Democrat Dishonesty

Political junkies are talking about Florida and Michigan these days. That's because, if you'll remember, those two states moved their presidential primary elections up on the calendar in violation of rules that were laid out by both parties.

First of all we need to understand the relationships between the parties and the states. The parties obviously have elected officials in every state. But the parties themselves don't have any authority over the states. Picking a nominee for president is purely a party function and each state party has determined the best way to do that. As a result we have a bunch of different formats.

In Florida, we hold what are called "Presidential Preference Primaries". They are actual elections (as opposed to caucuses) that are administered through the state's department of elections. In other words, they are funded by you and I, the taxpayers.

Now the parties have a vested interest in keeping the scheduling of primaries and caucuses in some sort of order to avoid chaos. Everyone wants to be first and the parties don't want that so they threatened to sanction states that violated party rules.

Michigan and Florida both called the bluff of the RNC and the DNC and moved their primaries up to a date which was earlier than that allowed by party rules. The penalty in the Republican party is that only half of Florida's delegates will be seated at the convention. This is a moot point since everyone except McCain has now withdrawn from the GOP race and whether Florida seats all of its delegates, half of them, or none of them the outcome won't be any different.

Which brings us to our friends in the jackass party. Instead of a reasonable sanction the DNC determined that it would bar ALL of Florida's and Michigan's delegates. It asked candidates not to campaign in those states and in Michigan Barack Obama's name didn't even appear on the ballot. And all of this is creating a huge headache for the donkeys because it now looks like neither Obama or Clinton will win enough pledged delegates to the convention to win the nomination without delegations from Florida and Michigan being seated. Big problem.

Now one of the novel arguments I have heard about this conundrum is the Democrat contention that this is the fault of Florida Republicans. You see, the Florida House and Senate are controlled by Republicans as well as the Governor's Mansion. So the story on Democrat lips is that it's unfair for the DNC to punish Florida Democrats for something Florida Republicans did. That would be a great argument except for one small detail. The Florida House voted unanimously to pass the bill that moved Florida's primary up and the measure passed in the Florida Senate by a vote of 37-2. Obviously, moving the Presidential Preference Primary up was a bipartisan measure.

There is only one entity to blame for this mess, the DNC and its chair Howard Dean. If the DNC had taken the approach that the GOP did and sanctioned Michigan and Florida by nullifying half of those states' delegates (instead of all of them), then both candidates would have campaigned in those states and the names of all of the candidates would have appeared on the ballot in Michigan. It would be much easier for the DNC to extract itself from the mess because even if they ended up seating all of the delegates nobody could say it was unfair.

Governor Crist has rightfully come out saying that Florida voters should not be denied their voice at the Democratic convention. He wants a solution but doesn't want you and I to pay for it. I think that's right. Contrary to Democrat talking points this mess was made by the DNC not the state of Florida. After all, our elected officials have the authority to set election dates as they see fit. It's up to the parties to figure out what to do after that.

My advice to Democrats, don't make this a partisan issue. It's dishonest and it's self-defeating. Come up with a plan to fix the mess and stop making excuses.

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at March 7, 2008 02:48 PM

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Posted by: La Ventanita at March 7, 2008 03:58 PM

Posted by: Henry "Conductor" Gomez at March 7, 2008 04:55 PM

Posted by: La Ventanita at March 9, 2008 05:37 PM

Posted by: Henry "Conductor" Gomez at March 9, 2008 07:19 PM

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