If I were on the rules committee
Posted by: Dana
Better late than never. Here we are 3 days before the end of the primary season and the DNC rules committee is FINALLY dealing with what to do with Florida and Michigan. This should have been handled a long time ago. I know that many people are now considering this about one candidate over the other and it is now. If they would have done their work a few months ago it would not have been such a cliff hanger. What will be difficult for people to do is to focus on the voters rather than the candidates. There will be hours of debate today and much of it will be interesting but it is going to be difficult to put the support for a candidate aside and do the right thing.
I will give my assessment of what I think it is fair even though I have been vocal about my support of a candidate- this is just simply my opinion in what I think is fair and reasonable and maybe it will bring about a healthy discussion.
Florida- the delegates should be allocated according to the votes that were cast on election day. There were record turnouts on election day - people did not stay home - they went to vote. The average voter didn’t care that the Republic leadership inched up the date they could vote. They went to vote and their vote should count. All the candidates had their name on the ballot. The candidates did not run a campaign. It is my opinion that their votes should count and the delegates should be seated and counted divided according to the voters who turned out.
Michigan is a different story. Hillary’s name was on the ballot Obama’s was not on the ballot. I think the fairest option is to divide the delegates evenly in half. I am not confident this is the best option but I think it is a reasonable solution for a situation that is just flawed. Some will argue that the vote for ‘other’ was a vote for Obama- I just don’t think you can make that conclusion, that was a vote against Hillary but not necessarily a vote for a candidate. Had Obama’s name been on the ballot then it would have been more fair but it wasn’t.
To me these are bust reasonable options to make sure the voters votes are counted. Much like in Florida in 2000 when the courts discussed a chad, a hanging chad and pregnant chad- it is the intent of the voter that needs to be restored. I hope you will share your thoughts on this issue.
4 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
What should have happened is that half the delegates should have been withdrawn before the primary. They should have operated the primary normally after that, much the way the Republicans did.
Just as an aside, Florida’s turnout was no where near a record. It was below average for most primary states this year. Here is a good overview:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/05/michigans-turnout.html
Personally, I’m glad to see this issue resolved.
What really should be done is, all of the blue states should vote to hold their election on the first tuesday after the first monday of February 2009. When all the red states vote for McCain on the date set forth in the Constitution, we could say that forcing everyone to stick to an election schedule is undemocratic, and that the February 2009 votes should be counted among the vote totals for the 2008 General Election.
After all, not letting states that break the rules they have agreed to use to vote is just not at all democratic!!!!!
I think that the next time a state tries this, all candidates should be able to keep their names on the ballot and campaign. All the pledged/elected delegates should be seated as well. But no superdelegates from that state get to be seated, or even allowed on the Convention floor. I guaran-damn-tee there’s no way that Democratic honchos are going to risk being disinvited from the big party.