Will Dean Cost the Dems Florida?

[DeepModem Mom]

TIME: Will Dean Cost the Dems Florida?
By TIM PADGETT/MIAMI
Thursday, Mar. 20, 2008

....According to a poll conducted this week for various Florida media, almost a quarter of Florida Democrats say they'll be "less likely to support" the party's nominee if their state's delegates aren't seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August — and by seated they mean counted in the final tally to choose the presidential nominee. Florida has more than 4 million registered Democrats, but even just taking into account the 1.7 million Florida Democrats who voted in the January primary, that's still a potential alienation of some 400,000 votes, on a peninsula (and the nation's fourth largest state) that ended up deciding the 2000 presidential race by a mere 537 ballots. In addition, some state party leaders tell TIME they privately estimate the Dem dysfunction will cost them at least 1% of Florida's sizeable chunk of independent voters, who number more than 2 million, or almost a fifth of the state's electorate.

Then there's the question of all the prodigious Flori-dough. Prominent Florida Democratic donors and fundraisers are now threatening to withhold or seek the return of hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars from the national party if at least some of the state's delegates are not reinstated....

***

...the DNC's lack of foresight is astonishing, even more so now that Florida and Michigan have rejected the idea of costly and less than reliable primary revotes. After all, the Republican National Committee annulled only half of Florida's GOP delegates — a more measured ruling the DNC could have mirrored. And while Democratic rivals Obama and Hillary Clinton couldn't set foot in Florida in January, John McCain and his Republican competitors campaigned there and scored valuable face time with Florida independents, with McCain even winning the endorsement of the popular Crist. Despite all that, Florida Democrats campaigned with cardboard cutouts of Clinton and Obama and then turned out to vote in record numbers for the primary election, which was remarkably blooper-free by Sunshine State standards. All the while they were convinced that in the end the DNC would never shut out their delegates, especially with Clinton and Obama running neck-and-neck into the spring....

Dean and the DNC now look all but AWOL when it comes to resolving a mess they did so much to create, leaving it to the states to figure it out. Nor have (Florida's Republican Governor) Crist and the Florida legislature been much help after they were the ones who led the state into the primary rebellion in the first place. (In this week's poll, Florida Democrats lay equal blame on Dean and the Florida GOP.)

With any hope of a revote in either Florida or Michigan all but dead, the candidates themselves aren't helping to resolve the mess they too helped create by going along with the DNC. Clinton accepted the DNC ruling last year when she was the front-runner; but now, because she won the Florida and Michigan primaries but trails Obama in the delegate count, she's the earnest champion of voters like Bander. She backed the idea of revotes in Florida and Michigan; but this week rejected a compromise solution offered by Democratic state Senators in Florida that would take the GOP tack and reinstate half the delegates (giving Clinton 63 and Obama 42) and perhaps divide the other half equally between the two candidates or divvy them based on the popular vote that has so far been tallied nationally. Clinton insists instead that short of a full revote, all the Florida and Michigan delegates must be counted and seated as they stood in January.

The Florida compromise was also rejected by Obama, who didn't even put his name on the Michigan ballot in January. Otherwise, not surprisingly, he is keeping sheepishly quiet — and a bit unpresidential — about the whole thing, looking to many as if he is simply trying to run out the clock by raising objections to a proposed revote in Michigan.

Meanwhile, little if anything is being done to appease angry Florida Democrats — whose enthusiastic support the party will need if the Florida sun is going to shine on its candidate in the general election....

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1724374,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner

[Kittycat]

1. In all honesty - with McCain, I never thought FL was going to be ours

Close, but unlikely.

[juajen]

4. You're wrong. It would have been a blue state with Hillary as

the nominee. I have many, many people living in FL and they all tell me she was wildly popular. Remember, lots of her constituents live down there, you know, all the old people? Not to mention the others, so I won't.

Here's hoping Howard Dean comes to his senses before this is a worse fiasco than it already is.

[ingac70]

6. Pure fantasy. n/t

[9119495]

12. Yeah, but all the people I know in FL say

Obama is wildly popular and that they can't stand her. Anecdotes don't get us far.

[Warpy]

10. Same here. Florida and Ohio are the two most corrupt states

in the country as far as elections go and I fully expect both to be stolen by the GOP.

I think it's a dirty shame people had their delegates to the convention stolen because of the GOP dirty trick that pushed up the primary date. However, I do understand why that, even if some sort of deal is struck, it will be punitive in some way.

The GOP, of course, wants primaries as early as possible so that the candidate with the most name recognition will be the inevitable candidate and they can start working on their dirty tricks for the main election. That this primary season is down to the wire has to be driving them crazy.

[Coexist]

2. nah- Florida is in love with 'moderate' republicans

it will remain red this cycle no matter what.

[yurbud]

3. I heard Sen. Stabenow of Michigan say New Hampshire cut in line too but wasn't punished

[ingac70]

5. New Hampshire cut in line?

New Hampshire has been second to hold their contest since '52.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. I think this, from the article, is the NH reference --

"Dean has consistently argued that the integrity of party rules is at stake. But that seemingly principled stand rests on shaky ground. In a New York Times op-ed article this week, Michigan Senator Carl Levin and Debbie Dingell, a Michigan member of the DNC, pointed out that one of the perennially pampered primary states, New Hampshire, also broke newly established party rules last year by defensively moving its own primary to an earlier date — and the DNC allowed it. Even discounting that apparent hypocrisy, Florida Democrats insist that the moves by their state and Michigan should have indicated to the DNC that the rules were antiquated and flawed, and therefore required some flexibility. 'I detest this ruling," says U.S. Representative Robert Wexler, Barack Obama's Florida campaign director. "This should have been a wake-up call to the party that the primary system needs to be more representative and democratic.'"

[yurbud]

13. they cut in terms of the negotiations for THIS election cycle.

[Demeter]

8. Given Florida's Recent Record in Presidential Elections

thre's no way any result other than GOP could be expected. The corruption hasn't been uprooted, the perpetrators are all still employed or holding office. Nobody's been jailed!

And Floridians are mad, as in crazy, unlike our own MadFloridian, who is justifiably angry.

No great loss, if any loss at all.


Now Michigan is another story entirely. The strong redneck rural West and North vs the strong Democratic urban centers East and South--that contest has yet to be decisively settled. The state is reeling from the Bush economy, since 9/11/2001 if not before. But there are idiots who will insist on voting Republican even as their houses are foreclosed, their jobs shipped to Mexico and other points overseas, and their businesses fail.

So Michigan is still in play. Obama is making headway here, more than Clinton ever had in my neck of the woods. Your results may vary.

[jaysunb]

9. What a crock !

Winning Florida was iffy from the start....that's why we need a candidate that can win those little States that don't count. :evilfrown:

[pscot]

11. Florida Democrats

need to get their act together. They are an embarassment to the Party.

[Preston120]

14. Wait One Minute!

Didn't the DNC agree at the meeting, when the primaries were scheduled, that if a state jumped ahead and they held early elections that there delegates wouldn't be seated. And didn't Florida with its Republican Governor and Legislature goes against that rule? It's a poor situation when you want to change the rules in the middle of the game. If Florida Democrats are angry I direct them to there OWN state legislature.