Namely, Gov. Granholm, Sen.Stabenow, FL Sen. Geller etc made for the mess by screwing around with the Democratic primary schedule.
Obama followed the rules as set by the DNC.
so during Jim Crow, blacks not voting was just "part of the rules?" or Rosa Parks should have just followed "the rules" when she was forced to the back of the bus?
(plus territories) that Clinton supporting leaders and officials in FL and MI thumbed their nose at by breaking the primary schedule and creating the mess for the party and helping the GOP in the process. Had they stuck by the schedule, FL and MI would've played a positive and meaningful role in the nomination process. Blame the creators of this mess for the mess.
As the rules stand, FL and MI won't get counted and any sort of change in rules after voting began will have to be acceptable to and approved by both campaigns.
Please see my own modest proposal for resolving MI here.
agreed, both implicitly (by running the primaries scheduled and organized by the DNC) and explicitly (eg, when HRC said in IA that MI and FL won't count), that FL and MI delegationg will not be seated.
wouldn't it have been nice if Strom Thurmond flip flopped on voting rights too?
This isn't an issue of voting rights, but since you're trying hard to make it one, you should know that a lot of people didn't show up to participate in the beauty contest in FL and non-contest in MI because they were told that their votes would not count. They will be disenfranchised if the flawed results are counted as reflecting true voter intent.
Did you know that Dems had fewer voters than the Reps in both FL and MI whereas they out-polled Reps by large margins in almost every other state? That's a proof that tons of voters did not show up because they were told (even HRC said that they were not going to count) that FL and MI were not going count.
The real issue is that Clinton supporting Democrats in those states (Granholm, Stabenow, Levin, Geller etal) joined the Republicans to mess with the process designed by the DNC and abided by 48 other states that were scheduled to go before and after FL and MI. Those states will be disenfranchised too by allowing the renegade and flawed results to count as they are.
Furthermore, in MI, exit polls showed that the vote split would've been C:46 and O:35 and Obama would've done even better if he had been able to run and campaign there.
Rosa Parks disobeyed a law that was patently unjust, and she did so without an eye to her own interests. Nobody involved in the Florida/Michigan debacle can make such a claim.
Should the DNC just roll over if any state unilaterally decides that it wants to go first? How is that fair to other states?
If the analogy applies at all, Florida and Michigan told the rest of the states to go sit down at the back of the bus.
Obama took his name off the ballot to pander to Iowa and to delegitimize a contest he knew he would lose.
Wouldn't it be nice if right before the Potomoc Primaries Hillary said, "Hey, I don't really feel like having my name in a contest where I lose by 30 points. It would look bad! We should take my name off the ballot and then say that those states don't count."
Maybe Obama should have taken his name off the ballot in Ohio and Pennsylvania and said that they don't count.
Why don't we make Obama a flag pin that has only 48 stars, one for each of the states that he wants to count?
He took his name off because it's commonly done. Gore and Bradley took their names off a similar renegade MI ballot in 2000.
Removing one's name from a primary's ballot is not commonly done.
Nor would it be common for the loser of such an election to plausibly say, "well don't count that state, but if you do, let's pretend I got half the votes."
