- Don’t complain about the rules you previously agreed to when something doesn’t go your way because of them.
Florida and Michigan agreed a year and a half ago that votes shouldn’t be counted if primaries were held before a specified date.
Florida and Michigan then proceeded to hold their primaries before the specified date.
Now that the race is tight, Florida and Michigan want their votes to count.
Bullshit.
Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan, and neither of the candidates campaigned in Florida. The results from those two states are meaningless. If they were to be used and Hillary Clinton won the primary because of it, her candidacy would be a fraud.
And I think they know that. If Florida and Michigan want their votes to count, they’ll have to pony up for another primary/caucus.
Update 6:32 p.m. Umm, welcome New York Times readers?
FYI, I don’t even write about national politics all that much. The NYT Blogrunner widget for some reason placed this post (with “bullshit” in the title and all) between the L.A. Times and the Associated Press story:
Update March 7 9:22 a.m. Occasionally if one is going to call bullshit on others, he or she must be willing to call bullshit on himself or herself. This is still a good rule, but my example turned out not to be a good one. See the comments.
Well Florida Dems can’t really be blamed, they had no say in the matter, but Michigan is different.
You know what I find interesting is that you keep adding to your list of ways to avoid setting off your BS detector. I’m not saying you are fickle, I am just saying it is interesting.
Hmm, I don’t quite follow what you’re (not?) implying.
I don’t think there’s a finite number of variations of bullshit.
I think he was trying to make a joke. Maybe. I hope so, anyway.
No, I get that part. It’s a take on item 1 from the last list.
Well I find it interesting that “bullshit” managed to get published in the NYT. I actually do. I find it quite funny.
Actually, when Florida and Michigan moved up their primaries, the DNC rule was still lose half of your delegation, similar to the RNC rule. The DNC called another meeting and voted to strip them of all their delegates. After that, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina all moved up their primaries sooner than the DNC approved dates. But no one ever penalyzed them. Explain how that’s fair?
Chris,
Silly me, trusting a media article to cover an issue accurately and not following up with my own research.
It does appear you’re right that there is an inconsistent application of the rules here (more here for those interested).
That said, even if the rules were inconsistently applied, the results in Michigan and Florida are still worthless. All campaigns were operating under the assumption at the time that those votes wouldn’t count.
The DNC should pony up for a couple of new primaries since they created this mess. Otherwise, Howard Dean is going to have a disaster on his hands.
I doubt I’d be able to vote for Hillary Clinton if she won because of current Michigan and Florida results, and I think it’s a safe bet there are a lot of other people who wouldn’t be able to.
Its interesting, with the current Florida and Michigan results Hillary and Obama are essentially tied in the national popular vote. She’s likely to net more votes in the remaining contests, as states favorable to her having about 40 congressional districts and states favorable to Obama have about 30.
That means, post Pennsylvania and all the other states, she’s likely to have a lead in the national popular vote and neither will have enough pledged delegates to win 50% outright without super delegates. If Florida and Michigan revote, that will narrow the popular vote further.
Lets pretend John Edwards candidacy was more viable, and the three candidates went into the convention with 34, 29 and 20% of total delegates each. I submit that in that circumstance there is no precedent or “feel good rule” or anything else that would say the candidate with 34 (or even 29) needs to be the nominee.
Now fast forward to where we are now, it is very likely that we’ll enter the convention with Obama having about 45/46% of the delegates needed and Hillary having 44/45%. And its also likely that Hillary will have the popular vote lead at that time.
To me, there is no precedent that says Obama would have to win because he has a slight delegate edge, but not enough to actually win outright. I think one under-appreciated result of the Texas primary/caucus is it highlighted in a very real way how stupid it is to use caucuses to apportion delegates - and this is largely where Obama’s delegate lead will come from. Nearly 3 million Texans show up to vote and Hillary wins a majority, 51%, and then less than 20% of those same people are able to go show up to a caucus later in the night that might take anywhere from 2 hours to 5 hours and that’s how Obama gets extra delegates?
Ridiculous. Up until now, there has been anecdotal but not hard evidence that the caucuses are often unrepresentative and that Hillary has been the victim of apportioning delegates in this manner. Both Washington and Minnesota had Hillary very competitive in a race against Obama when “all Democrats” were interviewed and then had her blown out in the little caucus events. Washington even had a “meaningless” primary a week after she lost the caucuses 2-1 that she only lost to Obama by 3%.
So the realities of Texas where you had a primary and caucus on the same day that you could compare I think give Hillary a lot of ammunition as she goes into the convention, particularly if she takes the lead in the national popular vote. The general election in every state is going to be like a primary election, not a caucus, and she’s proven (particularly in Texas and Ohio after a February that could not have been more perfect for Obama) that she’s able to get more votes when the curtain is closed, just like it will be in November.
Food for thought, at least.
I have found the personal emotional dynamics of this election fascinating in a watch-yourself-from-afar kind of way.
Initially, I found Hillary poised and thoughtful, with detailed policy statements on every vital issue. Then, the night of the New Hampshire primaries, I fell in love with Barack Obama and the thought that maybe, just maybe, he would be the one to change the way politics has worked in recent American history and bring our country back to its moral “hey, we’re still all Americans here” center.
I was still cool with Hillary at that point. I preferred Barack, but could have lived with the former First Lady.
However, as the Democratic nomination process has progressed from Sunday afternoon social to Saturday night street fight, I’ve come to loathe Hillary intensely and I can’t explain why. Her positions on Michigan and Florida are part of it. Her negative campaigning is part of it. Maybe I love Obama so much that I turn on anybody that’s mean to him. Or maybe it’s that the win-at-all-costs philosophy is so repugnant to me that I cannot reward someone for following it, even if it ends up working for her.
Of course, the Republicans have been the poster children of that philosophy for the past 10 years, so who does that leave me to vote for if Hillary takes the nomination? Nader? Hardly.
And I wonder if my feelings are common or just me.
As far as emotional reactions, I have a strange feeling of simultaneously loathing and admiring HRC.
For example: her recent stunt of propping up McCain at Obama’s expense was pretty lowball, but at the same time I couldn’t help but acknowledge how clever it was.
Chris I heard Dean explain it this weekend. The DNC voted an exception for SC and Nevada to try to create a more diverse initial primary season. They did not do this for Fla and Mich. Inconsistent maybe but those two states did go cowboy (alhough in Fla it wasn’t entirely their fault) and they paid the price.