Despite Resistance, FL & MI Do-Over Plans Move Forward
by Todd Beeton, Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 06:45:06 AM EDT
In the past couple of days, both the Florida Democratic House delegation and Obama's Michigan campaign co-chair have come out pretty forcefully against re-votes of any kind in their respective states. Despite this, the process appears to be moving forward.
Florida's Democratic Party chair urged Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, the national party and her own state's congressional delegation to consider a combined vote-by-mail/in-person plan as a redo of the Jan. 29 presidential primary.The idea would be to mail ballots to all registered Democratic voters and set up 50 regional voting offices to help "disadvantaged communities" participate in an election ending June 3, state party Chairman Karen Thurman said in a memo to the campaigns and state and national party leaders. [...]
Thurman asked party leaders to review the draft and send feedback by Friday. On Monday, if there is consensus that the party should go forward with the plan, it would begin raising the estimated $10 million to $12 million to pay for the do-over while also gathering public comment.
Ben Smith has more details of the plan HERE.
And in Michigan:
As negotiators continued to work Wednesday on developing an acceptable plan for a possible do-over Democratic presidential primary in Michigan, the prospect of a state-run -- but party-funded -- primary was raised as a potential alternative to an election conducted through the mail.The prospect of a state-run primary had been initially shelved because of the cost and Gov. Jennifer Granholm's insistence that the taxpayers not be stuck with a bill that could exceed $10 million.
But with Democratic leaders including Govs. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Jon Corzine of New Jersey promising to raise money, there could be a mechanism for a state-run primary paid for at party expense. It would require the Legislature's approval.
The possibility of a mail-in contest remains on the table as well.
Would the campaigns be amenable to these approaches? Certainly Hillary Clinton, who up until recently has been fairly rigid in support of seating the delegates as is, seems to be amending her rhetoric a bit.
Clinton said Wednesday that voters who took part in the Michigan and Florida primaries "are in danger of being excluded from our democratic process.""In my view, there are two options: Honor the results or hold new primary elections," she said.
As for the Obama campaign, they expressed serious concerns about a mail-in primary this week and his Michigan co-chair, State Senator Tupac Hunter said:
"We think it would be fair to split the delegates 50-50," he said.Hunter also said the two other possibilities -- a so-called "firehouse" caucus, and a full re-run of the primary -- are "not feasible," largely because of questions over how they'd be paid for, and how fast they could be assembled.
But Obama spokesman Bill Burton was quick to express that Hunter's comments did not reflect the official campaign position.
"Anything other than the fact that we think that the DNC and states ought to work this out, but we'll play by the rules, is not an expression of the position of the campaign," said spokesman Bill Burton.
Seems to me that the Obama campaign has decided that it's politically untenable to obstruct re-votes if that's the solution that both state parties come up with to allow their voters representation at the convention, although their concerns about a mail-in vote are real and not entirely without merit.
According to DNC rules, these contests would have to be done prior to June 10th.
Update [2008-3-13 10:48:25 by Todd Beeton]:Diarist thezzyzx sees a glitch in the proposed Florida plan.
Tags: 2008 Presidential election, Democratic nomination, Florida primary, Michigan primary (all tags)
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