New Jersey was in compliance with the
DNC rules which permitted all states to hold their primaries no earlier than February 5, 2008. Only four states, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, were permitted to hold their caucuses and primaries before Super Tuesday.
True. But this only amplifies the point that the party leadership is lost in the woods. Lots of states ( or more precisely their voters ) are sick of this dysfunctional status quo. So Michigan and Florida decide to independeltly act upon this situation; in one state at least, it was the legislature which puts things in motion. When B43 leaves town and all of the melodramatic hysteria dies down, I hope that people begin to admit that American politics is the real problem here and not an individual inhabitant of any specific office.
Now I'm someone who feels that we must acknowledge tradition for tradition's sake. Hence New Hampshire and Iowa are those traditional states who get their moment in the sun first. A slightly more rational ( and objective ) news media might also emphasize that voters in both states do not come close to representing what we might loosely call "mainstream" outlooks/individuals. But they are indeed citizens with a viewpoint which gets to be heard because of tradition. The political party leadership is simply hell-bent on trying to conrol the whole ball of wax, damn the interest of the voters.
At least the Dems don't have a winner takes all mentality
Oh Garfield, that's not what they were saying in when we go to the infrequently used, but completely constitutional Electoral College 8 years ago. Yet IMO, the Electoral College is where it belonged ( but not because my guy won ). This too is about tradition, albeit Constitutional tradition and
law ( which dems would still wish to change and dump the College ). As to the idea of winner take all versus proportional votes versus caucus versus superdelegates -- well that too is a function of tradition and choice/decisions made by the individual parties within each individual state. And all of this is deposited beneath the Constitution.
I think that it's pretty clear that many folks are not very comfortable with the idea of superdelegates determining the outcome of a tight primary contest. I personally am ambivilant about whether or not the dems should do away with superdelegates. Fact is, that politics is about power and who is gonna hold it. Superdelegates are an old traditional form/idea of how this might sometimes be accomplished, and this year looks like that kind of year. Do away with the superdelegates and now the flow of the game goes down to the states, or in truth, a handful of states with local individuals who now wield this influence/power. Remember you can't take the "P" out of power, politics, or *ussy :unsure:
So they're gonna play the game one way or the other. Tradition has the comfortable advantage of having been tried and tested before. The losing side will never be happy. But in a close primary, it comes down to individuals who can step back and read the tea leaves and try to divine who the best candidate is for that moment -- and this is both an objective and a subjective decision. So do you put the power in the hands of those far away or do you put it in the central authority at the top ? ( the convention) This thing is not gonna work out perfectly, but I guess that given the velocity of events, there will indeed be an outcome with a winner.
Hopefully the DNC will acknowledge the wisdom of stepping back to let states vote when they want to. The party and candidates can easily adjust to that ( keeping superdelegates out of the limelight most of the time ).
Barry
