Wednesday, February 13, 2008

MI and FL delegates should NOT be seated

In this election year's primary/caucus season, there were two primaries that were punished by the Democratic National Committee. Those two states are Florida and Michigan. These two states broke the rules and moved their primaries ahead of what is allowed by DNC rules. Their punishment for this was that their delegates would not be seated (that is, counted) at the national convention where the presidential nominee is named.

In Michigan, candidates had until October 9th to pull their names off of the ballots. Five of the candidates did this. Sen. Clinton did not. It is no surprise then, that she won in Michigan considering she was uncontested. In Florida, the same thing. She ran uncontested.

Anyone who is not living under a rock I am sure has seen/heard the election coverage. And can see that Sen. Obama is gaining momentum. By leaps and bounds. As I write this, he has taken over the lead in TOTAL delegates. That includes superdelegates!

Well, guess what Sen. Clinton now wants. That's right, she wants the delegates from MI and FL to be seated. I cannot even begin to get into how unfair and unjust this would be - not only to Sen. Obama, but it would be a slap in the face to the voters in these two states who were not able to vote for the candidate they felt was best suited for the job.

As a voter in the state of Michigan, I am urging everyone to sign the below linked petition to stop the DNC from seating these delegates. Make it a fair election. I have read that the DNC would allow summer caucuses for each state that would fall under election guidelines and therefore allow candidates to campaign equally. That would be the best solution to what could easily be something that would destroy people's faith in a fair and democratic process. It would be, at the basest of all levels, cheating by Sen. Clinton.

Please sign this petition if you are a believer in a fair nomination process.

No comments: