Recognize this? It’s a card full of hanging chads. Yep. Those nasty little punch-out thingies that made the 2000 U.S. presidential election so very, very interesting as it unfolded in Florida.
Back then, the Democratic Party’s rallying cry was that we should “count every vote.” Al Gore took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, eventually losing the presidency.
Now the same political machine is contemplating a scheme that would ignore the primary votes of millions of people in Florida and Michigan — because state officials had the audacity to hold elections a little earlier than the national leaders wanted.
The Democratic National Committee’s “rules committee” will gather this weekend to decide whether or not to allow Florida and Michigan to seat any delegates at this summer’s national political convention in Denver. The decision will probably determine whether the Barack Obama juggernaut is unstoppable, or if Hillary Clinton still has a fighting chance to catch him.
For a political party that made Florida the backdrop for its drawn-out legal homage to the sanctity of voting rights just two elections ago, isn’t this the height of hypocrisy?
You tell me.
Aaaargh - You’re just figuring this out?
Yes, they’re hypocrites. Or maybe just political expedients. Or maybe just whores. What’s the difference?
These people (Republicans included) are all after POWER. They will do whatever it takes, whether intellectually consistent or not, in order to acquire it.
No, they’re not hypocrites.
What happened was that the local politicians of Michigan and Florida tried to score cheap, easy points with their constituents by moving their primaries forward to increase their own importance in the political process. They asked the DNC; the DNC said no, you can’t just change the rules to make your own selves look better. The local parties went and changed the dates of their primaries anyway. Since they broke the rules to which they had previously agreed, they were punished.
After the audacity of the local parties was revealed, both Hilary and Barack agreed not to campaign in either Michigan or Florida; indeed, Barack’s name didn’t even show up on the Michigan primary ballot. At the time, both candidates agreed that the delegates from these states shouldn’t be counted, because the local Democratic parties had broken the national rules.
Now that Hilary is losing, she wants these delegates to be counted. Bear in mind that both Florida and Michigan are heavily White states. Florida also has large Jewish and Hispanic populations–which have been shown during this campaign season to be less-than-favorable to Obama–and, as previously mentioned, Barack’s name wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan. So, obviously, both of these states would go heavily for Hilary if their delegates were to be seated.
So, to sumarize: everybody agreed to a flawed-yet-orderly system for choosing a Democratic nominee. Florida and Michigan decided to flaunt these rules, in the face of censure from the DNC–censure which they had to have known was coming, and which was agreed upon as fair by all the candidates at the time. Months later, after Hilary fell from front-runner to also-ran, she realized that these very white states were her best chance at redeeming herself. Therefore, she decided to try to get these states’ delegates to be seated, despite having agreed that they shouldn’t be when she was in the lead months before.
There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on, but very little of it is coming from the DNC itself.
They really, really want Obama to be the Nominee. And they will do anything to achieve this…even if it means pissing off the very people who will eventually refuse to hear their pleas to return to the fold after the primaries are over. Just one problem in their perfect world. It doesn’t exist.
Hillary keeps winning and their “faux” candidate has more glass in his jaw than all the world’s Waterford Crystal Collection combined.
The Democratic leadership has a big surprise come Autumn. No matter how bad the Bush administration has screwed up, there is no way Clinton’s supporters are going to be bullied into voting for a thoroughly unqualified candidate who has run a racist, sexist campaign. So I say to African American community who abandoned the Clintons - who have been so supportive, so loyal over the years to their cause – strictly because of the color of his skin – don’t be so shocked when we abandon HIM.
Just watch.
Hypocritical? Yep. And they’ll count the votes. They have too. There is simply no way in the world Obama can win the general election. If anyone really believes that they’re living in a fantasy world. Believe it or not Hillary is the Democratic Party’s best chance. There are just six short months to the election and the Republicans are just waiting to unleash their dogs of war on one of these two mopes.
If the Democrats reverse themselves and nominate Hillary they are going to self destruct. It’ll be a fun election year that’s for sure.
it’s amazing the intellectual gymnastics people need to perform in order to ignore the historic hypocritical conduct of the DNC. not counting the people’s votes because of something the state party did is akin to attributing the deaths of 70,000 chinese innocents to karma because the chinese government has been mean to the dali lama himself.
Are the Democrats hypocrites? No. Morons? YES.
The DNC has the perfect opportunity (following the dumbest president in US history) to take control of both houses of Congress and the White House and look what they’ve done! How can you expect a political party to produce a candidate to lead the nation when it screws up as badly as it has in Michigan and Florida. What should have been a landslide for the Democratic candidate is not neck-and-neck.
So now the American vote can choose between a puppet for a collection of idiots or someone under the thumb of a pack of wolves.
Canada’s lookin’ pretty good.
NewYorkerMan–
I’ve been reading this site for awhile and have never been tempted to comment, but I’m so tempted to call bs on your final statements. What do I owe Bill and Hillary Clinton? Especially Hillary? She likes poor black people? Great for her. Don’t generalize that kind of thing. If I were to say that the only reason you vote for HRC is because she’s a woman or a Clinton, I’d be a loony Obama supporter. I’m not particularly for/against either, but I’m completely offended by people who lump “the African American Community” into some one group that vote for some dude “because of his skin color,” especially against Bill and Hillary who “helped” them to come up. Revolutionary civil-rights activists they were not. Please stop acting like they were.
I think the hypocrite here is Hilary, who openly supported the plan to punish Michigan and Florida until (OOPS!) she needed their votes.
Oh, and I’d like to add that as a white woman, age 44, single working mom, I’m supposedly Hilary’s target group - and the nutty campaign she’s run over the past year means I can’t imagine voting for her. I’d choose either Barack or McCain first.
The DNC made the rules. Florida and Michigan chose to not follow them. The DNC decided to cut them out. Even if the rules are stupid, they should be followed. Change needs to come through reasoned argument, not flouting of the existing dictates.
Now that the decision isn’t as easy as everyone thought it would be they’re trying to change the rules.
Michigan (the state I live in) and Florida should not be counted in the nomination of the Democratic presidential candidate. The only way to be fair is to follow the rules as they were originally stated. Any changes now will cause folks to question the legitimacy of the candidate.
Hypocritical- normally a big YES but not on this issue. Incompetent? Absolutely. Dean’s failed leadership has been a disgrace to the party. But should we be surprised this is happening for the Dems? Of course not. Saw this coming years ago.
They broke the rules. Wouldn’t it be hypocritical to not punish them for breaking the rules? When your kid breaks a rule they should get a free ride too?
The only reason this is bandied about is because the election has been polarized before it even got to the general run. We should thank the DNC and Hilliarity for that.
And to be truly honest Hillary is the one coming off as hypocritical, as …last summer, all of the major candidates agreed to boycott the two renegade states. So she agreed not to campaign and count those states and only started complaining about it after losing several “key states” (which then turned into states that don’t matter).
Either way everybody has egg on their faces. But that’s the way political messes are run in America, ya?
Aren’t they both at some point?
Hey CandyKay… Hillary’s “base” starts with women after 50. You’re safe for another six years :-).
Hillary’s part of the problem… you can bet she’d be crying “BUT WE AGREED”… if the shoe were on the other foot. But this typical Clintonian politics, and their tenacity is at least one reason Hillary still does have such a following — she can’t win, but she’s clamped on like a Pitt Bull. Imagine the thrashing she’d give McCain in the fall.
As an Obama supporter, I think he’s doing fine so far, and he’s certainly the best candidate I’ve had a chance to vote for so far in any Presidential race. But there’s still a thread of fear that he’ll “pull a Kerry” and do like so many other Democrats have done, appear weak and get beaten by a contender who should have lost in a dozen different ways… just like Bush in 2004. You know, if Hillary’s in the race, she might defeat herself, but McCain just won’t be a factor, either way.
In sort, the support for her is, I believe, real support… she’s hated by many, but the hate a candidate gets from the opposition, the stronger the supporters usually grow in support of that person. Though I suspect, she looks to be fighting beyond all reason and to the detriment of the Democratic chances in the fall, that support will be withdrawn enough to render her inert. This has always been the Democrats’ election to lose, and unfortunately, they’ve proven so good at that in the past, they really need to stop tempting fate and get on with the unification process.
Who gives a sh*t whether the states are “heavily white” or not. We’re supposed to care less about getting them counted because -gasp- if we do, more votes might go to evil Hillary?
The ignorance of Obama maniacs kind of astounds me.
This is supposed to be a country where THE PEOPLE vote for the candidate they prefer. WHY DOES THIS MATTER. The People vote. A certain amount of delegates (depending on the State) are seated to vote AND THEN—–THE “SUPER DELEGATES” MAKE THE DECISION. A candidate can win most of the smaller States by millions of votes and lose the election just because the other candidate wins the states with a larger amount of delegates even though these larger states were close races from a People’s choice. Ok my statement does not make much sense but you all know what I mean.
Do you really believe this is the way The Founding Fathers of this country meant for things to work? What happened to “of the People–By the People–for the People”???
I’m not the smartest guy in the world and I do not really understand POLITICS. However, I do understand COMMON SENSE and I don’t see much of this in POLITICS lately. Both the House & Senate do nothing but disagree with each other just because they are a Republican or a Democrat.
Continueing on with my statement above—THE PEOPLE—THE PEOPLE—THE PEOPLE.
Does it make sense to spend millions and millions of dollars (the peoples dollars) to run campaigns for almost two years now when we all know that it is BIG BUSINESS who really decides what happens. War is BIG BUSINESS and and it is BIG BUSINESS who is reaping the rewards of this war at the cost of our young people’s life and limbs.
Ok–I got off of the subject somewhat so my answer is still “What Does it Matter”? Does it really matter that a couple of States decided to hold their elections a few days or weeks before another State. “What Does it Matter” if Michigan or Florida vote the other states that were early in the past. “What Does it Matter” that the candidates decided to “PUNISH” these 2 States by not campaining there. A large number of people in these two States did not even vote because they thought “WHAT DOES IT MATTER”
JB
ONE LAST TIME - THE PRIMARY IS NOT A NATIONAL VOTE FOR A CANDIDATE…Jeesh this is not hypocrisy at all since their is NO GUARANTEE that the nomination will be wrapped up before you state even votes, which happens quite a lot.I am so sick of hearing stupid Hillary supporters talk about FL and Michigan. Lets go through it again, they broke the rules which both candidates agreed upon. Terry Mccaulife who used to be the head of the rules committee for the DNC and who heads Clinton campaign said in several interviews that 50% limitation on delegates would be fine with the Clinton camp since that is exactly what he suggestion when he was the DNC head. Once again, Hillary keeps moving the bar, first it was delegates, then supper delegates, now its the total vote but WAIT in her fuzzy logic she is not counting 6 states which held caucuses because well she lost.. So I live in Seattle and our state overwhelmingly voted for Obama but in her math she doesnt want to count our vote in her popular vote - Does that seem right? No and it shows how desperate and insincere she has become. Ohhh and dont forget about Puerto Rico which might put her over the top in her fuzzy math logic and CANT even vote in the general election, what a joke.
FACE IT , SHE LOST and the sooner her supporters and her can see it then the sooner they can work towards defeating mccain (bush3) in the general. If you are a clinton supporter who wont support Obama then you arent a democrat and you disgust me..
I cant belive people will vote for obamma, come on 57 states? what an idiot, who is pulling the strings behind this canidate is the real question? are we ready for what they would bring down the pipe? WWBFD What would Ben Frankiln Do, he would move to central american kick out the indians and start all over again because democrates and republicans have ruined this great contry, and we sould treat them like king louie and off with there heads.
How many times does this have to hammered? Hilary Clinton should be on the masthead of Deceiver.
Michigan and Florida moved up their primaries (as did California, and if we were still holding our primary next Tuesday, this issue would be moot. Hilary Clinton loses to Obama in California BIG TIME in the latest Field Poll issued last Tuesday).The DNC said, “Don’t do it. We won’t seat you.” Michigan and Florida went ahead and did it anyway. ALL the candidates agreed to remove their names from the ballot and not campaign. Clinton reneged on the promise which is why she has all the Michigan votes and Barack has 0. Afterwards, while Clinton was still up by 20 points, ALL the candidates agreed to not count the votes. Now that’s she’s down by 16, she wants to count the votes.
This is so tiresome. Hilary Clinton lost an aggregate 36 percentage points in national polls between February and June. 36! It’s taken George Bush YEARS to do that.She thought the DNC rules were fine when she had a lock on the nomination, and now she’s crying about your rights being trammeled. She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your rights. She’s proved that over and over. But she’s REALLY into what’s good for Hilary. And what’s good for Hilary is not necessarily good for the country:she ran a sh*tty campaign, ran up a fat debt, and basically augured in. And this is Presidential material? I don’t think so.
Most astonishingly, when her supporters don’t get their way, they threaten to vote for McCain. What? Are you all like two years old? Life-long democrats? Voting for McCain? Women? Voting for McCain? Wow. THAT makes sense.
Okay, I can be two years old, too. If Clinton wins the nomination, I’m voting for McCain.
Alright. Enough. If all of you are so unhappy with these two just write me in.
Pastafarian For President! Pastamania!
I will be a great leader. I will be kind, and caring, I will grind our enemies, real or perceived under my mighty heel. After I annex Canada, and Mexico and rename this continent Pastaville, or Pastatown, Pastabar(?) Those are just details. Vote for me or you’ll all be sorry. Maybe even if you do.
Nick’s dad is with me.
http://justyouraverageguy.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/hulk-pastamania-sm.jpg
Vote or Die!
Height of hypocrisy? No, not really. The Republicans never got to vote for their preferred candidates, because they all dropped out (many for lack of money). Where is the boo hooing for these folks? And what about all of these “caucuses”, Hardly democratic are they.
You need to understand, first of all, that States, not people, vote for the President — the President is not elected by the people of this country. We saw this a few years back when Gore, who was elected by the people (thus “popular” vote), lost to Bush, who was elected by the States.
Further, you should understand that the parties are just that — parties. They can elect whoever they want using whatever means they want. They are not compelled to use popular votes, and in fact in many states they don’t. In addition, they can set their own rules — you see, they are not governmental bodies, just parties.
So, no, there is no hypocrisy. If you want to complain about hypocrisy, let’s start with this country spouting on about democracy across the world, when to this very day, under the Constitution, Presidents are elected by the states, not the people.
WOW! WHAT A REVELATION…THE POLITICAL PARTIES ARE HYPOCRTIES.
GOOD PNOIT.