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Right or wrong, the Florida
Legislature scheduled the presidential primaries for Jan. 29.
The idea was pushed by the leadership of the Florida Republican
majority, and Florida Democrats went along with it.
Now, the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) declared the Jan. 29 election null-and-void and
announced that any Florida delegates elected in such a contest
would be barred from the DNC.
DNC leaders have called
Florida party leaders arrogant because they dared to sidestep
such states as New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada and Iowa —
the first states to cast ballots for presidential candidates.
They’ve even strong-armed Democratic presidential candidates not
to campaign in the Sunshine State, even though Republican
candidates are aggressively campaigning here for votes.
The lesson Florida voters
should learn from this: The DNC doesn’t care about you, and it
already has written off Florida as a Republican state, which is
a huge mistake on its part.
Think about it: Why would the
state’s Republican leaders want to change the Jan. 29 primary
when a DNC boycott can only help the GOP capture Florida’s 27
electoral presidential votes.
DNC leaders from those four
early-voting states aren’t helping their party either when they
whine about Florida’s newly scheduled primary.
“I’m sorry to be the one to
say Florida is not the center of the universe,” Carol Flower,
co-chair of the DNC rules committee and chair of the South
Carolina Democratic Party, told the St. Petersburg Times.
Huh?
Florida,
with its 27 electoral votes, threw the 2000 presidential
election into chaos with its razor-thin voting margin and
hanging chads.
Florida is the
reason George W. Bush has an oval office in the White House. And
Florida’s
electorate is so divided that it sways easily with the strongest
political wind. For that, it’s sad that the DNC doesn’t feel
like blowing anymore.
South Carolina, with eight
measly electoral votes, doesn’t carry nearly that kind of
weight. In fact, South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire and Iowa
combined have only 24 electoral votes.
“I don’t think any of us
thought that the DNC would be stupid enough to punish the
biggest wing state in the country to make South Carolina happy,”
state Democratic Sen. Steve Geller, of Hallandale Beach, told
the St. Petersburg Times.
To knock some sense into the
party leadership, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Alcee Hastings
are suing their own party in federal court, accusing the DNC of
disenfranchising 4 million registered Democrats by hindering
their rights to vote.
Nelson and Hastings have a
point. The DNC considered mailing ballots to Florida’s
registered Democratic voters after March, but the Florida
Democratic Party said no. Besides, in a state plagued with
election problems, the mail-in compromise hardly comforts
anyone.
“We agree to disagree and
move forward — there is no more discussion with the DNC,”
Florida Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubrisky told the
SunPost. “The primary process needs to change.”
The Florida Republican Party
and the RNC, through their silence, are luring the DNC into a
dangerous game of chess using voters as pawns. Now, thanks to
slick maneuvering by Republican Florida House Speaker Marco
Rubio, of Coral Gables, the only way voters can influence the
Florida presidential primary is by registering Republican. It’s
a de-facto one-party system that should offend Republican voters
as well as Democrats.
In a moredemocratic
republic, all of the primaries nationwide would be held at the
same time. But the parties that dominate national politics don’t
care about playing fair or ensuring voters’ rights. They care
only about garnering power for their own respective states.
Florida is the victim now.
But other states that dare to not conform to obscure party rules
surely will be next. In the meantime, we might do well to create
viable third parties so voters aren’t forced to play party
politics with officials who don’t really care what they have to
say. |
