I didn’t get to sleep till around 1 or so in the morning last night. One of the things that wasn’t helping was, on top of a large variety of heart breaking reasons, that CNN decided to have a live broadcast of the DNC (Democratic National Committee) meeting to discuss what to do with the voters in Florida and Michigan.
For those who aren’t forced to watch CNN everyday and have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a short summary.
So Florida and Michigan went ahead and had their primaries in January, LONG before they were supposed to. Primaries are like elections within the parties to decide on their presidential candidate for the Democrats. So normally you have those primaries AFTER the candidates are done campaigning there. Obviously that didn’t happen. So Florida went ahead and did the vote. Michigan was even better and did the vote WITHOUT Obama’s and a bunch of other candidates’ names on the ballot slip.
So aside from CNN constantly cutting into the horribly interesting discussions by the party leaders as to their stands (they like to butt in especially when a particularly vociferous member decides to speak what I deem as sense), the debate itself was interesting. Actually reminded me a bit of the Student Council. Anyway, Florida was allowed to seat all of their delegates, on the condition that they were all entitled to only one half vote. So okay. Yeah. Fair.
Then Michigan wanted to propose the same thing. Now for Michigan, I thoroughly oppose. As did several other members of the DNC. The results had about half for Hillary, and another half “uncommitted”, which is a recognized position in the electoral process according to DNC constitution. So they proposed to give Hillary her votes, take 4 from her, change the “uncommitted” into Obama votes, then half them.
What kind of nut job proposal is that?
A proposal that was approved by 19, opposed by 8 and abstained by none of the DNC party leaders.
It’s ridiculous and flouts the basic rules of the democratic process. Firstly, how can you even have a primary without putting the other guys’ names on the slip? That’s just nonsense. That’s not even a fair vote. What if people didn’t turn up just cause you didn’t put their guy on the ballot? What if not all the “uncommitted” were for Obama? What if some people who supported Obama voted for Hillary? There are so many variations to the results in this case. How do you justify “hijacking 4 votes” from Hillary to give to Obama? That’s just nonsense.
Not to mention the blatant flouting of party rules that you CANNOT hold primaries before your stipulated date for doing so. Exceptions here exceptions there. That’s what tears apart a system. Rules are there for a reason. And the rules were not created just yesterday. Respect the rules. Respect the other people who abide by these rules.
Another thing that totally took the icing from my cake (not like I had a cake to begin with), was the crowd amassed in that hall. The chairman of the debate was smashing her mallet on the table like she was building a table. (you know, those little hammer things judges get to smash int he court room) The crowd was totally disrespectful. Whenever a member spoke in their favor, they got up and cheered, then actually BOOED the members opposed to the complete reinstating of votes and counting them 100%. Standing up in the hall chanting “denver! denver denver!” Denver being the place of the convention. We’ve all got strong views. But it doesn’t mean you should go and show such flagrant disrespect to the party leaders. They are merely putting forward the case. Security should have hauled these people outside.
The co-chairperson of the debate said that such behavior was disrespectful of the candidate they supported. And I completely agree.
So my stand on this as someone thousands of miles away in front of my television? I support the half vote that Florida got. And totally oppose the half vote that Michigan got. I believe a better compromise could have been reached (like a re-vote, or a time machine to go back and beat up the folks who decided they were better than the system)
Glad I got that out of my system. I hate American politics.
