March 18, 2008
A Hillary Clinton Delegate Who Hasn't Changed Her Mind, On Why Florida Delegates Should be Seated
Seattlest grew up in a very small town in Central Florida. In our immediate area, we could count seven colleges. That doesn't include the University of Miami or Florida State, UWF, UNF, USF, the Art Institutes, and other colleges and universities (Obama's demographic). Florida is not, contrary to popular belief, peopled entirely by retirees (Clinton's demographic). Most of the folks around our small hometown are very blue collar, there are a lot of fern farmers and teachers, churches. It is, in our memory, a very conservative area.
And yet, when Florida voters went to the polls in January, they voted for Hillary Clinton. 857,208 of them voted for Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton received over 100,000 votes more than John McCain did in the state of Florida. She beat Barack Obama fair and square with 50% of the vote to his 33%. Bam!
The Democrats won 1.6 million votes, versus the Republicans' 1.9 million, meaning nearly 4 million voters turned out in the state of Florida. In a primary that "didn't count". If we're going to follow the will of the people in terms of superdelegates, why must we ignore the will of the people in terms of popular vote? How can Barack Obama possibly get away with claiming the majority of the popular vote when he's lost in all the major states, including Florida, where he lost by 17 percent?
photo courtesy of Seattlest flickr user ntisocl
We're quoting numbers because, here in Washington, where we're taking our superdelegates so seriously, a whopping 30,000 2-300,000** democrats caucused. Big whoop. Despite the candidates actually stepping foot in our state on several occasions, commercials being run on TV and radio, signs in front yards, demonstrations and gatherings, phone banking and all the stuff that happens in a campaign, 30,000 2-300,000** democrats bothered to show up. That's a pathetic fraction of the population of the state's largest city. Record turnout, whatever, our votes count. Our superdelegates count. Our delegates count, despite the fact that 0.6% 3% of our state (that includes republicans) gave a damn and caucused.
And yet, our state is having more of a say in choosing our next president than one of the largest swing states in the nation? What the hell? When this Seattlest heads to our county caucus in a few weeks, where we've been sent by our neighbors as a delegate for Hillary Clinton, we'll know that, along with the other delegates, we'll be representing less than 1% of the state we now call home. Meanwhile, the place we grew up, where nearly 22% of the people voted, will be ignored.
Dear Howard Dean: don't defy the will of the people. We understand rules are rules, but nearly two million people joining together to break the rules indicates maybe there's some consensus that it was a dumb rule. Don't punish the will of the people simply because their leaders did something stupid.
This is 2008, when voters are empowered by various forms of media and the internet to learn about their candidates. While we do really appreciate that the toughest job in the world has the toughest try-out process in the world, Florida voters were not aching for information about their candidates of choice. They turned out, they voted, their votes should be counted and taken as sincere. Period. Everyone we know in Florida meant their vote, why is it so hard to count them? Do what you must to punish the state party reps, but don't punish the will of nearly two million people. Let's do this fair and square and let every vote cast in sincerity count. For heavenssakes.
**Editor's Note: Well, dammit, those Washington numbers we quoted were state delegates, not total number of caucus goers. Nonetheless, with the 2-300,000 caucusers that did turn out, that still represents merely 3% of our state population, versus Florida's 22% turnout.
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Howard Dean and the DNC aren't disenfranchising the voters of Michigan and Florida; their own elected officials did that. Thems the breaks.
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uh, the old fashioned way. By adding up all the votes from all the states and seeing who has the most. Here's a summary that lets you include Michigan and Florida, or not, and include estimates from caucus states, or not. By every measure, he's won more votes. If you're going to say "a vote is a vote," how do you argue against that?
I suppose technically he's won a plurality, not a majority, since some votes have gone to other candidates, but he's definitely beating Hil by any popular vote measure you can come up with, isn't he?
I agree there should be some solution to FL/MI, but is "just seat them" really a fair one? People who stayed home because, as you say, rules are rules and they were told the vote was meaningless. I don't have a better solution, but if you're arguing for the principle of "one person, one vote," surely you've gotta account for that somehow, right?
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Audrey is correct: Florida brought this on themselves. They knew the rules and broke them anyway. How on earth can you expect illegitimate votes to count? Nobody campaigned there. Nobody aired ads there. It was a contest based on name recognition, which is a competition Clinton will win every time. There is no logical reason to seat the Florida delegates in full proportion to how the state voted. Perhaps they should be seated at the convention in order to pacify Floridians, but it is patently unfair to gift all of those delegates to Clinton.
Also: You have your facts wrong about our caucus turnout. The real numbers are closer to 300,000 than 30,000. I've read numbers around 250,000. Perhaps the number you used is from the Republican caucuses?
I also object to your implication that caucuses count less than primaries. Voting is voting is voting. There are no second class delegates, even if they are from a red state.
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Kim, I agree with you about Florida but I think that your numbers for Washington's caucus must be off. Are you sure that you aren't tallying the number of "delegate equivalents" instead of the total number of people who showed up at precinct caususes last month?
I remember hearing that about 200,000 democrats caucused in Washington. This rough guess is a small fraction of eligible voters (something like 14%), smaller than the number who participated in the pseudo-meaningless primary, and smaller than the number who voted in Florida, but still bigger than your 1% estimate. I do wish that the state parties would release "popular vote" tallies here, but I suspect that they don't because it would cause the caucus system to collapse.
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Bitterness doesn't change reality. The Florida delegates cannot be seated as-is, and the Florida party officials brought it upon themselves. That no one saw a tight primary race like this coming only goes to show how complacent we've become.
Them's the rules.
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i got my numbers from CNN, which shows that 21,000 voters caucused for obama, and 9,000 for clinton. i do agree that the state party leaders brought this on themselvess--the voters certainly didn't. and assuming florida voters were only voting on name recognition seems foolish. the race had been going on for a year already, and many debates had been televised.
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a simple search confirms the 200k turnout numbers, sloppy numbers coinciding nicely with sloppy logic.
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you know what, my bad. it took me ten times of looking at that damn page to see those are the number of state delegates. i knew my coffee wasn't adequate today! sorry yall, i'll fix it.
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The whole 2 party system is dumb. It's the party's will. They can do whatever they wish, however they wish. The people have no real power, just the illusion of it.
We're all the better to dealing with the reality of the 2 party system and thumbing our collective noses at them by redoing our primary system to allow the top 2 candidates - regardless of party - to go onto the general election.
Let's hear more about that, yeah?
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After the caucus I tried to pull together some numbers to get a sense of how voter turnout there compared with previous elections. (metblogs).
I'm not sure if measuring this turnout against state population makes the most sense for comparison with Florida as that only works if both states have the same proportion of the population eligible to vote. Either way, you're right that our bit of record-breaking self-congratulations after our caucus seems a bit misguided when put into perspective.
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Planning on fixing those numbers any time soon? The longer they are up, the more they get seen and believed.
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Kim, I don't want to pile on here, but I do have to agree that your logic is squishy.
Hillary did not win Florida "fair and square." No one had campaigned there and that does make a difference. As we've seen time and again, when people get to know Obama, they like him. Voters in Florida didn't have a chance to get to know him.
I know that the election and the candidates were old news for people like us when Florida voted. But unlike you and me, most people don't pay that much attention to election news until it gets to their doorsteps. In the generals, for example, the time between Labor Day and the November is key. Before that, most people skip that news.
So while Floridians might see something on CNN or Jon Stewart, but they weren't getting into the nitty gritty of messages, debates and what have you until it was too late for anyone to vote there. It is likely that many in Florida thought of Obama as that guy who gave that fiery speech at the Dem convention in 04.
All that said, there is also something to be said for not changing the rules in the middle of the game. It's a shame that Florida (and Michigan where, lest we forget, Hillary conveniently never got around to taking her name off the ballot) D's got screwed here, but the fix is not just to accept the results of that unfair vote blindly because the vote WAS unfair. The candidates expected the state's votes not to count in this fight, so did not fight for them. Awarding the delegates there to Hillary will be as unfair as not allowing the state to have a voice.
Finally, just to correct a misconception on the part of everyone here: Florida's Dem party is not to blame for this cock up. It was the state legislature (run by Rs) that changed the date of the primary. D's there tried to stop them, but couldn't.
Personally, I do disagree with the national party dinging the state party for something they couldn't help, and would be happy to see an equitable solution forged now, but just seating those delegates chosen unfairly at this point.... that's not it.
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maybe i'm not too bright, but i'm missing how the florida voters were voting unfairly. it was the leaders at the state level who screwed up--not the voters.
and the argument that, the more people get to know obama, the more they like them isn't necessarily true, either. i still don't prefer him as president, and i've watched and read obsessively for over a year now, really hoping that he would impress me at some point and turn me over to his favor. hasn't happened.
but, yeah, i'm not touching michigan. for me, the difference with florida is in the sheer amount of people who voted decisively, sincerely, with all their options in front of them on a ballot, regardless of what their stupid leaders thought, and, my guess is, figuring that their votes would come to be counted, anyway--that the suits would figure out a comprimise on the matter.
to just throw out 2 million votes is absurd. the playing field was even.
michigan is another story altogether. there needs to be a revote there, for sure!
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People in Florida should have the right to vote---to vote out the elected state officials who made the decision that rendered their primary meaningless. It's tough but fair. More here.
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It's not that the more people get to know Obama, the more they like him, it's more along the lines that many more people had actually heard of Clinton. And I hardly think that your singular experience of still liking Clinton over Obama means the same must be true for everyone else.
Also, this isn't an election for government office, this is an election among the democratic party to see who it chooses as its candidate. The democratic party sets the rules. We're not talking about a constitutional right to vote issue. If the democratic party wants to decide the next candidate based on drawing straws, it can. It'd be damn stupid and whoever voted for that change would no doubt be voted out office, but there it is. Obviously it would be best if Florida's candidates could be seated, but without a revote you're just letting a disobedient child get its way. In four years, you'll have 10 states trying to set their primaries in November or December the year before.
Anyway, thanks for changing those numbers. Now how 'bout removing those logical fallacies ;)
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wait, so my experience doesn't equal everyone's experience? what the fuh!?
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Where is Seth when you need him?
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You compound bad logic on top of bad logic.
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Yeah, this is pretty painful logic.
Have you thought through the implications if Florida delegates were sat? There are rules for a reason.