My Voting Strategy – Democracy

Following the My Voting Strategy Series, here is my own:

E. B. White: Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.

George Orwell: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

George Washington: As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

Jesse Jackson: In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.

John Bright: Demand the ballot as the undeniable right of every man who is called to the poll, and take special care that the old constitutional rule and principle, by which majorities alone shall decide in Parliamentary elections, shall not be violated.

Talk to the hand ’cause the DNC don’t understand

Talk to the hand cuz the face don't understand!

Despite Obama having an endorsement lead, the RBC/DNC and Obama campaign still have yet to give back those 4 Hillary delegates from Michigan, plus 600,000 “uncommitted” votes which violates the DNC’s rule of “Fair Reflection.”  If anyone has any news on the extra 4 MI delegates the RBC took from Hillary, please post it in the comments and I’ll update this post.

Here’s how AP is reporting it:

Dems give Michigan and Florida full voting rights

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 7 minutes ago

DENVER – Democratic delegates from Michigan and Florida were awarded full voting rights at the national convention Sunday, despite holding early primaries against party rules.

The convention credentials committee voted unanimously to restore the voting privileges at the behest of Barack Obama, the party’s presumptive nominee for president. The states were initially stripped of delegates for holding primaries before Feb. 5. The party’s rules committee restored the delegates in May, but gave them only half votes.

Democrats hope the gesture will strengthen their standing in two important battleground states while ending a contentious chapter of the nominating process.

“The only way we will be successful is if we are unified as a party and all Democrats know we are full partners,” said Chris Edley Jr., a committee member from California who introduced the resolution to restore Florida’s votes.

The party’s move raises questions about whether it will be able to control its primary calendar in the future. A commission will work on the issue over the next two years.

Representatives from Florida and Michigan said they were penalized enough. None of the major candidates campaigned in the states before the primaries, and the delegates’ votes weren’t restored until after the nomination was decided.

“We realize that mistakes have been made, but we’re excited in Florida,” said Scott Maddox, a former Florida Democratic chairman and a member of the credentials committee. “We have suffered enough.”

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan called Sunday’s vote “a victory for change in the system.”

Levin has been working to challenge the early voting status of Iowa and New Hampshire.

“We had the guts to take the system on, and we made progress this year,” he said.

Obama’s former Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, won both primaries. Obama’s name was not on the Michigan ballot and neither candidate campaigned in Florida.

Some of Clinton’s supporters were outraged that the delegates were not fully reinstated in May. They were also angry that Obama claimed some of the delegates won by Clinton in Michigan.

Obama clinched the Democratic nomination June 3 and he has been working to win over Clinton’s supporters ever since.

The credentials committee’s work is expected to win ratification by the whole convention Monday.

Florida has 211 delegates, including superdelegates, and Michigan has 157. Both states are expected to be battlegrounds in the November election.

Restoring their voting rights increases the total number of delegate votes at the convention to 4,419. It will take 2,210 delegates to win the nomination.

Obama ended the primaries with a 365-delegate lead over Clinton. Reinstating the Florida and Michigan delegates will not affect that lead because Obama has more endorsements from the states’ superdelegates.

I stand by my Floridian voter’s opinion:  

If a bank robber was caught stealing money and at their trial, they made a plea bargain to give most of the money back – it still doesn’t exculpate them from the crime they committed.  The robber should be punished regardless.  PUMA was formed to protest the DNC’s hijack of Democracy.  We want Democracy back in the Democratic Party, and you will not get our support and votes until our Democratic leaders start acting Democratically again. 

In Florida, our votes are used like toilet paper since 2000, and since the DNC’s leadership mostly ignores its voter base, they thought the best way they can win an election is by copying the Rove playbook.   How about counting our votes and LISTENING to your voters for a change?   Everytime they do listen, Democrats win the General election.  Had Ted Kennedy been the 1980 DNC candidate, Reagan would have never won nor started the Neo-Conservative movement.   I still resent that the Democratic leadership did not fight for Al Gore’s votes in 2000, had they fought like their Democratic voter base asked and pleaded them to, we would not have 8 years of the most destructive presidential administration in this country’s history. 

We put our trust in a party that we thought valued and represented Democracy and that would fight for our votes and for clean and transparent elections processes.   But since they won’t fight for Democracy, we will.

What happened on May 31st, 2008 was a crime against Democracy.  4 delegates and 600,000 votes were STOLEN in order to cushion Obama’s popular vote and delegate pile.   Had Obama won fair and square, if he had a popular vote lead (which Hillary does and Obama doesn’t)  and had won his delegates without the caucus fraud and DNC/RBC fiasco on May 31st, we’d be a united party. 

As far as I’m concerned, this changes nothing.  We still have an illegitimate candidate that won through illegitimate means.   And PUMA will continue to be a consciousness that lives in all of us here at this little corner of the blogosphere until Democracy is back in the Democratic Party.

As Carol Diamonds says: PUMA HAKA!

¡Que viva los PUMAs!  (Long live PUMAs!)

PS: Gary & Mawm updates coming soon!  PUMAMobile is somewhere near Kansas.

RBC Meeting Live Blog- Thread 3

This is a continuation of garychapelhill’s live blogging direct from the RBC meeting in Washington, DC. While we wait for Gary to look up from the previous thread and migrate here, feel free to update us with your own thoughts in the comments.

Have at it, Conflucians.

2:30–I see that there is a new thread. Hope I’m not too late. “Disenfranchising voters is not the American way!”. We should have questions coming up and then LUNCH, yeahhh! Question from Hines(sp?) Does Clinton support MI party proposal? No she does not. Does not agree that primary was flawed. Does say that they should not have been allowed to remove their names as Florida disallowed. Hines ask if there should be rules on timing. He says they should rotate the schedule. Hines says the rules are products of years of study, doesn’t he believe in the rules? Blanchard says rules shouldn’t disenfranchise voters. Clinton did not have anything to do with timing, so question “would you do it the same way” is not valid. I know you guys would love it here. I keep hearing people muttering “but what about the rooooolz????” Proposal of another allocation other than actual vote will “be a mountain to climb”. Clinton is pretty much giving him the uncommitted. “but some may switch back, you never know”. He meant SD’s. I haven’t heard anything about this, but is it a foregone conclusion that all SD’s will be restored? Now this guy says that it trivialized 2000 to compare this primary to it. Blanchard says the right of voters trumps all. It is not trivial. Again with the “what about the people who didn’t vote?”. That is truly embarrassing. Oh no, Donna Brazille. She doesn’t consider ignoring voter rights disenfranchisement. Didn’t he already answer that question about whether he supports the MI party plan? Maybe she fell asleep. “My momma said I’ll give you something to take home. to play by the rules”. what a hack. She is getting heckled by the audience.  Ickes is up last.  That’s it for now. We will pick up later, if there is going to be an afternoon session.  Thanks for everyone’s participation!  Now I’m going to eat lunch!!!!!!  We’ll be back at 4:15