Caitie (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} caitiedidit) wrote,@ 2008-02-07 22:48:00 |
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| Entry tags: | indecision 2008, politics, rant |
MY RAGE, LET ME SHOW YOU IT
I must compliment the Obama campaign on their total brilliance. By leaking the memo to the press guesstimating that they will win the primary by a margin of 17 pledged delegates, everyone is talking about what that would mean for the convention. And of course, everyone is ranting and raving about the shitty and archaic delegates system. The "superdelegates" (Orwellian much?) are absolutely indefensible. Many of the superdelegates are not even elected officials, yet they possess the electoral power of approximately 10,000 individual democratic voters. The superdelegates control 20% of the votes! It is just too stupid to be believed.
And not incidentally, the superdelegates have thus far been largely in Hillary Clinton's favor. So by leaking the memo, the Obama campaign has everyone freaking out about the superdelegates and demanding answers and action from the DNC, effectively neutralizing Hillary Clinton's advantage without appearing petulant or putting anyone off. It is quite impressive, really. Well done.
And I'm completely in favor. Let's ditch the superdelegates.
And while we're at it, can we get rid of the caucuses too? Caucuses are BULLSHIT. They actively suppress turnout! But it's like no one cares! Literally nobody gives a crap. The chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party publicly said that the party has no responsibility to ensure that voters can participate:
"The campaigns are in charge of generating the turnout," he said. The voters who truly care, he said, will find their way to their precincts. As for Tope, the emergency room worker [who couldn't get her shift covered], "There's always next cycle," Brennan said.Hey, fuck you! I get that midwesterners are proud of their
The DNC should be trying to make sure that voting is as accessible as possible to voters. Howard Dean spoke out against caucuses when he ran in 2004, only to (of course) lose Iowa. But he hasn't done a damn thing as DNC chairman to fix the problem. The DNC should refuse to seat the delegates of states who don't provide some form of alternative/absentee ballot for their voters. (For example, Texas has caucuses and primaries.) Instead, they refuse to seat the delegates of states who don't think Iowa and New Hampshire have some sort of divine right to ten times the electoral power of the rest of us.
But since Dean doesn't want a brokered convention or bickering over the credentials committee, the DNC wants to give Michigan and Florida a do-over. If this happens, Michigan and Florida should demand that the DNC foot the bill. The DNC should absolutely be forced to pony up. The FDP and the MDP don't have the money, and even if they did, they need to save their resources to win their state races. And the taxpayers of Michigan and Florida won't pay twice because the DNC are a bunch of assholes or because the Democratic candidates chose to pander to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire by pledging not to campaign in the states that dared to threaten their stranglehold on the primaries. (And the Florida primary was moved up by the Republican state legislature; the Democrats tried and failed to stop them, but the DNC stripped the state of its delegates anyway.) You break it, you buy it, and the DNC definitely broke it.
So, of course, what is the DNC saying they'd like to do about Florida and Michigan? They want to hold caucuses.
YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP.
I just don't get it. Florida and Michigan are equipped to hold primaries, not caucuses. Why ask them to caucus? I mean, how would that even be accomplished? It makes no sense! And then there's the fact that all of the caucuses except Nevada and New Mexico (which was basically a tie) were won by Obama. (So it should be funny to see the Clinton campaign react to this.) Pressuring primary states to hold caucuses kind of looks like the DNC is trying to tip the scales in Obama's favor. That's more paranoid than I like to be, but I don't know what else to think. It just literally makes no sense at all to me.
But if the do-overs don't happen and this gets resolved by the stacked credentials committee ("the committee's seats are allocated through a formula linked to the candidates' performances in the states") that will decide whether or not to seat the delegates from Florida and Michigan, do Hillary's performances in Michigan and Florida count towards that formula? (Florida and Michigan were stripped of their delegates, but Clinton still received a large majority of votes in both states. The lack of campaigning in FL and MI and Edwards and Obama removing themselves from the MI ballot were decisions made by the candidates. As far as I know, the DNC didn't specify what would happen to Michigan and Florida's part in determining who controls the credentials committee.) What a fucking disaster this could turn out to be. Somebody needs to start sweeping, and how.
ETA: I asked my mom (we are native Floridians) if Florida had ever caucused, and she said never that she can remember. She said Floridians don't know the first thing about caucusing, and she doubts that the state would be able to pull it off. She also thinks it's too populous a state to hold a caucus. And, ha, she was basically like: "Florida can't even vote right when they know what they're doing."
I am just... utterly bemused and kind of rageful about this NONSENSE. If I ever see Howard Dean in person, I will be sorely tempted to kick him in the shin.
My next entry will not be about politics, I promise.
P.S. I enjoyed this post about how the Clinton campaign cleverly (one might even say sneakily) played the media this week wrt the "financial troubles" that turned out to be non-existent. I also liked the link within that about how people underestimate the base's love for Hillary at their peril. If Hil' does end up losing the primary, I totally think she should get to be Senate Majority Leader. She would kick so much more ass than Harry Reid.
