So the DNC rules committee is meeting today about the Florida/Michigan primaries disaster. For those unaware of the disaster, here's my best recap: Florida and Michigan broke delegation rules by pushing up their primaries earlier in the year. This was their decision and they were warned by the DNC that if they did, the consequence would be that all of their delegates would be stripped away giving them no voice in the election process of the Democratic presidential nominee. Yes, this was a pretty harsh ruling - and no one really foresaw the race being so close that it would really matter as much as it does now - but both states moved their dates in defiance of the DNC. Both Hillary and Obama agreed to not campaign in Florida while every democratic candidate at the time (with the suspicious and curious exception of Hil-monster) took their name off the Michigan ballot. The states then held their supposed meaningless and worthless primaries and to no surprise, Hillary (the most recognized candidate at the time) won both states.
I can't imagine a more unfair competition. People need to remember: At the time, Obama was not a household name. He was campaigning state by state, primary to primary. He didn't have the luxury of brand-name recognition like "Clinton". If you take a look at poll numbers of all of the early primary and caucus states, Obama lagged considerably behind Clinton (including South Carolina where he eventually steam rolled her) until he was able to campaign properly; organizing a grassroots support, running ads and working the stump swings. And due to FL and MI's conscious violation of the DNC delegation rules, both Obama and Hillary chose to not properly campaign there. Consequentially, the voters in both states were not given the opportunity of a fair, balanced primary process where both camps could state their cases relevant to each state.
Now, she won Michigan mainly because she was the only name on the ballot by 55% (the rest voted "uncommitted"). When every democratic candidate, in a unifying move, took their names off the ballot, Hillary apathetically left hers on - leaving the rest of the candidates instantly suspicious, but not too alarmed since the votes weren't supposedly going to count anyway. By the time Florida voted, it was just the two of them on the "worthless" ballot. The only shred of campaigning on the Obama side was a brief television ad that was a short lived national ad. Polls showed that his name recognition nationally still didn't yet compete with Hillary's at the time. (That wouldn't start to happen until his 13 contest winning streak after Super Tuesday)
Now to the point: Where was Hillary's "passionate", outspoken struggle to save the voices of FL and MI voters before January?
Americans didn't hear a peep from her about this "injustice" until she started getting thumped in the election primaries. She had agreed to the party rules at the beginning of the campaign season and now that she's got no other hope in sight for the nomination, she wants to suddenly change the rules and have the DNC count the votes of hideously unfair primaries. Suddenly now, she's an advocate of voters' rights. What about the voters' rights to a fair campaign? Imagine for a moment if FL and MI had overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Would she be out there with her battle cry then? This is again the Clinton machine's "Say anything, Do anything" style of politics. It's disgusting. And now she's turning her aggression on the leaders of her own party. They've organized rallies and marches to get the delegates fully seated and recognized.
This puts the DNC in a very difficult position because, yes, the stupid idea of stripping both states of all of their votes (as opposed to the GOP's "half-vote" punishment for rule-breaking states) shouldn't have happened and they are now caught with shit on their faces. They are left with this decision: Do we stand strong with the original rules laid out against violating states and hold our ground, thus ignoring the votes of millions? Or do we show our weakness and count the votes of unfair primaries and bend the original rules at the expense of the candidate who played by them. What signal would that send to states who break the delegation rules in the future?
The Obama camp recognizes the dilemma of shutting out the votes of both states (in light of how it would effect the voter conscience of these swing states in the general election), but also knows how cheap these wins were for her. So they're willing to compromise. Don't expect that same C word from the Hill camp. They want it all. It's their last and only hope.
But what really gets me is where the blame is being placed. Hillary and her (apparently increasingly psychopathic) supporters are taking aim at the DNC rules committee as if they had anything to do with the states' decision to go against party rules. It'd be like me and a friend sitting down to play Battleship (initially agreeing upon the rules) and blaming Milton Bradley's rules writers when my opponent is about to sink my battleship.
In my opinion: I say "No dice". I'd be a bit more empathetic if it was the general election where we're actually voting to hire the president, but as for a political party coming together to pick their candidate, I'd be knocking down the state's party leaders demanding them to cough up the millions and fund a revote where the candidates can properly organize a real campaign process. It's their fault we're in this mess. They were the ones who went against the party's rules. They should be responsible for fixing it. (Their attempts at organizing a revote were shot down due to the high cost. They then threw the problem on the national leaders to fix.)
It wasn't until recent decades that actual civilian votes were taken to select the party's candidate. It use to be up to a handful of the party leaders in some smoky, Washington back room. This lead to statewide caucuses (which contrary to alot of my friends' opinions, I support fully) where party voting members who cared about who their party's nominee would meet and physically voice their opinions of who they felt the nominee should be. 13 states still hold caucuses today. This is an incredible process because it gets party members who've educated themselves on their party's candidates to come out and state their case to each other about who should carry the nomination - as opposed to having it on a primary ballot among a laundry list of other voting issues where any passive voter going in to vote yes or no on some local or state issue can cast their not-so-educated or not-so-challenged vote for their party's candidate - whether they understand their party's values and ethics or not. A caucus forces party members to publicly announce and defend their choice. It is not an election of a citizen tax funded government official. It is simply a party coming together under the purpose of party ethics and agenda to debate and nominate the candidate who best represents them and can best achieve them. I love it. It has it's down sides in terms of the difficulties of (for instance) senior citizen or single mom participation, but there's plenty of ways to fix those problems and it could be perfected. Just my opinion...
Anyway!!!... Hillary can go ahead and try to act like she's suddenly the messiah of "voters rights", but it's painfully obvious that she wouldn't be out there working it if it wasn't going to throw her horrendously organized, sickeningly miscalculated, and pathetically negative campaign a fucking bone. :-) Just don't go screaming foul at the rules you agreed to play by.
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