What Florida should do in response to the DNC's threat is ...

[jmp]

Have Gov Charlie Crist contact Gov Spitzer of NY, Gov Granholm of Michigan, Gov Strickland of Ohio, and Gov Schwarzenegger of California and try to get them to agree to a compact stating that those 5 states and any others willing to sign on will ignore the political parties conventions, and that the candidates appearing on the Nov '08 ballot will be determined in the following manner ...

When a nominee wins a state's party primary or caucus, that nominee gets that state party's "delegates" in the same fashion and number as occurs with electoral votes in the Presidential election. When a nominee accumulates 270 delegates ... that nominee wins a spot on the '08 Presidential ballot in all the participating states.

Obviously getting that through the various state legislatures would be a bit trickier, but even if they don't all enact it, it should still be enough to put the fear of irrelevancy into the DNC and RNC.

[Hobarticus]

1. Oh, I'll bite...

How can you "force" the DNC to accept any nomination by any state held outside of their primaries?

[jmp]

2. The DNC wouldn't factor in the process at all.

The only standing the DNC has ... and the only right it has to a spot on the ballot in any state ... is because the individual states grant them a spot on the ballot. The DNC has no more inherent power or right to "nominate" a presidential candidate than you and your 2 brothers named Darryl do.

The individual states grant them that privilege.

The DNC doesn't have to "accept" the nomination. The nominee accumulating the 270 "delegates" would simply be awarded a spot on the ballot the same way the parties nominees are now ... and the privilege the parties currently have would be revoked.

[KellyW]

3. I see your 270 and raise you 27

The state party could always adopt rules that the Electoral College Electors can’t vote for a candidate that was nominated at a convention that didn’t seat their delegates-the state party selects the Electors. Or the state legislature could pass a law requiring the same.

[DURHAM D]

4. What ?

Are you getting the 270 delegate number from the electoral vote number - which is in no way related to the convention delegate number?

[KellyW]

5. Sorry let me be clearer

270 delegates-if the FL dems don't get them, they can threaten the 27 FL Dem Electors.

[tkmorris]

6. Exactly

I believe California alone has more than 270 delegates to the convention, do they not? Plus, what happens if the regular Democratic convention selects say, Dodd, while the multi-state agreement thingie mentioned in the OP selects say, Biden, just to name two nominees who have no chance. Won't that split badly the Dems in the general? Doesn't that pretty much guarantee the Repubs win?

Bad idea.

[KellyW]

7. the plan in the first post

won't happen.

But, the question is what should FL do ?

The FL state party holds the high card.

[beyurslf]

8. Something needs to be done. I am tired of Iowa and NH having sacred spots

to choose for the rest of us. Let them be last for the next couple hundred years I say.

[cali]

9. I have no problem with NH and Iowa going first-

and no, I don't live in either state. It is unlikely that either Clinton or Carter would have been President without the retail politics of a small state, and now that the DNC has addressed the lack of ethnic diversity in those two states by moving S. Carolina and Nevada up, I think it's a good system.

[beyurslf]

11. I agree small state retail politics is a good thing. I live in near-by KS and

wonder why we can't be one of those states. Maybe they should rotate them so the same states don't always go first and the same ones don't always go last.

[jmp]

12. Or we could try something really radical like ...

Democracy. You know ... letting everyone have an equal vote.

Nah! That's just crazy talk.

[Hart2008]

14. Oh please, Clinton didn't compete in Iowa, and lied his way to 2nd in NH

Clinton was promising a middle class tax cut in his '92 campaign. A promise he broke before he took the oath of office. (The first President to do this.)

Clinton got the nomination because he bagged a lot of money from his DLC corporate cronies, not because of retail politics. Clinton won big on Super Tuesday in '92 with all of that money to use for TV ads.

If not for Jerry Brown's embrace of a flat tax, Brown would have stopped Clinton.

Perot was leading Bush and Clinton was third when he dropped out in the summer of '92. Clinton was very lucky. Everything broke his way in '92. Iowa and New Hampshire had little to do with any of it.

[MiniMe]

10. Why don't we just keep moving the primaries forward so they will be right after

the Presidential Election. I'm sorry, but this one-upmanship among the states is getting ridiculous. Perhaps a rotating system would work.

There are rules to this game, and one of them is that the Primaries will be held after January. Florida voted to move their election date up to January knowing that those were the rules, just because they wanted to be first. I really don't care who is first, although I kind of like it being small states. I don't know that a candidate could have the kind of personal time to get to know the voters in a large state.

OK, I admit that I don't feel very well this morning, but this is starting to sound like a kindergarden fight. "I want to be first" "No I want to be first" "No, its me me me first".

[CTLawGuy]

13. how about follow the damn rules

?

[jmp]

15. Are the rules democratic?

?

[CTLawGuy]

16. yes

I have the right to vote, but I cannot just vote whenever I feel like it. I must vote either on the Election Day or via absentee ballot if I qualify to do so under the law, but even still, the vote is counted on the Election Day.

If I forget to vote during the voting hours, I can't go in the next day and add my vote. It's my responsibility to vote on the correct day and at the correct place.

What Florida Dems are doing is like saying they want to hold a GE October 27th and then getting mad when their votes won't be counted.