On January 25, Hillary Clinton said she will work to seat Michigan and Florida delegates to the Democratic National Convention, but shortly afterwards, Barack Obama’s campaign criticized her for that stand. John Edwards’ campaign has not yet commented on the issue.
Florida has 210 delegates, and Michigan has 156 delegates, out of the total of 4,048 delegates. The Democratic National Committee had said those two states may not have any delegates, because they broke national party rules on the timing of their presidential primaries. Clinton said, “I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan. I know not all of my delegates will do so.”
Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe responded by saying, “It seems like Hillary Clinton will do or say anything to win an election.” See this story about the Obama campaign’s response. Thanks to Tony Roza for this news.
The Democratic people of Florida deserve to have their vote counted and be fo value…If our vote stands for nothing in the Democratic party of Florida, then we will move to the Republican party (would prefer Independent, but they also seem to have no real vote in this state either!!!)
Sorry about that 2nd response. I guess I hit the wrong key.
As I recall, the major Democratic Presidential nominees agreed not to appear on the ballot in both Michigan and Florida because they both moved their primary up. It was Hillary’s campaign that snuck her name on in the end but said it didn’t matter as the delegates won’t be seated. Since she won the vote in Michigan, and probably will in Florida too, it’s no wonder that now she’s changing her mind. I think this was her game plan all along to snare all of the delegates. She is nothing but a cheat and a liar and confirms to me why she shouldn’t be elected President.
I guess that 2nd response never posted after all. Tough night on the keyboard!
Every important Democratic candidate is on the ballot in Florida. Florida law says they all go on automatically if they are mentioned in the news media. They can’t get their name off unless they swear they aren’t running for president generally.
So the Florida Democratic ballot is inclusive, unlike the Michigan Democratic ballot.
Okay, I stand corrected on who is included in the Florida primary. However, I would still contend that you can’t seat one state’s delegates and not the other as they both broke the rules. And you can’t seat both state’s delegates because Michigan was not an all inclusive primary. In addition, Florida’s results will be skewed because very little campaigning was actually done in the state by the Democratic candidates since they were under the assumption that the Florida delegates wouldn’t matter as they wouldn’t be seated. It’s very conceivable that the results would have been different if the candidates were given the okay to campaign.
The question of whether or not the Florida and Michigan delegations should be seated in Denver, is important, the positions of the various campaigns on this question is not.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) made an egregious and unwarranted error in its decision to suspend the Florida and Michigan delegations to the national convention.
In both of these states, the State Legislatures set the date of the Presidential Primaries. Under the constitution, the State governments alone have this authority.
The Florida and Michigan delegations to the Democratic Convention in Denver should be seated- in toto- in accordance with the preferences stated in the respective primaries.
The decisions of the other candidates not to place their names in contention in these states were made in same circumstances under which Clinton decided to place her name on the ballot.
The primary voters who supported Hillary Clinton in the Michigan and Florida primaries deserve to be counted.
That various campaigns decided to support the DNC, and boycott the primaries is simply irrelevant.
Robert Chapman
Lansing, NY
No, they don’t deserve to be counted. I’d be one of the first people to say that I don’t like the fact that two small states get to have their primaries before every other state as it serves no real purpose and has the effect of making the voters in all of the other states second class citizens. The fact is, however, due to the moving up of the Michigan and Florida primaries, it was agreed upon by ALL of the major Democrat Party candidates not to list their names in Michigan, and not to campaign in Florida. Hillary was a party to these agreements and then broke one several days before the filing deadline in Michigan, and is now breaking the second by campaigning in Florida. The DNC should take note of this and make sure that she doesn’t benefit from these conniving actions by making sure the delegates from these two states are not seated. I see from your post that you are from New York (as am I), so I get the sense that you want these delegates seated since she will pick up most of them. However, I can’t help but wonder what Hillary would say if Obama was ahead in the delegate count and only needed the amount of delegates that he would pick up in Florida, and those uncommitted in Michigan who would openly commit to him, in order to clinch the nomination on the first ballot? Would she be so eager to have the delegates from these two states seated under that scenario? I seriously doubt it.