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Well, you know, you *were* warned
Mar. 6th, 2008 11:43 amWhen Florida and Michigan decided to ignore the Democratic national party officials and hold their primaries in January, they were told "do that, and your votes don't count."
They held their primaries anyway; their votes didn't count.
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, the states' party officials blew off the national offices and said, "We're going to do it our way. Bugger you." They knew the consequences...and the people in their respective states didn't kick the idiots until they changed their mind.
Now, of course, Michigan and Florida want to count.
This annoys me no end, because it's a lot like a student who turns a paper in 5 days late and then looks at me vapidly and angrily when I take 50% off the top. But Florida, Michigan, and my students all had fair warning.
On the other hand, there are a whole lot of Democrats in Michigan and Florida who won't have a chance to have their voices heard. Those individual voters had no option but to vote in their states' primaries; if they wanted to help make decisions about the direction of the country, they couldn't just move to Georgia or Ohio for the day to vote.
Mike and I chatted about this last night, and came up with two solutions for the future, neither of which the political parties will accept (because they are too sensible and remove a lot of the circus atmosphere from the whole shebang): Let's have all of the primaries decided on the same day! Or we could have all of the primaries within, say, an 8-week period, and which states go first is on a rotating basis.
(I wanted the "first" position to go to whichever states had done the worst in the previous contest...just like the NBA and NFL drafts. Mike says, "That means the Republicans always start with Massachusetts, and the Democrats always start with Utah. *blech*")
A pox on all their houses.
They held their primaries anyway; their votes didn't count.
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, the states' party officials blew off the national offices and said, "We're going to do it our way. Bugger you." They knew the consequences...and the people in their respective states didn't kick the idiots until they changed their mind.
Now, of course, Michigan and Florida want to count.
This annoys me no end, because it's a lot like a student who turns a paper in 5 days late and then looks at me vapidly and angrily when I take 50% off the top. But Florida, Michigan, and my students all had fair warning.
On the other hand, there are a whole lot of Democrats in Michigan and Florida who won't have a chance to have their voices heard. Those individual voters had no option but to vote in their states' primaries; if they wanted to help make decisions about the direction of the country, they couldn't just move to Georgia or Ohio for the day to vote.
Mike and I chatted about this last night, and came up with two solutions for the future, neither of which the political parties will accept (because they are too sensible and remove a lot of the circus atmosphere from the whole shebang): Let's have all of the primaries decided on the same day! Or we could have all of the primaries within, say, an 8-week period, and which states go first is on a rotating basis.
(I wanted the "first" position to go to whichever states had done the worst in the previous contest...just like the NBA and NFL drafts. Mike says, "That means the Republicans always start with Massachusetts, and the Democrats always start with Utah. *blech*")
A pox on all their houses.
