Tag: Oh, Florida

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Florida Voters are Reporting Nasty Tricks in Full Effect

I’m not able to confirm this with a Google News search, but voters in Fl are reporting that ballots evidently spilled out of the back of a truck and are just sitting in the road somewhere in Tampa. Again, I cannot confirm this, but I’m being told it was on the news this morning. Also, they’ve been setting up road blocks in some counties to make it difficult to get to the polls.

All of this is uncorroborated, but that’s what’s out there when I’m talking to people. And I mean, come on! This is Florida we’re talking about. That sort of thing wouldn’t happen there. Like Exile said last night, “And Boston isn’t really much of a college town.”

Reader MC reports in with the actual story from TampaBay.com.  This turns out to be not ballots but voter information cards from some campaign or another.  So, while this is an unfortunate breach of voter’s privacy, it appears to be niether a voter suppression tactic nor instigated by anyone in charge of counting votes.

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We Could Use Some Leadership

It strikes me that, with all that we have going on right now, we are in dire need of – as Obama once said a few years back – adult supervision of our government.

But can we expect this from the Democrats?  Not if Howard Dean is any indication.  Whatever else happens, I’ll be happy to contribute to the candidacy of any Democrat who runs on a platform that includes acing Howard Dean.

Because of course the whole Florida and Michigan thing is his fault.  Yes, there were politics happening in those two states that also bears some responsibility.  But as the leader of the Democratic effort to take the White House, surely he must have seen that not seating the delegates of those states was a freakin’ huge mistake, right?  . . . Right?

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Not Participating is Not Participating

In the Democratic Primaries, we’ve been hearing for weeks now that Senator Clinton intends to get the delegates from Michigan and Florida seated and counted towards the nomination. She has recently stated on NPR radio recently that Barack Obama’s name not appearing on the ballot in Michigan was his own choice, her choice was to remain there and that this made her delegate count in that state legitimate. But all choices aside, if you take a look at the pledge that they all signed, it’s pretty unambiguous. Even more so than we’ve been led to believe (em mine):

THEREFORE, I _______________, Democratic Candidate for President, in honor and in accordance with DNC rules, pledge to actively campaign in the pre-approved early states Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina. I pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any election contest occurring in any state not already authorized by the DNC to take place in the DNC approved pre-window (any date prior to February 5, 2008).

So, if in fact you’ve lived up to the pledge, then your delegate count – whatever it may be – cannot possibly be valid because you did not participate. And if you made the decision not to take your name off the ballot, then you participated and therefore betrayed your pledge.  Pretty clear, I think.

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No Florida Do-Over

That’s a negative, there, ghost rider.

I suppose that, in a state with the electoral history of Florida, messing around with a last-minute, untested mail-in voting system was probably ill-conceived and likely to be dismissed, at best.  Besides, there’s really no fair way to do it, other than what SilentPatriot and others suggest:

Crooks and Liars » Florida House Says “No” to Primary Re-Vote

I thought the mail-in idea was worth considering. Oregon’s similar system is one of the safest and most efficient in the nation. They did have a decade (instead of a few months) to perfect it, though. Dean really needs to start flexing his muscle and enforcing the agreed-upon rules. If the states refuse a re-vote, split them down the middle.