UPDATE: Disenfranchising Florida and Michigan Today
Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 11:11:23 PM PDT
Obama's attempt to deny Floridians and Michigonians a voice in the 2008 Democratic Nomination shifted into overdrive today.
The Clinton campaign continues to say that there are only two options. One, seat the delegations as they voted in January, or two, hold another vote. A mail-in vote plan looks like it is about to be proposed by the Florida Democratic Committee. Obama himself and his surrogates flatly reject a mail-in revote. Further, the Obama campaign says that the Bush Justice Department has to approve any revote plan. And, Obama surrogates continue to suggest that the delegates should simply be split in a meaningless 50%-50% split.
The obstruction continues...
A plan for a mail-in vote on June 3 is about to be announced and the Florida Democratic leader is quoted as saying they can't win if the delegation is not seated. This just in:
Steven Geller, the Florida Senate Democratic leader, told Fredreka the state party will move forward with the plan despite the objections of Florida's congressional delegation. He said an announcement is likely on Thursday or Friday. "It is my hope that they will get more comfortable with the plan," Geller said of the House members.
Unless national party leaders and the candidates "are willing to write off the state of Florida in the general election, we have to do something that seats our delegates and reflects the will of the Florida voters," he told Fredreka.
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If Florida does not have a delegation to the national convention, 5% of those surveyed would not vote in November and 14% would "seriously consider" voting Republican. He said another 12% weren't sure what they might do if Florida is unrepresented. Geller said that means about 25% of Democrats would probably stay home or vote for John McCain, R-Ariz. "That means we can't win," he said.
Florida Democrats poised to announce June 3 mail-in primary
The clear an unequivocal position from Hillary Clinton today is that they should seat the delegations or hold a revote:
"Honor the results or hold new primary elections," she said, not specifying if that meant she would support the idea of having a mail-in second vote in Florida.
Mrs. Clinton's speech came just after her campaign manager, Maggie Williams, sent a letter to David Plouffe, Barack Obama's campaign manager, urging that their rival teams cooperate on giving Florida and Michigan voters a say in the nominating process.
"It is vital that both of our campaigns come together to ensure that the delegations from Florida and Michigan be seated to reflect the will of the voters," Ms. Williams said. She implored Mr. Plouffe to "join us in our efforts to ensure that these votes are counted."
Echoing Ms. Williams's letter, Mrs. Clinton told the Latino crowd, "I hope that Senator Obama's campaign will join me in working to make that happen. I think that that is a non-partisan solution to make sure that we do count these votes."
NYT: Clinton Presses for Florida, Michigan Voters
That's pretty clear. Honor the results or hold new primary elections.
The Obama however campaign rejects the proposed revote:
Mr. Plouffe, on a conference call with reporters today, said he had "key concerns about a mail-in election," but stated he wants to see this matter resolved soon.
He said it is difficult to organize a secure mail-in election -- Oregon, for example, took years -- and he said there was not time to perfect such a system for Florida and Michigan.
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Mr. Plouffe once again pointed out something that the Obama campaign has been quick to interject ever since Senator Clinton began urging the seating of the Florida delegates once it became clear she would win that state. Back in October, Mr. Plouffe reminded his listeners, Senator Clinton said about Michigan on New Hampshire Public Radio: "It's clear, this election they're having is not going to count for anything."
NYT: Clinton Presses for Florida, Michigan Voters
Obama himself weighed in today:
Clinton, who won unsanctioned contests in both states, said the results should be honored or new votes held. Obama said he abided by party rules in skipping the two contests and questioned Clinton's call now for counting them.
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The Clinton campaign seems to want to make up rules as they go along on this issue," Obama said. He said he would work with the national party to find a solution.
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These are very complicated elections to put on," Plouffe told reporters. "In the state of Oregon which is kind of the standard for this, it took well over 10 years to get comfortable doing this statewide."
Obama, an Illinois senator, said he would work with the Democratic National Committee to find a way for the two states to be represented at the convention. Plouffe said the calls for a revote in the two states "seem to have become more of a Clinton production."
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Plouffe, however, questioned Clinton's sincerity. "Now when they believe it serves their political interests, they're trying to change the rules and say these elections should count for something," he said.
Reuters: Clinton and Obama disagree on Florida, Michigan revote
Seperately Obama's Lawyers are saying that the Bush Justice Department has to approve any revote plan, an impossibility in the time frame available:
In order to get them in and have 'em count by June 10, lawyers for Barack Obama say the answer, unequivocally, is yes.
Here's the reasoning: while a federal judge last year upheld the DNC's right to interpret the rules of its own primary -- even if those rules meant the technical disenfranchisement of an entire state of voters -- the ruling did not touch on the form of the election itself.
When a party decides to change its rules in midstream, five counties in Florida and two counties in Michigan must ask the Department of Justice's Voting Section to make sure that the new rules do not violate the rights of any aggreived minorities. Alternatively, they can ask a federal judge to bless the new rules, but that would take, at the very least, six months.
Would Bush's Justice Department Have To OK New Florida, Michigan Mail Primaries?
Why it is that Obama wants to hand over the decision making authority about a Democratic Primary to the highly politicized Bush Justice Department has got to be raising some eyebrows.
It seems Axelrod has the talking points down too, and two Michigan Obama surrogates are actually calling for their state to be disenfranchised:
Earlier in the day, David Axelrod, Obama's senior strategist, told reporters that the campaign is reserving final judgment until a plan is offered.
"But obviously there are concerns about a mail-in vote. I mean, there are concerns about eligibility, ballot security," he said during a conference call. "The state of Oregon has mail-in voting, and it took them more than a decade to perfect it to the point where they felt that they could run a statewide campaign through mail-in votes. And now we're going to turn this process over to parties within the states to run on with a matter of weeks to prepare."
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Two co-chairman of Obama's campaign in Michigan also say they're wary of redoing the primary by mail. They'd prefer that the DNC evenly split Michigan's 128 delegates between Clinton and Obama, who was not on the primary ballot because he didn't want to anger other early voting states.
State Sens. Buzz Thomas and Tupac Hunter, both of Detroit, said they've taken their concerns to Obama's national campaign in Chicago.
"You can't really verify signatures on ballots" in a mail-in election held by the state Democratic Party, state Sen. Buzz Thomas. "I strongly recommend that we do look to splitting Michigan's delegates 50-50 and taking that back to the national party."
Under that scenario, Michigan's 28 superdelegates would still be free to vote however they choose, he said. But the party would save the millions it would cost to hold a do-over election.
"This election is too important to do something that potentially could be fraught with mistakes," Hunter said.
Obama Camp Concerned About Mail-In Votes
We had a game when I was a child. It was a mean spirited game that we would play on younger kids. It was called "Bad Rock. Bring Me Another Rock," and it went like this. We would be building something in the woods that required rocks--a fort or something. You'd say to the little kid. Go bring me a nice big rock. When he struggled back with the rock, you'd say... you guessed it: "Bad rock, bring me another rock." Some kids figured it out pretty fast and for others it took a little longer. Everyone eventually got it.
It seems pretty clear right now that Obama is sticking to his bad rock plan to run out the clock on revotes and then block the delegations from Florida and Michigan from being seated in Denver. As more and more see this obstruction of democracy for what it is we can expect them to recognize that Obama is disingenuous in his tactics, anti-democratic in his ethics, and willing to throw the election in order to get the nomination. If he thinks stiffing Florida and Michigan is the only way he can win the nomination, he is willing to pull out all the stops to make sure their votes don't count. The fact that it will destroy the Democrats chances for victory against John McCain, is less important to him than winning the nomination. That's what we are learning this week about Barack Obama.
