Cleaning up Dean's big mess in FL - Tampa Bay Times Editorial

[1776Forever]

Cleaning up Dean's big mess
A Times Editorial
Published February 8, 2008

Howard Dean and the rest of the small-minded party hacks at the Democratic National Committee created this debacle. They are the ones who insisted their petty rules made Florida's presidential primary meaningless. Now it turns out a close race between two quality candidates could make our delegates awfully important in deciding the party's nominee. So it's up to Dean to figure out a reasonable fix for a fiasco he created.

One option that would be fundamentally unfair: allocating Florida's delegates based on the Jan. 29 vote to enable Hillary Clinton to win the nomination. That would be like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers deciding after the regular season they wanted to count a win in a preseason game so they could make the playoffs.

It was a nice gesture by Clinton to promise - after the state's polls closed and she clearly had won the most delegates - to seat Florida's delegation at the national convention. Barack Obama, whom we recommended in the primary, should do the same. But this is a graceful way to unite the party only if the nomination already is decided and Florida's delegates would not change the outcome....

If the election had counted, Clinton and Obama would have campaigned here. Even more Democrats would have gone to the polls. The outcome might have been different, or the delegate count might have been closer. We will never know.

What we do know is Dean and the national party have made a spectacular mess that could affect who becomes the Democratic nominee and who wins the White House in November. They better come up with a fair way to clean it up.

http://www.sptimes.com/2008/02/08/Opinion/Cleaning_up_Dean_s_bi.shtml

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Love the line comparing the Florida Primary to the "Tampa Bay Buccaneers deciding after the regular season they wanted to count a win in a preseason game so they could make the playoffs."

[lligrd]

1. Take Some Personal Responsibility Florida

Your officials made the mess, not Dean.

[StevieM]

2. Nope. Hillary called for seating the delegates before the polls closed (eom)

x

[ElsewheresDaughter]

8. a link please to your source?

[madfloridian]

9. I will find a source.

She was here in Florida primary day, and a day or two before that she was starting in on FL delegates.

Back in a second.

[madfloridian]

10. Here are two, I have many more.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1811

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1816

[ElsewheresDaughter]

11. that's what I thought.....you made it up

[yewberry]

3. Wow, I really disagree with the author.

The FL state Dems caused this mess in FL. Dean and the DNC were following the rules (like most of the rest of the country) and trying to get FL to do the same.

[davidinalameda]

4. what a crock of crap

the DNC told the the Florida state party and the Michigan state party what would happen if they moved their primaries up

they're the ones who moved it up knowing full well the consequences; they're the ones who screwed it up

not Dean, not anyone else at the DNC

the party leaders, and I use that term very loosely, in Florida and Michigan

[UALRBSofL]

5. I hate to say but I told you so

And that isn't the only media in florida publishing articles like this. We'll have to see how the voters feel about it.

[madfloridian]

7. Hillary will win. That is the point.

.

[madfloridian]

6. Florida media is being horrible. They know the facts. They don't care.

They lost money because the candidates did not campaign here.

Florida did it to themselves.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1819