Florida Dems could lose say in 2008 race

[oberliner]

WASHINGTON - Florida Democrats would forfeit their votes in selecting a presidential nominee unless they delay their state election by at least a week, the national party said in a stern action Saturday meant to discourage others from leapfrogging ahead to earlier dates.

The Florida party has 30 days to submit an alternative to its planned Jan. 29 primary or lose its 210 delegates to the nominating convention in Denver next summer.

The state party chairwoman, Karen Thurman, said she would confer with state officials about the ultimatum. "It's going to be a difficult discussion," she said, because Floridians are wary of having their votes taken away.

Elected officials in Florida have said they would consider legal action and a protest at the convention if the national party barred the state's delegates.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070825/ap_po/primary_scramble;_ylt=At3NP_Pei1ctt1haAVRcRPWs0NUE

[Dr.Phool]

1. Good. We don't deserve it anyway.

:sarcasm:

[Zensea]

2. excellent snark from Chris Bowers on this subject

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/27/12055/9191
(found this at Kos)

Florida is doing this, I guess, because they feel they don't already have enough say who becomes the next president. No state has suffered more than Florida from the indifference of presidential nominees to non-swing states. If Florida didn't have an early primary, it is highly doubtful that the presidential nominee of either party would ever spend a dime in the state, much less visit. It has been decades since Florida was the deciding state in a presidential election. This is truly a shame, because the air-tight voting systems in Florida fuel more confidence in the hearts of voters than those of any other state in the nation. While in other states, there really isn't a way to ever know who won an election, when people take office in Florida, you know that that person truly has the will of the electorate behind him or her. If more of our elections were like Florida's, then there wouldn't be any need for further election reform in the United States.

The truth is, ....

For a state that already has so much sway over presidential elections, and which has such a horrendous track record of verifiable electoral infrastructure, a decision to leap ahead of virtually all other states in the primary calendar can only be characterized as a power grab in the tradition of Bush, DeLay, and Gingrich

[oberliner]

3. Funny stuff

Who is in charge over there anyway?

Something has got to be done about all this moving of primaries.

[jmp]

4. Howard Dean: Election rigging DNC style

I wonder when other states ... say NY & California ... will realize that any move to disenfranchise Florida is a vote to disenfranchise them too. I wonder how those state parties will react when their chosen candidate loses the nomination because Florida's delegates didn't get to cast their vote.

Or that their votes were stolen because a candidate had the temerity to campaign in one of the 50 US states.

[oberliner]

5. Who should decide the primary schedule?

It all seems so crazy right now with states moving them up unilaterally.

[jmp]

6. The states

Elections are a state matter.

[MonkeyFunk]

7. The DNC isn't disenranchising anybody

Florida Democrats decided to disenfranchise themselves. They were told what would happen if they went ahead with their plan.

Fuck 'em.