namkcuR
ONE love, blood, life
I've been reading up on the Michigan thing.
The whole thing is basically about the timing of the primary. The National Comittees have rules that say no state outside of a precious few states(presumably Iowa and New Hampshire) are allowed to have their primaries/caucuses before February 5th. Iowa and New Hampshire have always been given special early treatment. Apparently some states didn't like that. Michigan defied National Party rules and scheduled their primary way ahead of time(January 15th). As a punishment, the National Parties are saying they will refuse to seat all of Michigan's Democratic delegates at the National Convention and half of Michigan's Republican delegates a the National Convention. All of the Democrats except for Hilary are boycotting Michigan in support of their National Party's punitive measures, although no Republicans are.
What I don't understand is that Nevada, South Carolina, and Florida have all also scheduled unsanctioned pre-February 5th dates and will recieve the same punishments, but I don't hear about Obama/Edwards/etc boycotting them. I also don't understand why Hilary is not following suite with her fellow Democrats.
But if they do, and they're not on the ballot for 4/5 states, that could have profound implications on who gets nominated.
However, those candidates boycotting the Michigan primary are urging their supporters to vote for "uncomitted" on their ballots.
This is all a mess, but frankly I think it would be more productive to vote for "uncommitted" than to not vote at all. Perhaps Obama supporters + Edwards supporters together can be enough to take the state away from Hilary.
Here are a couple articles - I got most of my information from these:
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/010608/opinion_20080106026.shtml
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080107/NEWS06/801070333
The whole thing is basically about the timing of the primary. The National Comittees have rules that say no state outside of a precious few states(presumably Iowa and New Hampshire) are allowed to have their primaries/caucuses before February 5th. Iowa and New Hampshire have always been given special early treatment. Apparently some states didn't like that. Michigan defied National Party rules and scheduled their primary way ahead of time(January 15th). As a punishment, the National Parties are saying they will refuse to seat all of Michigan's Democratic delegates at the National Convention and half of Michigan's Republican delegates a the National Convention. All of the Democrats except for Hilary are boycotting Michigan in support of their National Party's punitive measures, although no Republicans are.
What I don't understand is that Nevada, South Carolina, and Florida have all also scheduled unsanctioned pre-February 5th dates and will recieve the same punishments, but I don't hear about Obama/Edwards/etc boycotting them. I also don't understand why Hilary is not following suite with her fellow Democrats.
But if they do, and they're not on the ballot for 4/5 states, that could have profound implications on who gets nominated.
However, those candidates boycotting the Michigan primary are urging their supporters to vote for "uncomitted" on their ballots.
This is all a mess, but frankly I think it would be more productive to vote for "uncommitted" than to not vote at all. Perhaps Obama supporters + Edwards supporters together can be enough to take the state away from Hilary.
Here are a couple articles - I got most of my information from these:
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/010608/opinion_20080106026.shtml
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080107/NEWS06/801070333