Amen…

Except the deed is done. There’s no putting the cat back in that bag…

We Democrats in 2000 waged a war in Florida for every dimpled and hanging chad we could to make sure every vote was counted, and Donna Brazile was leading the charge for Al Gore.

You mean that since he lost, Gore and the Democrats wanted to reinterpret every vote in a desperate attempt to invent enough votes to get Gore over the hump. Don’t attempt to sound all noble and such over this, it was dirty, backstabbing partisan politics, nothing else. If they were so concerned with the will of the voters, why did they go to court to disenfranchise military voters due to a technicality with the way APOs mark postal dates, and not work to, say, allow all the voters in the panhandle who were robbed due to the biased news media calling the election before the polls closed? Pure partisan spin there dan…

The vote right to vote is not anybody’s to take away.

Err, you do realize that there is absolutely no Constitutionally enshrined right to vote don’t you?

I agree that you dems are screwing yourselves, and it’s damned fun to watch. The sense of schadenfreude is overwhelming.

We democrats are screwing ourselves.

My aunt is upset that her vote in West Palm is meaningless,and she is staying home in the general election and will not vote for any democrat.

“Clinton Wants Florida and Michigan Delegates Seated at Convention”

Let’s re-phrase this to:

“Florida and Michigan voters want the right to vote.

In Pakistan yesterday, people were blown to pieces by suicide bombers as the stood in line to vote.

We Democrats in 2000 waged a war in Florida for every dimpled and hanging chad we could to make sure every vote was counted, and Donna Brazile was leading the charge for Al Gore. She invoked the struggle of years ago, when civil rights activists were hosed, beaten, and sometimes murdered because tried to register people to vote. I was happy that people like Ms. Brazile were out there reminding us that the right to vote was precious and sacrosanct in embracing the American dream.

I always thought the right to vote was absolute in America, but Howard Dean and Donna Bazile feel they have the right to nullify the votes of two million Floridians to settle a dispute with the Florida Democratic Party.

In determining a remedy, It’s not about who benefits from seating the delegates, or if the results of a new election would tip the scales in favor of any candidate. It’s not about any agreements made between Hillary, John, and Barack in the primary not to acknowledge the voters and their appointed delegates– it’s not their right to decide the fate of my vote.

A citizen’s vote is not a unit of measurement to be used as a poker chip in a game of chicken between the DNC and the Florida Democratic Party, or any other organization; it’s not about fairness to either of the candidates, and it’s not about an internal dispute over a date on a calendar.

IT’S ABOUT THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Florida’s noncompliance is not a just reason to cancel the meaning of two million votes.

Howard Dean’s and Donna Brazile’s power trip, denying Floridians the right to vote is creating the super delegate mess, and this power trip will fracture the Democratic Party for a generation.

It is true the Florida Republican legislature moved its primary date against the DNC bylaws; and it’s true that three democratic candidates agreed to null and void the votes of Floridians and the delegates those votes would harvest. Neither of these parties have immenent domain over my vote, and a Presidency of only 48 states is not a United States.

The number of people involved in this dispute couldn’t fill up a school bus, yet they’ve decided that two million voters will not be represented at the DNC convention, potentially altering the outcome of the nomination, and possibly the outcome of the general election.

Florida voters are caught in the middle of a hissing war where the DNC Chairman Howard Dean and Co-Chair Donna Brazile are not playing well with the Florida Democratic Party. This should not be the voters’ problem because the voters didn’t create this mess. If the DNC wants to punish the Florida Democratic Party, find another punishment, but do not shut out two million voices to settle an inter-organizational dispute- it is pure totalitarianism.

No third party/parties may take away a person’s right to vote, FOR ANY REASON. One vote or two million votes can not be taken away to serve the interests of the DNC.

When a voter goes to cast a vote for President, it is with the knowledge they will be represented according to who wins the popular vote in his or her district. A voter also accepts the absoluteness of two possible outcomes. One: The candidate will win and delegates will be ceded at the convention to vote according to the outcomes. Two: The candidate will lose and another candidate will receive the support of the delegates.

Florida voters had no say in moving the primary date, and their votes should carry the full weight of representative democracy to the floor of the convention. If the January 29 primary is dated and not an accurate representation of voters today, then Florida should have another primary.

If all the votes are not counted, the nominee, and possibly the next President, will have a legitimacy deficit…………like the president we have now, and it will again point to Florida.

If the interests of Florida are not represented, there is a strong case to exempt all Floridians from federal income taxes– Taxation without representation. By denying Floridian and Michiganers representation, less than 300 super delegates will determine the outcome of the Democratic Nomination, the most undemocratic way to choose a President in US history.

Howard Dean is on a power trip, and he needs to be removed from his post if he insists on denying any American equal representation at the DNC Convention.

The super delegates could be nuetralized by allowing new primaries in Florida and Michigan, and this could be settled long before the convention.

If Florida is NOT fully represented, no matter who the nominee, I will vote for Senator John McCain or stay home.

By the way, I voted for Obama, and have given money to his campaign. But my right to vote trumps the aspirations of any one candidate, and Dean and Brazile should damn well know this.

The best thing for both states would be to hold new primaries, but they’re quite expensive. I made a proposal on my blog that Florida and Michigan set up websites to solicit donations from their voters to fund new primaries. Based on the number of people who voted, I estimate that the costs could be covered if all Democrats donated $5-10. Additionally, the Clinton and Obama campaigns could kick in $1,000,000 toward each state to get the ball rolling.

See LINK for more details.

Voter “intent”? How in the name of Heaven can journalists and Democrat politicians – who have demonstrated a long history of blatant, self-serving partisan lying – determine that? Did they take Mind Reading 101 in college?

Let’s be clear – there is no such thing as “determining voter intent”. Never was. Those who argue that it exists and can be used to count scratched chads, hanging chads, dangling chads, dimpled chads, pimpled chads, etc. are simply looking to steal elections. Which raises the question: Is this America or Kenya?

Mike’s comments indicate to me that Democrats plan to pull a nationwide repeat of their failed theft in 2000. I suspect that if McCain does not win by 10 million votes or more, Democrats will succeed in stealing the Presidency.

And face it Mike, Bush won again in 04. That’s gotta sting eh?

Florida election law called for a recount in elections that close AND voter intent was to be taken into consideration.

Which is why the Democrats only wanted the recounts in selected areas where they completely controlled the recounting apparatus could decide the “intent of the voter” – which, amazingly, would have always been to vote for Gore.

Give it up, Mike…the Dems have a patent on vote fraud and political shenanigans, the Dems have a patent.

It also had a date that the election had to be certified even though recounts were called for. After the 3rd and 4th recount the date was there and the election had to be certified by law

The Democrats did not want to abide by the law and wanted to change the rules. Period.

Now…stupid or not, the Florida Law provided that “intent of voter” be taken into consideration (yes…it is stupid). The republicans, just like Hillary is doing today, wanted to change the rules of the game in mid stream, because the rules as they stood did not benefit them.

Now…speaking of total disregard fro the truth,……..get your facts straight skippy before jumping in over your head. What I stated is EXACTLY the truth.

BTW….Nice job electing “W”. He has done one HELL of a job during his administration. Too bad we cant have another 8 more years….he may just achieve the Armageddon that he and his holly roller friends so desperately want. That or he could manage to get gas prices up to $10.00 a gallon.

This smacks of 2000 when the republicans wanted to change the recount rules in Florida regarding voter intent, already in place, because a recount did not suite them. It was wrong to change the rules after the fact then, and it is wrong now.

Nice spin on the fact that the Democrats wanted to overturn Florida law thru the use of hand picked recounts, and it took the Supreme Court to force Florida to stick to the rule of law as outlined in the Florida Constitution.

Total disregard for the truth…

Same goes to the ‘Super Delegate” argument. It think the entire “super delegate” iea is a crock, but those are the rules as exist now. If Obama decides he wants to change the rules now because Hilary has more super delegate support than he does, then he is jut as wrong in that as she is in trying to get the delegates counted from Florida and Michigan.

And BTW….how do you try and justify seating Michigan delegates when Hillary was the ONLY Democrat on the ballot..??? The others were not on the ballot because the DNC said that the election would not be counted…as per THEIR rules. How much “choice” did those voters have? An election with one candidate? Some election.

Here is a scenario for Susan. Suppose Hillary (and you) are successful in changing the rules and counting the delegates from both states. Right now she has about 55% of the votes in Michigan (in Michigan around 45% are uncommited) and around 50% of the votes in Florida (with Obama getting 36 and Edwards getting 14). You have to assume that the 45% uncommitted in Michigan did not vote for Hillary for a reason, and will mostly support Obama. And n Florida if the Edwards delegates split 50/50 (I think Edward’s delegates are going heavily for Obama, but we will call it 50/50 for argument).
So best case for Hillary is that she picks up maybe 60% of the delegates in both states. So she picks up ground and closes the gap with Obama . Neither still has enough to nominate.

Now it comes down to the Super delegates. As the rues are now, the Super Delegates are free to vote as they please, regardless of the outcome in their state primaries. At present this helps Hillary enormously since a poll of the super delegates (mostly party insiders, congressmen, and Senators) has Hillary way ahead of Obama.

What if at this point Obama raises the issue unfairness of the super delegate rule since it has the effect of being able to reverse the wishes of the voters from individual states. (The state may go 60/40 for Obama, but if super delegates flip, Hillary, with 40% could end up winning more delegates due to “Super Delegate” rule. Remember…1 person 1 vote. The super delegate rule clearly violates this principle.

Now…I personally would tell Obama “tough luck”, those rules, as dumb as they are, were in effect prior to the election starting, you didn’t complain then..you sure can’t change them now.

You, on the other hand have already established that you have no problem changing rules mid stream. Would you then feel that Obama should be able to challenge the super delegate rule at this point since it has the effect of disenfranchising” the voters?

The DNC disagrees and wrote rules barring these delegates from counting.

Susan wrote, “The crime would be to not allow the delegates from those states to be seated.”

Let’s prosecute the DNC !

Susan wrote, “it should be directed at the state level, at the power that allowed the primary to be held on that date,”

Are you sure it wasn’t the voters that voted to move the primary?? In CA, we here voted for a few things with propositions. I’m betting those state’s voters did also…