- Thu. Aug. 21, 2008
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Florida and Michigan broke Democratic Party rules by scheduling early primaries in hopes of having more influence over the presidential nomination. The irony is that if they could redo their contests late in the season, they might actually determine who wins.
The remaining primaries and caucuses are unlikely to provide a clear winner. Barack Obama will probably do well in North Carolina, with its large African-American vote, and in several Western states where the Democratic base is weak (Montana, Oregon, and South Dakota).
Four of the states that have yet to vote (Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia) border Ohio. Like Ohio, which Hillary Rodham Clinton won by a comfortable margin on March 4, those states have a lot of seniors, blue-collar workers, union members, and rural voters -- voting blocs that have delivered for Clinton. Indiana, with its large black population and its concentration of voters in the Chicago media market, may be the biggest battleground.
Michigan, which Clinton won after Obama took his name off the ballot, also borders Ohio and is in even greater economic distress than the Buckeye State. Florida's heavy concentration of seniors and Latinos also suggests that the edge belongs to Clinton, who won the state's January 29 primary. Suppose the Democratic National Convention's Credentials Committee decides to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations chosen in January. Those delegates might put Clinton over the top.
Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean sees trouble. "We have to play by the rules," he cautioned. "If you don't do that, then half the people in the Democratic Party whose candidate doesn't win the nomination will believe they have been cheated." Dean wants to avoid an angry split and possible walkouts at the convention.
Republicans wouldn't mind that. The governor of Florida is a Republican and a John McCain supporter. "Ideally, we want the votes already cast to be counted," Gov. Charlie Crist said. "On January 29, we had a record turnout."
Yes, but there was something odd about the Florida and Michigan results. In both states, more Republicans than Democrats voted. In 25 of 30 states that have already held primaries this year, the opposite was true: More Democrats voted. The exceptions, along with Florida and Michigan, were Arizona, where home-state voters came out for McCain; Utah, where Mormon voters came out for Republican Mitt Romney; and Alabama, where Southern Baptists came out for Republican Mike Huckabee.
A lot of Florida and Michigan Democrats didn't bother to vote, because the national party said that the results of their rule-breaking primaries wouldn't count. There was no Democratic presidential campaign.
Nevertheless, during a hastily scheduled stop in Detroit on March 19, Clinton said, "We need to either count the votes that have already been cast in Michigan and Florida, or have new, full, and fair elections." She called on Obama to accept a plan for a makeup primary in June that was then pending before the Michigan Legislature.
On February 8, Obama said, "If there's a way of organizing something in [Michigan and Florida] where both Senator Clinton and I can compete and we have enough time to make our case before the voters there, then that would be fine with me."
Plenty of Democrats in Michigan and Florida are upset. Last week, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a Clinton supporter, said, "We're pretty sensitive about our votes being taken away from us. Remember all of that fiasco we went through in 2000. And the Republican Legislature changed the [primary] date in violation of the rules. Now the Democratic national party is taking it out on Florida, and they are denying us the one-person, one-vote principle of having your vote count as intended."
The broader the participation, the more likely the outcome will favor Clinton.
Plans floated for Florida and Michigan do-overs have raised issues of fairness, especially if the results determine the nominee. Some Democrats have proposed giving every Florida and Michigan delegate half a vote -- to make sure that Florida and Michigan are included inthe convention but don't determine who wins. The Clinton camp has rejected that approach as -- you guessed it -- unfair.
