The Party’s rules committee has met, deliberated, and decided to seat Florida and Michigan, but with only half a vote each. This is an odd compromise that serves to preserve and ruin democracy at the same time. it is a nineteenth century compromise that may be viewed as an anti-Clinton move, but in the end may serve to save Clinton face. In the short term Obama may gain (indirectly) but in the longer term there will be a cost for him.And, the Democratic Party leadership of Florida and Michigan need to be ashamed of themselves. They have served their citizens very, very poorly.But first, there are two little items that I wanted to bring up. Simultaneous voting and Super Delegates.Recently, I have heard people suggest that we need to have a system where everyone votes at once in the primary process. I just want to point out that the system does not work that way for good reasons. The primary is NOT an election. There is no Constitutional or legal requirement that anybody votes on anything. Next presidential election, either the Democrats or the Republicans can decide, if they want to, to put forward a candidate for which not a single individual has voted. They can cancel all the primaries and caucuses. They can just do what I wanted to do this year but no one would listen: Put Ana up for president. Maybe next time they will consider it.The process works the way it does because the Democrats have a strong sense of democracy so they keep modifying an updating the process to make it work better, to be more fair, to give more people time to examine the candidates, etc. etc. Typically, the Democratic party makes rules changes that serve these noble purposes, and later, the free riding Republicans change the rules to match the Democrats.(Last night I had a nightmare. I was back in graduate school. Graduate school for me wasn’t so bad … in fact, it was a high point for me in many ways. But this was a nightmare. Anyway, I’m reminded of being in the Biological Anthropology Wing, where the very smart professors would figure out how to run an undergraduate or graduate program, and eventually, the other wings of the department would copy us. Later, more units at Harvard would copy our department, and eventually, everyone in the country would be doing the same thing. Midterm alerts, five year guaranteed funding with adequate academic process, preliminary exams done in a more useful way … and less like jumping through a hoop, oral exams or public presentations for honors undergraduates, etc. But I digress…)Anyway, we vote over time, months of time, from state to state in order to be able to start with a larger group of candidagtes and narrow them down in a way that make sense.I’ve also heard lately people say things like “Super Delegates … WTF? Gotta get rid of them.”Fine. However, if this is what you think, you are probably not really entitled to that opinion.Well, technically, you are entitled to this opinion because this is a free country (no thanks to the Republicans) but let me save you some embarrassment. In order to really argue that we need to get rid of the Super Delegates, you need first to do the following:1) Explain exactly, with some detail, why Super Delegates exist. If you don’t know that, then your insistence that they go away is a little weak.2) Explain what benefits, if any, have accrued in support of Super Delegates subsequent to their innovation.3) Explain why getting rid of them is better than the afore mentioned benefits .In formulating your answer please remember that the system of putting forth a candidate is not Constitutionally specified.Now, getting back to yesterdays’ meeting. Apparently the delegates from the Renegade States will be seated but given half votes. This punishes innocent participants in the democratic process, but at least it does not punish them as much as not inviting them to Denver.This is said to be a negative for Hillary. Maybe it is, but it might also be the case, numerically, that giving all of the delegates full votes would not help her. Anyway, in the end, if Clinton captures the nomination under the present circumstances, she avoids the accusation that back room (though in this case openly viewed) politics gave her the nomination. As it stands, Obama cannot avoid that accusation as easily, though he does have a consistent majority on his side.What should they have done instead? Two things, in my opinion:1) Punish the Florida and Michigan leadership severely. This kind of bullshit cannot be tolerated. Selfish behavior on the part of these states could have caused the party this election, and it still could. Chop off some heads, then get on with it.2) Give all of the delegates from Florida and Michigan their votes, but not the votes that came through these bogus elections. The best solution is to do the election again. If that is not possible (and it turned out to be difficult, though not impossible) simply apportion the delegates on the basis of a grass roots straw poll or a formal scientific poll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Party’s rules committee has met, deliberated, and decided to seat Florida and Michigan, but with only half a vote each. This is an odd compromise that serves to preserve and ruin democracy at the same time. it is a nineteenth century compromise that may be viewed as an anti-Clinton move, but in the end … Continue reading Democrats will be Democrats<\/span>