quote:It's also as unfair to Clinton as seating the originally selected delegates would be to Obama.
I not sure you understand the meaning of the word unfair. If something is fair it is free from bias, fraud, or injustice; equitable. If a decision or action is inequitable (or unfair) -- it is necessarily inequitable to all parties involved. Being treated unfairly is not synonymous with being disadvantaged by the treatment. One can be rewarded unfairly just as readily as one can be punished unfairly. Any other understand begs the questions "not equal to what?" Either all parties are treated equally and fairly, or none are.
THE DNC ruled that democratic primaries couldn't be held before a certain date (with listed exceptions). Perhaps that decision was unfair but it was also likely the best means they had for dealing with an out of control primary process.
Knowing that ruling, Michigan and Florida chose to hold primaries knowing that the DNC had ruled it would not seat their nominees. Every voter in Michigan and Florida was informed of this prior to the election. Every candidate was informed.
If those nominees are seated it is unfair to every voter and every candidate. It disadvantages every other state that chose to play by the rules. It disadvantages every candidate and every voter who chose not to participate because they were told the primary wouldn't count. But it is unfair to everyone, even voters and candidates who might conceivably gain an advantage by the act.
Seating the nominees from Michigan and Florida when all the candidates and voters knew going into those races that the candidates would not be seated is unfair, period.
Seating the nominees might be and advantage to Clinton. That doesn't make it fair to her.
Having a caucus might be an advantage for Obama, but that alone doesn't make it unfair to Clinton.
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quote:Because changing the rules in the middle is the root harm here.
Which is fine, but why would that be unfair to Hillary Clinton. Right now, the only benefit I can see that she could be said to be deriving from the status quo is that Barack Obama is being denied delegates. This is only a benefit if you assume that the delegates she would gain would be less than he would gain by a new election.
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I think that judging what should be done based on what is fair to the candidates is looking in the wrong place.
Ultimately, I don't care that much about what is fair to the candidates. What the DNC did was unfair to the electorate. The candidates chose to go along with this. I'm honestly not sure I can vote for either of them based on on their willingness to go along with disenfranchising these people. Seating the delegates from the neutered primaries that the candidates weren't allowed to campaign for and everyone was told wouldn't count for anything would be unfair to the electorate. A new election would not as far as I can see it, be unfair, apart from the financial cost associated with putting them on. Maintaining the status quo is maintaining the unfair situation that the DNC created, but at the very least, it is keeping what they said would happen instead of changing the rules after the fact.
If you are going to change the rules, it should be to address the unfairness done to the electorate or not at all. The candidates can go spit.
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quote:In which case the Michigan delegates should not be seated.
Hence my original statement: "It's [holding Michigan caucuses is] also as unfair to Clinton as seating the originally selected delegates would be to Obama."
quote:I not sure you understand the meaning of the word unfair. If something is fair it is free from bias, fraud, or injustice; equitable. If a decision or action is inequitable (or unfair) -- it is necessarily inequitable to all parties involved. Being treated unfairly is not synonymous with being disadvantaged by the treatment. One can be rewarded unfairly just as readily as one can be punished unfairly. Any other understand begs the questions "not equal to what?" Either all parties are treated equally and fairly, or none are.
I'm not sure you understood my point, since you seem to be saying that unfair doesn't mean a lot of things that I didn't say it did mean.
Moreover, the construct "x is unfair to y" is a well-accepted shorthand for "x is unfair, and that unfairness disadvantages y." In this case, y is Clinton and can be read to include those who want her to be President.
One more time since it seems to have been missed: I agree that seating the Michigan delegates from the primary would be unfair.
quote:I think that judging what should be done based on what is fair to the candidates is looking in the wrong place.
I agree. That's why I didn't do it. In fact, I've made no comment whatsoever about what the Democratic Party should do about this mess they created.
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Obama does a great job at fundraising. I think he should offer to pay for new caucuses. That act would win a lot more votes to him then his ads. And caucuses favor him.
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MrSquicky, Was the DNC unfair in enforcing the rule that primaries should not be held before Feb. 5?
Maybe the rule itself was unfair and so it should not have been enforced.
The way I see it, the Michigan and Florida legislatures were trying to gain an unfair advantage over all the states that chose to follow the rules. That attempt blew up their faces when the DNC chose to enforce the rules. I can't logically defend the idea that the DNC made an unfair decision.
The Michigan and Florida legislatures made an unfair decision hoping to gain an advantage and they (at least so far) lost their gamble. The voters of Michigan and Florida have been disenfranchised but not by the DNC, but their own elected reps.
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Dag, I'm not sure why you think holding a new election would be unfair to Hillary Clinton. Could you explain?
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quote:Originally posted by scholar: Obama does a great job at fundraising. I think he should offer to pay for new caucuses. That act would win a lot more votes to him then his ads. And caucuses favor him.
Wooo! I'm going to assume you haven't thoroughly thought through the implications to the democratic process of having a candidate pay for an election.
The conflict of interest there is simply way too high to be acceptable.
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quote:In which case the Michigan delegates should not be seated.
Hence my original statement: "It's [holding Michigan caucuses is] also as unfair to Clinton as seating the originally selected delegates would be to Obama."
And I disagree. Having to do a "do over" rather than being able to take advantage of a rigged situation, is not "as unfair".
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quote:The way I see it, the Michigan and Florida legislatures were trying to gain an unfair advantage over all the states that chose to follow the rules.
I don't see a sovereign state setting its primary to when it wants - nor the parties in those states going along - as unfair.
quote:The voters of Michigan and Florida have been disenfranchised but not by the DNC, but their own elected reps.
Elected state governments are not and should not be answerable to the dictates of national party committees. Ever. Moreover, the state parties could have opted out and did not. The disenfranchisement was not committed by any elected rep. It was committed by the state parties and the national committees.
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quote:Maybe the rule itself was unfair and so it should not have been enforced.
I don't think there is a maybe about it. The current primary system is unfair.
The DNC acted not out of a concern for fairness, but rather to maintain an unfair status quo. It's biting them on the butt right now and they deserve it.
quote:The voters of Michigan and Florida have been disenfranchised but not by the DNC, but their own elected reps.
The DNC were the ones who made their votes not count. Their reps were the ones who tried to make their votes more meaningful and wouldn't back down from threats by the central powers trying to maintain the status quo.
This was an easily avoidable situation. Primary reform is going to happen. The DNC could have gotten out ahead of the game and garned a lot of good will (except from those unfairly advantaged by the current system) by working with the states on a more fair system. Instead, they decided to go the RIAA route and use their power to try to hold back the tide, damaging the states that didn't fall in line but hurting themselves at least as much.
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Speaking as a resident in one of the states in question, I absolutely do not believe the delegates should be seated for the reasons Rabbit spelled out.
I do think the current system is unfair - the same order, the same time, placing unrealistic importance on the primaries in two small states - but that needs to be addressed separately. The Republican-controlled Fl. legislature decided to push the issue despite the DNC's warning. If there is blame to be had, it rests on the state legislature's shoulders.
No do-overs. No seating. No delegates. Any decision made now will come off to the losers as unfair, and we really, really don't need another decision-by-lawsuit from Florida.
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quote:In which case the Michigan delegates should not be seated.
Hence my original statement: "It's [holding Michigan caucuses is] also as unfair to Clinton as seating the originally selected delegates would be to Obama." I'm not sure you understood my point, since you seem to be saying that unfair doesn't mean a lot of things that I didn't say it did mean.
Moreover, the construct "x is unfair to y" is a well-accepted shorthand for "x is unfair, and that unfairness disadvantages y." In this case, y is Clinton and can be read to include those who want her to be President.
One more time since it seems to have been missed: I agree that seating the Michigan delegates from the primary would be unfair.
The problem I think most of us are having is that in your original statement you implied that holding a caucus was equally unfair (although disadvantaging Clinton rather than Obama).
Is it your opinion that caucuses are fundamentally unfair and have been unfair in every state or are you saying that there is something about holding a caucus following a primary that everyone knew didn't count which makes it unfair?
Otherwise, all I can see in your statement is a claim that seating the delegates would be a disadvantage for Obama while holding a caucus would be a disadvantage to Clinton. That is not equivalent to stating that either process would be unfair.
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quote:Is it your opinion that caucuses are fundamentally unfair and have been unfair in every state or are you saying that there is something about holding a caucus following a primary that everyone knew didn't count which makes it unfair?
Neither.
Holding any new delegate selection process in Michigan would be unfair.
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quote:I do think the current system is unfair - the same order, the same time, placing unrealistic importance on the primaries in two small states - but that needs to be addressed separately. The Republican-controlled Fl. legislature decided to push the issue despite the DNC's warning. If there is blame to be had, it rests on the state legislature's shoulders.
I hesitate to blame the sovereign law-making body of a state for not kowtowing to national political parties, especially when the state political parties could have opted out of the legislature's decisions.
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quote:If its not justice for all, it not justice at all.
Acts to challenge an unfair status quo are almost always not universal. Is the woman's movement to be criticized because they didn't focus on religious prejudice? Is fighting oppression in one country wrong when you're not fighting it in all countries? Should you be criticized for fighting corruption in the justice system in your own case and not working to reform the entire system at the same time?
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That is why I think the "to whom" is the central aspect here. While holding a real election that is going to count in these states may not be fair in some manner, I don't see it as unfair to the electorate in these states, which is what I think is important.
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quote:Is it your opinion that caucuses are fundamentally unfair and have been unfair in every state or are you saying that there is something about holding a caucus following a primary that everyone knew didn't count which makes it unfair?
Neither.
Holding any new delegate selection process in Michigan would be unfair.
posted
The state party - the one with the actual authority to decide how delegates will be selected within the state - either agreed with or acquiesced to the legislature's chosen primary date. This entity could have used another selection method had it wanted to conform to the national rules. It did not. Instead, it told the voters that this is how they would select the delegates.
Voters relied on that statement. Voters decided which primary to vote in based in part on that statement (Michigan has open primaries). Voters decided who to vote for based in part on that statement. Candidates chose how to spend money in other states based on this statement.
In short, people relied on the state party's decision to select its delegates to the national convention this way. The state party new the potential consequences when it decided this. Changing it now after people have made irrevocable decisions in reliance of the state party's statement is unfair.
Will a new delegate-selection scheme allow those who voted in the Republican primary to participate? If not, it penalizes a lot of people. If so, it allows double participation in the delegate selection.
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It looks like pretty much everyone in the DNC, state parties, state governments and what not agrees that there should be some form of a new election.
The kink is who pays for it. Howard Dean refuses, saying that the DNC's money is needed for the battle in November. The state refuses, saying they've already paid for an election. Some are saying that the candidates should equally split the cost of a new primary, and that idea is getting traction. It'd probably mean $15 million from each candidate. Obama can certainly afford it, he set another fundraising record in February, and only $2 million is actually available for the General, so he might as well burn it, and with Clinton's February money, I think she can too. But it remains to be seen what will actually be done. If they can figure out the money, there will be new elections in June if they can get it together that fast.
I think that no matter what happens, it will be unfair to SOMEONE. Not counting the vote is unfair to us, the voters, but counting them as is isn't fair to Obama. Clinton didn't get to stay on the ballot because her people outhustled Obama. He was already on the ballot. He took his name off because he couldn't risk alienating New Hampshire or Iowa voters. It was a political move he was sort of backed into a corner with by the DNC. Clinton could afford to flout it because she was already massively in the lead. But that didn't stop her from badmouthing us all over Manchester. It's something I haven't forgotten.
That thoughtlessness is something Mississippi hasn't forgotten either. She dissed them when she was in Iowa, because of their lack of female state officers, basically saying something like "you don't want to be compared to Mississippi do you?" The governor remembers, and he's still pissed, which is why he's slamming her thoughtless remark all over the state whilst campaigning for Obama.
I've come to decision that I'm okay with a revote. I think it should be a primary and not caucus, because a caucus in Michigan would be even more confusing since we've never had one. But I think Michigan and Florida deserve to have the candidates campaign here, and deserve to have our voices count. The first primary was a bust. Even if Obama's name had been on it, the knowledge that it wouldn't could skewed the results.
And blah blah blah about not following the rules. The rules are stupid, the process isn't fair and it's totally messed up, and this whole hullaballoo is finally pointing that out.
Dag -
Why would it penalize people who voted in the Republican primary?
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A new Michigan election/caucus "is also as unfair to Clinton as seating the originally selected delegates would be to Obama."
No, for several reasons.
1) Michigan is next door to Illinois, and shares many of Illinois' characteristics inregard to voter profiles. The points of divergence between Illinois and Michigan Democrats&swing-voters do not favor the 6 candidates who didn't win in Illinois. In a primary contested between the 7 original candidates, Michigan would have been Obama territory: Obama's to lose rather than Clinton's to win. ie Clinton couldn't have won without major blunders being committed by the Obama campaign.
2) The Edwards-factor would have at most reduced the number of total pledged-delegates to be split between Clinton and Obama. Since Clinton is behind in the pledged-delegate count, her percentage of the remaining pledged-delegates still-needed-to-win would increase if Edwards picked up any significant number of delegates.
3) The party leaders who rigged the primary for Clinton are the same people who will select the "uncommitted"pledged-delegates. As is, those "uncommitted"pledged-delegates can be expected to vote for Clinton at the Convention. Any fair split of uncommitted pledged-delegates would recognise that a vote-for-uncommitted was specificly a vote-against-Clinton. So in a fair apportionment, the uncommitted pledged-delegates would be selected by antiClinton PLEOs (PartyLeaders&ElectedOfficials). ie At most, a fair split even from that unfair election would leave her with a net gain of 18 pledged-delegates compared to Obama's. At best, Clinton would still be trailing 152.5*pledged-delegates behind Obama. And considering the number of pledged-delegates still left to be selected-by-vote, Clinton's numbers to obtain a clean**victory still don't look good.
4) In a new election/caucus, Clinton now has an advantage that she previously did not. In January, the winner of the Republican nomination was still a wide open question. And non-swing-vote Republicans could be expected to vote in the RepublicanPrimary. Now she can expect the support of a large number of proMcCain Republican crossovers voting in hopes of selecting a Democratic Nominee who will generate the largest GeneralElection turnout in favor of Republican ballot propositions and candidates, including McCain.
5) While a few more Obamacans might show up to cancel out some of the proMcCain crossover Republicans, Obama still faces the challenge of convincing the remainder of the proMcCain crossover Republicans that the Presidency is too important to risk having their vote be a keystone in electing Clinton (a candidate that most of them despise) to the OvalOffice. PLUS he has to convince them to vote for him to cancel out the effect of the proMcCain Republican crossover voters rather than sit out the DemocraticPrimary, which is a MUCH tougher proposition.
* Unlike other voting blocks, AmericansAbroad splits their votes into half-votes to match the number of delegates that they'll send to the DemocraticConvention.
** A clean victory is one in which superdelegates do not vote in an overwhelming supermajority against the pledged-delegates' choice.
posted
I hadn't realized that Michigan was an open primary. That certainly does complicate things.
quote:Why would it penalize people who voted in the Republican primary?
Because people who would have voted in the Democratic primary were it going to count but instead voted in the Republican primary would not be able to vote in the new primary.
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quote:Why would it penalize people who voted in the Republican primar
Because I bet a lot of people chose the Republican primary because the DNC was entirely mooting the Democratic primary. Participating in one party's delegate selection disqualifies someone from participating in the others for obvious reasons. These people were disqualified before they had the necessary information.
I don't see a fair way to handle it. Unless something currently not in the discussion happens, what happens will be seen as unfair by a significant number of people. This will give the superdelegates a rationale of fairness to support their vote, no matter which way it goes.
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Oh I see what you're saying. I didn't think of it that way, but you're right.
I'm waffling back and forth between re-vote and not counting us at all. I think the DNC's original decision and the circumstances make it impossible for a fair soltuion to come about. I think this needs to be a lesson on why the process needs to be amended, and Michigan and Florida might have to be martyrs this year.
Polls:
Mississippi -
March 6th
Obama 46%, Clinton 40%, Undecided 14% (Insider Advantage)
Obama 58%, Clinton 34%, Other 5%, Undecided 3% (American Research Group)
North Carolina
March 3rd
Obama 47%, Clinton 43%, Undecided 10% (Public Policy Polling)
Pennsylvania
March 5th
Clinton 52%, Obama 37%, Undecided 11% (Rasmussen)
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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"I hadn't realized that Michigan was an open primary. That certainly does complicate things."
Might be stinkier than you imagine. Depending on how the law pushing the MichiganPrimary into January was interpreted, there is a possibility that only the MichiganRepublicanParty knows who voted for a Republican candidate. If so, those who voted in the RepublicanPrimary could vote a second time in the Democratic do-over. And there is no reason for Republican leaders to cooperate in making life easier for Democrats. PLUS that law might even have made it illegal for the MichiganRepublicanParty to share the list with Michigan elections officials, let alone with Democrats. Even if Michigan elections officials have kept a list of who voted on the Republican side of the Primary, it is illegal for those elections officials to share that list with anyone other than the MichiganRepublicanParty.
If the above is true, the only saving grace is that the MichiganDemocraticParty can then choose to close the new caucus/election to registered-Republicans, or choose to make it Democrat-only And no, the state can't veto such a solution. Political parties have long been recognised as private entities which have the right to choose their own methods of candidate selection; including the choice of who is eligible to participate in their candidate selection process.
quote:Political parties have long been recognised as private entities which have the right to choose their own methods of candidate selection; including the choice of who is eligible to participate in their candidate selection process.
This is why the state party bears some of the responsibility for their own disenfranchisement: they could have bowed out of the legislature's decision because they control the method of candidate selection.
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Now I'm confused. Isn't that what they did? And are now being pressured, by the state governments to go back on that?
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"The RNC penalized the two states by cutting their delegate numbers in half. As Buchanan rightly pointed out, if the DNC had handled the situation of the two states bucking the rules..."
The DemocraticNationalCommittee did handle the situation as their rules-in-place required. Rules which both the Michigan and Florida DemocraticParty leaders knew for a year-and-a-half in advance before those state party leaders chose to disenfranchise Michigan and Florida voters. For the DNC to have overridden those rules-in-place would have conceded "do whatever you want" to all state parties, causing chaos in the national election process. AND the overrides would have screwed over everyone from donors through candidates through state party leaders to state legislators who had acted scrupulously to follow the intent of those rules-in-place in the belief that they would be enforced.
If you want to argue about whether the RepublicanNationalCommittee or the DNC set up the wiser rules-in-place, that's another matter.
If the state Democratic*parties had chosen to follow DNC mandates, they could have chosen to sue their respective states to force those states to maintain equity by funding a presidential primary on or after the TsunamiTuesday date, or by having those states defund the Republican presidential primaries. Established precedent maintains that laws cannot be used to force political parties to change their internal rules. And a state using its lawmaking powers to fund one party's elections while tossing the other's into the cold could easily be argued as doing precisely that. Even in Courts dominated by a Republican majority, it would take a degree of sophistry well beyond Rehnquist's Gang of Five 2000Election decision for the Courts to rule in favor of the states**.
However, as I interpret the situation, only the state parties would have legal standing to sue their respective states for passing laws that favor one party over another. ie It would be MUCH more difficult to argue that the DNC would be directly harmed by those states' laws, which are the grounds for having legal standing to sue.
Once the Michigan and Florida parties accepted funding in the form of holding their elections on the rule-breaking dates, they no longer had grounds to sue for a separate election. Equity between treatment of the Republican and Democratic parties had been maintained by the states. And thus they can no longer argue** that they have been harmed by their respective states, and have lost the legal standing to bring the matter to the Court. Leaving the states with highly defensible grounds from which to say, "If you want a do-over, fund it yourself."
Still doesn't prevent individual voters from suing their own states for illegal disenfranchisement (though a bit harder to argue since it was their own state party leaders who directly discarded the value of their vote). But the legal process requires that the matter first go before the FederalElectionsCommission for a ruling within 120days. Since the FEC doesn't have enough members seated to make up the quorum legally required to make such a ruling, the voter would have to wait 120days before taking his case to the federal courts. By which time, the case might well be ruled moot -- DNC rules require that its primary elections be held in time for official state certification (which usually has a deadline of 30days) to be completed -- then dismissed. A judge might be willing to give an emergency waver, but then that waver would probably be appealed requiring yet more emergency waivers from ever higher Courts of Appeal.
Here's the other thing. As long as the DNC holds firm that it will not accept the Florida and Michigan delegations which resulted from the early elections that broke DNC rules, those state parties do have grounds to argue that their repective states' laws have caused direct harm to them, thus giving them legal standing to bring the matter before the Courts. While it probably can't be used to affect the 2008Election, it can be used to affect the 2012Election even if the Florida and Michigan delegations were to be seated at the 2008Convention through new elections/caucuses unfunded by their respective states.
PLUS by standing firm, the DNC's decision can lend gravitas to other private entities claim that they have been directly harmed. Again putting the matter before the judgement of the Courts.
* The state Republican parties could have done the same if the situation were reversed.
** Well, they could but it is extremely probable that they would be using losing arguments.
quote:Even in Courts dominated by a Republican majority, it would take a degree of sophistry well beyond Rehnquist's Gang of Five 2000Election decision for the Courts to rule in favor of the states**.
Bull. There might be some state constitutional or statutory requirement, but there is NO federal constitutional requirement that states bow to political parties' timelines. States schedule elections. If a party wants to ad on a primary and the state wants to let them, all well and good. But there's no requirement that the state block one party from using that because the other party chooses not to.
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We also disagree on the 2000Election decision, even though the writer of the majority decision agreed that it sucked by proclaiming that the decision should not be used as precedent in future cases.
To other readers, remember that Dagonee is a lawyer. While I am a dilettente, in this as well as all other matters.
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quote:We also disagree on the 2000Election decision, even though the writer of the majority decision agreed that it sucked by proclaiming that the decision should not be used as precedent in future cases.
You have no idea what my opinion about that decision is.
If you want to really debate this, cite the statute, case, or constitutional provision that provides the DNC with a cause of action here and cite the precedents supporting your application of that cause of action to these facts. Otherwise, I'll file your opinion where I file most of your mistake-ridden statements about the law.
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I probably posted "To other readers, remember that Dagonee is a lawyer. While I am a dilettente, in this as well as all other matters." after you started your reply.
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Ron Paul just ended his delusions of some of his more hardcore followers. I mean, his candidacy. :/
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To be fair, it was never HIS candidacy, it was his followers'. He lost control of that thing pretty early on.
I like Ron Paul though. He's smart, has good ideas, he just seems like a genuinely GOOD guy that really cares about making things better. And I think the way he was treated by his fellow Republican candidates was disrespectful and atrocious. When I think of how dishonest and rude they were to him during the debates, it really cements in my mind why none of them are fit to be president.
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"You have no idea what my opinion about that decision is."
Correct. However, I do have a basis for my assumption from this discussion amongst others.
"...cite the statute, case, or constitutional provision that provides the DNC with a cause of action..."
I meant to specificly exclude the DNC with my "It would be MUCH more difficult to argue that the DNC would be directly harmed by those states' laws, which are the grounds for having legal standing to sue."
"Otherwise, I'll file your opinion where I file most of your mistake-ridden statements about the law."
I am the village idiot here; hopefully the fool who sometimes "sees the world spinning around" when others see only "the sun going down." However, I see little purpose served by starting every sentence with "I am the village idiot here, but..." when everything written on forums should be taken with a LARGE grain of salt. Take my writings as questions-in-the-form-of-statements, then correct those which you see as wrong. PLEASE. The only reason I forum is to learn (and occasionally to provide a bit of japery as every fool should). And reply in hopes of providing a useable answer to pay back the enjoyment I find in learning new things.
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In this case, I do know that the DNC chairman has ruled out seating Florida and Michigan delegates based on the acceptance of any agreement hammered out between the candidates and the respective states' Democratic party leaders. Such agreements would prevent a nasty Convention floorfight, and would prevent the months of "the DemocraticParty hates voters" propaganda by the Florida and Michigan party leaders and by the RepublicanParty machinery and right-wing radio hosts: both of which are harming and would continue to harm the Democrats' GeneralElection prospects. And such agreements would not be the direct result from already disqualified methods of apportioning delegates (though they might be disqualified later through rulings on other provisions concerning delegate qualification&seating)
Given the above to be true, the question arises as to why DNC Chairman Dean would reject such a compromise. It's not as if Dean has built a reputation of being a bully in his years of dealings with party members. It is his job to act as concilliator between feuding interests within the DemocraticParty.
Even if it were otherwise, the DemocraticNationalCommittee is hardly composed of pushovers. Such strong-willed individuals, many-and-probably-most with their individual levers to power greater than Dean's, are hardly going to let a DNC chairman run amok just to satisfy his own ego. And they, many currently serving as Senators and Representatives and Governors, will have their own reelections affected by feuding within the DemocraticParty, will suffer at least some of the damage caused by antiDemocrat propaganda, and will be feel the "coattail effect" for good or ill. And the degree of good or ill of the coattail effect will depend on how acceptable/fair the Nominee's win will be viewed by the public as a whole. Even amongst those who do not face reelection, the success or failure of their own agendas is highly dependent on the degree of majority that their Party holds in the Congress and the state legislatures, as well as whether the President and the Governors are friendly to their interests.
That being so, those strong-willed politicians must have good reason to continue allowing Dean to state that only the results of new caucuses/elections are acceptable as the basis for new delegate apportionment, as the basis for qualifying and seating the Florida and Michigan delegations at the DemocraticNationalConvention. Otherwise, they would have already reined Dean in.
Which leads to speculation as to why they support Dean's position. It can't be that they expect Florida's Republican legislature and governor to say "We made a mistake. Here's your election. Please forgive us." Nor can it be that they expect the Florida and Michigan party leaders who plotted the coup attempt against DNC rules to just give up. They kamikazed their careers when they refused the DNC's offer to help them hold rule-following caucuses(?elections?) before they chose to hold their pledged-delegate selecting elections in violation of DNC rules. There is no rise up the ranks into more influential positions left for them. The best they can do is hold on to the influence they currently enjoy.....if they choose to cooperate, enthusiasticly. Which means that the DNC thinks it has some means to force the issue into a shape that they find acceptable. In the US, and especially to lawyers (which many politicians are; to which the DNC has plenty of access), force means application of the Law.
Combining the above with the Courts' respect for the right of political parties to run their affairs free from interference by politicians using the law-making power of the State, I added 2+2 into 4 . (Or maybe 7. Jes cuz I is a fool don' mean I'm good at fancy-schmancy legal and political math.) Since I very much doubted that the DNC itself had legal standing to pursue a legal case (or it would have already done so), I presumed that the DNC stance of rejecting agreements hammered out between the candidates and the Florida and Michigan party leaders had to do with providing stronger grounds on which private entities could gain legal standing to pursue a legal settlement in keeping with the DNC's desire to maintain what little party discipline the DemocraticParty has. (I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat. -- Will Rogers) Included amongst those private entities with legal standing before the Courts on the effects of a given state's laws are indivdual citizens of that state, and that state's political parties. The legal standing of the state political parties being one of the reasons why "enthusiatic cooperation" is a lever through which the coup leaders can use to retain standing within the party.
And hence the reasons behind the arguments I presented previously.
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So, it looks like Obama is going to win Wyoming 7+1-5.
Also, and I don't know how much play this will get in American media (I'm a dirty election rigging Canadian, eh?), but it appears Obama won more delegates from Texas then Clinton thanks to a strong showing in the caucuses*:
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But caucuses don't reflect the vote of the people. After all, only people who care enough to wait outside in the cold for two hours had their vote counted in the caucus. Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Ron Paul just ended his delusions of some of his more hardcore followers. I mean, his candidacy. :/
Wrong. But I suspect that people will keep reporting that until the bitter end. He said he's staying in it through the convention, and unlike the average run of politicians, he actually stands by what he says.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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is Ron Paul the one that wants to withdraw from the UN? Hehe, good for him, single handedly lose US's Veto see what that does for Israel.
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Israel will be just fine. Without America telling Israel what to do, Israel can finally get to the business of defending itself properly.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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One wonders what without US military and economic aid Israel would use to defend itself with.
I'm not saying I'd approve of withdrawing that support, I'm all for supporting genuine democracies that need our help, though I'd like it more if our help wasn't used to kill civilians, sometimes it's unavoidable.
But you don't get something for nothing, not in international politics.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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considering how often UN resolutions condemning Israel get passed that always get vetoed by the US ild be more careful about what you wish.
China might veto such bills for you but yould have to sell them an F-22/F-35 before they'ld risk angering their oil supply.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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