The "Michigan and Florida will Count in the End" Lie
When one watches enough political programming he or she will inevitably hear a Democratic official or Obama supporter say, "Michigan and Florida's delegates will count in the end." They say the states will count because the Democratic Party will agree to count the delegates of the two states after the nominee has already been determined.
The fact that the states have had no actual impact on who becomes the nominee seems irrelevant according to those making this argument. Howard Dean and the Obama campaign often make this argument.
Perhaps Mr. Dean would enjoy watching Tiger Woods play a practice round the day after the Masters. Maybe he might like watching the Patriots in the weight room the day after they lost the Super Bowl. These things pale in comparison to the event that preceded them. In the same way the show of counting Florida and Michigan's delegates only after the nominee is selected is irrelevant and a joke.
The Democrats put themselves in this position by penalizing the two states too severely. The Democrats cannot pave over their disenfranchisement of the states by giving them delegates after the issue has been resolved. It's insulting to the voters in those states and the intelligence of political observers.
The Democrats chose to disenfranchise those states because they scheduled early primaries and they should stand by their decision. The fact that the two states might have put Hillary over the top in the popular vote should not matter. Howard Dean and the Obama campagin are in favor of disenfranchising Michigan and Florida and John McCain should point that out repeatedly over the coming months.
The Ref | 4/8/08 | Permalink