Allow the Florida Delegates
Personally, I think all primaries/caucuses should take place on the same day. No one state should have more value than another state when it comes to timing. However, since the Democratic party has rules, I would normally say that the rules should absolutely be followed. In this case, the rules are really dumb and need to be fixed.
Florida, the state where 537 votes swung the election for Bush in 2000, is now being ignored by the Democratic party because the Florida Democrats wanted their choice made earlier to be more relevant. In 2004, people pretty much could guess who would get 47 of the states and the election came down to three states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
Florida is plainly important for winning the presidency in 2008. So why on earth would the DNC want to reject the will of Democratic voters in Florida? By doing so, don’t they risk alienating them and making the Democrats less likely to win in that state? It just doesn’t seem smart to just ignore their votes.
January 30th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I think there may be a benefit in having some handful of states go first, but if so they should rotate. Otherwise I’m all for “all on the same day” system. This current system is insane.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
The benefit I see for spreading them all out is that you get much more press coverage. I do agree that if you let some states go first, it should be on a rotating basis. The problem with that is I am unsure how difficult the logistics of that rotation would be (with both scheduling the elections and determining the rotation).