Major DNC Official: We Won't Compromise On Florida And Michigan
A key DNC member has told the Boston Globe that there is no chance of the national party approving delegates for Michigan and Florida based on their January rogue primaries, if there were any chance of it actually affecting the outcome of the nomination — a blow to any local politicians who might have been seeking a compromise now that do-over primaries appear to be going nowhere.
Rules and bylaws committee cochairman James Roosevelt Jr., grandson of Franklin Roosevelt, said committee members are taking the long view beyond current considerations about carrying the respective states: "If there is simply a caving on this, we'll end up with primaries on Halloween, and so that does at least counter some of the purely political campaign influences here."
Too bad, Monster!
March 20, 2008 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's about damn time someone from the DNC came out and spelled out the obvious.
March 20, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly, Howard Dean should have been saying this all along.
I was a big supporter of his before, but he's lost my confidence after his handling of this situation.
March 20, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
"a blow to any local politicians who might have been seeking to save their asses for completely dicking up their primary"
Fixed.
March 20, 2008 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Long term view of the DNC: win the battle, lose the war. What a joke.
March 20, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why it is a joke? It is the same as the short-term view of HRC.
March 20, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
You have to put your head up the @ss of a Hillary supporter to understand the logic, but it makes sense from their fun-house mirror view of the world: Axiomatically, Barack Hussain Obama cannot win because he's black and he has a funny name. So anything the DNC does that helps Obama must be the party not facing reality...
March 20, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's the battle, and what's the war?
If the "battle" is pro-establishment Hillary vs anti-establishment Obama, they win that battle.
If the "war" is the General Election: Obama is out best candidate. Period.
Don't let the GOp attack machine scare you. I've talked to many, many white conservatives at my work, and they like Obama. And I mean, they really like him.
They don't trust McCain, and they hate Hillary. I know this is anecdotal, and not as accurate as the daily polls running around here (snark), but I believe Obama is our best candidate.
Period.
March 20, 2008 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, you have it all wrong. The dnc would rather lose the battle and win the war. If they don't put their foot down on this issue, states will do whatever they want every election cycle and it will be chaos. They would rather run the risk now and avoid future chaos. Finally, an adult has said something at the dnc.
Rules are rules and must be followed. Of course according to the clintons, rules are only for little people to follow, not the clintons. They don't care about rules or laws or such nonsense. They are too important for that. Sounds kinda like someone else we all know, the king. They are soooo running in the wrong primary.
Now the dnc has to start getting more vocal and sink the clintons ship before they cause more damage to the party. Please put a stop to this primary. It's killing our nominee.
March 20, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you have that reversed. The WAR is over the DNC calendar. If they don't enforce it, as Roosevelt indicates, the first primary will be in October of the year prior to the election. We'll have candidates running TWO years before the primary.
And while you lament this outcome, you do recall that this situation was, and remains in, the laps of the Michigan Legislature and its Governor. They didn't petition to be an early state when the DNC opened up the primary calendar. Instead they bucked the system. And they got bucked down. So please, by all means, express angst and anger over this situation, but don't spare the parties primarily responsible for this fuck up.
March 20, 2008 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Halloween did you say...
Wait for it...
Wait for it....
BOO!!!!
hehee gotcha. Sorry couldn't resist.
March 20, 2008 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
AAAHHHH!
Don't do that, I haven't had any coffee yet.
March 20, 2008 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
The DNC is 100% correct. FL & MI Party bosses knew what the penalties would be. The voters of those states knew what the penalty would be. The Dem candidates themselves knew what the penalties would be.
The propoganda campaign against the DNC and its Chairman by the surrogates of one of your Dem candidates was totally uncalled for.
March 20, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
How does this accord with the claim (in a later-posted item on the Election Central page) that the DNC will "support any solution to seat the delegates that the candidates agree upon"?
March 20, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, the difference is that if the candidates agree to seating the delegates, that's fine and the delegates will be seated however they want at the time of the convention.
It's a totally different matter to somehow "count" the rogue primaries absent a revote, or to allow one candidate to claim victory and use a rogue primary as a sledge hammer like the clintons are doing. They violated the rules, so those primaries don't exist as far as the dnc is concerned. They can do a "revote" prior to the deadline if they want and that's about it.
March 20, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has said he's opposed to any seating of delegates without a revote. Apparently Roosevelt thinks he means it? You're right that the statements are facially inconsistent, but in the link Roosevelt seems to be talking about the issue in the context of the campaign.
March 20, 2008 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
of course you don't want these do-overs - your lord and savior would lose!
March 20, 2008 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
To whom are you referring?
March 20, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
They're still people, not automatons. If the nomination is decided or all the parties come to an agreement, they'll seat the delegates as a goodwill gesture.
The statement is obviously referring to the case of a contested nomination.
March 20, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Carl Levin and Debbie Dingell make a strong case for Michigan on yesterday's NY Times Op-Ed page.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/opinion/19levin.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=levin+dingell&st=nyt&oref=slogin
However, my favored solution: Seat the delegations based on the "illegal" primaries with the provision they can't vote in the convention's first round. They participate in forming the platform and vote if and when it's needed to break a deadlock.
Money and time is saved. All the complications of a do-over are avoided (such as leaving out cross-over voters.) Variations on this idea are possible; half-strength voting in the first round for example.
Finding a way to seat the delegations from these two important states is the only real issue. Their votes don't change the outcome either way, but the DNC has to manage the primary process consistently. Also, the DNC should promise these states they'll revisit their requests for early dates. That issue was mishandled in last year's planning for the primaries IMHO.
March 20, 2008 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are broader legal and political issues here than the superficially raised question of letting primary votes count.
Legal: the courts have generally held, based on the free association clause of the first amendment, that in cases where party rules and state laws conflict, party rules prevail. This is why Victor DiMaio's suit against the party for the Florida primary, although it was dismissed for lack of standing, would certainly lose on the merits. DiMaio is still appealing (the 11th Circuit heard the appeal this week), but is going to lose there and won't make it to the Supremes.
Political: the Republican-controlled Florida legislature changed Florida's primary date *after* the DNC established the primary schedule.
Both of these facts--that there are no legal grounds to force the DNC to seat the delegates, and that this has become a problem because Florida R's wanted to muck with the D primaries, and Florida D's decided to go along rather than follow their own party's rules--are never mentioned in the reporting.
March 20, 2008 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's about damn time someone at the DNC stood up and said no. They should have done this back in Jan. when Clinton first started claiming these as wins. Dean could have been stern but emphatic that the MI and FL votes weren't going to count, but that if Clinton felt the need to claim them, well...
March 20, 2008 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's no inconsistency. Notice the clause "if there were any chance of it actually affecting the outcome of the nomination." If seating the delegates from the sham primaries would affect the result, why on earth would the losing campaign agree to it?
Of course, if one candidate is far enough ahead in delegates that seating them wouldn't matter, then they might as well be seated just to get the matter settled.
March 20, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree; we shouldn't negotiate with terrorists, even when, or especially when, they hold hostages. The citizens of Florida/Michigan should be angry with the folks who put them in this situation, their own state parties and Clinton, not those who won't agree to an unfair solution.
March 20, 2008 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink