What to Do About Michigan and Florida Delegates?

I'm sorry, Digby is just wrong about this:

[T]he DNC should be taken to the woodshed for doing this. The Democratic Party "sending a message" about "rules" by refusing to count votes in Florida is simply mindboggling. They should have found another way.

What other way would that be?

Look, if we decide to abandon the rules now, you have only two options, both of them bad: Seat the delegates "awarded" by the early primaries which broke the rules, or hold "do-over" primaries. In both cases, you're signaling that you won't enforce the rules if it matters.

Let's consider: The party decided to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates, and the candidates agreed not to campaign there. If we seat the delegates based on the early primaries, in the future candidates will have no incentive to not campaign in states which break the rules, because there is precedent that those delegates will count. If we allow Michigan and Florida to hold do-overs, then in the future states will know that they can violate the rules and expect to be given another bite at the apple in the event their delegates become crucial to determining who the nominee is. And if in the future states which break the rules are not granted an exception - either seating the delegates based on an early primary or a do-over - because the outcome is already a foregone conclusion, then they won't care.

And in all cases, as in this one, making an exception to the rules agreed upon in advance in the middle of the primary season will benefit one candidate more than another. This creates a strategic opportunity for candidates to influence the decision-making process of whether or not to grant an exception to the rules, which is bad enough. But it would also delegitimate the result, more so than Digby thinks enforcing the rules in this case would by "disenfranchising" voters. If you think there is "another way" to enforce the rules - and can lay it out in writing - then enact it after the election, not now.

Update 2/15/08: The Michigan and Florida Democratic parties have rejected the "do-over" idea.

Comments

[tomemos]

"What other way would that be?"

Well, how about doing what the Republicans did, where Florida and Michigan had half their delegates taken away? This seems to me like an elegant solution: the states were truly penalized, but the votes still count. Completely taking away people's votes for something they didn't do was always a stupid idea, not least because it's kind of going to matter what voters in Florida and Michigan think, come November.

It is just like the Democratic party to abandon pragmatism and be absolutely principled only when it's about something--an obscure point of party discipline--that most people don't care about at all. That is such a perfect metaphor.

[Mithras]

This seems to me like an elegant solution: the states were truly penalized, but the votes still count.

Maybe. I don't think people would be squawking any less about "disenfranchisement", though.

[tomemos]

"I don't think people would be squawking any less about "disenfranchisement", though."

I think they would be "squawking" less, and the reason I think that is that the Republicans did exactly that and there was not a single complaint throughout the entire primary, even from the two campaigns (Romney and Giuliani) who stood to lose the most. So, yes, I would say this has been proven to be an effective solution.

You put disenfranchisement in quotes. Out of curiosity, what word do you prefer for when you cast a vote and it doesn't count at all?

[Mithras]

The Republicans aren't squawking because their race is a lock. Plus they're Republicans, so they tend to fall in line more readily.

I put it in quotes because no one is talking about taking away electoral college delegates. That's disenfranchisement. This is a case of a party setting and enforcing its own rules for selecting nominees.

[andrea]

I believe we're also neglecting the more important fact that a certain candidate went back on her agreement to not campaign in those two states and thus won them, so if those votes are counted then it would be extremely unfair to the other candidate who stayed away like he said he would.
So if the people of Florida and Michigan are upset that their votes are not counting, then the people they should be "squawking" at are those that chose to ignore the party's rules by not moving back the day of their primary. Maybe then next time, they'll take the party's threat of punishment more seriously.
And also, counting half the delegates would still be a bad idea, because it will still give an unfair amount of delegates to a candidate who broke the rules.

[tomemos]

Mithras:

"The Republicans aren't squawking because their race is a lock."

Sure, it is now. Not so long ago it was more confused than the Democratic side. When Romney was banking on Michigan to keep him in the race, you didn't hear him talk about seating the other half of the delegates, because it would sound petty; but plenty of people, hearing Clinton say that Michigan and Florida should have at least some influence, will reasonably say, "That sounds fair." That's the difference between some and none.

"I put it in quotes because no one is talking about taking away electoral college delegates. That's disenfranchisement."

It may be more serious disenfranchisement in November than in January, but not getting to influence an election is the exact definition of disenfranchisement, and people don't like it. Can I say again: we're going to need Florida and Michigan in November. That seems like a good reason to give them some influence.
* * *
Andrea:

"I believe we're also neglecting the more important fact that a certain candidate went back on her agreement to not campaign in those two states and thus won them..."

This is news to me. Do you have a link showing that Clinton actually campaigned in Michigan and Florida (rather than simply leaving her name on the ballot, which is not campaigning)? I haven't heard even the most fervent pro-Obama/anti-Clinton blogger say that. (For the record, I voted for Obama in California.)

"...if the people of Florida and Michigan are upset that their votes are not counting, then the people they should be "squawking" at are those that chose to ignore the party's rules by not moving back the day of their primary."

Ah, the American voter: you can always count on him or her to understand the finer points of politics. I think of myself as pretty politically informed, but if it was my state getting busted, I wouldn't have the first clue who to "squawk" at, let alone how they represented me--did I elect them? What I would know is that the Democratic party was saying I shouldn't get to vote because some people I never heard of did something I don't care about. You can see how that might embitter me against the Democrats nine months down the road.

"And also, counting half the delegates would still be a bad idea, because it will still give an unfair amount of delegates to a candidate who broke the rules."

At last, the heart of the matter. Leaving aside the question of whether Clinton did actually break the rules, isn't this supposed to be punishing the states, not a particular candidate? Which leads to the next question: how many people insisting that "the rules are the rules" would feel that way if the situation was reversed? I think the answer is pretty close to zero; Clinton supporters would be saying that the rules are inviolate, and Obama supporters would be screaming that Clinton wanted to keep them from voting. (Again: Obama voter.)

[Mithras]

I agree with that last point, tomemos. I don't even think we need to go into whether either candidate campaigned in those states, because the relevant inquiry is: Can a rules change now be made impartially, without it benefiting one candidate over the other? I don't think so. For me, that pretty much ends the matter, because changing the rules mid-game makes us look much worse to voters than enforcing the rules agreed to by everyone in advance: Namely, those delegates will not be seated.

Now, the reason we're in this mess is that the people who made those rules never imagined we'd have essentially a tied race going into March. But the state parties are the real bad actors here and people should be educated that they are the ones to blame. The DNC has offered them a do-over (see update), but they declined. Why? They want to force people to accept their early primary date.

[Aquagirl]

"Which leads to the next question: how many people insisting that "the rules are the rules" would feel that way if the situation was reversed?"

I'm neutral on Obama-Clinton (honestly cannot make up my mind) and I think the rules are the rules. When I was blogging here, most of my posts were about the rule of law, so maybe I'm uptight about that kind of thing (not that this is the rule of law, but the principles are similar).

[Mithras]

I like Obama over Clinton, although I would be happy with either. I guess the gist of tomemo's question is that a do-over would benefit Clinton (seating the delegates "won" in the early primaries certainly would), but I don't think that's clear from the dynamics of this race so far. In any event, I agree with Aquagirl: I am not opposed to a rules change because I think such a change would hurt Obama, I am opposed to a rules change because I think it would hurt the nominee.

[tomemos]

For the record, I'm not sure that a recount, or a "count half," solution would work at this stage either, for the reasons laid out here. But Digby's point was that the DNC flat-out screwed up and left us in a lose-lose situation, and the initial question in this post was "What could have been done differently?" I think it's clear that the party left us in a situation where a lot of people who should be united are going to be angry at each other with no good solution, and I have no problem with calling that incompetence.

[Mithras]

Any attempt by the DNC to enforce its rules necessarily requires preventing the early primaries from being accepted. The toolbox the DNC has to work with is pretty limited. Digby is being irresponsible by blaming the DNC for not having powers it can't have. The people who should be blamed here are the state Democratic parties. They're playing a game of chicken with the DNC in an attempt to increase their own power in the party. It's wrong. And if they aren't stopped, next cycle we'll have a bunch of other states doing exactly the same shit.

[tomemos]

Since we're back at the original terms of disagreement--do we blame the DNC or the states?--I'll explain why I think it's a mistake to pin it all on the latter, as you advocate. First, I don't think it's "wrong" (which I take to mean immoral or unethical, rather than just a bad idea politically) for states to try to get more influence; that's politics. They didn't do anything underhanded, and I think the high emotions of the primary have blown their infraction out of proportion. The real issue is that our primary system is crazy and one way or another it's going to change, and there's probably going to be some dissidence and chaos surrounding that. Florida and Michigan were just the first states to try to force the issue.

Second, shouldn't Florida and Michigan have more influence over who our candidate is? More, for instance, than Iowa and New Hampshire? Florida and Michigan are approximately the most and the third-most important swing states, respectively, in the general election. As I've indicated above, I think that going nuclear on them for wanting priority is ill-advised, given how much we'll be courting them in a few months. I'm not just saying "they're powerful, let's not piss them off"; I'm saying, they have a point.

Finally, extreme sanctions are so very often counterproductive. Look at what has happened as a result of this action: every third sentence about the primary is about Florida and Michigan, and whether they'll get to be the difference-makers in the primary. So, did busting Florida and MIchigan get them less influence and attention, or more? Whereas if the DNC had simply penalized them by cutting the delegates in half, the results of the FL and MI primaries would have been forgotten as just two more primaries, primaries which didn't even produce superdelegates. It was short-sighted to take extreme action that now stands to fracture the party, based on the abstract principle of ordering the primaries in a particular way.