Ambitious Re-Vote Plans for Michigan, Florida Heading Down the Tubes
Hillary Clinton waits to speak at a campaign rally in Anderson, Ind., Thursday. (AP Photo)
Despite intensive lobbying from Hillary Clinton and her supporters, the latest pushes for re-votes in Michigan and Florida are heading down the tubes.
The Michigan Senate broke Thursday for a two-week recess without taking any action on a proposal to hold a state-conducted do-over primary June 3 with funding from private donors. A similar proposal in Florida fell apart earlier in the week.
Both states had their delegations stripped from the Democratic National Convention for holding early primaries against the wishes of the national party. Clinton, who is trailing Barack Obama in the delegate count, won the two voided primaries, which would account for 313 pledged delegates.
Aside from courting uncommitted superdelegates and mounting an electoral uprising in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, seating the Michigan and Florida delegations was one of the stars Clinton needed to align in order for her to take the lead from Obama.
The Democratic National Committee has been firm in its enforcement of the earlier decision not to count the two states’ January primaries. James Roosevelt Jr., co-chairman of the DNC rules and bylaws committee, even told The Boston Globe in an interview published Thursday there’s “no chance” the national party would yield and seat the delegations without another contest, if doing so would influence the outcome of the race.
The prolonged stalemate over the states imperils Clinton’s chances, and the candidates haven’t stopped bickering over a way to make them count.
“I do not understand what Senator Obama is afraid of,” Clinton said Thursday in Terre Haute, Ind. “But it is going to hurt our party and our chances in November, so I would call on him once again to join me in giving the people of Florida and Michigan the chance to be counted as we move forward in this nominating process.”
Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan — one of the reasons he opposes seating the delegation — but Clinton held up the fact that she kept her name on the Michigan ballot as a sign of her commitment to the state.
The Clinton camp has accused Obama of trying to disenfranchise voters, suggesting his words of empowering Americans don’t live up to his actions.
Obama staffers fire back that Clinton has been all over the map on this issue, and his campaign says it is committed to finding a solution. The campaign released a memo Wednesday questioning the legality of holding a new Michigan primary that would ban anyone who voted in the state’s GOP primary from voting again in the Democratic one.
The Obama campaign suggested splitting Michigan’s 128 delegates evenly between the two candidates Thursday, but the Clinton campaign immediately rejected the idea.
“We support a fair solution that allows Michigan Democrats to participate at our National Convention this summer, and we look forward to working with the Michigan Democratic Party and the DNC to achieve that goal,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Thursday.
One of the concerns with leaving Michigan and Florida out of the Democratic nominating process is that it could alienate Democratic voters when they’re needed most, in the general election.
All sides of this issue have tried proposing a solution.
In Florida, the state’s Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman proposed a mail-in re-vote, but that fell through in the face of opposition from the party’s congressional delegation. In a statement, Thurman tossed the decision to the DNC rules and bylaws committee.
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson recently suggested doing what the Republicans did in his state, which was cut the available delegates in half.
Harold Ickes, who is leading the Clinton campaign’s efforts to secure delegates, said the campaign would look at a mail-in option in Michigan with the failure of the primary bill.
Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, along with three other Michigan officials, released a statement Thursday saying they would continue to work to ensure Michigan’s delegates are seated.
“We want to avoid a divisive fight at the credentials committee or on the convention floor,” they said.
FOX News’ Molly Henneberg, Aaron Bruns and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
LOL at the comments to this article. The people of Michigan and Florida have only their respective Democratic Party chairperson for this mishap. The rules were clear and both states broke them, now Clinton sees a chance to unfair gain - and all you clowns are crying about equality. LOL at you, open your eyes
Which candidate is a religious opportunist.
Which candidate only wants some of the electorate counted.
No it’s not Bush, Obama
Senator Obama talks about reaching across to the other side and working things out. His whole campaign is about bridging the gap between people. But when it come to making a decision on allowing a revote in Florida and Michigan he won’t work out an agreement. I heard him say No to Michigan the other day with his own lips. Talk is cheap. Words with no backing mean nothing. I am a republican and was interested in Obama until I started to see his true nature in the past few weeks. I do not think he can bring anyone together Obama has no record of bringing people together.
I don’t think that it will matter, Republicans are going to win it is obvious that the democrats cannot and will not hesitate to violate our rights and they both worked for civil rights. Is the right to vote in this country rewritten without the citizens voting on that as well? What have our families that fought in the civil war and killed there own families to support this government, what were they fighting for? And then again in Germany, what for (maybe to give the people the right to be heard in their countries and have some say in the safety of their peoples). So I do not think that it matters , and we are being discriminated against as part of this country.
Clinton states here that she left her name on the ballot as a sign of her commitment to the state yet in earlier statements I believe she said it remained on the ballot because she did not submit her request to remove it in time. Which is the truth? Or is she just trying (again) to speak from both sides of her mouth?
How can the U.S. go around the world preaching fair elections in other countries and leave out the people’s voice in 2 states in our own. I find this disgusting and hipocritical.
I guess they’ll just have to live with the consequences of their actions. What a novel concept…but unfortunately something many Democrats never understand.
All this fighting over a decision already made and being enforced by their own party. They need to stop trying to change the decision and live with the consequences of their actions in Florida and Michigan. If you want your votes counted next time, simply follow the rules of your organization. It doesn’t get any easier than that and it is a simple principle we teach to our children..actions have consequences you must live with. So live with it.