GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
As a Republican, it is easier for me to objectively analyze the Democratic race since I have no emotional attachment to either of the candidates. I don’t care which one gets the nomination as long as whoever it is loses to McCain. Among Democrats, their opinions about whether to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan depend largely on which candidate they support. Clinton supporters, who think Clinton is strong in both states, are angry with the DNC for stripping those states of delegates in the first place and would like revotes in those states. They would like them in the form of primaries since Hillary does better in primaries. They say they prefer primaries because they are more inclusive, but it has more to do with the fact Hillary does better.
Obama people say, “The rules are the rules.” That’s an interesting position for a campaign that is supposed to be all about
changing the status quo. Obama is pretty loyal to the DNC for someone running a post-partisan campaign.
One party hack after another, with the exception of fierce Clinton loyalists, have come out and said, “We need to settle this soon or else it will hurt the party’s chances in November.” Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Bob Beckel, and Bill Richardson are some examples.
Instead of appreciating the majesty of having all fifty states have a real say in who the Democrat nominee is, all they care about is whether the party will win in November.
As a Republican and a person who respects state sovereignty, I have to agree with Clinton on this one. If Iowa or my home state of New Hampshire violated DNC rules, I wouldn’t want the Bill Bradleys and the Howard Deans of the world saying, “The rules are the rules.” The DNC should have left it up to each individual state to vote when they want and should not have stripped any state of delegates for voting early. Even if you disagree with the decisions of Florida and Michigan to hold early primaries, do the individual voters really deserve to have no say in who the Democrat nominee is in a very close race just because the state governments there made a decision you might disagree with? Bill Clinton gets this. Howard Dean does not. This is mostly because those states are favorable to Hillary, but the Clintons also have enough political sense to know that disenfranchising two swing states from having a say in the nominee of a party is not good for a party. However, liberal Democrats, believing in central control as they do,decided to leave the nominating system up to the national party rather than each state.
Republicans should resist our natural tendency to dislike anything the Clintons say and join with them in expressing outrage over the disenfranchisement of millions of voters in two large states. Furthermore, senators like Bill Nelson are off base in blaming this situation on local officials in Iowa and New Hampshire when the real blame should be on the DNC rules committee. It is also ironic that youdidn’t hear Democrats say, “The rules are the rules,” constantly when Al Gore beat George Bush in the popular vote but lost the electoral college. When the DNC chose Howard Dean as its chairman in 2005, I was happy because I thought he’d be a disaster for the party. It turned out he wasn’t, but the 2006 elections had little to do with him. It looks like he will work his magic to elect John McCain (the former prisoner of war who Howard Dean said had no integrity), in a year that by all objective measures should be impossible for Republicans.
March 28th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Most all of the threads are dead. I think we need a poll about Romney being VP again.
March 28th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I meant a thread not a poll. Allthough a poll would be kind of cool I guess.
March 28th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Obama’s name wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan, and he didn’t campaign in either state out of deference to the rules that were agreed to by 48 states. Hillary’s just trying to steal a nomination she hasn’t won.
March 28th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
I think it is a big mistake for the Democrats to disenfranchise Michigan and Florida voters. Yes, they broke the rules. But did was it a capital offense? No.
I much prefer the way we handled the same problem. We cut the number of delegates from the miscreant states by half. They were punished, but not disenfranchised.
March 28th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Clarence, I am very sympathetic to notions of state sovereignty. This is not one of those times. Political parties have the right to enforce their own discipline and rules among their affiliate states.
Neither is this a case of ‘disenfranchisement’.
March 28th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
MI and FL are two HUGE swing states - and two that the Republicans already had a 50% or better chance of winning (particularly if Romney is on the ticket). For the Democrats to just say “screw you” to these states could be a fatal mistake.
March 28th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Gary,
I agree. I think Hillary has a compelling argument, rhetorically, in that these are both important states, and Barack might not have won (the popular vote at least) had they had normal primaries. But, I think what the DNC is doing is perfectly fine; chaos would reign if state parties could do whatever they wished, and the national parties had no recourse.
March 28th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Anyone who thinks that the GOP won’t seat ALL of FL and MI delegates is clearly dilusional
March 28th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Had Clinton protested the rules since early in this race, I’d be more sympathetic to her cause. But she said nothing until it appeared she’d lose this election. I’m pretty sure if she was in the lead and Obama wanted MI and FL to count, she’d be screaming “Party Rules!” from the mountaintops. Nothing against her, of course. It’s all politics.
March 28th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Dave, when you say the rules were agreed to by 48 states? Were they agreed to by 3 or 4 party hacks from each of the 48 states? As far as what Gary Matthew Miller says, I just don’t really like parties that much, so I don’t like the idea of them enforcing rules among states. New Hampshire has violated DNC rules before. If we had followed DNC rules every year, we would have lost our first in the nation primary. When I say I don’t like parties, I’m not suggesting getting rid of parties or having a third party or anything like that. That would make us too much like Canada and Europe. I just like people who are in a party because they agree with the ideology and not the other way around. I’ve never found party people very interesting. They are the type of people who don’t want anything controversial said at events because it might “divide the party” or “turn off swing voters”. I don’t like the idea of people like that determining how parties pick their nominees. And kudos to Ralph Nader for praising Hillary for staying in.
March 28th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Sorry to keep rambling here, but Alaska Jake is right too. Hillary should have bucked the DNC back in September and said, “I’m campaigning in Michigan and Florida whether you like it or not, and Howard Dean can go pound sand.” She would have been very popular in those two states had she said that. Hillary obviously was very torn about the decision because of her split view of not campaigning but remaining on the ballot in Michigan (unlike Obama). However, back then she was the almost-prohibitive frontrunner and probably did not want to do anything controversial.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:13 am
The voters themselves actually were disenfranchised. By a combination of action among a few top officials in there state to move their primary, and DNC’s reaction to it, the voter’s were disenfranchised. They will look at it that way. The voters didn’t agree to move up their primary, did they? If I were amongst them, I would feel like my vote was taken from me to help choose my party’s candidate, no matter who was to blame.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:14 am
their*
March 29th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Here is my humble thinking for seating the dems delegates in MI and FL. Seat FL delegates as voted; everyone was on the ballot and it was fair. MI is different Obama wasn’t on the ballot (VERY DUMB) especially since Hillary was on the ballot. Split those delegates in half so there is no advantage.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Obama wasn’t on Michigan ballot because he is a dump politician. Whoever thought that Michigan or Florida shouldn’t count is not smart enough to be Presidente of the USA.
March 29th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Who gives a piss if they feel “disenfranchised”? Picky another party then. Good grief. That’s the worse argument I can think of.
I understand that it’s fun to play by the rules until they start working against you. What a convenient time to suddenly decide that they weren’t fair in the first place. Idiots.