Which of these four things should happen to Democratic primary voters in Florida?
1) They should be ignored. Florida’s Republican-led state government broke the DNC’s rules by moving up the primary date, so fuck the Sunshine State’s Dems.
2) Their votes from the original primary day should be counted. While the vote was clouded by a plan/threat not to seat the delegates, voters turned out in big numbers and made their preferences known.
3) They should get a mulligan. The results from a re-vote might be different from the previous vote’s, but the cloud of uncertainty will be removed.
4) They should be neutered. Florida gets half its alloted delegates, and they are evenly dispersed across the two candidates, completely nullifying the impact of voters’ preferences. (Perhaps, symbolically, two voters — one for each remaining Dem — can show up and cast a ballot, while everyone else who prefers one candidate over the other goes and fucks him/herself.)
The last option is known — according to Silent Patriot at C&L — as “Kos get(ting) it right.”
But I still love ya, C&L. And congrats on your well-earned Bloggie!
Note:
Let’s describe this in terms of something that matters: the Super Bowl.
Imagine that the NY Giants are up 14-10 over the Steelers, with one quarter left to play. An electoral electrical fire breaks out in Dolphin Stadium.
Sports announcer Markos Madden proposes a solution. Each team gets credited with one half-touchdown each, and the game will be over, with the Giants winning 17.5-13.5.
Did Madden “get it right”? Would anyone be foolish enough to say he did?
Front page
I'd take a mulligan
Seems to me that the choice is a) honor the original votes or b) have a re-vote. Since the existing votes aren’t going to be honored, then it’s a re-vote.
The Obama campaign is now demanding that DOJ Voting Rights Act approval any re-vote plan so they seem determined to run out the nomination clock.
BTD over at TalkLeft posts that Obama was for mail-in voting before he was against it.
This is an opportunity for Obama to demonstrate some leadership and bring people together, as he has always maintained that he can. Yet he’s sitting on his hands, waiting for someone else to make a decision that the campaign can object to.
How could he possibly object to a re-vote and not get stuck with the charge of disenfranchising voters?
Silly Corinne
Q. “How could he possibly object to a re-vote and not get stuck with the charge of disenfranchising voters?”
A. He’s not Hillary.
Jebus
THERE IS NO vote by mail in FL.
Should they change state election law because some morans wanted to get earlier in the news cycle????!
Florida gets no re-vote period. If MI wants to pay for one, let them. Besides same candidates on the ballot, same polling numbers, what is the point in FL.
Just do what the RNC did and take the FL election results and give them 1/2 the delegates. (Not the 50/50 nonsense).
If MI wants to pay, let them, but they also get the 1/2 delegate penalty.
Everyone is happy.
It really doesn’t matter at this point. It will be decided by superdelegates and the Edwards 26 or so. It’s going to the highest superdelegate bidder anyways.
Anyways, Adm. Fallon just resigned! You think any of this matters in two months when Tonkin II takes place??!
I can't believe it
I can’t believe the heedlessness of it all.
No, everybody isn't happy
How does splitting the votes 50/50 help anybody? It doesn’t even help Obama, because it won’t help his nomination, if that happens, look legitimate, and it might lose us FL.
What Obama ought to be doing is taking up Carville on the $15 million offer and work out a solution. Given the political will, there’s nothing here that money can’t solve, and both camps have plenty. Instead, Obama elected to lawyer up. Feh.
IIRC, the object was to punish the FL and MI political establishments for leapfrogging the primary dates. That shouldn’t turn into punishing the voters, eh?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
50/50 Is No Different Than 0/0
Which, of course, is why Obama and his supporters are pushing this.
And it’s ridiculous. The only reason to punish Michigan and Florida was because they moved their primaries to before February 5. If they were to have votes now, there is no basis for not seating the delegations. They got their punishment, their pre-Feb. 5th votes didn’t count just as the DNC said they wouldn’t. The idea that they have to be permanently disenfranchised is ridiculous and has no basis in any of the rules, except, of course, the new rules Obama and his supporters love to keep inventing.
For a guy who is supposed to be a movement, he sure seems scared of having people actually vote.
Post updated... n/t
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50-50 is vote theft, pure and simple...
You can’t take people’s votes and give them to someone else and maintain any level of integrity. In fact, if not illegal, it’s against the DNC rules.
Look, people, we’re the Democrats - we believe in counting every vote. Republicans are the vote suppressors. The Florida Democrats accepted the Republicans leapfrog measure as it was included in a bill which provided paper trails for voting machines. They sacrificed their delegates for the integrity of the ballot box - we should give them medals, not punish them. And haven’t they been punished? No campaigning by candidates, humiliating press, being slapped around by Dean. Seat the delegation, have a re-do, or a “more-do” (extend voting for those who didn’t vote in Jan), but don’t disenfranchise millions of Democrats. Florida is a mess economically, providing an opportunity for Democrats to make huge inroads with populist campaigns - we can’t ask for their votes in November if we thumb our noses at them now.
I’ve written extensively on this over at Wampum. (note, I didn’t vote for either Obama or Clinton, so it’s not about who gets nominated - it’s about one of our core values as Democrats. Plus, I was born when some Indians still didn’t have the right to vote in Maine.)
MBW rules
elections are about who chooses, not who wins. Obama plans to disenfranchise the whole of Florida. His idea is completely arbitrary.
I know, it is silly
because it’s the Obama Rulz.
You Say "Theft," I Say "Unity"
We don’t live in a Clinton America or an Obama America, but a DNC America.* (Cue: Will.I.Am video)
*DNC: Where jeopardizing the party in the GE, as long as it knocks Clinton, is job #1.
bull
“Look, people, we’re the Democrats - we believe in counting every vote.”
Total and utter nonsense. Kucinich was mocked for the NH recount. Howard was mocked for the NH recount. John Kerry prevented Ohioians from having their votes counted. It’s obscene to suggest the party cares about counting every vote anymore than McDonald’s believes in it.
Because NH was not EVIDENCE based!
That deserved mockery, and got it. And both the NH and the NV brouhaha died a quiet death, because IMNSHO they were tendentious from the beginning.
As for Kerry, what a fuck-up that was, to be sure.
But for FL and MI we’ve got the evidence of millions going to the polls, and right now, no, none of them are being counted. How is that like the fever swamps of Kos after an Obama loss? Not at all, I would say — except insofar as NH, MI, and FL are attempts to delegitimize wins by Hillary, that is.
Since 50/50 sucks, and Carville’s willing to throw in $15 million, why not ask Obama to go halfsies? The better angels of our natures want to count every vote, despite the fuckups and the failures. And the base sure does.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Impact of failure to revote or count FL delegates
Obviously, even a 50/50 split would void any voice FL (or MI) would have in deciding our nominee and we’ll pay a steep price for it in FL, according to the Miami Herald:
[h/t: My Republican cousin rubbing this mess in my face]
where was the outrage
Why was this not a story a month ago when it was news? Why is it only NOW an issue when we come to the end of the delegates?
Why are people now talking about it? Look, 50/50 is identical to no revote, so why would anyone ever imagine talking about it?
There are two choices (well three): Go with existing vote and delegates from original election (in which case there is no penalty for moving around the calendar, no penalty for defying the party). Give them a 50% penalty in delegates. Or, revote.
Revote is NOT AN OPTION in Florida. And anyone who wants to change FL law over some asshats and their stupid games… Ugh, if they even talk about changing FL law they should be tarred and feathered.
So when it comes to FL, there is only one choice which is to give them 50% of the delegates. This isn’t a big deal as the polling is pretty much the same. To not penalize FL is also another nightmare. It worked simple enough for the GOP. So, now the issue of if no FL revote, what to do with Michigan. At least MI didn’t even have Obama on the ballot so you can kind of make a case for revote. But again, Obama comes out ahead in a revote, so why do it? HRC won’t get the extra delegates so it won’t make things any closer, it might actually counter the FL gain in delegates and thereby essentially make it a 50/50 thing.
So, either way it will still come down to superdelegates anyways, so what is the big deal. With or without FL and MI the supers decide things. Let’s just see who has the most cash to splash around to supers, and they get to win and go into Nov cash strapped and let the GOP win again.
It all really doesn’t matter when the bombs fall on Iran, so why is anyone wasting their breathe?