Only in Florida!

Sen. Rich (D) is writing legislation that would remove the Dem candidate’s name from the GE ballot in November. State Sen. Geller reports that republicans have approached him with support for the idea. The irony is that the support offered by the repubs isn’t support for the dems–it is obvious the repubs delight in the way the dems handle the issue and mismanage the election process and assure the state’s electoral votes go to McCain! Only in Florida!

I strongly believe Florida and Michigan delegates will be seated at the convention. Nobody in the Democratic Party including Obama wants a convention without delegations from those states. Obama just doesn’t want to lose the nomination because of it. He will still be far enough ahead in pledged delegates that he could seat them (provided he had some say in the uncommmitted) and still have a comfortable lead. His only worry would be that it would make it easier for the superdelegates to vote in favor of Clinton by a wide enough margin to overcome this lead. I can’t see a majority of delegates that don’t already support Clinton to start supporting her after she loses the delegate race. Still Obama would want some assurance. Wouldn’t you suspect that enough superdelegates would want the Michigan and Florida issue settled that they would support Obama if for no other reason than to give him a lead so comfortable that seating those delegations is no threat to his nomination?

We all want voter participation–we want every vote to count.

However, their is a far greater danger lurking: irrelevance of a national democratic organization entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring an organized approach and administration of the support to candidates that espouse the beliefs and principles of what constitutes a democratic candidate for elected office, at the local, state, and national levels. We run the fatal risk of destroying ourselves.

Make no mistake, if the rules can be ignored, and worse, if a state can usurp the rules that bind us together then the days of an organized approach to elections are numbered. We democrats will have handed victory to the republicans–without any effort on their part.

The Democrats could solve the Florida / Michigan issue simply by following DNC rules. DNC rules state that if a state violates the rules regarding timing or proportional representation, they will lose 50% of their pledged delegates, and 100% of their superdelegates.

The DNC Rules Committee used an elastic powers clause (i.e., have ability to impose rules and sanctions as needed) to strip both states of 100% of pledged delegates. While the DNC may technically be allowed to do this, it unfairly contradicts the officially defined sanction, and could cause Floridians and Michiganders to vote Republican or stay home on Election Day.

Just follow the DNC rules as written, and give Florida and Michigan pledged delegates a half-vote each, like the RNC did. It will eliminate the need for expensive re-election, and the accusations of disenfranchisement and changing the rules.

I’m glad they won’t be revoting. It would be a waste of time and money and they’d get the same results. I agree with David, half delegates sounds fine to me. It was what should have been done in the first place. There is no need to be so absolutist and punishing. Sheesh. Let’s not alienate voters.

Half votes are fine, except in Michigan’s case. The legitimacy of the elections have already been challenged, and in Michigan’s case, it is further questioned because there was only one [major] candidate on the ballot.

Is the most workable solution to give all remaining delegates not specifically awarded to Clinton to Obama? Is that approach ok with the DNC, the MDP, the governor and state legislators, and is it ok with the Obama and Clinton campaigns? If any one of those stakeholders balk then it won’t work. You see, the only workable solution is one that is acceptable to all of the stakeholders.

So far, I haven’t seen any of the parties come together with a clear solution. Nor have I seen any real commitment from either campaign. Blaming one campaign or the other doesn’t help matters. The fact is contrary to what the blogs and partisan media, campaigns and politicians say in public, none of them have really committed themselves to finding agreement on whether to seat the delegates, not to mention how best to seat the delegates. Everyone says, yes, let’s seat the delegates, but that is merely wishful thinking and words–you have to actually do the real work of finding an acceptable method to accomplish that desire.

There are two question in that quest: first, are the stakeholders really interested in seating the delegates? Second, Is there a way to set aside self-interests so that the Michigan and Florida voters can have a say in who the democratic nominee will be? Florida seems to be a lost cause; Michigan may be on tract for some kind of solution, but it seems their proposed solution required the voters lie in order to be counted.

Florida delegates should be seated and being that the primary was as fair to every candidate as a primary could be (with the possible exception that Obama ran ads in Florida prior to the vote) there isn’t any reason why the DNC should disallow those 1.5 million voters.

If Florida doesn’t have a re-vote than at least the delegate allocation should be halved so there will be a Florida contingent at the convention.