My governor, Jon Corzine, is going to make sure that my vote counts. The delegates of the state of NJ will count for nothing without the critical mass of the Florida delegation and if we add Michigan as well, the more the merrier. I think that is what makes me incensed about this whole disenfranchisement debacle. By enforcing the RULZ, Dean, Brazile and Obama are screwing CA, NJ, NY, MA, AZ, TX,OH , FL and MI and a bunch of other states. Our votes are being held hostage to Idaho and Utah. It’s outrageous. The total delegate count won’t change much but, by golly, without FL and MI, Obama looks like he’s got more delegates when he doesn’t.
So, what about it, Barry? Do you want to waive the rules or have a do-over and lose again? This time you can campaign and we’ll see just how much Florida loves you for throwing out their original votes. And let’s face it, no matter who funds this do-over, you will have just wasted their hard-earned money from January when they bought the *first* primary.
Thanks to Governors Corzine and Rendell, who are looking out for their constituents’ interests. We stand in Solidarity with Florida and Michigan.
Filed under: New Jersey Politics, Presidential Election 2008 | Tagged: Ed Rendell, Florida, Jon Corzine, Michigan, NJ, PA, primary |
The Confluence 
This is the week I’ve been waiting for. All February (the Dark Month) I kept asking people who claimed that Hillary was hopelessly behind if they realized that she WON FL & MI — two states whose delegates were being ignored.
They’d babble something about the RULZ and I’d ask if they really thought we could hold the convention without those 2 states or any two states. RULZ again. That’s all I got. It was like talking to crazy people. Honestly — it’s an impossible concept.
What I’ve never understood is that IF we’re going to seat delegates from FL & MI, why did/does it make more sense to ignore the January Primaries than count them (even as estimates.) It’s not like we’ve got exact numbers from other states — ALL the caucus states are estimates. And the total delegates needed should absolutely be reported.
February was a horrible month. But it seems like we’ve woken up for March. Now all but the dimmest bulbs say we’ve got to do something about FL & MI.
Do you feel better? I do. Thanks for putting it all together for us.
I feel a *bit* better. It remains to be seen whether Barry will take what he’s already seen behind door number 1 or whether he will risk it all for what Carol Merrill is hiding behind door number 2. If number 1, he loses a little but he ends up looking good. If 2, he’s a bigger loser and Floridians hate his guts.
At this point, it has to be one or the other. Waiting until the convention is testing everyone’s patience with Barry and Dean and enforcing the RULZ is not an option.
Sen. Obama really is screwed. At first I thought that if he made a quick decision this whole issue would just disappear from the national narrative and he would have a couple of months of making up the damage that has happened. But, if the FL and MI votes happen in June and he loses both, he’s toast. His best hope is to go for the primary revote and have it done as soon as possible. Otherwise this is just a lose, lose situation for him.
The Confluence is on a roll!
Yesterday, Riverdaughter was specifically mentioned among “The Few, the Proud…the Clinton Bloggers” by Tom Watson.
Today, prominently feature on Hillary Hub about her take on PA.
Way to go.
I agree he’s screwed lisadawn82. If I had to be in his position I would try to resolve the matter quickly so that it gets as little attention and media coverage as possible. The more importance the Clinton campaign can place on these two states the worse he looks when he loses. I would actually have chosen to waive the rules and try to make up for those losses later. It would’ve made Obama look good for compromising even when he wasn’t on the MI ballot (even though he took his name off but apparently the MSM don’t care about that detail), he could’ve made the Clintons look like cheaters, and he could save everyone some money and use that to try and win some future big state primaries. Instead everyone is being forced to watch this play out and he could (and probably will) lose more by having a do-over. It just looks really bad when you have to lose twice and possibly by greater margins. Barry should just take his uncommitted votes because that will probably give him more delegates in the end since those uncommitteds include Edwards supporters.
DisenfranchisedVoter, I totally agree with you. All through February, I couldn’t figure out why Obama didn’t push to seat those delegates as is. It would have made him look like a statesman (for the good of the party) AND it would have proved that he could win even with those states in her column. AND it wouldn’t have affected his momentum at all.
I think that just as Clinton might have made a tactical error in thinking it would be over On Feb.5, Obama made a tactical error in thinking it would be over on March 4.
But Clinton’s had a full month to recover and Move On. Obama doesn’t have the luxury of time. Events are moving fast now and it doesn’t look like his team can keep up.
Absorbing the current delegations is probably his best hope, but he won’t look nearly as good doing it now as he would have a month ago.
it’s all about shelf life now.
I agree with everybody who says Obama has really messed up here. Clinton has him on the defensive about this issue and it will continue to dog him. With NJ chiming in, I expect more states to start screaming that MI and FL should either be counted or have a revote.
Many of the Obamabots are shooting their candidate in the foot. I know many who refuse to count MI and FL no matter what anyone else thinks. Then there are some who would rather have a do-over which their candidate is actually dreading. They probably think that their candidate would at least have a chance of winning if their is a do-over but they don’t think about what happens if their messiah really can’t win in these two states. Clinton will gain a lot of momentum from those two wins along with increased validation and a more legitimate argument going into the convention that she is still the candidate big and swing states want.
MABlue, thanks for the news. I just checked.
Wow. Don’t we have a great blog here? Thanks Riverdaughter.
This is great news, riverdaughter. Of course my governor is an Obama guy, so he won’t help make our votes count.
I agree with all of you that Obama has really screwed up. I’m surprised he has been so slow to realize that he’s screwed.
As for the big bloggers, some of them were saying early on that FL and MI would have to be seated eventually, but now they seem to have forgotten all about those long ago days when they could think straight. It is going to be fun watching this.
DV– At dkos, they are clueless about this. I agree with you that they think Obama might win the revote. If I had already voted and was told I had to do it again, I wouldn’t be too happy with the people who were making me do it. But these people just cannot comprehend that most Democrats don’t hate Hillary and don’t worship Obama like they do.
DisenfranchisedVoter- I agree with you. I think the problem that a lot of the Obama supporters are having is that they do not fundamentally agree that Clinton has any claim to the SD support based on the fact that she will win the ‘ votes cast’ and ‘large swing state’ tests. They are blinded into thinking that the delegate count is the only thing that counts. Increasingly, others realize that many factors will be considered by the SDs and that Hillary is building a stronger case with re-voting and that Obama is weakening his case.
Great post. In addition, the rules of the 2008 delegate selection are suddenly getting a lot of space on the intertubes as well, highlighting the inherent hypocrisy of not following the rules for 3 of the early 4 states, and that they went beyond rules by stripping all delegates, instead of the agreed upon half. Once that gets MSM time, it’ll be over for Obama, Dean, and Donna Bazile. They will be publicly branded the machine they are.
This is OT, but did you all see the post over at Taylor Marsh on Linda Hirschman, a writer who was dumped from TPM, apparently because she wrote articles about women voters and their preferences? She wrote to ask why, and the end of the e-mail exchange was this:
“I’m not sure the accusation of bias is particularly helpful. For now, like I said, we’re focusing on getting our long-standing regulars and folks covering things we don’t on the blog. I recognize that you think female voters should be one of those things, we disagree.”
Unbelieveable!!
http://www.taylormarsh.com/
BB: At my present location, TaylorMarsh’s blog crashes my browser. But I will elevate your comment if you don’t mind. That is very significant and shows exactly want TPM thinks of us.