Bob Graham: Counting Florida's mostly Clinton delegates after the fact would be unfair.

Naked Politics (Miami Herald)

By Beth Reinhard
February 11, 2008









And the longer this goes unresolved, the more bitter and contentious this fight for Florida's ghost delegates will be. Now is the time for the DNC and the Florida Democratic Party to act.

We need a caucus this spring.

And I want him to be my Senator again. :(

I would love to pick up Florida in November

..he would be a TERRIBLE choice...

would rock so hard.

:bounce:

Would love to see him on an Obama/Graham ticket.

it should be a primary, not a caucus.

is pretty meaningless. A straigh-up primary, where you can get people who drop in on the way to and from work, would be a much better guage of each candidate's strength.

Hell, they could set the date for 6 weeks from now, and it would STILL come before my state's primary. Plenty of time for a do-over.

like Michigan did in 2004 and print ballots and have people vote the same as a primay (just that the party runs and pays for it). That might fly?

K & R :thumbsup:

What I found out yesterday from the FDP they are waiting to see how the race turns out. They said there were a lot more primary's and caucus to go. If at that time it's close they didn't give me an explination what they would do other then they would work out something with the DNC. So at this point they are waiting.

My spell checker isn't working.

As he said, this was her race to lose, and if it's so close that it comes down to having to fight to retroactively get Florida and Michigan counted, she doesn't deserve it. I support finding some other way to give representation to Florida and Michigan at the convention, but as Graham said, counting the delegates as is would be completely unfair.

:loveya:

I wish we still had him

He was my second choice after Wes Clark, who hadn't gotten in yet, but I would have been thrilled if Bob Graham could have stayed in. He is so honorable. He told the other senators they would have blood on their hands if they voted for the IWR and they do.

We are a primary state here in FL but let me say this, Obama will not come here and tell us how to vote, this is not IL. You play by our rules, not yours buddy.

Stop yer bitchin'. Elected Dems in Florida didn't do themselves any favors for voting to move the date back, knowing the mess it would put you into.

Call it what you will, I will say this, we will seat our delegates and see the out come of this race. And the mess you see now will be sorted out.

Who the fuck do you think you are?

A voter from FL and we have spoken with one voice and it will be heard. That is who I am, not who you want me to be.

They are the ones that knowingly put you into this mess in the first place! I'll dig up the results, but IIRC, only about 3 democrats voted against the bill to move the election day back.

Let me say this, I will voice my opinion on this blog and not to the DNC of FL. You cleary do not live here and as far as I am concerned you must be an Obama supporter.

Call it what you will, I will say this, we will seat our delegates and see the out come of this race. And the mess you see now will be sorted out.

The only way to fix this is to seat an uncommited delegation and allow them to vote only after all the other delegations vote. If it changes the winner yopu have to go to a second ballot where everyone is a free agent.

I don't know every position he has every had... but when ever I heard him or read something he said... he seemed to be making decent args with good analysis.

This is no exception.

Oh, wait, I forgot -- that wouldn't help Obama, so it's automatically unfair.

Strike that ...

--p!

And we all know how nicely that went in 2000.

He's a good man with guts.

I wish more people (myself included) had listened to his warnings back in 2002-03 about Iraq being a distraction from the real battle against al-Quaeda.

That's the best solution available, in my opinion. People don't want to have FL and MI not represented at the convention, but the primary elections are invalid, and caucuses seem unlikely to happen. So split the delegates in half.

and vote after all the rest of the votes are in. If their votes change the outcome we move to a second ballot.

Florida has a large senior citizen population. Basically they are Hillary's base and I think to discount them is disheartening. Whether some people think it's fair or not isn't the point I'm making. I just hope something can be worked out in a way that both candidates will be happy with and the voters will be happy with.

My spell check isn't working

then we should at once do away with all rules and give the party to the Clintons. Let them have it. It is power play by her supporters and superdelegates in Florida.

Either split 50 50 to negate the whole issue, or don't count them at all.

I am seeing a side of the Clintons now that I detest.

Hillary's large win in Florida was due to no campaigning (but I wonder why she flew to Florida to thank campaign workers - what exactly did they do to deserve thanks?). If there had been no campaigning in other states, Hillary would have already won the nomination. Would that be fair? Just get your name on the ballot, don't campaign, and hope that you have the best name recognition?

The primaries in FL and MI need to be discounted or other states will follow suit in the future. So give those states a voice at the convention, but neutralize their influence by splitting the votes evenly between the two candidates remaining.

The Clinton campaign won't love this, and The Obama campaign would rather have a caucus, so this is a compromise.

"One of the rules is if you're in a hole, stop digging,'' said Graham, who favors sweeping reforms to the presidential primary system. "If the votes of Michigan and Florida should be critical in determining who the nominee is, you can imagine how upset Sen. Obama supporters are going to be. In one case, he was not even on the ballot, and in another, he was foreclosed from being in the state and campaigning."

Yes - so true! I am in Florida and we were under the assumption the votes would not be counted. I can only see a huge uprise if these votes are counted now! The Democrat Party does not need this! We are just now coming into the best years ahead we have seen in a long time and we don't need distention!

:patriot: Here's to you Bob!

I have been writing about that a lot. They will stand firm for Hillary.

Good for Bob Graham for speaking out.

How do you propose the DNC act? Dean said he might get together and possibly intervene by June...and all hell broke loose.

All the bloggers saying let it go to convention.

if one of the sides objects they will get none. There will be no floor fight for the delegations

It will avoid a floor fight.

I think she knew what she was doing by staying on the ballot in MI, and even though she wasn't "officially" campaigning in FL, her announced visits to the state just prior to the election generated interest. She will get all of the delegates for these 2 states to take her over the top with her SD's.

I have been writing about that a lot. They will stand firm for Hillary.

Good for Bob Graham for speaking out.

How do you propose the DNC act? Dean said he might get together and possibly intervene by June...and all hell broke loose.

All the bloggers saying let it go to convention.

I don't see any fairer way to resolve it.


Any attempt by one campaign to hijack obsolete delegates away from another campaign that played by the rules could eventually end up like the convention of 1968 when protesters were greeted with clubs and tear gas.


The DNC/FL Democratic Party need to pay for a new election. No other outcome would be accepted as legitimate.

They do not deserve to have the party pay for anything. I am disgusted and fed up.

He and his staff were the nicest folks during the 2004 race. We were lucky enough to house the Dean/Kerry/Graham campaigns in our office building and all would stop in from time to time. We were with his staff the night he dropped out of the race (and it was a surprise to the kids watching it on TV) They'd gotten chips and dip and veggies and cookies and coffee and punch so we could all mingle and watch him. x(

He's such a decent fellow!

But the article does confirm one fact a lot of extremely upset democrats in florida are trying to emphasize: too many lies are ubiquitous and the truth is elusive.

The DNC never said the votes will not count towards delegates in Florida. The DNC only said the delegates will not be seated.

So, the outstanding issue remains: will the delegates be seated at the convention?


What role will Florida delegates have if the DNC does not permit them to participate? Although the DNC has said it will not recognize delegates from Florida, the Florida Democratic Party plans to appeal to the eventual Democratic nominee for President to be seated at the Convention. While there are no guarantees that this will happen, the Party will continue the delegate selection process to elect the actual delegates to the Democratic National Convention and will use the results of the January 29th Presidential Preference Primary to determine the apportionment of those delegates.

How are the district-level caucuses run? Who chooses the delegates? The selection of district-level delegates will be in 25 post-primary district-level caucuses around the state on March 1, 2008. The highest vote-getters slotted under each presidential candidate are elected. (The numbers each presidential candidate gets in each district is dependent on the Presidential Primary results in that district.) In order to participate as a voter in the caucus, a voter must establish that he or she is a registered Democrat within the Caucus' Congressional District. Voters must present a voter registration card and photo I.D. The voter will then be required to fill out a statement of support for the presidential candidate whom he or she supports. Delegates and alternates will be elected only by those participants at the caucus who have declared support for the same candidate to whom the delegate or alternates are pledged. Each participating voter must vote for exactly the number of delegate candidates to which the presidential candidate is entitled. Undervotes and overvotes will result in that ballot becoming invalid and will not count.



http://www.fladems.com/content/w/florida_delegate_selection_to_the_2008_democratic_national_convention/#faqs

No, they will not be used to determine the nominee. That is FL saying that, not the DNC.

Me thinks it is YOU that needs to do the rereading.

You are simply not telling the truth about what is in that article.

Now either you are doing it deliberately, or you are not aware. Your history of trying to discredit me makes me wonder.

simpletons like me? :)

And in the data from the link belonging to the Florida Democratic Party it says the opposite: that the votes from Jan 29th are being used to select the delegates.

Yes, the FL and MI primary votes count towards the selection of delegates....delegates that will not be seated and therefore not have a vote at the convention. Yes, the convention could choose to seat the delegates as selected by primary, but then again they could choose to select a completely different slate of delegates if that is what they wanted to do. So when someone says, "the votes do not count for delegates", they simply mean delegates voting at the convention. It is highly unlikely that the delegates selected by the primary will be seated at the convention unless their votes will have no impact on the outcome of the nomination: in other words they are meaningless.

Your argument is weak when you say 'THEY SIMPLY MEAN' - - this is merely an assumption you make attempting to state as fact.

That when people say "the votes do not count towards delegates" that they mean anything other than voting delegates at the convention? As was shown this past week when Michigan's delegation was selected, the press was not saying the delegation did not exist, just that they would not be seated. Maybe it is laziness to say "the votes do not count towards delegates", and should instead be saying "the votes do not count towards voting delegates", but that is hardly much of a spin. In the event that the delegations are not seated, which is a very likely possibility, can you please let me know what the difference between having these non-voting delegations and having no delegations at all will be?

I 'think' that both Obama and Kerry attempted to dissuade voters from voting in the primary by twisting the 'votes don't count' out of context. They never said 'votes do no count towards delegates' on election eve. They never explained.

So much for what I 'think'.

The only issue the DNC has made is the the delegates will not be seated. That too far a cry from votes do not count, or that votes do not count towards delegates.

But the article, you will have to admit, talked about it in the past tense when it said ' did not count '. The past-tense use of the verb indicates it's a done deal, and adds an important perspective.

It is painfully obvious to me this can only mean one of two things: the author of the article did not know what he/she was talking about, or he/she purposefully obfuscated.

The biggest issue with seating the delegations now is the refusal to allow campaigning and in the case of Michigan even having candidates remove their name from the ballot. Florida made a last ditch effort to have campaigning allowed in the state and was denied. There is no denying that the DNC and their allies did this for the very purpose of removing legitimacy from the results of the primary, it was what they desired. So as to Obama, Kerry, and I would throw in the DNC in general stating that the votes do not count; by stating so they "made it true" in a sense. The problem is that ones view of them doing this is in large part formed by their broader opinion of the issue. Meaning yourself who obviously wished that the FL and MI primaries would eventually have their sanction lifted would view any attempt and removing a chance of legitimacy as under-handed. Meanwhile, myself, who believes that the only way FL and MI can have legitimate primaries would be for them to be held during the DNC's approved calendar, view these moves as perfectly reasonable. At this point, I do agree with you that continuing to delegitimize the primaries after the fact serves no purpose other than to shape public opinion. The damage has been done, and honest accounts of the situation should state that the votes did not count towards delegates....that will vote at the convention ;), unless the credentials committee along with the broader delegation chooses to seat them anyway.

and not what is reality. It is Florida saying their delegates will count.

""What role will Florida delegates have if the DNC does not permit them to participate?

Although the DNC has said it will not recognize delegates from Florida, the Florida Democratic Party plans to appeal to the eventual Democratic nominee for President to be seated at the Convention. While there are no guarantees that this will happen, the Party will continue the delegate selection process to elect the actual delegates to the Democratic National Convention and will use the results of the January 29th Presidential Preference Primary to determine the apportionment of those delegates."

The STATE party is planning to just keep on going. Even though the delegates do not count toward the nominee.

I think is is misleading for her to say that when it is Florida saying it.

That said, I'm sure things will change a few more times before anything is decided. :)

It is only in Florida's imagination.

I have my seat belt on.

That is FLORIDA saying their votes will count toward delegates.

"What role will Florida delegates have if the DNC does not permit them to participate?

Although the DNC has said it will not recognize delegates from Florida, the Florida Democratic Party plans to appeal to the eventual Democratic nominee for President to be seated at the Convention. While there are no guarantees that this will happen, the Party will continue the delegate selection process to elect the actual delegates to the Democratic National Convention and will use the results of the January 29th Presidential Preference Primary to determine the apportionment of those delegates."

The STATE party is planning to just keep on going.

"What role will Florida delegates have if the DNC does not permit them to participate?

Although the DNC has said it will not recognize delegates from Florida, the Florida Democratic Party plans to appeal to the eventual Democratic nominee for President to be seated at the Convention. While there are no guarantees that this will happen, the Party will continue the delegate selection process to elect the actual delegates to the Democratic National Convention and will use the results of the January 29th Presidential Preference Primary to determine the apportionment of those delegates."

The STATE party is planning to just keep on going.

You have my respect and ALWAYS have!

after the fact.

It was declared by the DNC that any attempt by the Democratic parties in Florida and Michigan to move their primary date before 5 February would result in sanctions to take the form of being stripped of their delegates at a national convention. These states chose to move the dates of their primary elections ANYWAY. It's not a question of 'fair'.

.