NOTE: I'm leaving the original text of the diary intact so as to make sense of the comments below, but please go to the Update at the bottom of the body of the diary for a critical revision.
Long story short: Bloomberg (and Blitzer) blew it.
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This just in from Bloomberg:
Florida Governor Charlie Crist said he'd support a repeat of the Democratic presidential primary so the state's delegates can be counted at the party's national convention.
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Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said he's open to the possibility. Primary elections are paid for by a state's taxpayers, so the offer from Crist, a Republican, is ``very helpful'' because money is an issue, Dean said.
This is big folks, and I hope Obama's team gets out in front of it by saying, in essense, "Bring it on!"
flippit:
As an election reform activist (I drafted Maine's two recent voter-verified election machinery laws and a random sample recount bill that is being considered there), I am so overjoyed to see some relief for one of the two big electoral thorns in the DNC's side right now.
If FL can redo its primary, no matter who has the advantage, a good portion of the potential rend in the Denver convention will be mended before it tears the party apart. This is very good news and I hope both candidates (I am an Obama supporter) will get behind Howard on this and fully support the revote no matter what the forecasts say the outcome would be.
There will be pressure on Obama to oppose it because Hillary's NY-transplant support there is big and the chances for him to win are not overwhelming. Those arguements are bullshit, and I hope he sees that and does the upstanding thing, getting behind the revote effort.
Hillary, otoh, will be under pressure to oppose it because she has staked a position that the unauthorized vote (that she "won") in January was legit, and she has also made it clear that she wants to try to seat those delegates despite the clear ruling of the DNC well before the vote took place. Those arguments are also bullshit because there are thousands of voters who stayed home that day (both her and Barack's supporters) because they actually believed that the DNC had the authority to moot the vote (which they certainly did and do).
Let's seat the FL delegation the right way: let's take Crist up on his offer and do a revote asap!
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CRITICAL UPDATE: H/T to floridagal who points out that the Blitzer interview of Crist that the Bloomberg article was quoting from is misleading. Here is the text of that exchange, in full:
BLITZER: Let's talk about the Democrats first, what, 1.7 million Democrats or so voted in their Democratic primary. But that vote is not going to be counted. Are you as the governor ready to let the Democrats have another primary if necessary to seat those Democrats, those Democratic delegates at the convention in Denver?
CRIST: That'd be fine with me. I think it's very important, though, that those delegates are seated. And I'm hopeful that the national Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee, comes to the conclusion it's the right thing to do. Every vote must count. Every vote should count, and for the Republicans as well. They're not counting half of ours.
BLITZER: The caucuses, the state parties pay for, but a primary, taxpayers would have to pay for it. You, as the governor, you're saying, go ahead and reorganize. Do a redo of the primary so that the Democrats can vote, presumably for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
CRIST: Well, my preference is, you know, the people of Florida already voted, as you know, Wolf. And I think, you know, their vote should count.
BLITZER: But the candidates couldn't campaign here.
CRIST: No, I know. I know. Well...
BLITZER: It's sort of, you know, a vote without candidates campaigning is not really a fair vote.
CRIST: Well, I'm not so sure. I mean, you know, in a perfect world you'd like to have them campaign, like to have them work hard. We moved up our primary. And I think it was exactly the right thing to do.
BLITZER: Even though the Republicans were stripped of half, and the Democrats were stripped of all their Florida delegates, you still think it was the right thing to do? CRIST: Without a doubt. Yeah.
BLITZER: Why?
CRIST: Because the impact it had. I mean, you know, the people had an opportunity to voice their choice, to make their wishes known. That's important. Because the national committees in Washington decided not to seat delegates, that's their issue. But for Floridians, it was the right thing to do.
BLITZER: It was important on the Republican side, but it doesn't look like it's going to have much impact unless they redo it on the Democratic side.
Very sketchy, to say the least. And here's the follow-on interview of Dean by Blitzer where he kind of skews Crist's "offer:"
BLITZER: And you heard Governor Crist of Florida just tell me moments ago he's ready to go ahead and support a redo here in Florida, a new primary, which the taxpayers would pay for if the Democrats want that, in order to make sure that Florida Democrats -- 1.7 million of whom voted -- actually could be seated and have a say at the Democratic convention.
Are you ready to accept his offer right now?
DEAN: Well, it's not him to offer that, but that's a very helpful thing for him to say, because money is an issue here.
Look, there are two possibilities. One is that there would be such a redo, as Governor Crist might suggest. And two is that the party would come and have some other alternative that they would try to push through the Credentials Committee. But we're very willing to listen to the people of Florida.
It wasn't their fault that this got done. It was their political leadership, and if they would like to fix that problem so that we could seat Florida without any problems, of course, we'd like to seat Florida.
I guess I'm going to have to redo the title of the diary. This isn't at all what the Bloomberg item portrayed. I'm goin to bed now. Looks like the "offer" isn't that at all.
And here's the email address of the Bloomberg reporter who screwed this one up, Nadine Elsibai, in case anyone wants to give her what for: nelsibai@bloomberg.net
And of course, Blitzer deserves some significant negatives for misrepresenting Crist's statement to Dean in the first place (not that we expect anything but shoddy journalism from him anyway).