Last year there was a huge squabble over the order in which various states would hold their primaries. A few state parties wanted to subject the unfortunate citizens of their states to more automated phone calls and other annoying forms of campaigning, so they moved up their primary dates. The national Democratic party penalized two of them — Florida and Michigan — by decertifying their delegates. The delegates assigned in those primaries will not count toward naming the nominee. That may or may not have been a good idea, but all of the Democratic Presidential candidates agreed to abide by the decision and not campaign in either state. None of the major contenders even had their name on the ballot in Michigan other than Hillary Clinton.
Hillary won the Michigan primary by a huge amount (for obvious reasons), and it looks like she’s going to win Florida as well. Now her campaign is maneuvering to insure that those delegates are counted at the convention. In other words, it seems clear that she is planning on going back on the agreement she made with the other candidates.
I’ll say this. If Hillary Clinton does renege on her agreement and winds up being the Democratic nominee for President, I will not vote for her in November, regardless of her opponent. Either your word counts or it doesn’t.
January 29, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Well, the guy was suggesting that the delegates from Florida might get counted anyways at the convention. I’m not really sure why the democratic party is making up rules on moving conventions, I think it would be better to have all states vote on the same day, to begin with, since it is rather unfair certain states seem to be in a more powerful position for influencing the outcome.
Also, the voters of Florida and Michigan shouldn’t be alienated, democrats will surely need votes in the general election from Florida, if not Michigan. Maybe Hillary will go back on her word somehow, but so far I see the DNC as having made the biggest mistake so far.
January 29, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Rafe, if you can find me one politician who doesn’t go back on his or her word, I’d say you’ve found the one honest person in all of DC.
Get a good look, ’cause you’ll never see him/her again…
January 29, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Bah – your lack of a preview function is severely annoying.
January 30, 2008 at 9:53 am
Of course, individual votes don’t really count, they tell us, but it seems to me that if we have learned anything from the last eight years the key lesson has to be that the system won’t save us if we count on the system to do it all. No doubt Al Gore thought he was doing the country a favor when he decided that he wasn’t going to fight for every contested ballot. “What’s the worst that could happen?” he may have thought. “Sure, it is bad for me personally if I don’t get to be President, but the country will be fine.” Well, now we know better. I’m no fan of Hillary Clinton, but anyone on the Republican side (and right now it looks like it’ll be McCain) would be so much worse that it makes me sick to think about it. If voting for Hillary, voting Republican, or not voting are what the choices end up looking like, our path is clear.