SPRING BREAK BLOG: “Rejected delegates, unite”
David S. Broder
Washington Post
March 27, 2008
Jim Naughton and John Mashek are two of the smartest political reporters of the past generation. Naughton is a veteran of the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer and of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., a journalism think tank. Mashek came out of North Dakota and Texas and, after a distinguished career, retired from U.S. News & World Report.
The two are also noted for their wicked senses of humor, but they weren’t kidding when they met during Mashek’s annual excursion to the Phillies’ training camp in Clearwater, Fla., and applied themselves to solving the problem of the embattled Florida and Michigan delegations to the Democratic National Convention.
As you know, those two states have been disciplined for jumping ahead of their assigned primary dates. The DNC stripped them of their delegates, and so far plans for a revote or some other device to get them into the Denver convention hall have been stymied by legal and political disputes.
Mashek sent me an e-mail this week outlining the compromise solution he credits to Naughton. They accept the widespread view that Obama is likely to finish the primary season in June leading the delegate race, but be short of the 2,024 votes needed for nomination.
Clinton is pressing to seat both delegations, which would give her two more victories in vital battlegrounds. She left her name on both ballots, though she joined Obama in observing the DNC ban on campaigning in those states. Obama was on the Florida ballot, and his supporters in Michigan had recourse to an uncommitted slate. But he trailed in both states and, understandably, is not eager to see Clinton’s popular vote and delegate totals swell.
So here is the Naughton plan: Because Florida and Michigan both knowingly violated the party rules, they must be punished by having the size of their delegations cut in half. But he would let the remaining 183 delegates chosen in the disputed primaries take their seats and vote on the platform or almost any other issue – except those that impact directly on the presidential nomination.
When we talked, I told Naughton it was a clever solution. What I didn’t tell him was that for weeks, I have been screwing up my courage to write about a crackpot solution of my own, one that would appeal only to the most desperate Democrats.
Almost 50 years ago, I went to Austin to cover a Texas Democratic state convention. As usual, the liberals, led by the redoubtable Frankie Randolph, of Houston, were thoroughly outvoted and humiliated by the party regulars supporting Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn.
After their final overwhelming defeat on some platform or rules dispute, Randolph led her embattled ragtag army out of the convention hall and across an open field. Then they reconvened at what they called a “rump” convention of their own, and passed everything they wanted to pass, while damning the powers that be.
So here’s my idea. When the Florida and Michigan delegates arrive in Denver, they should present their credentials to the convention and – assuming Obama leads in the results from the other primaries and caucuses – prepare to be turned down. Then they walk out, “rump” in a nearby hall, and do their business, including casting mock votes for president.
TV would cover the spectacle, and the rhetoric would flow.
It would not satisfy those Florida and Michigan voters who claim the party is “disenfranchising” them, but their grievance really is with the leaders of their states who got caught trying to jump the line.
For the disputed delegates, however, all the other perks of convention week would still be available – the parties, the schmoozing, the press interviews.
I can even imagine that the moment the presidential roll call is over, the floor manager of the winning candidate would seize the microphone, move to suspend the rules, and suggest a unanimous vote to invite “our absent friends from Michigan and Florida to come join us” in their seats on the convention floor.
Smiles. Embraces. Blessed harmony. Anyway, it’s better than a lawsuit.
Michigan and Florida, Florida and Michigan. We haven’t talked a lot in class about what to do with these two states that front-loaded in the democratic primary and are now suffering the consequences. Obviously no one knew that it would be such a close race until the last second or Florida and Michigan might have thought twice before doing so. The Democratic National Convention (DNC) sets the dates for the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries and other states are expected to follow suit and schedule their states behind them, Michigan and Florida decided to act like a petulant child and schedule their primaries out of order.
What to do though. Should we forget their past wrongs and let them count their votes even though that would mean that all the votes would go towards Hillary Clinton (since Obama thought the votes would never count and didn’t have his name on the ballot in Florida). Some (such as the reporters mentioned in the article) think that a re-vote should occur and then their votes could count. I think that there should definitely be a re-vote in both Florida and Michigan and that, as the article stated, both states delegates should be cut in half since they did violate the convention rules and front-loaded. This race is going to be too close to have them completely discounted but we have to do something or we’re not going to have a Democratic candidate with enough votes to run.
Michigan and Florida both frontloaded their primaries and in doing so were penalized by the Democratic National Convention (DNC). Michigan and Florida frontloaded so they could gain political influence. They wanted to help choose the candidates instead of just choosing the candidate who is already chosen for them. They were told that if they moved their primaries ahead that they would receive no delegates. Delegates are people chosen on a state and local level who are supposed to support a particular candidate at the convention. I think that allowing Michigan and Florida to have any delegates now would be unfair. The DNC decided on the punishment and they need to follow through. I also think that allowing these states delegates now would be unfair to Obama. Michigan and Florida were not given delegates and because of this Obama skipped over Michigan. Clinton kept her name on both ballots, but Obama only stayed on the Florida ballot. If Michigan were to vote now, I would think that the people would favor Clinton. She paid attention to the state despite there being no delegates. If the DNC gives candidates to those states they would be going against their rules and also giving an unfair advantage to one of the candidates.
I found this article to be really interesting. I honestly had though that when the Democrats had barred Florida’s and Michigan’s delegates that it wouldn’t last. However, I seem to have been proven wrong. I still can’t fathom why these two states are receiving such a harsh punishment for frontloading their primaries. Frontloading being an action when a state bumps their primary way up in time to try and be one of the first states to hold their primary. What I did find interesting when those primaries occurred was that Hillary kept her name on the ballots, I think in hopes that their delegates would eventually be allowed into the convention. If the delegates were allowed in though, it would seem to me to be completely unfair for Hillary to receive those delegates since at the time of the election Obama removed himself per what the Democrats had requested. However, I do like this compromise that these two reporters have come up with. By allowing half of the delegates into the convention and then only allowing them to have a say on issues such as the Democrat’s platform it creates a great compromise. In this way the people from these states still get some say in what their party is doing but they are likewise punished for frontloading by not allowing them a say in the selection of the presidential candidate. It is even more important in this instance since who the candidate will be is most likely going to come down to a vote at the convention.
Lindsey Devaney
I personally think that all the ideas are stupid, only for one real reason; I think it was dumb that Florida and Michigan were punished for going ahead of schedule. Maybe I don’t really know how that truly affects everyone else, but I never thought that just because they went a little earlier that it would hurt any body. I mean if anything, it would help. It would just get this horse race settled earlier so the candidates could stop attacking each other and start attacking McCain. In my personal opinion I think the Democrats are cursed. We are given all the right situation to come in with a smashing victory and we some how end up screwing ourselves over! I mean honestly, how hard should it have been for us to get a Democratic president? Bush made all Republicans look like idiots put us in a war we don’t want to be in and had caused our economy to suffer. We literally should have been able to get anyone elected. But of course we had to screw ourselves over by “punishing” Florida and Michigan and coming up with 2 candidates who just won’t stop making each other look bad. But back to the main idea of this article, I personally don’t think Florida and Michigan should’ve been eliminated from the race from the beginning but my own solution would be to let them have a revote in June letting both candidates fairly campaign in both states. Whatever the Democrats end up doing I sure hope it repairs their image.
So, at this point, after doing four blogs, I’m not to sure what this article is talking about. The one thing that caught my attention was discussions way back in Unit II, frontloading. The tendency of states to hold primaries early in the calendar in order to capitalize on media attention. Well, this says Florida and Michigan. But mainly Florida. Florida has been punished many times for this and has been punished once again this year. Well, what I got from this article, is rumping. It sounds like a made up word. It also sounds like people being sore losers. How can rumping do anything. All you have are people who see the same ideas as you do. And you only have a few people. It’s almost like your going to create your own party. I thought it was quite funny that after you didn’t get your delegates, you run off like little kids to rump. It leave a quite funny image in your head. Unless the other gave some political humor and it just went right over my head. Well, if it did, I apologize. I hope the candidates don’t resort to childish games. But I’m sure they won’t.
I did not know it was such a big deal if Florida and Michigan went ahead of schedule in the Democratic primaries. It makes sense that they frontloaded for the media attention, but looking at the race right now it sounds like every delegate’s vote is going to count. Both Obama and Clinton need more votes to even become a nominee. It would be unfortunate for the Democrats if we did not count any of the delegates from those states cause the two candidates running still need more votes. I think that we should count half of the votes from Florida and Michigan because more delegate votes are needed. I think that we should only count half because that leaves some kind of punishment for frontloading the primaries. If we were to count all of the votes then the next time we go through the horse race process the other states would be likely to frontload as well and refer to what happened this year. If we were to count all of the delegates from Florida and Michigan then that would be a huge disadvantage for Obama, considering he didn’t even put himself on the ballot for Florida. That would be unfair to him because that could swing his race in a negative direction and help buoy Clinton toward the top for nomination. I think that counting all the votes would create to big of an influence, but half would not have as much of an effect. The Obama campaigners either way may still be bitter about the decision to count the votes, but there are not many options.
I agree with Jackie in that these two states should never have been punished in the first place. They should have just gone ahead as planned, with all of the nominees on the ballot. Unfortunately, the Michigan results are completely strewed because Hillary kept her name on the ballot, which was a pretty sleazy move. Fortunately for everybody, I have thought of the perfect solution that will save the party, so bear with me:
First, all of the delegates from Michigan and Florida need to be thrown into a pot; all of them will be up for grabs. Then, Hillary and Barack will compete in a friendly competition, very similar to the one in “Billy Madison,” only this one will test their Commander in Chief abilities through different events—a presidential decathlon. We will see who really will be able to take a call at 3 in the morning, save us from Kim Jong Il’s inevitable implosion, tell their interns “no”, tell their husbands “no”, fly a kite, and wrestle in one of those giant sumo suits. Whoever gets the most points wins all of the delegates. All of them. And these delegates will be renamed “superduperdelegates.” (Not to be confused with the superdelegates that we learned about, which came about thanks to George McGovern, who got steamrolled in the election, prompting the Dems to create a safeguard.) The winner will get the nomination, which will be perfect since he or she just so conveniently proved how good he or she would be at ruling the world.
You’re welcome.
Wow this has been an interesting topic for a long time. I am so undecided on this issue. One hand Michigan and Florida front-loaded their primary’ knowing full well that if they did the democrats would strip them of their delegates. No I think is this fair/ the democratic party of both these states are the one who put this fourth no the registered voters who as of now don’t get to have a say in who their candidate should be. Now the only other thought to that is we live in a democracy where we elect or nominate people to represent us. Well that is what the party’s did and their leaders didn’t make a very good choice.
I just have to say in doing this the democrats are going to lose as lot of moderate voter who would vote democrat, but now that they are not giving them the freedom to choose, they will swing toward the party who doesn’t misrepresent them. Now how do we solve this problem? They’re just going to give them have the delegates they usually would get? Well I guess that fair considering, but what they didn’t mention is if they were going to do a revote or just go forward with the results. Either way one of the candidates is going to be unhappy. Hillary has already won both those state and wants them, actually needs them. Barrack had pull his commercial out of both those states and his name of the ballot in Michigan, which will be frowned upon, but still want the chance to get those votes.
Why is frontloading such a big deal? That’s been my biggest question ever since…well, ever since Florida and Michigan frontloaded. Why should anyone care if they go before Iowa and New Hampshire? Like Jackie said, I don’t see how it could hurt anyone. If you ask me, Iowa and New Hampshire are just being whiney because Florida and Michigan cut in line. Well, I stand in lines all the time, and there are NO penalties for cutting. Oh, sure, pretty much everyone will glare at you, grumble a bit, complain to their friends about how disgusted they are with your piggy behavior, but you won’t be sent to the back of the line. You won’t be banned from that snack bar for the rest of the year. And there won’t really be any dire consequences. In other words, it’s annoying, but relatively harmless.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the same principle applies to frontloading. All Florida and Michigan did was cut in line. They didn’t assassinate Iowa or New Hampshire’s delegates, drop nukes on them, or do anything criminal. I think it’s stupid that they’re being punished so severely for going ahead of schedule. Why not let them have their delegates?
Frontloading is scheduling primaries before their set date and although this could enhance media attention and have more candidates, could this cost the election for a candidate or two? Since Michigan and Florida decided to hold their primaries early, the DNC, Nation Democratic Convention punished them by not giving them any of there delegates. So now all of the candidates will be short delegates from two different states and there is much controversy about what should happen with Michigan and Florida. Should the delegates be given back to the states, or should they be taken away as a punishment for good? At this point of the run towards presidency, this decision is a crucial one and could determine the race for one of the candidates, primarily Clinton and Obama. Because Michigan wasn’t going to have any delegates, Obama didn’t bother to put his name on the ballot, while Clinton kept her name on the ballot. If somehow the DNC decides to give the delegates back to Michigan and Florida and lets them vote, I don’t think Obama would not have a chance of getting any in Michigan. I think that although this could make or brake the election, the DNC should stick with there decision of punishing the two states for frontloading. It has already made such a big deal; I could only imagine what kind of big controversy would arise from taking back the punishment and giving Michigan and Florida their primaries,
I agree with Brian and Jackie that front loading states shouldn’t be punished. I find it really stupid that The DNC would have a fit over a state’s desire to be a little more important. I see were these states like Florida and Michigan are coming from. Iowa and New Hampshire clearly don’t represent the U.S. as a whole on any level and it’s weird to think these two predominantly white states have so much influence. I do see were the DNC is coming from but would still have to side with the states
On a different subject, I think that Hilary’s move to have her name on the Florida ballot despite its meaningless position is a nice gesture. It isn’t a sleazy move (Brian). Her putting her name out there shows me at least that she is actually genuine about having the country approve of her. Obama skipping over and not even putting his name out is a petty move in my opinion. It just shows he’s only willing to put out the effort if it’s a sure thing he’ll get the votes. At least Clinton actually cares.
This connects to primaries, which we’ve talked so much about in class and goes back to the whole system of selecting candidates for the general election.