Campaign Official Thinks Obama Got "F*cked" in Florida?

by Deb Cupples |   Apparently, the concept of unity has filled Florida's air like misquotes swarming around swamplands after dusk. Today, the Miami Herald blog Naked Politics reports:

"So much for party unity: As Florida Dems prepare for Saturday's Jefferson-Jackson dinner aimed at bringing the party 'together once and for all,' a spat over the Obama campaign's decision to replace some already-designated Florida delegates with Obama backers has intensified.

"And how. DNC member Jon Ausma [sic] late Thursday e-mailed Dems (and reporters) choice sections of what he says were e-mails from Obama's Florida finance chair Kirk Wagar -- in which Wagar curses Ausman out and criticizes Sen. Bill Nelson and party director Leonard Joseph.

"The highlights: 'You (Jon Ausman) f&^%ed us. We are dealing with it. You need to accept the fact that you f*&^ed us.'"

 

 

"And of Nelson: "I am getting very sick of (Senator) Nelson making a bad situation worse."

"Said Ausman to Wagar: "We are at a point in time when we need to heal and come together. Help me understand how these messages, which you have sent to me in writing, help Senator Obama's campaign."

"Wagar sent out an e-mail shortly after, apologizing for the profanity, but suggesting Ausman had used "out of context snippets from some ongoing and sometimes heated arguments we have had over the course of this campaign.

"'I apologize for the profanity that you were subjected to,' he said in the e-mail. 'It is a vice of mine that I try to minimize but seems to rear it’s head with more frequency when I deal with Jon.'"

Obama's Florida finance chair Kirk Wagar's "apology" is the sort of thing parents and school teachers hear all the time: "But the other kid made me say those things."

The crude and bellicose tone of Mr. Wagar's statements do deserve to be noted, though such attitudes have been pretty typical of some Obama supporters over the past five months. 

I don't need to focus on that in this post, because my co-blogger Damozel covered the bad-manners angle in a post titled "Further Proof that the Obama Campaign Needs to Grow up."

What troubles me is the implication that Obama's campaign has been somehow victimized.

Admittedly, I don't know precisely how Mr. Wagar thinks that Obama Florida's Hillary-supporting leaders f*cked Obama's campaign.

At the same time, I cannot imagine a scenario involving Florida in which anyone could validly say that the Obama campaign got f*cked.

Less than a month ago -- in a move that an Obama campaign representative argued for -- the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) chose to restore only 50% of Florida Democrats' primary votes. 

Many of my fellow Florida Democrats, even many Obama supporters, perceive the RBC's move as a partial disenfranchisement.  Many of us Floridians could not help but reminisce about George Bush's push to stop Florida's vote recounts back in 2000.

And many Floridians have noticed that Obama's campaign benefited from the disenfranchisement.  Would Obama have clinched the nomination even if 100% of Florida's votes had been counted? 

Probably, but if Florida had been fully counted, the "magic number" would have increased by more than 50 -- meaning that Obama likely would not have clinched the nomination on the night of the last two states' primaries.  Instead, Obama would have had to wait a few days (or maybe weeks) before giving his official victory speech.

Apparently, Obama's campaign didn't want to wait the extra days (or weeks): evident in the fact that Rep. Robert Wexler -- who officially represented the Obama campaign at the RBC hearing on May 21-- had expressly argued that only half of Florida's primary votes should be counted.

In short, the RBC gave Obama's campaign what it wanted (cutting Florida's vote in half), despite the fact that the DNC's own Delegate Selection Rules would have allowed the RBC to restore 100% of Florida Democrats' votes (see e.g., Rule 21-c-7).

Many Floridians flatly resent said disenfranchisement -- regardless of how candidates, party leaders , and the media try to spin it. 

You can take out the polishing cloth and feverishly apply elbow grease, but the proverbial turd will still end up looking like just what it is.

Back to my point: if anyone in the Democratic Party got f*cked with respect to Florida, it is Florida's voters and the state's Democratic leaders who answer to them.

Obama's campaign officials should consider themselves lucky to have gotten the results they wanted -- and they should graciously refrain from trying to play the resentful victim.

Memeorandum has commentary.

 

Comments

[Danny]

America and democracy in Florida and Michigan got fucked by the rules and bylaws committee. Obama pulled the strigs he loses Florida because he through a tantrum and got his way. The idiot congressman Wexler who put his head on the gillotine for Obama should lose his seat in congress. I would be campaigning against him if I lived in his district. And till a few days ago I recieved and read mail from Democrats and donated to the cause. I'm not in it with the democrats anymore. I'm on the other team now. The team that doesn't vote DemocRAT.

[Deb]

I hear ya, Danny. I'm pretty unhappy about what happened in my state.

Wexler is in Palm Beach or Broward County (I'm not sure which). He's hundreds of miles out of my district, though.

[Danny]

Hey Deb! - Do you think as I do, that Gores endorsment of Obama at this late stage, on a Monday night, with a kind of strange tone and feel to his speach was weird? It came off really spooky to me. I don't think Gore can help Obama anyway - I think the democratic party is starting to feel the heat coming up from below and they are going to pay a heavy price for the cheating and backward way they stole this nomination for Obama. Could you believe that Gore actually said that we believe in elections when so many party democrats have been saying elections don't count that the party chooses it's candidate we don't elect them. My vote doesn't count! That is what I was told by DEMOCRATS. Well they can't have my vote now or in November. They are grasping at straws now having Gore come out and personally having it in Michigan with GORE of all people in Michigan only ads insult to injury. Obama loses the election and all democrats who back Obama will not get a Hillary Clinton vote to save their political hides. Big time LOSERS in my little humble opinion (Big Brown).