The Florida Democratic primary, which wraps up tomorrow, has been a mess from the get-go. The decision to move the primary date up from March, which was apparently proposed by a Democrat and then heavily promoted by the Republicans who control the state, put the Florida Democratic party into a nasty conflict with the national party, which resulted in sanctions against Florida Dems.

“Had Florida sat back and had its primary in March or even in February after Super Tuesday, Florida voters would have been in the catbird seat to determine the nominee.”
- Daniel Smith

The national party has forbidden candidates to campaign in Florida (but fundraising is okay, of course) and the delegates from tomorrow’s winner-take-all election will not be seated at the convention. (The nominee can, and doubtless will, rescind this order, however, if it is to his or her advantage.)

And yet, early voting is well underway among Florida’s 4 million Democrats, and is said to be brisk. Our colleague Trish voted early for John Edwards. She is part of a trend that is a strong indicator of a lot of energy on the left in the state, despite the shenanigans with the calendar:

State party officials are buoyed by the nearly 300,000 ballots cast by early and absentee voters. As of late Wednesday, 170,806 Democrats had cast their ballots at early voting locations, and 125,126 had sent in absentee ballots, according to the Florida Democratic Party.

The American Research Group’s poll yesterday, showed Hillary Clinton leading by 33 percentage points:

(Kucinich and Gravel shared a little over 1 percent.)

Here are ARG’s GOP numbers:

There has been considerable angst among Democrats in Florida about this state of affairs:

“It’s really hard for a lot of Democrats to really get a sense of the candidates,” said Daniel A. Smith, associate professor of political science at the University of Florida in Gainesville…

“There is a lot of anger among hard-core Democrats,” Smith said. “Many of them are frustrated with the Democratic National Committee, but also with the state party for this game of brinkmanship that went on last fall.”

We Californians hear this with a bit of wry bemusement. We are the 400-pound gorilla state, el grande enchilada, after all, and yet there hasn’t been any significant primary campaigning here since the 1980s, at least. California primaries were historically held in June, long after the nominations had been settled, but even when the 2004 primary was moved to March, the nominees were set before we voted.

In this cycle, we vote a week from tomorrow, and I personally have seen one (1) presidential campaign ad, for Hillary Clinton, and that was probably a national cable buy. I have not seen a single yard sign and zero bumperstickers.

Hillary Clinton did a drive-by walkabout one day in a latino neighborhood in the run-up to the Nevada caucuses. And I’ve heard that Obama was here. But both were mainly visiting to raise money.

The difference between California Dems and our Florida cousins is, we do not miss attention we have never had. The real missed opportunity in Florida, however, is this:

“There’s a lot of irony here,” Smith said. “Had Florida sat back and had its primary in March or even in February after Super Tuesday, Florida voters would have been in the catbird seat to determine the nominee.”