Indiana and NC Primaries Thread

[top gun]

It's true that Florida was mostly done by the Repubs but again either way. Every state has the right to have their primary's when they want to. As Americans we did a really stupid thing by GIVING our rights over to these parties to say when and where we can do what ever.

Its our own fault, WE let it happen but WE should wake up and say enough is enough. no party is going to tell us when we can vote or if our votes can be counted.

There is a totally rational reason why both Parties schedule their primaries. If they didn't everyone would want to be on the first day and the candidates couldn't possibly be everywhere to campaign that way. It's to give every state or sometimes a few states together as in a Super Tuesday some time with the candidates courting them specifically.

It all makes perfect sense although I'd see no problem with a lottery every year so the states could come up in various and different orders. But they still have to be separated for obvious logistics reasons.

Bottom line: The agreements not to count Florida & Michigan if they moved up jumping their place in line was agreed to 100% by both campaigns in advance. I'm sure they will still get seated in some manor by convention time but that is rightly a DNC decision unless the two campaigns both agree to something together themselves.

AND...

BARACK OBAMA had a GRRRRRRRREAT NIGHT!!! He'll be a amazing President! The stupidity of the last 7 years is just about over thank God!

 

[Libsmasher]

Not surprising last nights results. N.C. predominately black, the county that held up the final outcome in Indiana, also predominately black. Why wont people just admit that they do not want to vote for a black candidate instead of saing they will just not vote.

Why don't blacks admit they voted for Obama because he's black?

 

[Libsmasher]

[]There is a totally rational reason why both Parties schedule their primaries. If they didn't everyone would want to be on the first day and the candidates couldn't possibly be everywhere to campaign that way. It's to give every state or sometimes a few states together as in a Super Tuesday some time with the candidates courting them specifically.

It all makes perfect sense although I'd see no problem with a lottery every year so the states could come up in various and different orders. But they still have to be separated for obvious logistics reasons.

It doesn't make "perfect sense" - it gives earlier voting states more clout than later ones.

Bottom line: The agreements not to count Florida & Michigan if they moved up jumping their place in line was agreed to 100% by both campaigns in advance.

Proof?

BARACK OBAMA had a GRRRRRRRREAT NIGHT!!! He'll be a amazing President! The stupidity of the last 7 years is just about over thank God!

Nonsense.

 

[top gun]

Why don't blacks admit they voted for Obama because he's black?

The same reason Whites don't vote for Whites just because they're White...

Obama was just as "Black" at the beginning of the campaign and Hillary was getting about 3 times the Black support Obama was back then.

 

[top gun]

Libsmasher;36815]It doesn't make "perfect sense" - it gives earlier voting states more clout than later ones.

That's why I said I understand the rationale of changing it up with a lottery each year. But once again that's something that all the states have input into if they as a group want to change the current process. You just can't have states jumping each other without any controls. They would be cheating themselves of time that the candidates would individually devote to them. Someones going to be first... someones going to be last. If the majority of states don't like the current set up it can be changed.

Proof?

THE FLORIDA VOTE.

Voting is, at base, an instrumental act. It is not a gesture towards civic engagement nor a calmingly and meditative break from the workday. This is why we care that "every vote is counted," because what a vote is supposed to do is register a citizen's preference, and if that preference is not registered, if the rules are changed somewhere between action and outcome, we recognize that the act's intent has been foiled, and that recourse is necessary.

In comments, many of you asked how I could be so dismissive of Floridians who voted for Hillary Clinton. And the answer is, I'm not. I didn't keep their vote from counting. When the Democratic National Committee decided to impose order on an out-of-control primary process by stripping Florida and Michigan of their delegates if they refused to return their primaries to their original dates, there were three individuals who could have restored the franchise to those states. Howard Dean, the Chairman of the DNC, could have changed his mind, or changed his proposed penalty. Even in the face of his intransigence, however, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama could have simply refused his entreaty to avoid the offending states. A declaration by either that they disagreed with the DNC's decision and would instruct their delegates to alter the rules at the convention and seat Florida and Michigan would have forced all the other candidates to do the same, and the DNC's prohibition would have collapsed. The voters in Florida and Michigan would have attended speeches, and seen ads, and hosted a debate, and been able to make an informed choice

That didn't happen. Clinton's campaign manager backing the DNC, said, "We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process, and we believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role." So Florida and Michigan didn't get their primaries. They didn't get campaigns. They didn't have serious Get Out The Vote efforts. And now, they're being cynically used, the language of democracy revisited and dusted off in service of a power play for additional delegates. Where, rightly or wrongly, the campaigns agreed to deny them a primary, now Clinton's campaign, which in Michigan won because they were the only campaign on the ballot and in Florida won because no one contested their lead, is demanding they be seated. The intervention did not come in time to give Florida and Michigan a full role in the democratic process, only in time to let the Clinton campaign benefit from their essential disenfranchisement.

As a longtime Californian who's cast many a meaningless vote, I sympathize with Florida and Michigan, both of whom deserved better than to fall victim to an ambitious state party clashing with a retrograde primary system. But these votes are only meaningful if they have rules, if all involved believe them to have been free and fair. In 2000, Florida's vote was not free, in 2008, their vote will be used such that it is not fair. This would be wrong if Barack Obama had done it, wrong if John Edwards or Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich did it. And it is wrong when the Clinton campaign does it. If they believed democratic principles were at stake, then there was a time to stand for democracy and ensure Floridians would host a campaign and have a voice. They let that moment pass. And they did not do so passively; they spoke up in agreement with the DNC's decision. Now they are circling back for advantage, pretending to speak up for the process when in reality they are only advocating for themselves. That does not honor Florida and Michigan's participation. It cheapens it.

Posted by Ezra Klein on January 30, 2008 11:02 AM | Permalink


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3mOyuJvX8U

 

[Pandora]

I still stand to the fact we as Americans have given away to much of our power to party's when it comes to if our votes count or matter. I would rather see everyone vote the same day for primaries like they do for the general.