Election, actually, Republicans could care less about this affair, since their party has managed to give Sen. John McCain of Arizona the nomination to run for president that he probably should have received eight years ago.
BUT FOR DEMOCRATS, the party officials are going to have to actually figure out what to do with those states – both of which are entitled to have representation at the Democratic National Convention.
But at this year’s nominating convention to be held in Denver in August, those states theoretically will not exist – even though they provide a combined total of 366 delegates and are two of the largest individual state delegations anywhere in the United States.
It’s called punishment. The Democratic National Committee is doing the equivalent of sending the states to their room without any supper.
Party officials in both states tried to have their primary elections very early in the election season, so early that officials felt they were trying to improperly influence the outcome of the national election by not waiting their turn in line with the other 48 states.
SO WHEN THOSE states held their primaries anyway, they chose delegates, some of whom officially say they back Clinton, and others who say they are uncommitted to any one candidate (although many of those people are likely sympathetic to Obama).
The presidential candidates were supposed to discourage this by not campaigning or seeking delegates in either state. Obama followed the letter of the law as laid down by his political party; Clinton did not. That’s why she has potential to boost her delegate count.
In those elections earlier this year, Clinton took 55 percent of the vote in Michigan (against nobody else), while she got 50 percent in Florida compared to 33 percent against an Obama who did nothing to campaign for votes.
So in theory, each state consists of delegations that contain bare majorities of Hillary fans, with many other delegates who in theory could back whomever they wanted.
THE GOVERNORS OF both states sent a joint letter Wednesday to the national party, saying they think it is pointless to actually punish them for their attempt to circumvent the established primary election order, which in all honesty has become so jumbled because just about every state tried to push their way to the head of the line.
What Florida and Michigan did only varies by degree compared to the efforts of places such as Illinois (which boosted up its own primary from mid-March to Feb. 5, where Obama’s big delegate win in Illinois was overshadowed by the same-day bigger win for Clinton in California.)
The governors make the same argument I have heard put forth by many political pundits, that not including delegations from Michigan and Florida essentially excludes the wishes of the 5.16 million people in those two states who actually bothered to turn out and vote on their respective election days.
“It is intolerable that the national political parties have denied the citizens of Michigan and Florida their votes and voices at their respective national conventions,” wrote both Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.
SOME POLITICAL PEOPLE seem to think we can have an Election Day do-over, as though suddenly scheduling two more primary elections to go along with the 12 more state and territory primaries that already remain for the Democratic slate isn’t technically absurd.
It would even be a hassle for the states. Florida alone spent $18 million to hold its primary election earlier this year. Another $18 million seems wasteful.
All this makes me long for the days when presidential candidates started in New Hampshire and worked their way to California. There was almost a sense of order to the process, although California officials didn’t like it much because it put them at the very end, and made them potentially irrelevant in the election process for federal government posts.
THE BOTTOM LINE on this issue is this.
It is the party officials in each state who took actions that have potentially dis-enfranchised the voters who live there. That anyone seriously believes that Florida and Michigan are the victims here is the ultimate political spin job.
But this is a case where the concept of excluding states from having a say in who the presidential candidates will be is just too abhorrent. Political officials are going to have to hold their noses and accept the delegations from the states, as chosen by the voters in the “illegitimate” elections.
What is ironic is that Clinton is the official who stands to benefit from allowing the Michigan and Florida delegations to be included.
SHE WILL GAIN delegates while Obama will have to scrounge to get the uncommitted delegates to support him. In theory, they could go to either candidate (just like the super-delegates) and many of them have come to see Obama as the problem – he’s the guy who says the rules have to be followed and they have to be excluded.
But Obama is the Democrat who actually followed the wishes of his political party. He did not campaign in either state. He did not run slates of delegates, even though he could have run full slates in every congressional district in each state.
Yet he is the one who stands to get dumped on, should Michigan and Florida be included. Clinton, who looked out for Number One rather than go along with the party desires, is the one who stands to benefit.
This comes down to yet another case of life just not being fair, especially not in politics played hardball.
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EDITOR’S NOTES: A re-vote? Ugh. The whole concept sounds so like something (http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/a_revote_in_florida_and_michig.php) out of a junior high student council election, rather than a political bloodbath for the U.S. presidency.
Michigan and Florida have serious potential to dump on the spread of Obama-mania (http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003719566) across the United States.
Leave it to the land that gave us the Jefferson Airplane to try to come up with a solution (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/05/ED3IVE87R.DTL) to this pending political problem.
Are Hispanic voters in Texas really likely to mistake a “caucus” for “caca’ and therefore likely to be turned off of Democratic presidential politics? I don’t think so. The Chicago Argus’ sister weblog, The South Chicagoan (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/), offers more details.
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