“Unity” Shuck and Jive: Obama Campaign Opposed Counting 100% of Florida’s Votes — But Tried to Avoid Saying So
By Deb Cupples on June 1, 2008 at 10:20 AM in Barack Obama, Credentials Committee, Current Affairs, Delegates, Democracy, Democratic National Convention, Democrats, Florida, Hillary Clinton, Michigan
The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) decided on Saturday to count only half of Florida’s primary votes — despite the fact that all candidates’ names were on the ballot and Florida’s Democratic legislators had no power to block legislation that moved the primary election to a date that violated the DNC’s rules.
Make no mistake: Barack Obama and his campaign opposed counting 100% of Florida’s Democratic primary vote. At the same time, the campaign wants public relations points for appearing to want to enfranchise Florida — enough points to get Floridians’ votes if Obama becomes the nominee.
This I learned from watching the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee hearing today (part of it anyway, as the live video streaming conked out several times).
At one point, RBC member Tina Flournoy point-blank asked U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler whether the Obama campaign supported making100% of Florida’s primary vote count (instead of 50%). Wexler was the Obama campaign’s chosen representative for that hearing. A simple “yes” or “no” would have sufficed.
Did Mr. Wexler directly answer the question? No. Instead, he said:“…We are here to argue for the maximum number of delegates that this committees’ rules allow.”
Given that Mr. Wexler had earlier claimed that the RBC has authority to restore only 50% of Florida’s vote, it’s obvious that Mr. Wexler was essentially saying “No, Obama’s campaign does not support restoring 100% of Florida’s vote.”
For some reason, Mr. Wexler had trouble uttering that simple, one-syllable word “No” — in front of all the media folks, anyway.
Noticing that Mr. Wexler had failed to directly answer her question, Ms. Flournoy asked it again. And again, Mr. Wexler made a similar statement that didn’t include the word “No.”
But we viewers (and Ms. Flournoy) clearly understood the Obama campaign’s position: don’t count all of Florida’s votes.Not only did Mr. Wexler tap dance like a young Buddy Ebsen, but also his argument was flawed.
A key argument of us Floridians was that the RBC never should have punished Florida Dems, because Florida’s overwhelmingly Republican legislature had moved the primary election to a date earlier than the DNC’s rules allowed.Did I mention that Wexler is an Obma-supporting, U.S. congressman who represents Florida‘s voters? With friends like Wexler….
Incidentally, here’s the current breakdown of Florida’s legislature: House, 76 Republicans to 43 Democrats; Senate, Republicans 26 to Democrats 14. The numbers have been roughly the same since at least 2001. In short, Florida’s Democrats have no power to block or pass any legislation. It’s numerically impossible.
Moreover, the DNC’s own rules [e.g., 21(c)(7)] allowed the RBC to not strip any of Florida’s delegates if it had found that Florida’s Dem leaders had acted in good faith to stop the moving of the primary date.So, why did Obama’s campaign object to counting 100% of Florida’s votes (aside from the fact that doing so would have given Hillary Clinton more delegates)?
Here’s Obama’s basic argument: none of the candidates campaigned in Florida; thus, it was an unfair election. One Obama-friendly RBC member projected that if candidates had campaigned in Florida, as many as 3 million Floridians would have voted (instead of the record-high 1.7 million that actually did vote).
Yes, that RBC member pulled the 3 million out of her… ear.
Did Obama’s campaign representatives really believe that Florida’s voters were in a vacuum? We get newspapers, Internet, radio, the cable channels…. We saw multiple televised debates involving all the Dem candidates before our January 29 primary.
Furthermore, why does the Obama campaign think that Obama was disadvantaged from not having campaigned in Florida? It’s equally possible that if Hillary had campaigned in Florida, she would have won by an even bigger margin than she actually did?
And if Florida’s primary election was truly unfair because no candidates had campaigned in that state, then is it any fair to count even 50% of Florida’s vote? If the election were truly unfair, than none of the votes should have counted — by the Obama campaign’s logic, anyway.
And yet, Obama’s campaign pushed for the counting of only 50% of Florida’s votes. Sometimes, logic takes a back seat to self interest.
In short, the Obama Campaign’s argument was unpersuasive and based on something even less substantive than marshmallows.
Another thing that bothered me about the hearing was the crowd. People actually interrupted with applause (and hoot and hollers and whistles) whenever a witness or committee member said something in favor of not counting Florida’s or Michigan’s votes (i.e, a pro-Obama point).
It sounded like a sporting event or a kegger at a frat house. I half expected the camera to zoom in on a young, rambunctious lad lighting his own farts.
I’m not saying that more Obama supporters were in the audience than Hillary supporters. I have no way of knowing. It might have been that the Hillary supporters in the audience were simply more accustomed to conducting themselves in manner appropriate to such a hearing.
One other thing bothered me regarding the unruly audience: the RBC co-chairs didn’t insist that the audience settle down. Given that the DNC is a private body (which allowed citizen spectators as a courtesy), I suspect that the committee co-chairs easily could have told the audience that if it continued to erupt in hoots and hollers, the RBC would clear the room of spectators. Judges make such threats all the time, and they usually work.
Perhaps those RBC co-chairs enjoyed having pro-Obama outbursts interrupting both witnesses and committee members.
The bottom line is that Sen. Obama got what he wanted: only half of Florida’s votes will count in the (not so) Democratic nominating process. His campaign pushed for this, purportedly to promote party unity — i.e., to get votes in November if he becomes the nominee.
If Obama wants only half of Florida’s vote, then he shouldn’t expect more than half of Florida’s Dems to get behind him. At this point, frankly, Obama would be lucky to get even half — given that he got far less than half of Florida’s votes during the primary.Memeorandum has commentary.
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