CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
May 28, 2008 – 6:54 a.m.
Clinton Had a Long-Term Strategy for Florida and Michigan
By Madison Powers, CQ Guest Columnist
The debut of the HBO film Recount is a painful reminder of an excruciatingly long month many observers from both parties endured in late 2000. It is an important reminder of what is wrong about an electoral process in which the guarantee that “every vote should count” is fundamentally flawed, not by mere incompetence but by design.
The film is a reminder also of how inexact the analogy is to the cause for which the phrase has been recycled by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton . This coming weekend, the Rules and Bylaws committee of the Democratic Party meets to discuss what to do about seating both the Florida and Michigan delegations. The last two weeks have produced an escalation of Clinton rhetoric, comparing her effort to get the votes of the two states counted as comparable to that of suffragettes, civil rights marchers, and freedom fighters.
Clinton’s objections to the Democratic National Committee’s decision not to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations for moving up the dates of their primaries in violation of party rules have been dissected in detail. For many observers, Clinton’s conversion seems to have come very late in the game. After all, the story goes, Clinton initially agreed that she would not campaign in either state and she even declared that neither contest should count.
As often as commentators remind us that Clinton’s new line of argument proceeds without ever acknowledging the inconsistency with her earlier statements and actions, the Clinton team seems not to worry about a revolt among voters who might see this move as rank opportunism. As often as we shake ours heads and marvel at the chutzpah of a campaign that seems unfazed by those who point out those inconsistencies, the Clinton team remains undaunted by any risk of an appearance of unprincipled shift in position. To some, the shift in course seems like a shameless act of cynical manipulation.
However, the real story of the Clinton reversal may be more troubling than the usual account suggests, and our own memories may well have obscured the real nature of how we have gotten to where we are 3 months out from the convention. The drumbeat for counting Florida and Michigan actually began in late January, before it became clear to most observers that the nomination was not going to be locked up easily and early.
Well before Clinton began her series of primary contest losses, she made public her plan to press for delegate votes from the two states that had violated the rules. Four days before the Florida primary on January 29, and just two weeks after her 55 percent share of primary votes cast in the Michigan primary in which neither Edwards nor Obama were on the ballot, Clinton announced that she would ask her “Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan.” Perhaps the rest of us did not pay much attention at the time, but Florida Democratic Party officials took immediate notice and extended to her their thanks for her promise of support.
Contrary to the familiar view that her argument for counting Michigan and Florida is a tactic of last-minute desperation, Clinton’s reliance on counting both the delegates and the popular vote from both states was integral to her long-term vision of her possible electoral path to the nomination. It is — and has been for months — her Ace in the Hole. Hers is not a late campaign conversion or a post hoc, unplanned maneuver.
The effort to press for the counting of Florida and Michigan was a premeditated act, a deliberate strategy adopted at a time when it was clear that her opposition was relying on her representations that neither outcome would count. It was, in effect, a classic case of bait and switch.
While the opposition — and more importantly, her opponent’s potential voters — were relying on her assurances to the contrary, she was already signaling to Florida operatives that she planned to press for counting the anticipated favorable Florida outcome and thereby to capitalize on her opposition’s absence from the fight. What is most distasteful about how Clinton has dealt with the issue is not her inconsistency or her self-serving reversal of position. What is disturbing about the timing of her conversion to being the champion of the cause of the disenfranchised is the prospect that the advantage might have been gained by lulling the opposition into thinking that she meant what she said.
The litany of ways in which Recount portrays how Florida voters were disenfranchised in 2000 is most infuriating when it catalogs deliberate and premeditated efforts to make sure that all the votes are not counted or even cast. Lists of felons to be excluded from voting are portrayed as deliberately padded so as to exclude minority voters whose names merely sound like someone else legally barred from voting. Deliberate mischief designed to delay and ultimately prevent the proper recounting of votes strike most of us as vastly worst than mere incompetence or failure to anticipate voting machine problems.
The most troubling analogy between 2000 and 2008 perhaps lies in the possibility that a 2008 strategy was designed in advance to induce in the Florida electorate a false sense of the primary’s unimportance. If that was the plan, as the timing invites us to consider, then it offers a closer parallel to the various intentional forms of voter suppression in 2000 that make watching Recount so painful.
Madison Powers is Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University. His column appears on Wednesdays in CQ Politics.
Comments
I would question the use of a movie as a true accounting of events. Despite all the complaints of voter suppression, it is interesting to note that none of this excluded voters filed a law suit under the various electoral laws. Both parties in Florida and Michigan knew the rules and ignored them. I hope in November we will not presented with demands for do-overs.
So let me get this straight - you are saying that Senator Clinton's hundred of thousands of vote margin came from her "low-information" voters inability to comprehend her deftly worded assurances. But AA's and latte-drinking Volvo drivers understood the message and stayed home. She is truly more wonderous than I thought. The presidency should be a breeze.
demfromphilly- would you give up the "latte drinkers" crap already? You embarrass yourself with this kind of idiocy. What it comes down to is, she's losing. Period. And the combination of her supporters crying for these votes when it serves them, and jack@ss republicans like yourself trying to further divide the Dem party is just the weakest form of "competition" we've seen yet in a political race. The Clintons are opportunist power-addicts. they're time has come, the gong has sounded. Get them off the stage.
"IF YOU BREAK THE RULES YOU MUST BE PUNISHED" they say. What I want to know is exactly WHO broke the rules? WHO made the decision to move the primary date??? Did the 2 million American Voters decide this? If not, then why should they be punished?? I am a democrat, but unless they solve this problem fairly, lots of people will be voting for McCain. The Republicans have another thing right too. You win the state you get the deligates. Democrates make your vote count for nothing.
demfromphilly, you are clueless. what is being said is that she benefitted from name recognition (vote buying) and not fair campaigning, as is the right of every candidiate. they all followed the AGREED upon rules, EXCEPT Clinton. Now, because everyone knew who HRC was and no one yet knew who BHO was, she wants to claim all the votes even though she hersefl stated they would not count. YOu must have low self estemm if yu think she actually cares one lick about your vote. She wants to win. If Barack Obama had won FL and MI, so you think HRC, and by osmosis, you would care at all. I seriously doubt it. Thou dost protest too much.
HillRod's desperation is such an ugly sight...
I think Senator Clinton would be the nominee right now had Florida and Michigan voted a week later. I think it's clear Senator Obama is very weak in Florida and wouldn't have had the resources yet to beat her Michigan had they voted, say, on Super Tuesday. That said, the parallel between 2000 and 2008 is how political allegiance and partisanship bury, hide, and destroy all possible ethical responsibility and "truth," how the Supreme Court could vote 5-4, how both campaigns could constantly exchange "talking points," how Clinton's campaign this election has become totally, totally, totally about HER winning, and not at all about the issues. I think it's clear she doesn't believe Obama's connection to Reverend Wright matters in the least. I think it's clear she also believes some rural voters are "bitter." I think it's clear she knows seating Florida and Michigan's full delegations as they voted (allowing the "uncommited" vote in Michigan to vote for whoever they want) is ridiculous, unfair, and in direct contradiction to her rhetoric about voter disenfranchisement. Clinton has always said she'll do whatever it takes to win, even if that means ignoring the fact that the elections in Florida and Michigan were basically a crapshoot.
demfromphilly has it exactly right! and isn't it wonderful that all candidates, from time immemorial, have changed their minds, altered their strageties, manipulated voters in order to win - but Hillary is not allowed to do that. shall I grieve for the naivete of the Obama group for calling it foul that she didn't mean what she said? when was the last time anybody believed what a politician said during an election campaign? George Bush, when he said,"Read My Lips,"? C'mon, fellas, there'll never be a candidate as good as Hillary, nor a woman who would be a better leader. Obama is a dreamer who wants to change the world - we all know that will never happen!
goodness - this is the dumbest "analysis" imaginable! take this kind obamabot cheerleading mythos to a blog will ya? Its embarrassing...
Clintons arguments are ridiculous. All candidates were aware of the the methodology to be used for the primaries and all agreed. To try and change things when you are losing is not how things are done in the real world. I guess in her world anything is possible. It is like making a hopefully game winning three pointer in the last seconds of a basketball game. You make the shot but you stepped over the line. Now you want the three foot line moved in so that you win. That's just plain silly.
go ahead and vote for MCCain Im sure Obama can afford 6.00 a gallon gas and he does'nt have to worry about any of his kids going off to war.Racisit people have made this country look stupid to the world for years,you are so ignorant,how do you think that you will ever get anything done if all canidates have to do is appeal to your racisism,you should fool these politians that have been using you for years and vote for the black man ,when they see they can't use you anymore maybe we can get something done in washington.
"HilRod" should have competed in the REPUBLICAN nominating contests. After all, many of them provided (statewide) winner-take-all events, and, even more importantly, outright permitted ONE-HALF of the allotted delegates for those pesky, scofflaw MI and FL contests.
Everyone knew that there would be a push to have the results in MI and FL included before their primaries took place. It was all over the news shows. There was an organized campaign by Obama supporters to get people who vote for "uncommitted" in WA in as an indication of loyatly to him. The notion that Hillary Clinton somehow disadvantaged Obama by acting in an underhanded fashion is a joke unless we are to assume that no one in Obama's campaign watches television or reads.
Regardless of whether Hillary agreed or didn't agree, she is obligated to follow the party rules if she wants get the party's nomination. The party rules were violated in MI and FL by Democratic leaders who were elected by the Democratic voters of MI and FL. Democrats in those two states should accept responsibility for the actions of their own elected officials and live with the compromise that will eventually be settled upon. And all the rabid Hillary supporters on this issue should be awarded with Karl Rove lapel pins for the way they've twisted this into an issue of fairness.
If the Democratic legislators in MI and FL have voted against moving the election dates or if they filibustered to try to stop it, they might have a valid argument now. But, the Democrats voted right along with the Republicans to change the date, even though they were warned by the DNC to NOT change the primary date!!! They made their own bed, now they MUST sleep in it.
TIMOTHY: There was a law suit filed per voter supression in 2000 in Florida and the petitioners won. Go do some research. MORGAN, I believe that if you go and check, the Republicans did have similar rules in effect and the rule breaking states were granted 1/2 their delegates to the convention.
Lets be real here about Michigan and Florida. Everyone already knows that when the rules were set, Michigan and Florida were not supposed to count based on agreements by all candidates and the democratic party leadership. This was an agreement signed by the candidates - a contract among those that would be charged to uphold the highest contract of the land - the Constitution. If one of the candidates would so easily break the contract for their election, would they also break the contract that the country is based on? Ok, setting that aside, the contention is that not counting the votes would disenfranchise the voters - sorry too late. When the Michigan Democrats voted to move up their primary, they knew they were potentially disenfranchising their voters. Remember, there was an uproar during the Michigan primary over that fact that many Michiganders could not vote for Obama and therefore either stayed home, or voted for uncommitted because they could not even write in their vote for Obama. Aren't they disenfranchised to the tune of hundreds of thousands? Now as for Florida - yes the democrats in office did not have the votes to keep Florida from moving up its primary. So then, given this was the case I understand that all the party regulars informed the voters that their votes would not count. While I agree that the voters did nothing wrong and both Hillary and Barack were on the ballot, the fact that all voters were told their primary votes would not count, lets analyze who voted anyway. As I understand it, apparently there was a significant property tax issue on the ballot that drew a record numbers of voters to the polls. And because they were at the polls for the property tax, they voted in the primary. Now if the only people, or the majority of the people went to the polls for the property tax issue, who DIDN'T go to the polls? More than likely it was non-property owners. Speaking of disenfranchasement, who were these non-property tax owners and who would they have more than likely voted for if they had come to the polls. Well I would bet that they were African Americans down in Broward County, and other heavily democratic strongholds. The same voters who were disenfranchised in 2000 because their names resembled felons and other ridiculous reasons. So again, who is in the process of being disenfranchised. There is nothing fair about being disenfranchised, but given the rules, no outcome at this point would result in no disenfranchisement, so lets stop this as a one sided issue. A split of half the votes as the penalty, with that half being split evenly between Obama and Clinton would be as fair as any other outcome.
It strikes me that the mess with MI and FL delegates is a strong indication that the Democratic Party lacks the leadership and the common sense to run its own business. How do we ever expect them to be able to run the country?
Now why would any fair-minded person take any serious note of anything Madison Powers writes on the subject of Hillary Clinton? All this "interpretation" and use of dark, sinister terms comes from someone who's been a "guest" and has written seven earlier articles. Every single one of them attacks Hillary's motives, words, presumed intentions, plans, plots, and positions. Every one. So why in the world should we grant any credibility whatever to the eighth attack? If I'm interested in an analysis of the Middle East, do I read Ahmadinijad's latest screed? If I want to understand the race for the NL Central pennant, do I depend on the PR dept of the Cubs? So many distortions in such a little column. My, my. What will Powers do to make extra coin when Hillary is no longer the ogre to attack?
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