Florida Rejects Re-Vote
CNN is reporting it now.
More popcorn, please.
UPDATE: Courtesy of the New York Times, here is the statement from the head of the Democrat party in Florida:
Last week, the Florida Democratic Party laid out the only existing way that we can comply with D.N.C. Rules – a statewide revote run by the Party – and asked for input.
Thousands of people responded. We spent the weekend reviewing your messages, and while your reasons vary widely, the consensus is clear: Florida doesn’t want to vote again.
So we won’t.
A party-run primary or caucus has been ruled out, and it’s simply not possible for the state to hold another election, even if the party were to pay for it. Republican Speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio refuses to even consider that option. Florida is finally moving to paper ballots, which is a good thing, but it means that at least 15 counties do not have the capacity to handle a major election before the June 10th D.N.C. primary deadline.
This doesn’t mean that Democrats are giving up on Florida voters. It means that a solution will have to come from the D.N.C. Rules & Bylaws Committee, which is scheduled to meet again in April.
Being a Republican is fun again . . . for now.
I’m heading for Costco to get a pallet-load of Orville Redenbacher’s.
Old Coot (fafb85) — 3/17/2008 @ 4:31 pm*passes Patterico pop-corn and a beer*
God ain’t this great? Screw March Madness…
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 3/17/2008 @ 4:40 pmDamn, I’m running out of popcorn too…
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/17/2008 @ 4:44 pmmunch, munch, munch…
Paul (249390) — 3/17/2008 @ 4:52 pmYou know I’d feel an awful lot better about this if we had a Republican candidate I could actually support.
Skip (7ef1e3) — 3/17/2008 @ 5:04 pmYou guys are having entirely too much fun!
I’ll make a grocer’s run if you save me a seat there, ‘kay?
jim2 (f7c9d0) — 3/17/2008 @ 5:05 pmWhen thieves fall out honest men prosper.
nk (34c5da) — 3/17/2008 @ 5:05 pmIf they weren’t using all the corn to make ethanol there’s be plenty of popcorn to go around.
Stephen Macklin (f552f7) — 3/17/2008 @ 5:28 pmWould it be racist for me to ask if you have any caramel popcorn?
gahrie (56a0a8) — 3/17/2008 @ 5:45 pmBlessed relief!
Spoken as a Floridian who no longer faces the threat of political ads to ruin this spring.
BTW, off topic, but too good not to share:
kishnevi (a117ab) — 3/17/2008 @ 6:02 pmhttp://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20080304110429570
What the DNC will probably do in April is force the two candidates to agree to a 50/50 split of Florida’s pledged candidates. What they are really after is to put Florida’s superdelegates in play and generate enough votes that one or the other can close out the nomination before the convention. All they are doing now is burning up campaign contributions zinging each other, while McCain runs around looking presidential.
The net effect of a 50/50 split is the same as not counting the pledged delegates at all. That might be palatable to both sides.
Looming large are the 42 delegates belonging to Edwards (32) and other candidates (10). Can Edwards leverage his delegates for a VP nod? It might be that close.
Corky Boyd (d49a86) — 3/17/2008 @ 7:12 pmno, a split would still reduce the deligates they still need. Both would be a bit closer…
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 3/17/2008 @ 7:14 pmBrought more popcorn.
Have you seen the latest on the new NY governor? It’s on Drudge now. I think he’s another superdelegate ….
jim2 (f7c9d0) — 3/17/2008 @ 7:40 pmAs a conservative first and Republican somewhat down the pecking order, this mess with the Democrats does not thrill me. I’m too young to remember the ’68 convention in Chicago but I have read about it and I am worried that Denver ’08 will replace it as the icon of Convention Chaos. I hope that the schism only affects the top of the ticket and that the party does not split in two.
Someone needs to explain to me how the end of the Democratic Party in American Politics will lead to good times.
seaPea (d8e52c) — 3/17/2008 @ 7:59 pmseaPea, maybe someone will build a political party that acts like an adult out of the ashes.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/17/2008 @ 10:18 pmSomeone needs to explain to me how the end of the Democratic Party in American Politics will lead to good times.
It’d leave the field wide open for a great Whig resurgence?
Taltos (4dc0e8) — 3/17/2008 @ 10:27 pmButterfly ballot Democrats at work.
Perfect Sense (b6ec8c) — 3/18/2008 @ 12:41 amThe obvious solution for Florida is to retroactively approve the primary they already held, but award only half the delegates that would have been awarded if Florida had complied with the rules.
The problem that that solution is they’d be admitting that the Republican National Committee’s approach to states with gun-jumping primary dates — i.e., announcing in advance that the RNC would do exactly that, both for Florida and Michigan — was more fair and thoughtful than the Democratic National Committee’s approach.
I think the same approach would also work for Michigan, but it would be hard to still find genuinely “uncommitted” delegates, and a random selection of Michigan Democrats being named as “uncommitted” would presumably actually break for Hillary. But I’ve never heard a satisfactory reason to explain why Obama took his name off the ballot there; that wasn’t required by the DNC and Hillary didn’t do it, and in hindsight it looks like one of the most amateurish unforced errors of the Obama campaign. The, umm, moral hazard principle I’ve been hearing about so much lately suggests that he ought to have to pay the price for this foul-up.
Beldar (433d17) — 3/18/2008 @ 2:31 amseaPea:
Now that I’ve fixed your errors, I don’t think anyone needs to explain anything to you. No real conservative needs explained to him why we’d be better off with a two (or more) party system that doesn’t include the consistently anti-conservative one.
Xrlq (b71926) — 3/18/2008 @ 4:18 amMore from the DEMACROOK party you cant ever trust those scoundrels
krazy kagu (d7018c) — 3/18/2008 @ 6:44 amseaPea: There are factions within the Republican party that have been forced into very a uneasy coalition because the Democrats are so crazy and dangerous. Republicans know this, the strains showed clearly during the recent primary process. The various factions resent being forced into compromise by the threat of a Democrat takeover – but it has been clear to anyone watching that the Democrats have been completely out to lunch since the 60’s, totally untrustworthy in foreign policy (and pretty loopy in domestic policy also). The two Democratic presidents that got by since then confirmed this:
Carter was a stealth candidate that ran as a religious conservative, and then governed from the far left. He nearly gave away the store before his one term was up. Worst president in the last 100 years. (And as one wag put it, worst ex-president ever. Despite his many mistakes, he still does not have the sense to shut up, go away, and stop interfering in matters of consequence.)
Clinton ran and governed more as a centrist, and arguably tried to reform the Democrat party by pulling it to a more viable centrist position (DLC, etc.). He got his chance because of the so-called “vacation from history” after the fall of the Soviet Union; when foreign policy issues seemed less pressing. But, because of his personal weakness (Monica, etc), in his last years in office he had to hang on to support from anywhere he could get it, and this primarily came from the left, at a steep price. I think it was the last chance for the Democrats to reverse their self-destructive course to the far left. But, the chance was lost, and it is clear from the accelerating leftward lurch of the Democrats since 2000 that the point of no return has been reached.
(BTW, this also shows how selfish the Clintons are. If he had truly cared about the party, he would have resigned before impeachment charges were brought up, like Nixon did. If he had done this, President Gore would have had the incumbent advantage in 2000 and, barring major mistakes (and his personal leftward drift since then) would have been re-elected in 2000 and 2004. Gore would have had the opportunity to show an effective response to the events of 9/11 (which were going to happen no matter who was in office), and dispel a lot the the foreign policy deficit of the Democrats. The Democrat party through that period of time would of had to internalize the responsibility of actually governing, and marginalize the far left to retain power. But, that was not to be.)
If the Democrat party explodes on the national stage (with the nutroots heading towards the Green Party and electoral insignificance, and other parts heading off elsewhere), as is looking more likely, then there is a good chance that the Republican party would also fracture. In the recent primary, the face of religious/cultural right was Huckabee – who also espoused populist economic and “Christian” foreign policy positions that are completely incompatible with the fiscal conservatives, free-traders, right-libertarians, and a variety of more realistic foreign-policy positions of the rest of the Republican party. In fact, Huckabee is the very image of a conservative southern Democrat from before the 60’s, minus the racial bigotry.
But until that explosion happens, the Republicans are forced to band together to defend the nation from the America-hating left. That unnatural closeness and lack of freedom chafes, yes it does. May the need for it be over soon.
And the fact that you don’t get that, instinctively, proves you are a moby.
Eric E. Coe (662cd3) — 3/18/2008 @ 7:05 amRe:#19 and #21
first off , what is a “moby” ?
Xrlq, you have proved yourself to be an utter fool.
Eric E Coe: thanks for your response, which I believe supplemented my post. Your prediction’s are not too far off from my mind, except that I believe that the fissure will be accompanied by much violence, especially in the broken up Democratic Party side. While I doubt the GOP would come out whole either, I don’t think the split would be that much.
seePea (1b7002) — 3/18/2008 @ 3:54 pmBut you don’t seem to feel that this would not be a ‘good time’, which puzzles me.
seaPea, a “Moby” is someone who claims to be a “staunch Republican” to give false credibility to their criticisms of the GOP.
Named after the techno pop recording artist who urged people to post such fake comments on the internet.
Such people give themselves away usually by expressing ideological positions or assumptions that make it obvious that they are not very skilled at imitating people that hold opinions that they do not actually hold.
Your comments are an example.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/18/2008 @ 3:59 pmWell said, SPQR. They are pretty easy to spot. Drive-by comment. Odd desire to assert their bona fides where not required. Eloquently state the Lib position, and grossly distort the Republican.
JD (6a0a0b) — 3/18/2008 @ 4:04 pmre #23: ah, thanks. I never listened to techno-pop and my only exposure to Moby was a [i]Wired[/i] story a few years back of which I remember very little. I think he was doing online selling inside of just via labels. But it sounds like the stunt that some callers tried pulling on Rush’s show when he was just in NYC, prior to syndication.
But I don’t see how mentioning I am a conservative was superfluous and I explicitly stated that I am not a die hard Republican. Or is it just that since I bought up the view that all may not be rosey if the Democratic Party cracks up some people get disgruntled ?
seePea (1b7002) — 3/18/2008 @ 4:28 pmseePea:
Speaking of fools, wouldn’t it have made more sense to have waited until you knew what a moby was, before jumping to the conclusion that I was a fool for applying that label to you?
If you really were a conservative, the statement would be superfluous because it adds nothing to the debate, except to give yourself a false sense of objectivity. But since you’re obviously not a conservative, all it makes you is a moby.
Xrlq (62cad4) — 3/18/2008 @ 5:58 pm