Democrats Need to Hear From Florida and Michigan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-e-zelizer/democrats-need-to-hear-fr_b_90335.html

Julian E. Zelizer
Democrats Need to Hear From Florida and Michigan
Posted March 6, 2008
Read More: 2008 Election, Democrats, Dnc, Florida, Howard Dean, Michigan, Breaking Politics News

Democrats have a big problem on their hands. As a result, they need to redo the Florida and Michigan primaries. Today, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said that party leaders in both states need to design proposals for holding new nominating contests.

The Democratic National Committee stripped both states of their delegates when they moved their votes earlier in the schedule. Senator Clinton won in both states. But most of the Democratic candidates -- including Senator Obama -- had withdrawn their name from the ballot in Michigan. Based on a pledge, none of the candidates conducted campaigns in Florida, although some of Clinton's opponents claim that she violated the agreement by making a few appearances in the Sunshine State before the day of the vote.

Now the context has changed. Super Tuesday did not decide the contest. Democrats are facing a brutal contest that will last into the summer convention. Senator John McCain is grinning as he watches the Democratic bloodbath. The irony that an embattled Republican Party managed to unite around a candidate relatively quickly and Democrats are fighting each other tooth and nail is hard to ignore.

Neither faction in the Democratic Party can argue that the primaries will produce a decisive winner. To be sure, the delegate count favors Obama. He has done extraordinarily well in small states, especially those that depend on caucuses, as well as in several battle ground states like Missouri. At the same time, Clinton won the popular vote in almost all of the large states: California, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas.

The situation won't be clarified in the months ahead. Obama will likely win in Wyoming and Mississippi while Clinton has an excellent chance of taking Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico.

This is why a new vote in Florida and Michigan is essential. Democrats have no choice. Obama's supporters sometimes complain that holding a new vote in those states would be akin to changing the rules in middle of the game. Yet the decision of the Democratic Party was a poor one, and bad rules sometimes need to be corrected. Obama supporters have themselves made this argument when warning against having "superdelegates" decide this contest. The rules, as created in the 1980s, empower superdelegates to make this kind of choice. Moreover, it seems odd that a candidate whose campaign has promised to create a better political system would be happy if voters in Florida and Michigan were silenced.

At the same time, counting the votes that already took place would not be fair. Obama did not have his name on the ballot in Michigan and he did not campaign in Florida. The results simply do not reflect a genuine contest. If Clinton wins this campaign by relying on the votes that took place, the selection would cause just as much bitterness as if those voters are left out. Democrats should also stick to the conventional process in those states to avoid any claims that the process was changed to favor one or the other candidate.

Democrats have two excellent candidates to choose from. Even though the contest has been rough and Republicans quickly united behind a formidable candidate, there is still reason to believe that the high enthusiasm for both candidates bodes well for the party. All the more reason to get this decision right. And if the contest does come down to superdelegates, they need to at least see what voters in Michigan and Florida are thinking before making their decision.

Democrats can't afford to let votes not be counted. After all, Democrats were the party burned in the 2000 election when the Supreme Court stopped recounts from taking place in Florida. The bitterness that resulted from that decision remains with the party until this day.

For all these reasons, let's bring Florida and Michigan back into the picture. That should be something that all Democrats should be able to unite on.

Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the co-editor of "Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s," which will be published this spring by Harvard University Press.