Florida and Michigan - Idiots

[TomJoe]

Despite being warned that their election results would not be counted at the DNC if they voted earlier than allowed, both states decided to do it anyways.

Am I missing anything pertinent in this issue, or were they just idiots to go ahead and do it anyways?

If I was a citizen of either state, I'd want to find out who caused my vote to be worth nothing and then find a way to make sure they were removed from their position.

[TomJoe]

I guess the dumbass to blame in Florida is Karen L. Thurman. She was elected Chairdolt of the Florida Democratic Party in 2005. I have no idea who votes in that.

Florida's Clusterfuck.

[D. Scarlatti]

I know you're a Catholic, but I'm making you an Honorary Heathen For a Day based on the above.

[godfry n. glad]

I'll go for that.

We'll see how doltish the national party can be now. Fer crepes sake, folks, you made a decision, stand by it.

No Hillary, you can't have them.

No Barack, we can't do a mulligan...for anybody's benefit.

You both signed the statement. You both knew the rules. We ain't goin' down that road, again. Get used to it and stop the fookin' whining.

All us Nawapps are sittin' on the sidelines watching this all so carefully. It's love-30, Obama serving.

[Zehava]

Originally Posted by godfry n. glad

I'll go for that.

We'll see how doltish the national party can be now. Fer crepes sake, folks, you made a decision, stand by it.

No Hillary, you can't have them.

No Barack, we can't do a mulligan...for anybody's benefit.

You both signed the statement. You both knew the rules. We ain't goin' down that road, again. Get used to it and stop the fookin' whining.

All us Nawapps are sittin' on the sidelines watching this all so carefully. It's love-30, Obama serving.

My sentiments as well, unfortunately I predict the DNC will cave on this issue and allowing revotes as long as funding for the revoting process can be secured.

[TomJoe]

Originally Posted by Zehava

My sentiments as well, unfortunately I predict the DNC will cave on this issue and allowing revotes as long as funding for the revoting process can be secured.

IOW ...

It's not bad enough that we screwed our voting, taxpaying constituents once, lets screw them again by making them pay for another vote.

I'm curious to see where this money is going to come from. It irritated the fuck out of me to know that because the Dem's and Repub's couldn't pick a similar day to come to South Carolina and hold both primaries together, that it cost South Carolinian taxpayers somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million extra dollars (if my crappy memory serves me right) to hold them separately. Don't do us any fucking favors folks.

[Zehava]

Originally Posted by TomJoe

IOW ...

It's not bad enough that we screwed our voting, taxpaying constituents once, lets screw them again by making them pay for another vote.

I'm curious to see where this money is going to come from.

That's the big question.

So far nobody has come forth offering to pay for it, not the DNC, not the states and certainly not the candidates themselves. Short of some generous, rich benefactor putting up the cash, I'm not sure how the second round of voting will happen.

They could just decide to accept the votes as cast, Hillary would like that very much, but given that Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan (IIRC), he will be very opposed to accepting the the ballots as cast.

Question: Hillary did a good deal of campaigning in Florida, was that before or after the DNC nullified Florida's delegates?

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by TomJoe

IOW ...

It's not bad enough that we screwed our voting, taxpaying constituents once, lets screw them again by making them pay for another vote.

I'm curious to see where this money is going to come from. It irritated the fuck out of me to know that because the Dem's and Repub's couldn't pick a similar day to come to South Carolina and hold both primaries together, that it cost South Carolinian taxpayers somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million extra dollars (if my crappy memory serves me right) to hold them separately. Don't do us any fucking favors folks.

That sounds like a fault of your state government. They have the upper hand in that they pay for the election. The parties do not dictate to the state when elections will be held, the state does. If a party wants to have a primary election outside the state's election schedule, then they bear the entire cost...no state involvement whatsoever.

I think both parties have the option of caucusing or conventioning the selection of their delegates in the respective states....takes no state involvement at all. The cost is all on the parties. The DNC would have to sign off on it. Both those means are far more open to manipulation by one campaign or another, given the absence of a nominally neutral vote-counter in the state.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by Zehava

That's the big question.

So far nobody has come forth offering to pay for it, not the DNC, not the states and certainly not the candidates themselves. Short of some generous, rich benefactor putting up the cash, I'm not sure how the second round of voting will happen.

They could just decide to accept the votes as cast, Hillary would like that very much, but given that Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan (IIRC), he will be very opposed to accepting the the ballots as cast.

Question: Hillary did a good deal of campaigning in Florida, was that before or after the DNC nullified Florida's delegates?

I believe it was after....or, at least Florida had been warned, back when they were involved in moving the primaries, that the DNC would not recognize delegates from states which moved their primaries outside a given schedule. In either case, it was clear that the delegates would not count. It's Clinton's bad.

[California Tanker]

Apparently Clinton's visits to FL were fundraisers, not campaign stumps, and thus legal.

NTM

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

Apparently Clinton's visits to FL were fundraisers, not campaign stumps, and thus legal.

NTM

Yeah. Right. During the putative campaign period for their faux primary?

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

[wei yau]

I guess Florida is now slightly less idiotic.

[ChuckF]

Ok, bump. Michigan has come up with a "plan" to get their delegates seated.

Clinton won the Jan. 15 Michigan primary and was to get 73 pledged delegates under state party rules, while Obama was to get 55. The state also has 29 superdelegates.

The state party's executive committee voted Wednesday to ask the national party's Rules and Bylaws Committee to approve the 69-59 delegate split when it meets May 31. The plan would allow the state's 157 delegates and superdelegates to be seated at the convention.

In other words, let's just fucking make some shit up. A DNC committee is supposed to meet at the end of the month to figure out this particular clusterfuck.

I'm glad to see the party I'm registered with isn't getting any less stupid.

[godfry n. glad]

That's the "creatives" at work again.

[California Tanker]

They just split the difference?

NTM

[Zehava]

Originally Posted by Clinton spokesman Isaac Baker

"The bottom line is that the delegates from Michigan and Florida must be seated," he said in a statement released Wednesday night.

The hell they must.

The Democratic leaders of both states were warned what would happen if the state primaries were moved up and they did it anyway. All in an attempt to give their respective states a more "important" position in determining the Democratic candidate. The oh so juicy irony of the situation is, had Michigan and Florida held their primaries when originally scheduled they would have had considerable impact.

The DNC made a decision to invalidate these two primaries should the state leader go ahead with their plans to move up the dates of the primaries. The DNC needs to stick to this decision and not seat the delegates from Michigan or Florida, nor count the results of their primaries. For me any solution which allows Michigan or Florida to be seated the the national convention, or for their primary results to be counted is unacceptable. Even a 50/50 split on delegates.

Think what you may of the primary/caucus system but it is what we have. I lost most of my faith in the Democrats when the last took congress then promptly caved to Bush on everything. This is their last chance to hold onto this voter.

[Adam]

While I don't think I feel quite as strongly about it, I agree with Zehava. Florida and Michigan had a valid point...why the hell do a handful of states get to go first, with all the disproportionate influence that entails? However, they made their stand and the national party called their bluff. Changing the rules after the fact isn't fair to anyone.

The outcome may have value as civil disobedience, where a stupid rule is broken to draw attention to the fact that it is, indeed, a stupid rule, but that doesn't excuse the rule-breaker form the consequences, which were known in advance.

Edit: The best part about the article linked in Chuck's post? The Google Maps insert, illustrating the concept of "Michigan".

[Caligulette]

It would seem that- having gone ahead and voted, the states in question were not bluffing.

However, the national party, in considering somehow counting the delegates some way, maybe, is in a way.

I do agree that the primaries are set up stupidly, and have considered it so even before I lived in one of the last states to vote. And even though I don't vote on partisan issues in the primary. But still. When this whole thing started, there were, what? A thousand candidates? Now there are only two.

[JamesBannon]

Jeez, and I thought the vote at the last Scottish Parliamentary Elections was a screw-up!

[ChuckF]

Scotland could learn a lot from Florida. Florida is where old white people go to die. Also electoral democracy.

Fuck 'em, both.

[davidm]

Clinton Strives to Forge Coalition of Whites, Pigeons, Lunatics and Characters in a Dostoevsky Novel

FREETHOUGHT-FORUM.COM, May 8 (Internet News Service) — In an interview on Wednesday with USA Today, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton argued that she would be a better candidate than Barak Obama because she had a “broader base to build a winning coalition on” and that she could more easily win the votes of whites.

Clinton cited an Associated Press article that, she said, “found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

On Thursday, Clinton, a former first lady, a New York senator and a harridan, held a rousing campaign rally before a group of about two dozen pigeons in a parking lot in Shepherdstown, W.Va.

“This campaign is about you!” Clinton cried, hurling bread crumbs at the pigeons, who pounced on them. “It’s simply unacceptable that the hard-working pigeons of West Virginia, all of whom would vote for me if they could, will not have their delegates seated at the Democratic Convention.”

While feeding the pigeons, Clinton wore a pantsuit made of cellphone bags, and her broken shoes were tied together with twine. Her hair was askew, two teeth were missing and she reeked of alcohol.

The pigeons, pecking violently at the bread crumbs and flapping their wings, declined to comment.

Her aides said that Clinton would seek to have the West Virginia pigeon delegation seated at the Democratic Convention, and that “pigeons and hard-working white people” were among the broad base of voters that she could attract in the general election.

Also on Thursday, the Clinton campaign argued that unlike Obama, the former first lady was poised to win the votes of mad hatters, lunatics, children with attention deficit disorder, sex slaves and characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic novel, “The Brothers Karamazov.”

Aides said Clinton believed that she could put together a historic coalition bridging such disparate Dostoevskian characters as Fyodor Karamazov, the debauched and dissolute patriarch of the Karamazov clan; Mitya Karamazov, Fyodor’s eldest son, a passionate and intemperate adventurer who is constantly carried away by his unbridled and sinful impulses; Alyosha Karamazov, Fyodor’s third son, a kind, gentle, loving and Christ-like soul; and Ivan Karamazov, the middle son, an intellectual who doubts the existence of God.

[seebs]

You know, I started the year thinking the question was which Democrat would win the overall election, but I think they are doing a surprising job of portraying themselves as less desirable than the torturers and torture apologists we have today.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by seebs

You know, I started the year thinking the question was which Democrat would win the overall election, but I think they are doing a surprising job of portraying themselves as less desirable than the torturers and torture apologists we have today.

Sorry, seebs...I can't go that far.

Yet.

[ChuckF]

Huh?

Three Florida delegates, including the state's Senate Democratic leader have filed a federal lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee claiming the DNC violated their constitutional rights by barring them from the party's national convention.

It goes on to explain the state party's grievances. How is this even remotely a constitutional issue?