TAMPA -- With a little luck and the Democrats, Republicans
always have a chance to win.
Who believes, for example, that W would have been a two-term
president if the Democrats had put up attractive candidates
(perhaps even just non-geeky ones) in 2000 and 2004 instead of Al
Gore, who was referred to by some of his own supporters as "a
man-like creature," and then Jean-Francois Kennedy Heinz Fonda
Kerry?
The luck never seems to end with the Democrats. GOP prospects
for keeping the White House in 2008 just got better thanks to an
act of breathtaking political tone deafness and
self-destructiveness on the part of the national Democrats.
The Vigaro hit the Mixmaster last week when the rules and bylaws
committee of the Democratic National Committee decided not to not
count the votes of Florida's 210 delegates to the Democratic
nominating convention in Denver next August. And here you thought
it was just Republicans who disenfranchised Democratic voters. Why,
Republicans, we now see, are pikers and amateurs when it comes to
disenfranchising. It takes Democrats to blow off an entire
state.
Florida's sin, for which national Democrats decreed the death
penalty, was to move its presidential primary election date from
March to January 29. The Florida Legislature did this in order to
horn in on some of the limelight and influence (real or perceived)
exerted by the mini-states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and
South Carolina that start off the presidential sweepstakes. (During
my recent trip to New Hampshire, countless savvy politicos there
swore to me that the Granite State's first-primary status really
hasn't given it influence with presidents or parties, but try
selling that idea in Florida.)
Doubtless you're thinking, "Whoa, aren't the Democrats the ones
whose mantra in 2000, which they brayed endlessly, was, "Count
Every Vote!"? (And keep counting them until Al Gore wins.) Yes,
those are the ones. Now they've decided to count none of Florida's
primary votes, thereby gaining ground on the pathetic Larry Craig
in the current hypocrisy sweepstakes.
Imagine the moments of hilarity Republicans enjoyed watching
Donna Brazile, Vice President Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000
and one of the divas of the "Count Every Vote!" chorus that year,
leading the charge to cast Florida's Democratic primary voters into
outer darkness. Wow. From Joan of Arc to Madame Dufarge in two
election cycles. Delicious stuff for Republicans.
But the reactions on the Democratic side haven't been so jolly.
In short order, Florida Democrats howled. A Tampa Democratic
political consultant, with the help of an attorney who is a former
official of the Hillsborough County Democratic Party, has filed a
federal lawsuit alleging infringement of Florida's voters' 14th
Amendment rights. Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson has
threatened to have his own party investigated. Elected Democratic
officials have announced they will not support their party's
candidates in '08 if this stands.
Adding injury to injury, the mini-states (Iowa, New Hampshire,
Nevada, and South Carolina together have about two-thirds the
population of Florida) asked Democratic candidates not to campaign
in premature states. And those candidates, never ones to cross
picket lines, agreed to avoid Florida and other line jumpers.
Editorial writers across the state viewed this sorry business with
alarm, and regular walking around Democratic voters took the name
of their party in vain.
I got a personal feel for how serious this is when a long-time
Democrat friend, an intelligent and temperate middle-aged family
man, told me he was sending a strong letter of protest to the DNC.
He said the letter would be diplomatically phrased. But he also
asked me if the word "dickheads" is hyphenated.
Brilliant. For the first time in several election cycles,
red-state Florida (fire engine red without the three Democratic
strongholds of Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade Counties in the
southeast corner of the state -- sometimes referred to as Baja New
Jersey) is in play. Until the Democrats stepped in their own mess
kits by irritating every Democratic voter in Florida, there was a
real chance a Democrat could carry the state, and its 27 electoral
votes, in '08. That chance today is severely diminished.
We'll see if the Republicans are smart enough to accept this
gift from the Democrats. Republicans have talked about denying
Florida half of its delegates to that party's nominating convention
in Minneapolis. But they haven't acted officially as the Democrats
have. Florida Republican Chairman Jim Greer told me last week that
the current delegate threat from the Republican National Committee
is "just a disagreement within the family." He says he expects to
seat all of his 114 delegates in August. If the Republicans are
smart (the available evidence of this is, well, ambiguous), they'll
do just that.
OK, the rush to the front of the presidential primary line was
getting a little unseemly, and threatened to give us 2007 primaries
for a 2008 election. It came about because big states like Florida,
Michigan, and others had wearied of holding their primaries after
the question had been decided. They lusted after some of the
influence that the early states exert on the process, and with
luck, the ultimate nominee (or at least what big state politicians
think they exert). Something probably had to be done. But reading
entire states out of the primary process for breaking or bending
party rules clearly isn't the answer. This isn't a game of Simon
Says; it's the way we chose the next president of the United
States. You don't win by taking your own team out of the game.
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