[NYTr] Cuba - Florida - Obama - Dems - The Bigger Picture

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Lest anyone be foolish enough to think all of the fuss is really about
CUBA, here's some background on the national DNC vs the Florida Dems.
The bigger picture, as always, is about control and jockeying for
power fueled by corruption and yanqui dollars. It is against this
background that all the rest of it plays out. -NY Transfer]

TIME Mag blogs - Aug 25, 2007
http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/08/florida_vs_the_dnc_1.html

Swampland

Florida vs. the DNC

by Karen Tumulty

The Democratic National Committee has taken a hard line against
Florida's plans for an extra-early presidential primary, voting to
strip it of all of its delegates if it goes ahead with a Jan. 29 date.
The move shocked the state party, which now has 30 days to come up with
an alternative plan that passes muster with the national party. One
possibility would be a "beauty contest" on that date, in which the
winner would walk away with bragging rights and good headlines, but no
delegates. The state may also start its balloting early, so that
candidates will be forced to give it time and attention, but delay
counting the votes until after the Feb. 5 "window" opens.

The fear, as we have talked about here before, is that if Florida goes
ahead with the Jan. 29 primary that has been approved by its
GOP-controlled legislature, other big states--Michigan is already
moving in that direction--would leap ahead as well. That could force
Iowa and New Hampshire to move into 2007.

DNC sources tell me that Florida was surprised by the harshness of the
sanction, having expected to lose only 50% of its pledged delegates. No
one was taking that threat particularly seriously, and the state knew
it might even be able to win those delegates back in a floor fight at
the convention. The motion to impose the harsher measure was made by
Ralph Dawson, a lawyer who grew up in South Carolina, the state that
had the most to lose from Florida's move. (Dawson, who has not yet
endorsed a presidential candidate, was DNC Chairman Howard Dean's
roommate at Yale, as well as a former student of Congressman Jim
Clyburn, South Carolina's most influential African-American politician.)

And what about the Republicans? Their rules were set at their 2004
convention, and require that if Florida goes ahead on January 29, it
would lose half of its GOP delegates. However, that sanction hasn't
stopped the candidates from trooping down to the state--something the
DNC no doubt took into account as it decided to take its more dramatic
step.

The DNC may have put its finger in the dike for 2008, but everyone
fully expects another stampede by states four years from now. The big
states remain frustrated by the outsized influence of Iowa and New
Hampshire, and pressure will continue to make their voices louder in
the selection of the party nominees. Various fixes have been proposed,
including a series of regional primaries with a rotating order of
states. However, as one DNC member told me, that would take a
difficult-to-engineer agreement on the part of state legistatures and
secretaries of state. "The party is not able to fix this," the
committee member said. "The states have to fix this."

                           ***

The New York Times - Aug 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/us/politics/26calendar.html

Democrats Take a Tough Line on Florida Primary

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 — The Democratic National Committee, threatening to
take the toughest line possible, voted Saturday to refuse to seat any
Florida Democrat at the Democratic presidential convention in 2008 if
the state party did not delay the date of its 2008 primary to conform
to the party’s nominating calendar.

The committee gave Florida Democrats 30 days to propose a primary date
that conformed with Democratic rules prohibiting all but four states
from holding their primaries or caucuses before Feb. 5. But Florida
leaders, who seemed stunned by a near-unanimous vote and the severity
of the punishment, said they were doubtful they could come up with an
alternative.

They said they were bound by the vote of the Republican-controlled
State Legislature, which set the primary for Jan. 29.

Beyond what is emerging as a clear embarrassment for the party, the
practical results of this dispute were unclear. To a considerable
extent, it could prove to be little more than a reminder of how little
authority the party appears to have over its nominating process this
year.

Florida Democratic leaders said they were resistant to bowing to the
party’s demands, having already refused twice. And assuming the party
has a presumptive nominee by the time the convention is seated in
Denver next year, it will be the nominee — not party officials — who
would have the power to resolve a dispute over who is seated.

Aides to several candidates said it was inconceivable that in the end,
a Democratic presidential candidate a year from now would penalize a
state like Florida, going into a general election, by refusing to seat
the state’s delegates.

But the aides, who requested anonymity to discuss tactical concerns,
suggested that candidates might be wary to invest money and energy in
Florida for a delegate-less primary if, at the time, the race is tight
and candidates are in a contest to build up the biggest delegate counts.

“There are 30 days for this to get worked out, and our hope is it gets
settled in a way that Florida is contributing delegates to the
nominating process,” said David Plouffe, the campaign manager for
Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. “If they don’t come into compliance,
that means they won’t be contributing any delegates to the contest and
this will be nothing more than a straw poll.”

The vote by the national committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee laid
bare a sharp division between one of the most politically important
states in the country and a party that has been struggling to change
its nominating calendar to accommodate party leaders, who object to the
dominance Iowa and New Hampshire have enjoyed because they are first in
the nominating process.

The party voted to allow two states, South Carolina and Nevada, to move
their contests to the start of the year to provide regional and ethnic
balance, and barred all other states from holding contests before Feb.
5.

The debate, coming at a time when other states are also threatening to
move up their primaries, was the latest evidence of the extent to which
the party’s nominating calendar is in turmoil.

“This process is still a mess,” said Alice Travis Germond, the longtime
secretary of the Democratic National Committee. “Eight years ago we
said it was broken and getting broker. It’s now broker and getting more
broker.”

Ms. Germond warned of embarrassing floor fights at the convention if
Florida Democrats failed to come up with a date that met the party’s
requirements.

Karen L. Thurman, the chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Committee,
said she would go back to Florida and discuss what the party should do.
The options include creating a state-party-financed primary that would
take place after Feb. 5 — something that Ms. Thurman said would be
expensive and potentially unfeasible — and challenging the party’s
ruling in court.

“We have seen the strong feelings that have been relayed over this,”
she said, referring to the committee’s vote.

“We do represent, standing here, a lot of Democrats in the state of
Florida — over four million,” she said, adding: “This is emotional for
Florida. And it should be.”

Under the rules passed by the Democratic National Committee, if Florida
is not in compliance with the calendar it will automatically lose all
25 of its so-called super delegates — basically, elected officials and
state party members — and at least half of its regular 185 delegates.
But the committee voted, with one dissent, to impose the maximum
penalty by refusing to seat any delegates should Florida not return
with an acceptable plan.

The result was praised by Scott Brennan, the Iowa Democratic chairman,
who, along with Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic chairman,
flew to Washington for what in other years would have been the most
routine of summer meetings by the Rules and Bylaws Committee. “It’s a
harsh sanction, but you have to enforce the rules,” Mr. Brennan said.

In arguing for the Democrats to allow Florida to go early, Ms. Thurman
and other party officials said that the party had unsuccessfully fought
the effort by Florida Republicans to move up the date. Again and again,
party officials presented themselves as victims rather than
protagonists, and asked the party to grant them relief because of that.

“We’re asking you for mercy, not judgment,” Jon Ausman, a Democratic
leader, told the committee.

But James Roosevelt Jr., the rules committee’s co-chairman, said he was
not convinced that Florida Democrats had done all they could do. He
said it was “clear that the Republicans were the moving force behind
the selection of a date that violated both the Republican and the
Democratic rules, but that the efforts to oppose that were form over
substance.”

Committee members made it clear that they wanted to send a message to
any state that might be looking to change its primary; the vote came as
Michigan leaders are looking to move that state’s primary to Jan. 15.
Committee members noted that there had been a long process in setting
the calendar.

“We have voted on these rules,” said Donna Brazile, a member of the
committee. “The process was very fair, very democratic in every step
that we’ve taken.”

Ms. Brazile suggested that Democrats in Florida, given what happened
there in 2000, should be particularly sensitive to what the party was
doing. “I’m going to send a message to everybody in Florida — that we
are going to follow the rules,” she said.

[Michael Falcone contributed reporting.]

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

                          ***

Los Angeles Times - Aug 25, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dems26aug26,1,1960663.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&track=crosspromo

Democrats may strip Florida of all delegates

Party leaders threaten to exclude the state from presidential
nominating convention unless it delays its scheduled January primary.

By Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic National Committee voted today to strip
Florida of all its presidential convention delegates, threatening to
leave the state without a vote for the party's 2008 nominee unless it
delays the date of its presidential primary election.

The ultimatum marks the most drastic attempt yet by party leaders to
impose order among squabbling states that have sought to elbow their
balloting closer to the front of the traditional election cycle.

The DNC rules and bylaws committee voted overwhelmingly to give
Florida's state party 30 days to push back its primary contest by at
least a week from Jan. 29, 2008, or risk losing accreditation for its
210 delegates to the party's nominating convention next summer in
Denver.

A refusal to seat delegates from the nation's fourth-largest state
could create divisive floor fights and a public spectacle at a
convention normally choreographed to show party unity.

The Iowa caucuses traditionally mark the nation's first presidential
contest, followed by a statewide primary in New Hampshire. The DNC
recently agreed to allow Nevada and South Carolina to join the initial
mix to bring more Latino and African American voters into the early
balloting, but it barred any other state from holding a binding
presidential primary before the first Tuesday in February, which next
year is Feb. 5.

Officials said after the vote Saturday that they took action in part to
send a strong message to Michigan and other states that are considering
pushing their party contests into January in violation of the party
rules.

Karen Thurman, the chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, argued
that she and her colleagues had done everything possible to adhere to
the rules. But, she insisted, Republicans who dominate the Legislature
in Tallahassee outmaneuvered them by moving the primary date up in a
bill that contained crucial election reforms, forcing Democrats to vote
for the Jan. 29 date. The Republican governor then signed it into law.

Members of the rules committee insisted that Florida still had
alternatives, however.

The Jan. 29 vote could become a non-binding "beauty contest" or straw
vote for Democrats, they noted, to be followed in February by a
separate primary, by party caucuses, mail-in vote or other system that
would meet the national party's calendar rules.

Thurman said a mail-in balloting program would cost $7 million to $8
million, however, and that the money is not available. "This is a
difficult situation for all of us," she said.

Jon Ausman, a DNC member from Florida, said the state party has
investigated setting up 150 party caucuses in February. Although the
plan would cost less than $1 million, he warned that caucuses
inevitably would draw only a fraction of the state's 4 million
Democrats and would disenfranchise the 190,000 Floridians who cast
absentee ballots, including many members of the military.

"We're asking you for mercy, not judgment," Ausman pleaded.

But few committee members offered much sympathy.

Garry S. Shay, a panel member from California, noted that his home
state contains 7.1 million Democrats and that it "serves as the ATM of
the Democratic Party." Yet the state party resisted pressure to move
its primary date before Feb. 5.

Donna Brazile, a delegate from the District of Columbia, said she
hesitated even to offer the Florida party "wiggle room" on its primary
date.

"Some people will moan, and some people will shout, but we have to
follow the rules," she insisted.

In the end, the committee voted to give the Florida delegation a 30-day
reprieve. "We decided to punt for now," said Harold Ickes, a Democratic
operative and former aide to President Clinton.

Thurman, the state party chief, said she would confer with state party
officials back in Florida. "I think we have seen the strong feelings
here," she told reporters. "There is strong emotion."