--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > [...] > > In any case, when this all went down, nobody thought > > Florida and Michigan would *matter*; nobody knew the > > primary contest was going to be so close or last so > > long. Since it is and has, Florida and Michigan voters > > have been effectively disenfranchised by this ruling. > > That was not the intention originally. > > Well, yes it was. Everyone (including Clinton supporters) > believed that the primary process with "Super Tuesday" was > so important that they were willing to disenfranchise > florida and michigan Dems in order to keep the press and > voters focused on those S.T. states.
My point was that if the primary race had gone as expected, one candidate would have achieved a decisive victory well before this, such that Florida and Michigan's votes would have made no difference. In that context, it doesn't make sense to speak of the states' voters having been disenfranchised. As it is, with the race so close, their votes *would* make a difference if they could be counted. That wasn't anticipated, and it's undesirable for the party to alienate the states' voters, no matter which Democratic candidate they voted for, because they're big states that will be important in the general election. That's why the DNC is trying to figure out a way to mitigate the original punishment, even though it would benefit Hillary, which the DNC would rather avoid if it could. > Any state or states that bucked the Super Tuesday trend had > to be punished. Someone has quoted one of the major Clinton > campaign workers who was DNC chair a few years back warning > people that they WOULD be punished if they stepped out of > line on this issue. > > The timing of the primaries is a really big marketing issue > for the parties, especially for the Democrats. All true, and all entirely irrelevant to the point I was making. The timing of the primaries is designed to obtain a conclusive result as quickly as possible after as few primaries as possible. But in this situation, the way the DNC tried to implement that design came back to bite them in the butt because the race turned out to be so close and so prolonged. In a way, it's as if the Florida and Michigan primaries are now the *last* on the schedule, given that the decision as to what to do about the states' delegates won't be made until after all the other primaries are over. The original punishment is out the window for the reasons I stated.
