Florida Primary Do-over? Intriguing Possibilities…
Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida has gone on record stating that he’s willing to re-do the Democratic Party primary in Florida, if that will allow the Dem delegates from the Sunshine State to be seated at the convention. Will Michigan follow suit? And Howard Dean is open to the possibilities…
As those who follow this kind of stuff are well aware, the DNC stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates to the Democratic Party convention as a penalty for moving up the state primaries. Hillary Clinton won both primaries decisively, in what was essentially a “straw vote”, since neither state can seat its delegates (as things stand now).
Interesting enough, with the nomination hanging in the balance, and the talking heads chattering that if Clinton can’t win both Ohio and Texas tomorrow she should quit the race, Florida governor Charlie Crist has thrown a bit of a monkey wrench into the works. He says he’s willing to give the Dems a do-over vote in the Sunshine State:
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.
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.
“We’re very willing to listen to the people of Florida,” Dean said on CNN’s “Late Edition” …
It’s curious that DNC Chairman Dean would make such a comment, and not dismiss the offer outright.
It will be interesting to see if Michigan follows suit with the offer from Florida. While Sen. Clinton won a plurality of the vote in Michigan, her numbers came in at the time the vote was held because she was the only top tier candidate on the ballot. Neither Clinton or Sen. Obama were allowed, by DNC mandate, to campaign in Florida.
With the Pennsylvania primary still waiting in the wings, and the open question of Michigan and Florida still on the table, maybe the vote tomorrow in Texas and Ohio won’t carry quite as much weight.
But who knows. This has been the weirdest presidential primary season in memory, so nothing is outside the realm of possibility at this point.
It’s curious that DNC Chairman Dean would make such a comment, and not dismiss the offer outright.
Not really. From a partisan point of view, Florida saying “hey, we’ll have a new primary if you’ll count our delegates” is as good as the state saying “we screwed up, we were wrong - we shouldn’t have tried to move our primary up after you told us no. We’re sorry”. The Dems couldn’t have predicted a better outcome from their “withholding votes” strategy. Other states will look, see that the Dems were not only willing to “hold firm” on their commitment to not count those delegates but that Florida had to then turn around and hold a costly “special primary” when the race turned out to be a close one. That’s a lesson that will reverberate in state legislatures and make them think twice about re-arranging their primary schedules in the future in ways that go against how the two parties want the schedules to be arranged. For a partisan, that’s a big win (and Dean’s job is to be the biggest partisan in the country right now).
From a voter disenfranchisement point of view - Dean doesn’t want to get the blame for disenfranchising a huge swath of voters - especially Florida voters seeing as how it’s a “swing” state. With the current setup the “blame” is split evenly between the state and the Dem Party. If Dean rejects an offer to hold another primary, the Dems become the bad guys and hold all of the blame for Florida Dems not getting a say in the matter of who gets to be the Dem nominee this year - one of the most exciting election years in recent history. Dean wouldn’t want the party to shoulder all of the blame for that. Especially if Florida is even proposing to pick up the tab for the new elections.
I’m not sure exactly what Crist has to gain in all of this - goodwill from the voters in his state? Goodwill from the local TV station owners who lost out on million-dollar ad-buys this year because of the lack of advertising in Florida? A monkeywrench against the Dems? I would bet that “it’s the economy stupid” is probably closer to the answer than anything else, and Crist is seeing all the money being spent on campaigns in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania and other places that Florida should have gotten a chunk of but didn’t. There may be other reasons, but the money is probably a good enough one to make a state governor salivate a bit.
All very interesting now that the“A friend and fundraiser to U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama went on trial on Monday in a case that has directed scrutiny at the often corrupt political culture of the candidate’s adopted home state.” story is really beginning to hit the front pages of the MSM.
How about Hillary Clinton’s campaign paying for the do-overs, if she wants the delegates to count?