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For Democrats, Florida Primary May Not Count
be951 writes "Democratic party leaders are seriously considering making the Florida primary 'nonbinding', meaning they could ignore the actual vote by Florida democrats and allow party leaders to decide how Florida's more than 200 delegates are divided up among the candidates. 'I think it's much higher than 50-50 that we will make Jan. 29 a nonbinding' election, said Jon Ausman, a veteran Democratic organizer in Tallahassee and member of the Democratic National Committee. This is in response to Florida's move to an earlier presidential preference primary, which scrambled the primary calendar carefully worked out by the two national parties."
The older I get, and the more I learn about US politics, the more the picture becomes clear:
The primary problem is the parties.
The USA has 3 major control structures in the culture: businesses, religions, and government. Each entity within these categories are major hierarchies with internal rules, norm, and oversight (when it works).
The two prevailing political parties are not really in any of these 3 categories, but are (arguably) the most influential and powerful organizations in the society. They literally control the actions and votes of public, elected officials, under threat of reduced support. Now it would seem that they are brazenly making explicit the ability to alter the election process. This level of power in the society is far beyond any other organization.
Having private organizations, without oversight that can manipulate and control elected officials is a very bad thing, and mostly what screws the "democracy" ideals that this country was designed to protect and promulgate. At this point USA has 2 socially-endorsed groups that enforce (as much as they can) one particular world-view onto member politicians with the intent of collecting revenue and support(votes). These two groups are warring over attention of the population but NEITHER ONE really is looking out for preserving the democratic ideals. It is like a poker game, all either one has to do is beat the other party to win, not really play a great game (represent the people). Both parties just private organizations looking to expand their power to promote their view of how the society should be structured.
People don't need them both the voters or (more importantly) the elected officials.
Imagine a world where your senator voted for what your STATE really wanted, and not for what their party line said they should. Imagine a president who made decisions for what was really best for the county, and not for how to get his party's line promoted.
This is, of course, part of the Democracy Reform Movement, popular in both major parties, which will culminate in all elections being 'nonbinding.' It's much tidier that way.
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Moving the primary to such an earlier date was tried in the '99 Republican primary in Louisiana, and it didn't take so well (partially because the party chair was such a nutcase). Primaries ARE moving up, though, and I would like to see a few early ones spread more around the country than just New Hampshire and Iowa. The national parties (and candidates) don't like to play along...because of the travel that it entails, I suppose.
Other than that, I don't mind the primary system all that much in the US. Each state has its own particular "flavor" of primaries, and they work rather well.
They aren't the problem...it's the money involved that doesn't give lower-tier candidates (who occasionally make sense) a chance, but I don't want my tax money to go to one of them for their campaign.
Is it too late to declare the 2000 and 2004 elections to be non-binding? Maybe we could set up a new system by which the votes of individual Americans are considered to be "suggestions" rather than actual statements of desire. Heck, lets just go back to the more traditional system of watery tarts distributing scimitars.
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Democrats vote for YOU!
Hmm...emphasis is wrong...
Democrats vote FOR you!
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Is laid out pretty well in Broder's piece today in the Washington Post.
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I like the idea of making the primaries go one at a time in order from most to least % (of total elegable pop, not just regestered voters) turnout in the last election
This whole fiasco is because of the Primary and Caucus states are in an arms race to maintain their historical place as the 'first'. Iowa always has the first Caucus and New Hampshire the first primary. Other states want to be 'relevant' this cycle and some have moved up their date, causing others to move their dates. The party rules state that no state shall have a primary of caucus before Feb 5, 2008. Florida wants to move theirs earlier which would violate the rule and piss off Iowa and New Hampshire. So as a 'compromise', allowing Florida to move theirs up, but it be non-binding, seems to be the current negotiation.
The whole system is screwed up in my opinion...
The Iowa caucuses are non-binding, and that didn't prevent them from deciding the 2004 Democratic nomination. The 24/7 news media is so desperate for media that they will over-play any event, no matter how insignificant it's intended to be. You didn't hear that John Kerry won a non-binding caucus that, due to its format (no secret ballots, and caucus-goers need to stay at the events for far longer than it takes to cast a ballot) might not even reflect the will of the Democrats of Iowa, much less the Nation. You heard that John Kerry was a winner, John Edwards was a cute number 2, and Howard Dean was bleeping nuts. You heard this for a solid week every time you turned on a TV, opened a newspaper, or listened to the radio. Once they'd finished carpet bombing America with the results to the point where everyone knew what had happened a few day later, they spent the rest of the week with talking head after talking head dissecting WHY John Kerry was a winner, John Edwards was a cute number 2, and Howard Dean was bleeping nuts. Even their coverage of what the candidates were doing in New Hampshire introduced Kerry as the Iowa winner, Edwards as the young attractive runner up, and Crazy Howard Dean. Wesley Clark chose to ignore Iowa, and it's unclear if anyone even knew he was in the race a week later. No grassroots campaign, no amount of phone calls, ad purchases, emails, or even door to door visits can equal the impact this had on undecided voters, and what do you know, a week later New Hampshire believed that John Kerry was a winner, John Edwards was a cute number 2, and Howard Dean was bleeping nuts.
The Florida Dems can make the contest non-binding, but the point is moot if coverage of their primary decides the outcome in all the binding contests that happen after the Florida Primary. Unless, of course, Iowa 2008 has already decided the race by then.
It's pretty simple. State political parties looked at Iowa and New Hampshire with their early primaries and saw all the money that got spent in those states in order to gain momentum. The other states got jealous that they hadn't thought of it first, so a whole crapload (that's the poli-sci term) of states moved their primaries forward to try to get some more attention, and more importantly, money. Apparently, Florida is one of those states that didn't think it had a big enough impact on the political process in 2000 and 2004 *boggle*.
Now the national political parties are pissed because they have do dilute thier funding and not focus on only a few states very early. So the Dems are reacting (IMO appropriately) and saying that if Florida really wants its primary so early we might just not pay attention to it.
While there is significant evidence that human "wiring" is highly flexible and easily changed on 2-4 week time spans, I do agree, the desire to form groups is significant. I also agree with you on the borders that happen around groups.
However, the problem now is that these two, extremely powerful groups in the US are simply (and only) a tradition, and the aggregate effect is not in the best interests of representational democracy (my opinion).
We need to teach that other groups are more important than one's party. We need to make these other groups carry more weight and wean people off the idea that a politician *IS* a D or and R. They are not.
The most important group people need to be thinking about today is this: humans on earth. We're all in the same boat now (environmentally) - and unless we start telling the elected officials to start rowing together, the ships going to take on a lot more water, and so are our coastal cities.
The government and people of the State of Florida are not giving up the pretense of anything. The party bosses of the Democratic (big D) party in Florida has given up any pretense of caring about democratic (little d) issues.
This is all about control. Florida (like many states) is trying to move the primaries earlier so that Florida has a larger say in who the nominees for each party are. Of course its an arms race no state can win 'cause other states will simply move it even earlier. The entire attempt is foolish, but not anti-democratic.
The party bosses (of both parties) don't want a "new" guy they can't control to get early buzz from a primary without other coverage. They want it to be "non-binding" so the party power owners can make their deals and get their guy.
The current political parties are ancient relics that need to get revised and realigned. As the "party faithful" go out and pick the candidates for the rest of the country, the less-than-enthusiastic "middle" will eventually come out and say, "Screw you all! I want someone who isn't as extreme as you clowns running and ruining this country any more."
Even George Washington warned against the formation of political parties.
OCO is Loco
The Democratic Party is a private organization. (The same for any political party, it's not just the DNC) It should be up to them to determine -- by their own means and at their own expense -- who their candidate is that they want to promote in the General Election.
Why does the state fund an election cycle which benefits nobody but the political parties?
Why should the state be able to, as it does in many states, tell the Democratic party that "Your sworn enemies, the Republicans, get to vote in determining who you will put up against them in the election"?
Political parties should be able to determine their candidate in whatever fashion they so choose -- intraparty elections, interparty elections, closed-door back-room top-secret stategy-meeting decisions, randomly chosen powerball winner, whatever they want . The only people who really should have any say are the members of the political party in question (and even then, in accordance with their own organization charter, etc., etc.)
But certainly this is not a matter that the government should be involved in at all.
Primaries are run by the parties, they're free to make up any rules they want.
[Insert pithy quote here]
"yet the average Slashdotter thinks"
What the hell is an "average Slashdotter", and who the hell are you to presume what anybody else thinks about anything? You seem to want there to be a hive mind of "average Slashdotters" with you as the voice of reason.
Guess what, Sparky. You ain't.
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