Michigan, Florida: Hush
March 10, 2008
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0310edit2mar10,0,7906548.story.............................................................
"It's clear, this election they're having is not going to count for anything."
-- Sen. Hillary Clinton, on New Hampshire Public Radio, dismissing the Jan. 15 Michigan presidential primary
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There's no telling where the nomination race between Sens. Clinton and Barack Obama will lead. One place it shouldn't lead is to a Democratic National Convention floor fight on whether to seat delegations from Michigan and Florida. Those rogue states defied the rules of both parties by butting ahead of other states on the calendar of primaries and caucuses nationwide. State leaders in Michigan and Florida now are in a tizzy for fear that their bad choices could have bad consequences. They've had enough mood swings to qualify for therapy:
* Those leaders were smug and puffy-chested when they flouted the parties' rules and moved their primaries into January.
* They were pouty and disbelieving when Democratic officials responded by stripping them of delegates to this August's national convention. Republicans stripped those states of half their delegates.
* Now Democrats complain that if they truly are excluded -- if, that is, the Democratic National Committee does what its rules say it must do -- then millions of Michigan and Florida Democrats will be disenfranchised.
That's true. But we don't recall much public protest in Michigan and Florida back when lawmakers were boasting that early primaries would give voters in those states more clout in the nominating process.
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Having made their bed, though, Democrats in the two states don't want to sleep in it. (Florida Democrats complain that their legislature is Republican-controlled and thus they shouldn't be punished; they conveniently forget that Democratic legislators went along with their GOP colleagues in advancing Florida's primary date.) Adding injury to insult: Democrats in both states who flouted national party rules now want their national party to pay for new primaries or other selection protocols.
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