No, the state held the election. Nothing the party could do about it.
In this case, the Powers That Be = the state legislature. Controlled by Republicans.
BG that’s not quite true. The local party was aparty to it. They cooperated with the process. And were asked to come up with an alternative. They refused.
No they were not completely innocent victims in this process disenfranchised by the evil Republicans.
The Democratic National Committee can’t prevent a primary, it can only nullify the result.
I think that no one seriously advocates seating MI on any basis other than somehow appeasing MI voters for the general election. That argument is incredibly weak. Even if seating the delegates would have an appreciable effect on whether MI would go blue (and I highly doubt that it would matter one way or another), it is still insufficient justification to trump the manifest unfairness in seating a delegation elected on the basis of a ballot without Obama’s name.
It is conceivably a closer call in Florida. At least both names were on the ballot. But how many thousands of people didn’t vote because they knew it wouldn’t matter? How much of a difference would Obama’s campaigning have made? It would still be an ex post facto rules change akin to, as one poster put it, counting the practice home runs at a baseball game.
In the end, I don’t think seating the delegations has any effect whatsoever on what will happen in the general. And I think the fairest thing is stick to the rules. But since the Clinton camp (and potentially her voters) might be upset if they aren’t thrown an unreasonable bone, I think the best solution is to seat the delegations according to some proportion other than the electoral results in those states. Not sure what would be fair–maybe splitting based on the overall split of the popular vote?
Yeah, this seems the fairest solution. I think ideally the Dems should have done what the GOP did–halve the delegates as a punishment. That way both Obama and Clinton would have had to campaign in those states, but they would have still been punished for defying the DNC.
The state governments probably won’t pay for the new elections though, and that is the problem. Perhaps state conventions or small caucuses may be the way to go, as those would ostensibly be cheaper than primary elections, at least I would think so.
Then the system is far stupider than it has to be. What’s the point of holding an election at taxpayer expense that the party has no intention of honoring? I can see none.
I know at least two who didn’t: my aunt and my cousin in Jacksonville, both Obama supporters.
What should be done is either not seat the delegations or seat them after new caucuses are held. To seat these delegations and recognize the results as valid when campaigning was not allowed, the voters were told the election would not count, and in Michigan only one serious name was on the ballot would make a mockery of the process. It would be as if an NFL team went 4-0 in the preseason schedule and then demanded in December that their wins be counted. If these delegations are seated as they are, all it will do is cause trouble in 2012 and beyond as states see that they can flaunt the rules and have everybody racing to hold the first primary, knowing that they will be seated.
When these elections were held, everyone knew what the deal was, right? The national party waved its big stick, and the state parties held early elections anyway. Assuming that everyone who made a decision in this mess was acting within their respective rights, why are we even discussing changes to these decisions? Because one candidate who didn’t expect to be losing is losing.
I think BobLibDem has the right answer.
I really don’t understand why it is not this simple. Rules were made, candidates agreed to follow the rules and now the Clintons are doing their best to remind me why I did not really like them.
Luckily for us these are Primaries, and the Clinton’s Ilk is being shown to the entire nation - so people can get out and really vote for the candidate who has the best chance to win in November - Obama. Further I hope Hillary get’s spanked today in WI just to show her who is still winning this thing fair and square.
That would be nice, but how bad would it be for her if she lost by the margin she’s at now? I hope she does too, but I think it would just make her campaign get nastier.
Good get nastier, because in the end I believe the American public likes nastiness about as much as a colonoscopy…It will only further degrade her candidacy IMHO.
I know you’re right…its just that nasty jibes in a political campaign always make me either really angry or just plain sick.
Seriously, pragmatically?
First do a reliable headcount of how the convention vote would go without the FL and MI delegates being allowed to vote. Then figure out if the bottom-line result changes if the FL and MI delegates are allowed to cast HALF-votes. If it makes no difference in who comes out the winner, confer with the PLEOs and party leaders and if everyone agrees to stick by the committed-delegage majority, let those states’ votes count as 1/2 of anyone else’s votes, which
a) Matches what the Republicans did (not that that’s particularly important)
b) Still penalizes FL and MI for not playing by the rules
c) Looks like a compromise and yet
d) Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.
Dean now says the party is committed to seating Florida’s delegates at the convention “as long as any agreement is supported by the party’s two presidential contenders.”
I think he means Hillary’s toast.
Exactly. So what’s the question and what’s the problem?
-Joe
I’m leaning toward this position. I was not aware of the fact BG pointed out that this decision was made by the Republican legislature, but it seems to me that it was just dumb luck that it wasn’t their party that ended up being screwed by it, so I don’t see that as relevant unless someone has a cite that the GOP intended this to screw the Democrats rather than to increase their own State’s influence within both parties. The whole primary system is a horrible, unnecessarily complicated, undemocratic mess, but I don’t see any reason (other than serving the interests of HRC) why we should try to go back and retroactively undo this particular irrationality.
The question is how to best shut Hillary up. 
I’m for the following:
- Penalizing each state 50% of its voting strength. Then, subject to that:
- Seating the FL delegation as voted on, and
- Seating a MI delegation evenly divided between Hillary, Obama, and Edwards supporters.
Why Edwards? Because Edwards was still an active candidate when the MI primary was held, and he figured to do pretty well there. No sense in penalizing his MI performance for events that happened subsequent to the MI primary.