Florida and Michigan should count
A war raged far away. The Democratic Party was split down the middle. Out of the chaos, a young African-American was nominated as the party's Vice-Presidential hopeful.
Sounds like a script from the West Wing, or even like a scenario that could unfold later this year. Actually it was 40 years ago and the 1968 presidential primary and nomination process is remembered as the most tumultuous in US history.
At the convention, Georgian civil rights activist Julian Bond, 23, was nominated by the conference to be the Vice Presidential candidate, in the face of Hubert Humphrey's preferred choice Edmund Muskie. Bond declined the nomination on the grounds that he was too young (35 being the minimum age required to run).
Bond, who is now the chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and has come out in favour of counting the ballots in Michigan and Florida. He said he had "great concern at the prospect that million of voters in Michigan and Florida could ultimately have their votes completely discounted." Because of this stance, he has been attacked by Obama-ites such as Al Sharpton for having "sold out to the Clintons".
I don't agree with this at all and it shows just how warped some people can become in their pursuit of a particular partisan outcome. Not only is counting, or re-running the Florida and Michigan votes the right thing to do, it also makes better political sense.
Not counting the votes risks angering the very people the Democrats need to win over http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1724374,00.html. According to Time, a poll conducted this week for various Florida media found that almost a quarter of Florida Democrats say they'll be "less likely to support" the party's nominee if their state's delegates aren't seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August. In addition, "some state party leaders tell TIME they privately estimate the Dem dysfunction will cost them at least 1% of Florida's sizeable chunk of independent voters, who number more than 2 million, or almost a fifth of the state's electorate."
Its absurd that millions of people's votes in Florida and Michigan should be discounted because of a bureaucratic error. Obama's a once-in-a-generation politician. But sometimes it seems to me that the Democrats just don't have the gonads to win in November. I'd very much welcome being proven wrong.
They broke the rules and held the primaries early. They knew what they were doing, they went ahead and now they suffer the consequences.
This is no bureaucratic error, it was a deliberate decision by the states, with full knowledge of the consequences.
The votes from the primaries should not be counted for electoral reasons since most candidates did not campaign.
If they were re-run, then the expense would be massive. Also, due to the nature of the contests, many supporters of Obama would not be able to vote since they may have voted for McCain in the Republican primary, knowing votes (for undecided) in the Democrat primary would not vote. (Comment this)