What Is The Prize?
Almost everyone has been fixated on the contest for the nomination and are missing the point of the process – the election in November. People are running around playing games with no concern about how those games will play out in November when the truly important vote takes place, and this has been truly bad for the prospects of a Democratic President unless John McCain has a total meltdown.
Lambert points to the work of Anglachelg and her post on fun with the electoral college. She comes to the same conclusion as EBW of Wampum at did about the four key states [Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida] and use the maps at 270 to Win [a great resource, BTW] to run various scenarios. It does not look good.
Over at The Real Spiel there is a general overview of what things are looking like, and what the problems are, and has a pointer to River Daughter, who fact checks a lot of the claims being tossed around in her post, Have you actually read the rules?
In that same vein I would like to explain somethings to the uninformed who claim that only Florida and Michigan broke the rules because the other states applied for and received dispensations from the DNC.
They did, in fact, receive permission to go early as exceptions to the “February 5th” rule, Rule 11A, and those special dispensations are included in the text of the rule:
No meetings, caucuses, conventions or primaries which constitute the first determining stage in the presidential nomination process (the date of the primary in primary states, and the date of the first tier caucus in caucus states) may be held prior to the first Tuesday in February or after the second Tuesday in June in the calendar year of the national convention. Provided, however, that the Iowa precinct caucuses may be held no earlier than 22 days before the first Tuesday in February; that the Nevada first-tier caucuses may be held no earlier than 17 days before the first Tuesday in February; that the New Hampshire primary may be held no earlier than 14 days before the first Tuesday in February; and that the South Carolina primary may be held no earlier than 7 days before the first Tuesday in February. In no instance may a state which scheduled delegate selection procedures on or between the first Tuesday in February and the second Tuesday in June 1984 move out of compliance with the provisions of this rule.
The problem is that they violated the terms of their dispensations. They had been granted the exclusive rights to vote before the other states, and they voted even earlier than had been agreed to when they made their request. Nothing was done about it.
The rules have been selectively enforced. The DNC has required that both campaigns have to sign off on any re-vote and one campaign has systematically sabotaged any effort at a solution, because they don’t think they can win in either state. So, they are willing to disenfranchise the voters in two large states to make it easier for them to win the nomination. The problem is that if they win the nomination, it will be nearly impossible to win the election without those states and Democratic voters are not going to turn out in the numbers needed because of being jerked around.
7 comments
Hi, Bryan,
Thanks for keeping me informed on what’s happening in Florida.
I’m really frosted at the DNC over Florida. The DNC approved a revote for Michigan. But WTF is wrong with Florida? Nuts!
They had better seat the FL delegates or… what’s that saying about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?
Thanks for pointing me Anglachel’s post on the electoral college.
I’ve added you to my RSS feed to keep up with Why Now?
It’s real simple. Seat the Florida delegates, everyone was on the ballet there. Seat Michigan , give Hillary what she got and give Barack the non-committed. The most cost effective fair way to do it.
Thank you for your kind words, Becki Jayne. Florida is an odd fish that requires some study to understand. Labels like Republican and Democrat don’t work well here without a geographical reference, i.e. a Panhandle Democrat or Palm Beach Republican.
Actually, Frederick, I would personally prefer enforcing the rules as written and punishing all that transgressed in the stated manner. That would not only generate some support for actually doing something about the primary rules, but restrict the power of super-delegates.
Your suggestion is probably the best that can be agreed to at this point, and it would give Edwards more power for good.
Of course, there is still the problem of Texas, which is apparently broken, so who knows.
“Of course, there is still the problem of Texas, …” – Bryan
Which one? 🙂
People keep chattering about the Texas caucuses being messed up, which isn’t exactly surprising given the number of people who decided to participate and the lack of trained people to deal with the problem.
Of course, if the FDP had attempted caucuses they would have ended up as circuses because we have no one who has ever run one and very few places to hold one, outside of football fields.
The caucus in my precinct ran very smoothly, despite hosting approximately twenty (20) times as many people as I’d ever seen before at a caucus. Then again, we had a seasoned veteran running the show… a man who in his youth faced all the things the Peace Corps had to throw at him, and lived to tell the tale. And he’s run quite a few primary-night caucuses before. Things never got even close to out-of-hand; he didn’t permit it.
Like Floridians, Texans aren’t keen on intervention by either campaign, and the state chair doesn’t have a reputation as a softie. Time will tell, but I have a feeling Texas will be a survivor in the process. Hey, at least we don’t have Howard Dean beating up on us… yet.
Hopefully, you aren’t going to get any “outside guidance” which normally doesn’t know anything about the people or process involved.