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OK, looks like it's time for Maria's Reality Check on FL & MITM
You want the Democratic nominee to win in November, right? Then why in the hell would you try to antagonize the voters in two big states? And trust me, voters -- especially in Florida -- are EXTREMELY PISSED. How do I know this? I know this because I've been speaking to hundreds of them weekly (on behalf of the DNC, the DSCC and the DCCC) for nine months now. I talk to the ones who give thousands to these groups, but mostly I talk to the ones who give $15 or $20 a year. And they don't give a rat's ass about how or why -- they just want their votes to be counted.
They feel like it's 2000 all over again. (Anyone else see the brilliant HBO movie Recount this weekend?) It was the Florida Republican legislature who moved up the election, not the voters. The voters themselves feel hurt and abandoned.
Also, go back and look at contemporaneous accounts back in August and you'll see that everyone (pols and media) assumed that the votes would eventually count because everyone knew that you couldn't afford to just piss away a couple of big states.
Moreover, look at the official long-standing DNC rules and you'll see that the punishment for defying the DNC was never taking away all the votes -- it at best suggests taking away half.
You assume -- probably correctly -- that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee in November, no? What possible good comes out of knee-capping his candidacy? Because that's what the Democratic Party will be doing if they give the finger to the VOTERS by disenfranchising them. That's how THEY see it and it doesn't matter if YOU don't see it that way.
It would behoove Obama to make nice to these voters, be the big man -- even if it means that Hillary can make claims to a popular vote win -- by embracing the Florida, and yeah, even the Michigan delegate count. He can then go about making nice to blue collar voters, women and Hillary supports in general.
I'll be in DC this Saturday advocating just that -- because no matter what -- I don't want a President McCain.
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