Florida Democrats backing down on Jan. 29 primary

[Herman Munster]

http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/238351.html

Florida Democrats, unable to work out a compromise to avoid harsh sanctions imposed by the Democratic National Committee, appear ready to give in and declare the Jan. 29 presidential primary meaningless.

While state party officials insist no ''consensus'' has been reached on what the party should do, there is a growing recognition that within the next week Democrats will announce a plan that renders the primary vote nonbinding in order to comply with national party rules. Florida Democrats will instead decide some time after Jan. 29 which presidential candidate is the winner of the state's delegates to the national convention.

One suggested plan is to have Democrats vote by mail, although another proposal that may win out calls for Democrats to hold a state convention sometime after Feb. 5.

''The positive thing about this is reality may finally be setting in at the party that delegates will not be selected on the 29th of January and if we want to have delegates we need to have an alternate plan,'' said Allan Katz, a Tallahassee attorney and member of the Democratic National Committee.

Jon Ausman, a longtime party activist from Tallahassee and member of the DNC, said Friday that the state party and Chairman Karen Thurman planned to back a plan to spend at least $2.3 million to distribute, collect and tally votes by mail. Ausman sent out an e-mail to party stalwarts across the state announcing the move, but state party officials quickly asserted that wasn't true.

''The party has not made a decision and there is no announcement imminent,'' said Thurman in an e-mail she sent out to members of the Florida Democratic Party state executive committee. ``Vote-by-mail is just one of several proposals we are discussing.''

[hedgehog]

1. Let's hope something is worked out well before Jan 29

I'm convinced the candidate is going to be selected at the convention. The last thing we need is two separate delegations from Florida!

[seasat]

2. I sorta like the idea of a vote by mail.

I thought it was a bad idea to bump our primary up ahead of Feb 5th. However, I do wonder how they would schedule the vote by mail setup? If it is scheduled after the Jan 29th public vote, then whoever wins that primary would have the leg up. If the ballots are mailed out before the primary, then they'd probably have to wait until Feb 5th to tally the vote. If they mail them out too early, it will favor the big money candidates since folks will vote before the small state caucuses. I hope they do find some reasonable compromise.