FL and MI

[Beet]

Amen...does that mean Levin and HRC cannot read or are too damn arrogant to care?

Obviously HRC can read, since, back in October, she defended her decision to leave her name on the ballot in MI in the face of criticism from NH Dems, saying that the election wasn't going to count anyway:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101100859.html

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Yeah but Mr. Morden, look at the entire interview in context.

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Three lengthy quotes all about the General Election. Now look at her rationale for seating the MI delegation on Jan. 25:

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My personal preference would have been to advocate the seating of the MI and FL delegations from the beginning, and for the DNC to amend the rules to do so, so that there would be no violation of the rules, if possible, and then by 2012, come up with a more complete primary system that better represents 'fairness'.

But understandably, making such an argument before Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina would have opened up attacks from other candidates on the grounds that "Hillary doesn't care what you think, she's pandering to other states, not your state." That kind of state-by-state provincial thinking is stupid, in my view (I would not expect Maryland to receive any kind of preferential treatment), but it would have had an effect in the early primaries.

She is extremely consistent in her reasoning: she sees Michigan and Florida as key states in the general election, and doesn't want the split to hurt the Democrats in these states.

[J. J.]

Levin, Hillary and the Clinton hacks are disgusting.

Blame Obama for following the rules and take no responsibility for your actions to change them after the fact.

Yes, it's Obama's fault for not being a political dirt bags like you are.

Be proud of yourselves for acting like slime but remember it's all Obama's fault

Rules can be rescinded, amended, and even suspended (though probably not in this case), or past actions ratified, if the votes are there.  They are not carved in stone.  The same rules that say MI and FL delegates don't get seated are the very same ones that say Super Delegates can take this away from the elected delegates.

You may not like it, but it can happen.

Believe me, I understand what they have the legal rights to do.  That's not an issue.

The question here is does Hillary understand?  The answer is that ready from Day one has experience but NO judgment.  This will create a FIRESTORM that will literally destroy the party and convention.  The people loading the fuel will be the republicans using the news media to fire up Obama supporters.  Hillary may have been around for years and have "experience" but she is an absolute moron and she has no judgment whatsoever.  Obama is right about judgment.  Dingbat Hillary is proving it to the world with this attempted stunt

If she wins, it proves she has the experience to get legislation passed. 

It actually shows she has a very good strategic mind (or at least will surround herself with good advisers).

[Mr. Morden]

It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal!  You moved your primaries beyond February 5!  You bumped into our earlier states, so you get nothing!  You lose!  Good day, sir!

It's not that simple. If the DNC enforces the rules exactly as they are written, then IA, NH and SC would also lose their delegates since they also moved their voting dates.

DNC rules carves out exemptions for those states, and Iowa also has the "caucus loophole" in its defense (they didn't really select their national delegates then.) This is what got Iowa and Nevada off the hook on the GOP side.

No, Trilobyte is partially correct.  IA and NH *did* break the rules for the scheduling of their caucus/primary, but then the DNC changed the rules to let them have their way.  Basically, the DNC said that the order had to be IA-NV-NH-SC with specific dates for each of the four, and NH said "screw you guys, we're going to hold our primary whenever we feel like it, and we're not going after Nevada".  So IA and NH moved up their primaries to earlier than the DNC allowed.

In fact, the repeated statements by NH that they would just hold their primary whenever they wanted to regardless of the rules is part of what prompted Michigan to move their primary up to Jan. 15.  They said "If NH isn't going to follow the rules, why should we?"

But then the DNC changed the rules in December to make IA & NH's actions legal.  Here's a thread that discusses that, and here's what I wrote at the time:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=65728.msg1352079#msg1352079

With the DNC's work Saturday, the primary calendar appears to be set. The panel approved some final shifting of early contests, approving the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8, and the South Carolina primary on Jan. 26. The Nevada caucuses had already been approved for Jan. 19.

Wow, talk about caving to IA and NH.  The calendar approved by the DNC last year said that IA could vote no earlier than Jan. 14th and NH could vote no earlier than Jan. 22nd.  The NV caucus was to be held in between those two in order to make a more racially diverse state more important to the process.  Now NH cuts ahead in line, and IA moves ahead as well.  So the original special treatment granted to IA and NH (letting them go in mid-Jan., when most states can't vote until February) wasn't good enough?  Now the DNC will just let them vote whenever they feel like it, while MI and FL are punished for trying to do the same thing?

So really, the DNC's enforcement of the rules was kind of arbitrary, and FL & MI got punished, while IA and NH got away with one.  But the DNC's rule change still happened *before* the voting started, so I agree that it makes no sense to now change the rules *again* to retroactively turn a non-election into an election.

[Mr. Morden]

My personal preference would have been to advocate the seating of the MI and FL delegations from the beginning, and for the DNC to amend the rules to do so, so that there would be no violation of the rules, if possible, and then by 2012, come up with a more complete primary system that better represents 'fairness'.

But understandably, making such an argument before Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina would have opened up attacks from other candidates on the grounds that "Hillary doesn't care what you think, she's pandering to other states, not your state." That kind of state-by-state provincial thinking is stupid, in my view (I would not expect Maryland to receive any kind of preferential treatment), but it would have had an effect in the early primaries.

She is extremely consistent in her reasoning: she sees Michigan and Florida as key states in the general election, and doesn't want the split to hurt the Democrats in these states.

I understand all that.  My point was that she didn't say anything about seating the FL/MI delegates until after IA & NH had voted because she thought saying that might hurt her in those states.  In fact, she even conceded in NH that the MI primary "wasn't going to count for anything".  But then, once she no longer had to pander to voters in IA, NH, NV, & SC, she suddenly starts talking about seating FL & MI delegates.  Nothing you said refutes that.

[Beet]

My personal preference would have been to advocate the seating of the MI and FL delegations from the beginning, and for the DNC to amend the rules to do so, so that there would be no violation of the rules, if possible, and then by 2012, come up with a more complete primary system that better represents 'fairness'.

But understandably, making such an argument before Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina would have opened up attacks from other candidates on the grounds that "Hillary doesn't care what you think, she's pandering to other states, not your state." That kind of state-by-state provincial thinking is stupid, in my view (I would not expect Maryland to receive any kind of preferential treatment), but it would have had an effect in the early primaries.

She is extremely consistent in her reasoning: she sees Michigan and Florida as key states in the general election, and doesn't want the split to hurt the Democrats in these states.

I understand all that.  My point was that she didn't say anything about seating the FL/MI delegates until after IA & NH had voted because she thought saying that might hurt her in those states.  In fact, she even conceded in NH that the MI primary "wasn't going to count for anything".  But then, once she no longer had to pander to voters in IA, NH, NV, & SC, she suddenly starts talking about seating FL & MI delegates.  Nothing you said refutes that.

I understand that as well. My point was just that it was an understandable political decision, although at this point there are no good answers unless one candidate can get a clear majority without this controversy coming into play-- which at this point looks like only Obama can. The best case scenario would be that the FL and MI delegates can be seated without controversy because their seating makes no difference in the results.

If their seating would alter the outcome, in that case I would disagree with Sen. Clinton because candidates and many voters undoubtedly behaved under the assumption that they would not be, unless some other arrangement could be worked out. But in the case that they would make no difference, then changing the rules to seat them would be a good move.

[Mr. Morden]

Not sure if this was covered before in what J.J. said about the selection of the credentials committee, but:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/16/disallowed_delegates_fate_crucial_to_democrats/?page=2

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[cannonia]

If their delegates are not seated, does that become a real issue in the general campaign?  Is this a matter of Democrats losing any votes?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hypothetical question; let's say that Clinton easily wins Texas but doesn't win the most delegates there due to the vagaries of the electoral system being used there (no idea how likely or not that is, but then it's a hypothetical so that doesn't matter). Does that change things re; Florida and Michigan?

[Gabu]

Does that change things re; Florida and Michigan?

Why would it?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Does that change things re; Florida and Michigan?

Why would it?

I don't know. Just wondering aloud.

[minionofmidas]

If their delegates are not seated, does that become a real issue in the general campaign?  Is this a matter of Democrats losing any votes?

Doubt it.

[Gabu]

Does that change things re; Florida and Michigan?

Why would it?

I don't know. Just wondering aloud.

That exact thing actually happened in Nevada (Obama won the most delegates despite losing the popular vote), but not much of a deal was made of it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Does that change things re; Florida and Michigan?

Why would it?

I don't know. Just wondering aloud.

That exact thing actually happened in Nevada (Obama won the most delegates despite losing the popular vote), but not much of a deal was made of it.

It's possible that things are different now. I don't know though. Worth considering, a little, maybe.

[Trilobyte]

Hypothetical question; let's say that Clinton easily wins Texas but doesn't win the most delegates there due to the vagaries of the electoral system being used there (no idea how likely or not that is, but then it's a hypothetical so that doesn't matter). Does that change things re; Florida and Michigan?

It won't change anything regarding Michigan and Florida, but it would be further proof that the Democrats' quirky delegate rules need to be reformed, especially in the case of Texas.

[Mr. Morden]

It wouldn't change anything re: FL & MI, but it would change the kind of decision the superdelegates face if Clinton ends up winning the national popular vote while losing the pledged delegate count (not counting FL/MI).

[Democratic Hawk]

I've been a staunch critic of the sanctions on MI and FL, but, rightly or wrongly, the DNC made their decision and I'm minded to think it should stand

Dave