Fla. and Mich's primaries shouldn't count

Floridians and Michiganders lost their right to have a say in the political fortunes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama this spring.  Just because the race is now so close doesn’t mean they should get it back. 

State governments decided to break the rules, not the Democratic National Committee.  So there is no reason for the Democratic Party to pay for a re-vote, and no obligation binding them to hold one.

Both states’ delegates were stripped by the DNC after they held their primaries at an earlier date than DNC rules allowed.

Many Democrats seem to be either calling for this re-vote, or, like the Clinton campaign, they are simply calling for these states’ delegations to be seated at the August convention in Denver, letting the original vote stand. 

Either way it feels like cheating. Every candidate entered the primary season knowing those states’ votes wouldn’t count. If they knew then, why should they be tussling over how to make them count at this late date?

An argument could easily be made that millions of voters are losing their rights in the process. But this was known months prior to the primary season.

It seems the Clinton campaign is pushing the issue now because she sees it as maybe the only way for her to catch up with Obama in pledged delegate totals.

According to the Associated Press, Obama leads in pledged delegates 1,385 to 1,237 (1,596 to 1,484 with superdelegates).

Both campaigns could have opposing reasons for not making as big an issue of this when it first happened.  The Clinton camp probably thought she was a shoo-in for the nomination and wouldn’t need the help of those states this late in the race. Or she just assumed her campaign could use its political muscle to have the delegations seated if they needed to.

Obama’s reasons are obvious. He lost in those states and knew he would lose. There was no reason for him to push to have a losing vote counted.

Now he is in a predicament.  If he lets those delegates be seated, his lead will be reduced dramatically. He lost in Florida by 17 points and wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan.

Yet he can’t look like he doesn’t care about the voters in those states, especially Florida.  Florida is a huge prize in the general election and the most notorious of swing states.  Looking like he wanted to strip their voting rights in the primary wouldn’t help his cause in courting those voters in November.

But a re-vote could also hurt him. In Michigan, the latest poll from Rasmussen has the candidates neck and neck, each garnering 41 percent of the vote, but in Florida the Rasmussen poll has Clinton ahead by 16 points.

The Obama campaign strategy has been right on the mark in dealing with this issue so far.  They keep saying that a resolution needs to be found to give the voters in Florida and Michigan a voice, but every time a concrete proposal is put forth they raise doubts and questions. 

Both states are now talking about a mail-in balloted primary to solve the problem, but this will take 45 days to implement. Every states’ delegate totals must be in by June 10 according to party rules, so if the Obama camp can hold out long enough the issue will become moot.

Not to say the concerns Obama raises are illegitimate. Mail-in balloting can have lots of problems, especially in states where it has never been tried before. The cost issue is also huge. There will be a $10 million bill in each state if the mail-in system is used (it would cost double for a normal primary).

It is not the Democratic Party, nor the voters’ responsibility to foot these bills. The governors of both states are pushing for a re-vote so maybe they should pay for it. After all, if they knew this situation was coming, why did they waste taxpayer money for the first primaries?

The issue needs to just be quashed. Those states should lose their delegations for the incompetence of their state governments, who went through with an early vote when they knew full well it wouldn’t count. Lets move on.