Replies

You simply cannot change the rules after the game has been played. Even if you are a Clinton.

The DNC, and to a lesser extent the RNC, made a very bad political decision last year. But so, too, did the Florida and Michigan state parties and legislatures.

Both national parties voted to disquality either all (DNC) or half (RNC) of the delegates selected in pre-Super Tuesday primaries. It is up to the national parties, comprised of members from all the states, to seat delegates at their respective nominating conventions. Delegates elected in defiance of the party rules should be excluded.

The legislatures and parties in Florida and Michigan wanted to be more relevant to the nominating process and defied the party rules. As responsible educated voters, the people in MI and FL knew, or should have known, when they voted in January exactly what the rules and their consequences were.

How many Michiganders and Floridians didn’t vote precisely because they knew the consequencess and that their vote would mean nothing? How many states didn’t move up their primaries/caucuses because of the rules? Which candidates chose not to campaign in Michigan and Florida because of the rules? And how many Democrat candidates had their names removed from the Michigan ballot because of the party rule?

If people in MI/FL feel disenfranchised, they should look to electing new state party leaders and new state legislators. If the DNC caves on this rule, it is not fair to the states that chose to play by the rules, nor to the candidates who chose not to run in Florida or Michigan.

It’s sort of like demanding a recount only in Miami-Dade and Broward. That’s what cheaters do.

There was an interesting op/ed in yesterday's WSJ about this. Using statistical analysis based on Super Tuesday results and the polls as they existed at the time, the writer concluded the Florida primary came out just where it would be expected to and Michigan was close if you count "uncommitted" as Obama votes. I doubt there will be much sentiment on the Dim side for such a solution.

The Republican solution was crude, only counting half the Florida delegate votes, but was generally accepted as fair.

I don't at all agree this situation is analogous to the Florida 2000 chad problem. That was a question of how to determine voter intent on what were essentially spoiled ballots and whether Florida had adopted uniform guidelines to do so. There was no attempt to disenfranchise the state, which is what the Dims did over this year's Florida primary. A really bad solution, IMHO.