. I first discovered him back when he started Creative Commons. He also writes a monthly column in Wired Magazine.

James said...

Oh, and BTW, tinyurl.com is such a useful site! Who knew?! :-)

James said...

...and I think you'll appreciate this description of Lessig:

Lessig was a teenage Reaganite, and later a noted libertarian, before drifting leftward — he now calls himself a “progressive Democrat.”

Ryan said...

Yea, he was one of the guys ActBlue tried to get into the race but the lead-up time was too short. Probably did the right thing to decide not to run for now.

I was surprised that the interview was done by NRO. I also found it funny that they challenged him on the liberal-tag and I thought he did a great job smacking that crap down.

Thanks for the linky!