Thursday, March 6, 2008

Yeah, About Florida and Michigan



Now that the Democratic primary race continues to be a nail-biter, every single
vote is going to be needed to win the nomination. The problem lies with what to
do with those rule breakers, Florida and Michigan. Howard Dean wants a do-over:
WASHINGTON - Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard
Dean urged Florida and Michigan party officials to come up with plans
to repeat their presidential nominating contests so that their delegates
can be counted.

"All they have to do is come before us with rules that fit into what they
agreed to a year and a half ago, and then they'll be seated," Dean said
during a round of interviews Thursday on network and cable TV news
programs.

The two state parties will have to find the funds to pay for new contests
without help from the national party, Dean said.

"We can't afford to do that. That's not our problem. We need our money
to win the presidential race," he said.
There's no easy solution to this problem. The worst solution would be to seat the
Michigan and Florida without a do-over. That would be unfair because Sen. Obama
wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. The next solution would be to keep it as is
and not seat those delegates. Thus, leaving millions of voters voices not counted in
a historic primary. Not good! Ok, then we come to the solution that Howard Dean
is suggesting, a do-over. That sounds fair and might prevent the Democrats from
going into a brokered convention. However, would this mean people would be able to
vote twice? For example, if someone voted in the Republican primary in January
would they be able to vote again? Well, I guess people were allowed to vote twice
in Texas, so no big deal?

Tell me what you think.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Counting the results as is would be catastrophic given that Obama wasn't on the ballot and Hillary attended events in Florida when she agreed not to campaign.

Not seating the delegates is a blow to democracy. The voters should have their say.

A do over is probably the best option, although not ideal. I'm not sure if the results could actually impact the race right now (neither candidate will have enough delegates - superdelegates will be the deciding factor), but still the people's voices should be heard.

Teresa said...

Hi Go Orange,

Thanks for your comment. I agree completely a do-over is probably the best option but not totally ideal.

I'm just happy I'm going to have plenty of content for months to come:)