Florida and the Disenfranchised Voter
HAVE THE DEMOCRATS SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE
BIG TOE? It wouldn't be the first time. But when national leaders stripped the state of its delegates for moving up its primary to January 29, in essence it also
stripped the 2.5 million Democrats who turned out to vote in yesterday's contest of their right
to cast a ballot. That means that Hillary will get to crow about her roust of Obama, winning 50
percent of votes cast to Barak's 33 percent, but won't get to add any delegates to her column.
As Obama's Barack Obama spokesman Bill Burton wrote gleefully to reporters Tuesday night, "Obama and Clinton tie for delegates in
Florida. 0 for Obama, 0 for Clinton."
Yet in this hotly contested historic race between the "woman" and the "black," it's easy to
imagine that the final delegate count could be within the 185 that Donkey Party leaders have
stripped from Florida's voters. And that would be an awkward postscript for the Party that has
rightly claimed that Florida's votes were
stolen by the Republicans in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. "This whole thing
here is a joke," John Taylor, a Jacksonville schoolteacher told The Nation last November.
"How stupid the Democrats are--we're shooting ourselves in the foot!...They stole two
elections, and now we've been working six years to make sure that don't happen again. And the
Democrats screw us!"
Perhaps all 2.5 million votes will be moot after Super Tuesday's 24-state lottery and the 185
Florida delegates won't make a difference in the end. But my guess is that's just wishful
thinking.
Posted January 30, 2008
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