The "Unity" Shuck and Jive: Obama Campaign Opposed Counting 100% of Florida's Votes -- But Tried to Avoid Saying So

by Deb Cupples |   The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) decided on Saturday to count only half of Florida's primary votes -- despite the fact that all candidates' names were on the ballot and Florida's Democratic legislators had no power to block legislation that moved the primary election to a date that violated the DNC's rules.

Make no mistake: Barack Obama and his campaign opposed counting 100% of Florida's Democratic primary vote.  At the same time, the campaign wants public relations points for appearing to want to enfranchise Florida -- enough points to get Floridians' votes if Obama becomes the nominee.

This I learned from watching the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee hearing today (part of it anyway, as the live video streaming conked out several times). 

At one point, RBC member Tina Flournoy point-blank asked U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler whether the Obama campaign supported making100%  of Florida's primary vote count (instead of 50%).  Wexler was the Obama campaign's chosen representative for that hearing. A simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed.

Did Mr. Wexler directly answer the question?  No.  Instead, he said:

"...We are here to argue for the maximum number of delegates that this committees' rules allow."

Given that Mr. Wexler had earlier claimed that the RBC has authority to restore only 50% of Florida's vote, it's obvious that Mr. Wexler was essentially saying "No, Obama's campaign does not support restoring 100% of Florida's vote."

For some reason, Mr. Wexler had trouble uttering that simple, one-syllable word "No" -- in front of all the media folks, anyway.

Noticing that Mr. Wexler had failed to directly answer her question, Ms. Flournoy asked it again.  And again, Mr. Wexler made a similar statement that didn't include the word "No."

But we viewers (and Ms. Flournoy) clearly understood the Obama campaign's position: don't count all of Florida's votes.

Not only did Mr. Wexler tap dance like a young Buddy Ebsen, but also his argument was flawed.  A key argument of us Floridians was that the RBC never should have punished Florida Dems, because Florida's overwhelmingly Republican legislature had moved the primary election to a date earlier than the DNC's rules allowed.

Did I mention that Wexler is an Obma-supporting U.S. congressman who represents Florida's voters?  With friends like Wexler....

Incidentally, here's the current breakdown of Florida's legislature: House, 76 Republicans to 43 Democrats; Senate, Republicans 26 to Democrats 14.  The numbers have been roughly the same since at least 2001. 

In short, Florida's Democrats have no power to block or pass any legislation.  It's numerically impossible.

Moreover, the DNC's own rules [e.g., 21(c)(7)] allowed the RBC to not strip any of Florida's delegates if it had found that Florida's Dem leaders had acted in good faith to stop the moving of the primary date.

So, why did Obama's campaign object to counting 100% of Florida's votes (aside from the fact that doing so would have given Hillary Clinton more delegates)?

Here's Obama's basic argument:  none of the candidates campaigned in Florida; thus, it was an unfair election. 

One Obama-friendly RBC member projected that if candidates had campaigned in Florida, as many as 3 million Florida Dems would have voted (instead of the record-high 1.7 million that actually did vote).

Yes, that RBC member pulled the 3 million out of her... ear.

Did Obama's campaign representatives really believe that Florida's voters were in a vacuum? We get newpapers, Internet, radio, the cable channels....  We saw multiple televised debates involving all the Dem candidates before our January 29 primary.

Furthermore, why does the Obama campaign think that Obama was disadvantaged from not having campaigned in Florida?  Isn't it equally possible that if Hillary had campaigned in Florida, she would have won by an even bigger margin than she actually did?

And if Florida's primary election was truly unfair because no candidates had campaigned in that state, then is it any more fair to count even 50% of Florida's vote? 

If the election were truly unfair, than none of the votes should have counted -- by the Obama campaign's logic, anyway.  And yet, Obama's campaign pushed for the counting of 50% of Florida's votes.

Sometimes, logic takes a back seat to self interest.

In short, the Obama Campaign's argument was unpersuasive and based on something even less substantive than marshmallows. 

Another thing that bothered me about the hearing was the crowd.  People actually interrupted with applause (and hoots and hollers and whistles) whenever a witness or committee member said something in favor of not counting Florida's or Michigan's votes (i.e, a pro-Obama point). 

It sounded like a sporting event or a kegger at a frat house.  I half expected the camera to zoom in on a young, rambunctious lad lighting his own farts.

I'm not saying that more Obama supporters were in the audience than Hillary supporters.  I have no way of knowing. 

It might have been that the Hillary supporters in the audience were simply more accustomed to conducting themselves in manner appropriate to such a hearing (for the first few hours, anyway).

One other thing bothered me regarding the unruly audience: the RBC co-chairs didn't insist that the audience settle down.  Given that the DNC is a private body (which allowed citizen spectators as a courtesy), I suspect that the committee co-chairs easily could have told the audience that if it continued to erupt in hoots and hollers, the RBC would clear the room of spectators. 

Judges make such threats all the time, and they usually work.

Perhaps those RBC co-chairs enjoyed having pro-Obama outbursts interrupting witnesses and committee members.

The bottom line is that Sen. Obama got what he wanted: only half of Florida's votes will count in the (not so) Democratic nominating process.  His campaign pushed for this, purportedly to promote party unity -- i.e., to get votes in November if he becomes the nominee.

If Obama wants only half of Florida's votes to count in the primary, then he shouldn't expect more than half of Florida's Dems to get behind him in November. 

At this point, frankly, Obama would be lucky to get even half -- given that he got far less than half of Florida's votes during the primary.

Memeorandum has commentary.

Comments

[T-Steel]

Are we watching two realities because the crowd was obnoxious when pro-Clinton and pro-Obama representatives spoke.

Watching the RBC hearing re-affirms why I hate the Big 2 political parties. Rules and regulations? Bah! Give and take? Whatever! Party unity? Whatcha talking 'bout! 50 states doing whatever they want to do whenever they want to do is the problem. Plain and simple.

The Clinton and Obama campaigns are full of fresh manure. If you place beating McCain above all else, Clinton and Obama would meet, talk, and work this out. Instead, the two lawyers and their campaigns (along with the DNC and superdelegates) are playing "Let's Out Jerk One Another".

Sheesh...

[Deb Cupples]

HI T-Steel,

How are you? I saw the hearing only from 11 - 2 (or so). During that time, Obama supporters were definitely dominant sound-wise.

I caught a video of Ickes speaking toward the end, and Hillary supporters were being louder.

I'm nost sure what you mean when saying "50 states doing whatever they want to do whenever they want to do is the problem. Plain and simple."

[david stewart]

Counting half of this and half of that. In the end Hillary will have the most popular votes. And in the last batch of primaries, since Penn. Hillary has swamped the Obama camp with over 56% of the vote. If we had a Prime Minister system, Hillary could be nominated by the Libertarians and cake walk into the Whitehouse

[T-Steel]

Yes I should clarify my "50 states doing whatever they want to do whenever they want to do is the problem. Plain and simple" statement.

What I mean is that all the states can run their primaries however way they choose. But if you look at the GE, we all vote the same: one big primary. If all states had primaries ran the same way (with certain small changes do to local conditions), we wouldn't be in this mess. The DNC and state Democrats has caused this complete mess. Where's the consistency? Where's the order? I like Obama and Clinton ALOT. Unfortunately a rift has developed where the vitriol being spit back and forth between Obama and Clinton supporters is sick and depressing.

Now No Quarter is bragging about a Michelle Obama "whitey" video that will surface on Monday. And commenters are gleefully awaiting this rumored tape to "destroy Obama once and for all" (as a commenter said). Yikes! And the Obama supporters are calling Clinton horrific things in anticipation of said tape. Terrible...

[Diane]

I do not support Obama and never have, but I am alarmed to see racist headlines on blog posts about him.

[Diane]

I do not support Obama and never have, but I am alarmed to see racist headlines on blog posts about him.

[Diane]

I do not support Obama and never have, but I am alarmed to see racist headlines on blog posts about him.

[Diane]

I do not support Obama and never have, but I am alarmed to see racist headlines on blog posts about him.

[JamesAAMale]

Take it from a black american, the racism is like 90% from the osama worshppers.

McCain 2008 !!!

Never Obama, never it doesn't matter what Hillary says. We moderate dems will never vote communist, ever. She better stay as far away from this dude as possible, because he is going down in history just like Nelson Mandela, the very on to ruin his own country.

[Deb Cupples]

I got ONE nasty, expressly racist comment at BN-Politics last week. After picking my jaw up off the floor, I deleted it.

I wish people wouldn't bring race into this. That's NOT why many people dislike him, anyway.

[Deb Cupples]

T-Steel,

I don't understand why Hillary is getting blamed for the so-called "Whitey tape." Republicans are the ones who claim to have it.

Of course, we don't really even know if it exists.

[Deb Cupples]

HI David,

Unfortunately, we have the system we have. Hillary's only chance is to persuade enough superdels to commit (or switch to) her.

I'm just glad that the superdels will likely be in the awkward position of having to weigh Obama's earlier wins (including many caucus states) against Hillary's larger popular-vote count and larger-state victories.

[Deb Cupples]

T-Steel,

Now I get what you're saying. Yes, the DNC and state Dems certainly did put us into this mess (except in FL, where it was FL's Republicans and the DNC).

I'm a staunch Hillary supporter, but I don't insult Obama or even those of his supporters that take a hostile tone.

Like you, I believe in disagreeing as civilly as possible.

[Blythe]

Yay! Someone finally pointed out the blatantly obvious! I'm currently 4 hours (by plane) south of Fl, I've been here since last year, and I get CNN. I knew all about Obama, and there is this new thing called the internet. That thing that Mr. Undecided pointed people to in all his preaches to figure out what his actual positions on anything actually might be. I seem to recall that he was the only one to have aired an ad in FL. So he breaks the rules and gets rewarded?

Why didn't anyone call him on the fact that while he was all mopey and whiny about not being on the MI ballot, it was because he deliberately chose to take his name off? Not, as he seemed to be implying, that he was being victimized?

I'm from MI, so I was really quite pissed at the outcome. Why does no one come out and say that this is precisely the type of "dirty chicago style" politics, that Mr. Changey Hope is ostensibly rejecting, while coating himself with it at every point?

The last time people were this delusional over someone, we got W and all his attendant idiocies.

[Buck Naked Politics]

Blythe,

I've written about it repeatedly and have also drawn the W parallel.

It's not that I think Obama's policies are necessarily like W's. Frankly, I don't know much about Obama's policy stances, because he SAYS a lot but has a very scant record. Some of his words have proven to be misleading if not false.

I do find Obama's way of dealing with the public (and his opponents) to be very similar to W's.

I know that I've complained a lot about Florida, but you Michigan people were shafted in a worse way.

Now, some Obama supporters on the blogosphere are awfully touchy about anyone's saying the least critical thing about "their" nominee.

That too reminds me of the post-9/11 and pre-Katrina days when W's supporters would shriek at anyone who dared criticize "their" guy.