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DNC strips Fla. of delegates -- primary wouldn't count
The Democratic Party has taken a swipe at the nation's fourth biggest state, stripping Florida of all of its '08 delegates as punishment for jumping the gun with its Jan. 29 primary. Florida's early date could force other states to move up and up to stay at the front of the pack.
Under a vote taken moments ago by a powerful committee of the Democratic National Committee, if things don’t change, Florida’s primary will be a "beauty contest" — the delegates won’t count toward the party’s presidential nomination.
Florida officials complained that the DNC was going to "disenfranchise voters," as it says on the state party's home page. The DNC pushed back strongly against that contention, since it has rules that Florida decided not to follow.
This is the party’s way of trying to stop the crazy domino effect of states moving their nominating contests earlier and earlier, which causes OTHER states to go earlier and earlier.
Note that last paragraph cited, folks, and REMEMBER--that it was the DNC itself that started this spitball contest last year, moving Nevada and South Carolina to the front of the primary lineup, breaking the tacit agreement that has held with both parties since the McGovern-Fraser Commission of 1968, which was designed to foster open selection of delegates.
Why, one might even speculate that it's the open selection of delegates that the new move is designed to avoid...anyone got a map to the new DNC smoke-filled back room?
Now, tell me one more time about that "party of the people" thing....
UDPATE: More delicious irony in Politico's update:
During the debate, Donna Brazile, a DNC member from D.C. who was campaign manager for Gore-Lieberman in 2000, said: “I understand how states crave to be first. I understand that they’re envious of the role that Iowa and New Hampshire have traditionally played.
REPEAT here: It was NOT the long-standing Iowa and New Hapmshire primaries that brought this flap about. It was the DNC moving the Nevada and South Carolina Democratic primaries up to the head of the line, in violation of the near-forty-year-old agreement reached by the McGovern-Fraser Commission in 1968.
The Florida Democratic Party will decide how to respond, but the signal from the DNC is clear. The cannibals are running the kitchen.
UPDATE: Roger Simon has his full article up now at Politico.
UPDATE Postscript: It'll get even funnier when the GOP has to decide what to do with its own line-jumpers, who will insist on having their primaries on the same dates as the Democratic primaries. Since state taxpayers foot the bill for for those party primary elections, there's bound to be some serious steam flying. Can't you just hear it now? "Look what they made us do!"
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A fiery rules committee with the speed of light...
Duh Dumb, Duh Dumb...
Sow, Reap
The DNC: Making Every Vote Not Count!
Dun duh duh...
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I guess the state response
I guess the state response depends on the state. Florida has pretty much said it will pay for only the one election. Add the fact that they have also tied a major property tax reform measure to the same ballot, Democrats only choice would be to ignore it and hold a caucus at their own expense and lower participation.
Florida Democrats are too weak in state government to be able to force any changes. Plus, they do not have the funding to pull off caucuses. I do not see any other option for them other than fighting the DNC.
yep
" [Florida] Democrats only choice would be to ignore it and hold a caucus at their own expense and lower participation."
Yes and no. IMHO that's the entire point of the exercise, and always has been. Namely, to shift control of the delegate selection from the Democratic primary voters of the state(s) in an open and monitored election over to the party insiders in a MUCH less transparent and more easily manipulated venue. The return of the old smoke-filled back room. The very thing the McGovern-Fraser plan was designed to eliminate, and mostly did, for almost four decades.
At a guess, the next move from the DNC would be for the national party (or some "savior") to provide the funding for a Florida state caucus that complies with the new DNC rules. At which point it will become ENORMOUSLY easier for the DNC and state party insiders to predetermine the results of the caucus.
It's a freakin' Kabuki play, as scripted as they come, and the DNC carefully set up the situation last year. If the Florida Dem party goes to a compliance caucus, the insiders are in complete control of the process and what the Democratic primary voters of Florida think becomes irrelevant. If the Dem party does not come up with a compliance plan, then the DNC penalizes them by stripping their convention delegates and what the Democratic primary voters of Florida think becomes irrelevant.
Either way, what the DNC is doing is stripping the Democratic voters of Florida of their voice in the national convention, and handing that voice over to the party insiders. And eitherr way, the DNC blames the GOP legislature, even though they did it to themselves.
So, how gullible are Florida's Democratic primary voters?
how gullible are Florida's
While they may not be able to operate a voting machine, most of the Democrats I know here, even the non-political ones, are furious over this. Many enough to decide that they just won't vote in the general, as of now. Once you get to the general election, they may go sheepish and vote. However, I assume the DNC is writing off Florida in the general by doing this. Losing just one percent of their voters would be enough to assure a GOP win.
Yes, Florida Democratic primary voters will be irrelevant and many won't forget what the national party did. Especially after years of saying make every vote count, except when they don't want it to.
As an aside to the smoke filled rooms and the McGovern-Fraser plan, I know I am in the minority and on the non-populist side by saying that I am not really a fan of the reforms as they have been implemented. Other than Ronald Reagan, I have thought the candidates put forth by the system have been of low quality relative to the importance of the office. However, it is the system we have and to disenfranchise one states voters in the current system is an idiotic thing to do. The whole issue only highlights how fubared the entire Presidential candidate selection system is. It is simply another symptom of an ineffective and horribly broken way that we select our most important office.
Bad move
It would be a mistake to write off Florida. I'm waiting to hear what Hillary says about this. I doubt she wants to see Florida go blue or the merit of "insider" control of primaries. Now that Maliki is blasting her, perhaps she might consider a harder line against DNC insiders. I laugh now when I get DNC newsletters which some think are irrelvent. Now I know what they mean by their 50 state strategy.
Well...
I know I am in the minority and on the non-populist side by saying that I am not really a fan of the reforms as they have been implemented. Other than Ronald Reagan, I have thought the candidates put forth by the system have been of low quality relative to the importance of the office.
The M-F agreement (love acronyming it that way) was directly motivated by the Chicago Riots of the 1968 DNC Convention. And it gave McGovern the '72 nomination. But it also regularized the nomination process, which had relied more on state caucuses and "insider trading" before the changes. The new Democratic Party rules are blatantly designed to go back to the days of excluding the non-favored, and I've been saying so for the last year. The GOP kept the old open-access rules. The states themselves, of course, are pushing up their dates in response.
But have no doubt about it--the DNC rule changes were designed to steer the fvored candidate of party insiders to the forefront. It's telling that Dean, who in 2004 was aced by Kerry in Iowa and New Hampshire and by Edwards in South Caorlina, is the one who pushed through the rule changes. And that the big winner in the changes was Nevada, Reid's home state.
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right. --H. L. Mencken
It is amusing that the GOP
It is amusing that the GOP implemented the reforms forced upon them by the Democrats much better than the Democrats did. Not that the party elites every really wanted the changes in the first places. When Humphrey lost, the hard core anti-war nuts got in and forced the changes. Funny how history seems to be folding upon itself now that the anti-war nuts control the party and want to strengthen their power.
It is indeed funny.The GOP
It is indeed funny.
The GOP did not change their rules last year--they still operate under the M-F agreement. I anticipate that they will also enforce their rules on state parties that jump the gun. But the GOP rules don't completely strip all delegates, and they can always go the "beauty contest" route with follow-up "official" caucuses.
My own state hasn't had a presidential primary that meant a damn thing for decades, as normally presidential primaries are always held in April. This year, spurred by the DNC's mangling of the primary schedule, they scrapped the presidential primary entirely and both parties scheduled February caucuses instead. So it's not ALL bad.
Super Tuesday (Feb 5 this time) is looking more and more like a "settle" date for state parties.
Having lived in Florida for
Having lived in Florida for over thirty years, I can say that this state always finds ways to make things interesting. At times I envy a state like Kansas. The state GOP does not really seem to concerned with losing half of the delegates. It just wants a hand in the early part of the process. [Plus, it seems to want an even bigger piece of the advertising pie]
The Florida GOP has played the state and national Democrats like a fine violin. The DNC action is icing on the cake, especially if it suppresses Democrat voter turnout on January 29 for the property tax vote that the state Dems are against. This is probably the bigger reason the state party will fight the DNC. They know they lose the tax vote if their primary means nothing. I do not expect them to roll over and go the caucus route because of this.
LOL
Having lived in Florida for over thirty years, I can say that this state always finds ways to make things interesting. At times I envy a state like Kansas.
Oh, Kansas has its own ways of keeping things interesting....
I'm failing to see the huge
I'm failing to see the huge difference between (R) and (D), since the RNC has also promised punishment, and the FL Republicans have done the same thing as the FL Democrats.
Oh, boy, one party is only taking away HALF! Oooohhhhh........ SUCH a difference.
I have thought the candidates put forth by the system have been of low quality relative to the importance of the office. .
That's right - they don't make Presidents the way they used to.... After all, no modern President is as good as Buchanan (ignored rebelling states in 1860) or Mr. "Teapot Dome" Harding. Or nominees as good as Adlai Stevenson (especially the second time(!), or the Victorian Era's Dean, "Cross-of-Gold" Bryan (also nominated twice).
I hadn't read about the rule changes - sounds interesting - I'll hafta go look at that.
Whoopsie! Sorry about the
Whoopsie! Sorry about the hanging italicize.
Fixed. For the backstory,
Fixed.
For the backstory, follow the "previous" threads back. They're in order from most recent back.
I think that one of the things I really resent is that by pulling this stunt, the DNC also puts pressure on the GOP to beccome less transparent and more insider-driven in the nomination process.
There is no perfect system.
There is no perfect system. I'm not sure Stevenson deserves to be lumped in with them. He may have been ok as President. He stood no chance against a war hero, though. Bryan was an odd bird. He was just years too early to get rid of the gold system. That took Nixon. ;) There are plenty of bad Presidents and candidates throughout history. Its hard to do what would be a subjective comparison. Based on my own studies, I feel like we have had the weakest candidates nominated over any thirty year period, except maybe the time period of the Gilded Age. [Some would argue we are in a second Gilded Age. I do not make that claim.]
But (accepting your
But (accepting your contention as given simply for debate purposes, without affirming it) is the nomination of weaker candidates due to the nomination process, or the overall political atmosphere, or toher factors, or some combination? Because it can quite reasonably be argued that candidates for ALL offices have become less and less "strong" over the last half-century.
I blame Madison Avenue, and the packaging of campaigns. ;-)
I have no argument with
I have no argument with that. ;) It is a multi-modal issue. It can be argued that the weakening of state political parties and end of political machines has reduced it too. I'm just not all that uncertain that our current configuration is not one of the worst possible ones. I'd almost rather go with a Delaware system or do away with conventions and just go with a national primary at the end of August. Both of those are flawed too. They just don't seem as bad as the mess we have now.
Maybe there will be another candidate I can support like Reagan someday. I know that is my disappointment. I don't want another "Reagan". It annoys me to see candidates trying to compare themselves to him. I want someone who can put their own name in the quotation and take the mantle, not adopt it. I ask too much.
The Delaware system...
The Delaware system has its own drawbacks. For structural reasons, of course, Republicans tend to like it and Democrats hate it.
Can it?
> It can quite reasonably be argued that candidates for ALL offices have become less and less "strong" over the last half-century.
Can it? Evidence, please? I mean, if nothing else, they're effectively better-educated due to the advancement of knowledge.
Keep in mind two things: first, it's impossible to measure a politian's impact for fifty years, because of partisanship and because we remember their mistakes better. Also, the great actions of earlier Presidents and technological advances have preserved us from having to face problems as bad as they did. There will be no more Civil War for a long, long time in this country; and the Fed seems to be preserving us against further economic depressions.
If we were blogging in 1957, you'd be talking about what a bad, bad man FDR was and how he was basically a dictator. I'd probably be quietly unhappy with him, remembering the mistakes and failing leadership of his last terms.
Populism was bad politics
True, we don't have a gold standard today, but we do have definite ideas that effectively limit money in circulation. Bryan wanted to freely coin all silver, without regard to monetary policies. He would've caused a vast inflation. But he never could've won, because nobody trusted him. Like Dean, he could give a good speech, but his ideas were stupid and his approach to politics was extreme and alienating. Look, you have to be a moderate to win big elections. Very few Populists won big elections, and they were the few moderates in the movement, like Texas Governor Pa Ferguson.
I'm objecting to Stevenson's SECOND nomination. No problem with his first one.
Oh, and your post reminds me of another of the classic bad choices of the pre-Riot systems: "Watergate" Nixon. He also spoiled the entire 70s economy with his energy price freezes. He did it just in the right moment so it'd be working gangbusters in November of 72. After that, people lost incentive to make more supply (as he knew would happen, but didn't care). The economy sucked until Carter repealed the freeze. Though, Mixon could've won uner the popular system as well; maybe that one's unfair.