1 post tagged “florida”
I new it couldn’t last, the Democrats would find a way to screw up a free lunch. This election year all they needed to do to win the White House is to show up. The country is so tired of this disastrous administration that a worn out cardboard cutout of Walter Mondale could win the election. So the Democrats did what they do best, find a way to piss off and alienate voters in two key states, Michigan and Florida.
These two states committed the cardinal sin of moving up their primaries. Actually it wasn’t the entire state that made this blasphemous decision, at least in the case of Florida it was the state legislature that made the change, The Republican led state legislature. So the Democratic National Committee (DNC), in its dubious wisdom decided to punish the Republican led state legislature by taking away all the state’s delegates for the Democratic convention. They figured that the best way to punish the Republican led state legislature was to disenfranchise all the Democratic voters of Florida. If this isn’t the definition of “cutting you nose to spite your face,” I don’t know what is.
That decision was a bad idea in 2007 when it was first conceived, but now after Super-Duper-Tsunami Tuesday is over and the two remaining candidates are virtually tied in the race to be the Democratic nominee, this decision has been revealed to be one of the dumbest moves for a party accustomed to colossally moronic moves. Because of this move, the party now faces the real possibility of a brokered convention. While the Republican Party has practically all but nominated John McCain as the Republican candidate, the Democrats face weeks of struggle and indecision leading to a convention where party bigwigs instead of the voters and their delegates could select the candidate. Way to go DNC!
Now the party is scrambling for a way to restore the delegates to Michigan and Florida and save face. The DNC floated the idea of setting up caucuses or even new elections. Here in Florida the state election officials laughed in the DNC’s face. To paraphrase their response: We had our election, count the damn votes! But even counting the votes already cast in Florida may not solve the problem.
The DNC prohibited candidates from campaigning in the two states in question. Barak Obama demands a new election because he didn’t campaign in either state. He conveniently omits that he ran ads in Florida as part of a “national TV buy.” Hillary Clinton on the other hand, points out that she won the primary despite not having campaigned and without any TV ads. The DNC is now faced with a dilemma; it finds itself caught between a rock, a hard place and with its back to the cliffs of insanity.
The Rock
The DNC doesn’t back down and ignores the votes cast in Michigan and Florida, disenfranchising the voters in those states, making it likely that the eventual candidate will be Barack Obama. These disenfranchised voters may not feel very charitable towards the Obama come November. They may stay home and give McCain a win in both states.
The Hard Place
The DNC counts the votes in Michigan and Florida, practically guaranteeing a win by Clinton. Obama voters feel cheated and stay home. McCain wins Michigan and Florida.
The Cliffs of Insanity
Obama and Clinton get to the convention in a virtual tie leaving the selection of the party’s candidate to the super delegates. Whoever they pick the voters for the loser are likely to feel disenfranchised, never mind that this isn’t a very “democratic” way to choose the candidate for the Democratic Party. The democratic vote is depressed nationwide and McCain wins the presidency.
Knowing the track record of the Democratic Party, the same folks who brought us “winners” like Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis and John Kerry, what do you think the DNC will choose to do? Will they go with the lesser evil or will they find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? I am afraid I know the DNC only too well. We might as well get ready to inaugurate John McCain as president in January 2009.
