FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN VOTES SHOULD BE COUNTED BUT WITH A SUBSTANTIAL PENALTY
THE POLITICAL PARTIES IN THOSE TWO STATES CHOOSE TO VIOLATE THE PRIMARY RULES ESTABLISHED BY THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE ALL THREE CANDIDATES SIGNED AN AGREEMENT TO ABIDE BY THE DNC RULING.
NOW HILLARY WANTS TO RENEGE ON HER COMMITMENT! IN NO WAY SHOULD THE PARTY BACK DOWN.
BY THE WAY—HILLARY SHOULD NOT BE ON THE TICKET WITH OBAMA. IT WOULD NEUTRALIZE THE EXCITEMENT OBAMA HAS GENERATED ABOUT BRINGING “CHANGE” TO WASHINGTON AND HE WOULD ALIENATE THE MILLIONS OF VOTERS WHO ARE GENUINE “HILLARY HATERS”
If Hillary Clinton or Terry McAuliffe, campaign chairperson for the Hillary Clinton crusade say once more that Hillary is ahead in the popular vote because the National Committee has not counted the popular vote in Michigan and Florida, I will regurgitate.
She is giving the impression that she is persecuted, when, in fact, she should be prosecuted for violating a “contract” she signed but is now endeavoring to circumvent as her victory in the Democratic primaries is suffering a slow, but certain death.
On August 6, 2006, the DNC voted that no primary could be held prior to the Iowa Caucus, and the New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina primaries or February 5, 2008.
All of the Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination for president signed an agreement that they would not campaign in those states which contrary to the National Committee Rules moved their primaries prior to the Iowa Caucus, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina primaries would not have their votes counted nor their delegates seated at the national convention in Denver.
Michigan democrats voted to move their primary to January 15, 2008 in order to enhance their state’s importance in influencing the selection of the party’s presidential nominee.
On December 1, 2007, the DNC voted to strip Michigan of all of its votes and denied its delegates seats at the Democratic National Convention in August, 2008.
On October 9, 2007 because Michigan voted to violate the DNC rules, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and John Edwards—all withdrew from the Michigan Primary ballot. Kucinich tried but failed to remove his name, but Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd chose to have their names remain on the ballot. On December 10, 2007, the Michigan DP issued a press release stipulating that their primary would be conducted on January 15, 2008.
Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinch and “uncommitted” were the only names that remained on the Michigan ballot.
Basically the same story holds true for Florida. In the spring of 2007, the Florida Legislature overwhelmingly voted to hold its 2008 primary on January 29, 2008. In response the Rules and By-Laws Committee of DNC gave the State of Florida thirty days to rescind its recently passed date for holding its state primary. The State did not respond.
The DNC gave Florida the same penalty it imposed upon Michigan.
However, this time Hillary Clinton pulled a fast one. Having signed the pledge with all of the other candidates not to campaign in those states in violation of the DNC rules, on January 25, 2008 she suddenly began to press the DNC to allow the Florida delegates along with those of Michigan to be seated and permitted to vote at the National Convention in spite of the DNC ruling.
Her statement read: “We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process.... We believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role. Thus, we will be signing the pledge to adhere to the DNC approved nominating calendar.”
Hillary Clinton violated her commitment. Obama’s name did appear on the Florida ballot because the state party placed it there, but he did not campaign in that state as the pledge he made required. But he did not campaign in the state as promised.
Hillary’s name remained on the Florida ballot and the Michigan ballot contrary to Party rules and now, because she won the popular vote in Florida where Obama did not campaign and the Michigan vote where Obama’s name did not even appear on the ballot, she is counting the raw popular vote as legitimate figures to be added to her national total of the popular vote.
This is pure acquisitiveness. She knew, in fact, she publicly admitted that the votes in those two states were not going to be counted; however, that was when she was assuring everyone that she was the presumptive nominee and that the nominee would be selected by February, 2008.
For the same reason, her campaign choose not to campaign in those states that held only caucuses. She assumed she did not need the votes from the caucus states to capture the nomination. What a terrible blunder; if her management style in the White House would have resembled her management of her campaign, we can only give thanks that she will not win the nomination. In other words, if management of her campaign is any indication of how she would run the country, this lady requires an MBA in management before she tries again for such an important office.
Obama went into every state, campaigned in every primary and every caucus state with the idea of accumulating as many pledged delegates as he could engender.
Hillary’s failure to do likewise was the biggest miscalculation of her campaign. It was her arrogance that brought her down. It was the attitude that she was the presumptive Democratic Party nominee that turned people off and gave Obama a free ride via the caucus states where he sought the vote of every registered Democrat by assuming nothing and taking nothing for granted.
The other irony is that her campaign staff was so self-assured that she would win the prize by February, 2008 that they only raised enough money for the campaign through the February cluster of primaries. In fact, she ran out of money by the end of January because Obama’s unbelievably successful money raising efforts delivered millions of dollars in unexpected quantities that his war chest was overflowing.
His crowds were topping hers two to one. In some states he set records by attracting the largest throngs of people anyone had ever seen at a political rally.
There is no question that in spite of the rule violations by the States of Florida and Michigan, the registered Democrats have a right to have their voices heard and a right to have delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention in August. The question is how?
Personally, I believe that they should simply divide the total number of delegates provided for in each of the two states and divide them in half.
This quandary must be resolved quickly so that Obama can get on with the fall campaign. McCain has been on the campaign trail all to himself. The longer it goes on the less time Obama will have to present his case to the voters of the country and allow the American voters to become thoroughly acquainted with him. In this set of circumstances, Obama is not familiar to millions of our citizens. Somehow we have developed this crazy idea that just because someone has his name and picture in the newspaper or on the television screen that everyone knows him. That simply is not the truth.
According to a study on advertising conducted eons ago when there were only three television channels available in each market, a viewer must see a man’s photo and hear a man’s voice twenty-one (21) times before he could remember the name and the voice.
Today, with one hundred fifty five (150) channels and more available on a satellite hook up, it takes even more exposures for the viewer to recall the message.
Clinton is a household name because she has been on the political stage since first Bill ran for office in Arkansas in 1977. As she likes to say, she has been vetted; Obama has not.
Her name is known in every home in the country and most of the homes in the world. Her husband was president for eight years; Hillary was the first lady. She is either hated or loved.
Comparatively speaking, Obama is a neophyte. And when one takes into account that the less educated, those living on a limited income tend not to read the newspaper and not to watch/listen to the evening news, it is easy to see why Obama is has had problems reaching the blue collar worker, those with a high school education or less, and living in a home with a household income of $50,000 or less in states such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Texas and Pennsylvania, Obama has not faired as well as he has in states where he had a chance to allow himself to be more widely known.
You will note that the more time Obama has to work in most states, the bigger his vote count. It is only those states with a history of poor education, poverty and cultural isolation, where race grows like fungus on a spoiled apple that he seems to have a problem with his ethnic background.
Barack Obama is half black (his father was born in Africa) and half White (his mother was born in Kansas). He came from poverty. His grandparents who raised him worked multiple jobs to earn enough money to provide food and shelter. The only reason that Hillary Clinton dares call Barack Obama an elitist is to take the focus off of her own background which includes the fairly wealthy suburbs of Chicago that allowed her to attend Wellesley and Yale and to practice corporate law in the biggest law firm in Arkansas.
The other factor that seems to have played in many of the states listed above—race--has played a bigger issue in these states than most of us would like to believe. Even the cable and television networks have hesitated to use the word “racist.”
A lady from Florida said to me with a straight face, “You know he is a Muslim. Hamas as endorsed him. And besides that, the first thing he will do is appoint Jesse Jackson to some big high paying job that should go to a qualified White man.”
We really must stop fooling ourselves on the question of race. The less money people make, the less education, the closer they survive from the poverty line or the more sheltered they have lived their lives relative to travel, work, exposure to people of other countries and other races, the greater the degree of prejudice their minds produce.
In West Virginia and Kentucky it is likely that while thirty percent of the Democrats who voted admitted that race played a role in their vote against Obama, the percentage was nearly fifty percent when their answers to other questions were factored into the equation
There is nothing Obama can do to expunge the racism that stains the minds and hearts of those who are prejudiced without reason against a man of color. With the election five months away, the one thing that he can do is bring his campaign to the people who are strangers to the people of other races, in their streets, homes, fairs, carnivals, and country courthouses. Not to turn the campaign into a 19th century run for office, but he must give these people who are totally unfamiliar with blacks “an up close and personal” view of him and his plans for this country. He must allow them to get to know the man behind the dark skin; his humanity, his marvelous sense of humor, his ability to talk to them one on one and the fact that he was reared just as they were reared. He was born poor. He is not an elitist. He is a good person who not only talks about Christianity, but is a true believer who lives his religion in the plans he has to change Washington, to give the nation’s capital back to the people after driving the lobbyists out of the temple of democracy. When they learn to know him, they will trust him just like 70% of the people of Illinois who voted for him in his election to the U. S. Senate, like the people of Virginia, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Iowa—all across the country have made him their choice for President of the United States.
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