National Journal’s Charlie Cook rarely pulls punches in his “On Politics” column, but in last week’s piece, he really lambasted the Florida Democratic Party “leadership” for incompetence and alleged that Barack Obama was manipulating the situation to his advantage.
It is truly astonishing that a state and one of its major parties have opted to declare the political equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Cook pointed out that in the past five years 16 congressional districts nationwide had unexpected vacancies to fill due to resignation, death or incarceration, and they all managed to mount special elections, often with primaries, to fill those House seats. But not Florida. Since it was stripped of its delegates last fall, the Florida Democratic Party has wrung its hands and kvetched about its mistreatment, but has done little to develop a viable plan for a re-vote, except for a half-assed suggestion of a mail-in primary that was dead on arrival.
Meanwhile, unlike California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and Virginia — states that have held hurry-up special elections in recent years because of House vacancies — Florida can’t seem to find a way to conduct a statewide election between now and the scheduled end of the nomination season. That is in early June, 70-odd days from today and about half a year after Florida knew it needed a Plan B if it didn’t want its Democratic delegation to be shut out of the national convention.
Florida Democrats lamely blame their Republican governor and GOP-controlled state Legislature for this mess, but to most observers their opposition to the nonsanctioned January date seemed to be posturing more than anything else, and it still doesn’t explain why nothing constructive has happened since then. What we’ve seen is a monumental failure of leadership on the part of state Democratic Chairman Karen Thurman and other party officials. For those who don’t buy the incompetence argument, the alternative view is that the state party officials simply capitulated to the Obama campaign, which didn’t want a re-vote lest it give Hillary Rodham Clinton a chance to close the delegate gap. Either way, Florida’s Democratic voters deserve better than what they’ve gotten.
Florida could have opted for an ordinary primary, a caucus, a “firehouse” primary, or even a vote-by-mail primary. Instead, the Sunshine State decided to punt. Barack Obama, who lost both Florida and Michigan, has chimed in to suggest that he and Clinton just split the states’ delegates down the middle, an idea that raises the question of why we bother to hold elections at all.
It is truly astonishing that a state and one of its major parties have opted to declare the political equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, claiming they are incapable of fulfilling their electoral and democratic obligations.
I know Trish and I do go on a bit about the travails of the FlaDems, and some commenters are getting a little restive with the topic. But it really is disappointing that it got screwed up again for the third presdiential race in a row.
When I saw Obama speak in Miami last August, I actually got kind of jazzed by what appeared to be a very active, energized and well-organized Democratic Party. It made me feel, well, hopeful for the Dems.
However, apparently the energy and organization went no higher up the party hierarchy than the South Florida region. Indeed, the local party has made some significant inroads in getting Dems elected at the city and county government levels.
Meanwhile, state Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman and her gang have managed to create a state-level microcosm of what the bitter Clinton-Obama race is doing to the party nationally — rendering the Democratic Party irrelevant in the presidential election.
