Letters to the Editor
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Oh, STFU Florida
The Florida Democratic Party decided to act like selfish brats and just move their primary ahead of Feb. 5th with no regerd to the Party's or national interest. Yet other states played by the rules. Imagine that! Its not like the Democratic Party has a whole lot of draconian rules to begin with. But the selfish brats had to break the rules. Crying about disenfranchisement, Florida? STFU, you did this to yourself.
Now Hillary Rove Clinton is trying to reward this bad behavior by giving the illusion to the average Joe that she "won" Florida, and joining in the false cry of disenfranchisement. How pathetic and desperate. She'll do or say anything to destroy anyone who has the temerity to stand in the way of her coronation.
I'll never vote for her now, under any circumstances.
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she's a lady
Just give it to Hillary she is a lady and not fair she has to run against a man.
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So Florida gets its own rules because of it's population?
"In absolute and proportional terms, this was a legitimate race."
No, in absolute terms, this was NOT A PRIMARY and was not legitimate because it was widely known, THIS DOES NOT COUNT.
In proportional terms, there is nothing to index because there was no previous election in Florida to gauge against. However, assuming you are correct and states vote all alike and you are indexing against the rest of the population, then Florida should be omitted because they can be represented by everyone else quite well, and Florida voters are represented by the rest of the country. That way, the party doesn't get split by a naked attempt to run around the Party rules.
Now assuming that Florida got screwed, can someone explain to me why the Florida Democratic Leadership went forward with a date that clearly was not going to count? Did they absolutely NEED to hold their Primary the same day as the Republicans? Did they have zero alternatives? Did they fight the Florida Republicans on this? If so, why was the DNC so rigid with Florida?
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Symbolic Jousting? I think Not. More Important than that.
The line symbolic jousting deserves a bit of thought...
Is it symbolic jousting to point out that one candidate kept their pledge while another did not?
Is it symbolic jousting to point out that one candidate received MOST of her votes MORE that 2 weeks ago, while one candidate received the majority of his votes AT THE POLLS ON THE DAY OF EVEN WITH OUT CAMPAIGNING IN THE STATE?
I think not.
This is the point that the Obama campaign needs to make.
People voting NOW voted for Barack.
People who voted early - MANY LAST YEAR - BEFORE IOWA - BEFORE POTENTIAL WRONG DOING IN NH AND NEVADA - BEFORE SC SHOWED THE NATION THE WAY - those antique votes went to hrc.
The CURRENT VOTE - THE HOPEFUL VOTE - THE ACTUAL VOTE - WAS A VOTE FOR
BARACK OBAMA!
HOPE+ACTION=IMPROVEMENT=OBAMA.
John
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Please Rationalize the Nomination Process - A simple Plan
The U.S. Presidential Nomination Process is more broken that washington itself.
It is now frightfully expensive, obsessively long, often devoid of value, and quite possibly inaccurate.
In addition to the democratic messes in FLA and MI, we have accusations of caucus manipulation in Nevada, and potential voting machine manipulation in NH by HRC.
Is this any way to run a process to run a country? THIS or any other country?
A simple plan in a few parts which I hope will get picked up AFTER Obama wins not only the nomination but the election.
1. Limit the time frame. No declaring for President until 1 year in advance of the election.
2. Balance the primaries - Right now the early states have more weight. The mess in FLA and Mi show that there is a desire to get in earlier. So lets be grown ups and do what little kids do and take turns. I know folks in NH and IA will now want to kill me but it goes like this...
Six Regional Blocks (NorthEast, Southeast, North, South, Northwest and Southwest) will rotate in order over a 6 election cycle. All the states in that region will hold their primary at the same time. In effect creating a group of reasonable sized Super Primaries. This will save time and Money for the campaigns. More controlled media buys and travel. It will also ensure that some states will not have more power based on where they are in the cycle. Also states will not get lost. Do you think all 22 states of 2/5 are getting a good look at the candidates on their own turf? Do you think some smaller states are getting short shrift? I do. This will help balance it out.
There could be two or three weeks between each regional. That gets us the whole thing done in three or four months.
Some will say tradition and this is the way we have always done it.
Hear you.
But this is getting to costly, too long and too unstable to continue.
Look at this great graph from the WSJ to see how the front and over loading is effecting the progress:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-flash08.html project=PRIMARY_HISTORY
Also, I propose that the primaries not start until AFTER the state of the union. No it was not a great speech this year. But it was made more difficult and less relevant because the primary season and political hoopla was so loud. This was the FIRST TIME EVER that the State of the Union came after more than one caucus/primary. It should come before all of them.
Next we will work on rationalizing congressional districts.
If that does not make you laugh or cry, you need to spend more time looking at how the American electoral map is currently drawn.
Mr. Obama took on ethics in congress. He could take this on and TRULY CHANGE THE GAME which would serve us all.
Best-
John
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doing the math
"HOPE+ACTION=IMPROVEMENT=OBAMA"
Let us see, that means
HOPE = OBAMA - ACTION
HOPE = IMPROVEMENT - ACTION
ACTION = OBAMA - HOPE
ACTION = IMPROVEMENT - HOPE
OBAMA - IMPROVEMENT = 0
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CLINTON?
Is that right? The difference is people talk about Obama and what he can do and what he has done. With Clinton they talk about what her competition is doing or has done.- Is there anything about her that you can offer than to attack her opponents? ANYTHING WILL DO