Apparently, the voters of Michigan and Florida are being "disenfranchised" by the way the DNC policies have erased their delegates. People are understandably upset about that. But who should they be upset at?
State party officials were apparently well aware that they were breaking the national party rules when they scheduled their primaries so early. As far as I know, there has been no dispute on this point.
It also seems that the fact that their delegates would not be seated at the convention was also not suddenly sprung on them in the last month or so.
So, the state party officials who made this decision with full knowledge that they were violating a rule that they had agreed upon ought to be held responsible. What's funny is that these are the guys who are loudly blaming Howard Dean and Barack Obama (and others) for unjustly disenfranchising Florida and Michigan voters.
Florida and Michigan voters should be mad, but not at Dean, and not at Obama. They should be mad at their state party officials who agreed to something and then decided not to go along with it in order to increase the strength of their voice (or so they thought) in choosing the Democratic nominee.
What's ironic is that the decision was made to put them at the head of the pack, theoretically to have a more decisive voice in the nomination. With the 2 front-runners neck-and-neck, however, it now seems that the last states to vote will hold more power.
So now they are demanding to be given the last voice, too! It's just politics as usual, but it's still frustrating to hear the voices that caused all the problem loudly proclaiming everyone else to be at fault, and themselves to be the biggest victims.
The funniest thing is how both Clinton and Obama seem to have randomly fallen ideologically aligned with the position which (coincidentally) supports their own nomination. What are the chances? I love hearing them talk as if they're advocating for the poor disenfranchised voters, or for the other state parties who followed the rules and will be less likely to if poor precedent is set... when of course they're advocating for themselves!
Although I guess that same remarkable coincidence is at work in this very post, as I (an Obama supporter) advocate a stance that seems to work in Obama's favor.
That's politics for you.
- "And your gonna become voters! And your gonna vote like your friends do!"
Thursday, April 03, 2008
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