FL Dems Blow Off The Party

At 2:45 today the Florida Democratic Party will officially announce that they have no intention of following party rules governing delegate selection to the 2008 national convention. (You can read the announcement here and also see the website they've set up to try and legitimatize their decision, MakeItCountFlorida.com.)

Their logic? We can't disenfranchise 4 million Florida Democratic voters.

Somehow their logic escapes me, so follow me below the fold.

The logic of the FDP is that Florida should have a say in who our nominee is for president. So they have chosen a route that insures we will have absolute NO SAY in the nomination process, because we will have no delegates at the national convention. Now we haven't really had a convention fight in decades, so it probably doesn't mean much, but imagine if we approach Denver and no candidate has a majority of the delegates sown up, and Florida is sitting there ready to cast ZERO votes. Yeah, we'll look like rocket scientists then.

But won't having Florida vote a week before the SUPER primaries on Feb 5 give us a big voice in determining who the ultimate nominee is? Perhaps - but I think the buzz about our primary will be that it is nothing but a beauty contest since there will be absolutely no campaigning by the candidates. No personal appearances (except for fundraising - which really sticks in our craw down here), no media. Nothing. How else would you describe the results of this election.

The FDP is hiding behind the constitutional amendment that will also be on the ballot on Jan 29, which could significantly alter the way property taxes are assessed in this state. Their logic is that this vote is so important that they must insure that there is full participation in the primary.

Well you know what? They could still have pushed the primary election AND lifted the candidate sanctions on Florida AND insured Florida's participation in the national convention by merely approving another method for allocating our convention delegates, other than the results of the Jan 29 primary.

The delegate selection plan already calls for caucuses in each congressional district later in 2008 to select the actual delegates...this would be the ideal opportunity to also allocate the delegates and magically be in compliance with the DNC's rules. But no, the FDP is afraid that Florida voters will think that the delegate selection process is being manipulated by party insiders and they will feel disenfranchised. I can assure you that 95% of Florida Democratic voters have absolute no concept on how delegates are allocated or selected, nor really have much of a vested interest in the process.

Sure there's a possibility that a candidate could win 50% of the primary vote and only get 25% of the actual delegates, but I have to have faith in  the people who attend these caucuses that they would attempt to reflect the will of the voters in their district. And the bottom line is that with the FDP plan, each candidate will end up with exactly ZERO delegates - tell me how this reflects the will of the voters.

And who really suffers? The Florida voter and the Democrats in the trenches. For example, our local Democratic club is holding our annual fund raiser on October 6, one week after the sanctions go into effect. As a result, we have no chance of securing any of the presidential candidates and our ticket sales have suffered accordingly. Since these funds are used for our voter outreach program for 2008, we are going to have to drastically scale back our efforts to once again open a get out the vote center and build on the progress we made in 2006 in voting Republicans out of office in Broward County.

The minority delegate selection plan we've worked months on is now up in smoke. There will be absolute no minority delegates from Florida in Denver. Tell me how that is a win for the party?

The state party convention in Orlando at the end of October has suddenly become a totally meaningless exercise. I'm not even sure why we're even going to bother convening, other than it's required by our by-laws.

The winners here? The Florida Republican Party is laughing all the way to the November voting booth! Their sanctions are less onerous - Florida will only lose half of it's delegates and there are no sanctions on candidates campaigning in the state. Having the Democratic candidates and the eventual Democratic nominee boycott Florida for several months will do nothing to reverse the Republican trend in the last two presidential elections.

There is plenty of blame to go around. The primary system as it currently exists sucks. Unfortunately the national parties are at the mercy of many of the states when it comes to holding actual primary elections. That is certainly the case in Florida where the party has to either use the state run primary or absorb huge costs to run their own caucuses or write in elections.

But I am totally disappointed with the Florida Democratic Party and their unwillingness to try and come up with a solution that would mitigate the serious negative consequences these actions will have upon the party in the state. Unfortunately the state party is little more than a mouthpiece for Senator Bill Nelson, who did nothing to try and bridge the gap between the FDP and the DNC and, in fact, flamed the fires of discontent between Florida and the rest of the party with his recent rhetoric. I'm afraid we will now reap the results of these blockhead decisions.

As for me, I think I'm going to take a vacation for a while. The only thing keeping me registered as a Democrat in Florida at the moment is so that I can vote in next year's August primary for a good friend who is running for the Florida legislature. I feel betrayed by my state party who in their attempts to "make my vote count" have actually disenfranchised me from the presidential selection process. But it has helped me understand better why the Florida Democratic Party is such an ineffective political entity these days and why we are probably going to remain a very minority party through this decade and the next.