Reporting a scoop - wow! Nice job. More pls.

thanks,

t

maybe the compormise will be to do a caucus in Michigan, which will give Obama a big advantage, and to seat Florida, where both candidates were on the ballot (and where Obama but not Clinton ran tv ads), giving Clinton the votes she already got in a state that Obama can't hope to win.

And cuacu(i?) have favored Obama by a large margin. This could be good news for the Obama campaign.

Hillary should freak out at this news.  Oh no!  A caucus!  More victories for Obama.  And if Michigan can do it, so can FL.  There goes the argument to seat those delegations with some form of "re-vote."

We can write Hillary's response ourselves: Caucuses will unfairly throw away the votes of millions of Michigan Democrats who have already expressed their preferences. The Democratic Convention should simply seat the delegates Michigan has already elected.

And we can write the responses of her supporters, too: Caucuses are unfair. Primaries in which Obama's name is on the ballot are also unfair. Caucuses exclude the real Democrats who overwhelmingly support Hillary but can't be bothered to participate in a Democratic Party event for a couple of hours and who are afraid to admit their candidate preferences to their neighbors. And even though Democratic caucuses have historically been dominated by working-class whites, older voters, and women, caucuses are fatally biased against Hillary and her coalition of seniors, women, and the white working class. How can Hillary possibly compete in an environment where her voters are usually the only ones who show up?

Rhube,

Those are all good points. I'm glad you've finally seen the light. Good arguments are easy to remember.

Er, hold on, folks. You really think that the bluest of blue-collar states, the UAW stronghold with a surging hispanic population in SW Detroit, is in the tank for Obama?

Or that they won't turn out for what will easily be the most influential caucus they will ever have the chance to participate in?

If the weather's good (and there's usually a thaw in Michigan during March), she'll do very well.

pccostello- do you think that Hillary will be able to get a Michigan organization up in time, to negate some of what has been Obama's advantages in caucuses?   She should be able to, right?  Or would she rather lose it to keep diminishing the importance of caucuses, an important strategy in the quest for supers?  Does she have to lose a caucus?   THis isn't argumentative, by the way.

Also:

"They want to play. They know how to do caucuses," the DNC source said. "That was their plan all along, before they got cute with the primary."

...is a real dick thing to say.

Blah blah.  Let's just see what the Clinton response is to this.  That will tell us all everything we need to know about just how well Hillary thinks she will do.  I think rhubarbs is right.  The Hillary whining and victim shtick will commence immediately.

roi you owe me a dollar.

I'm interested to hear if Obama has the kind of independent, grassroots support in MI that he had in Ohio.  That would really help him in getting a caucus campaign together.  

Rhubs:

Caucuses are unfair -- like gerrymandering, they attack fundemental American democratic (small "d") principles.  They prevent people from voting and eviscerate the popular ballot.  Now if the DNC were arguing "we'll pay for caucuses but not a full primary" I think they'd have a legit argument given Michigan's balking of the rules.  But I don't think that's their offer.  

Just got an email from the Obama campaign announcing their February haul: $55 million.  Wow.

<i>I'm interested to hear if Obama has the kind of independent, grassroots support in MI that he had in Ohio.  That would really help him in getting a caucus campaign together.</i>

I think the 40% uncommitted vote is evidence that he has good grassroots support in MI. And Obama now has ammunition to hit Hillary for lying about NAFTA. This can only be good news for Obama if it pans out.

Caucuses discourage people who don't care enough about the election to spend 2 hours of their time standing up for their candidate (actually, when I caucused in Texas, it took less than an hour). I fail to see the affront to democracy here.

While Michigan&#39;s sending out signals , Florida&#39;s melting down further : Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla

boneill,

I think that Obama probably retains most of his advantages in a caucus in Michigan, and I think that Clinton has to make a serious effort nonetheless. There may be some factors in play in Michigan that might make it closer to an even playing field. For example, Obama may not have been building a caucus-focused organization there yet, and the presence of a large number of pro-Clinton union members may lead to a more aggressive presence at the caucuses for her.

The advantages that Obama has in caucuses are that his supporters are more likely to be comfortable learning the rules, more able to show up at the specified time, and more willing to confront voters for the other candidate face to face. Clinton's supporters--less affluent, less educated, single working women, etc, are less able to show up and hang around, less comfortable with an unfamiliar, public process, more fearful of revealing their preferences, and less comfortable confronting a voter for the other side. I think they are more likely to be intimidated.

These are overwhelming advantages for Obama, even though they result in the disenfranchisement of the less affluent in all caucus states (look at the number of primary voters vs. caucus participants, and the different outcomes, in Texas).

If the caucuses were challenged via a civil rights lawsuit, I think they would be judged illegal because they disenfranchise categories of voters on the basis of sex (which I think is covered by the voting rights act), and age and income (which may not be covered by the voting rights act--I don't really know). In my view, which I know you may not agree with, caucuses have produced a serious undemocratic distorion in this election.

Bjudson -- "discourage people who don't care enough about the election to spend 2 hours of their time standing up for their candidate"

Try "can't take off work or leave the kids."  Hey, why stop there -- let's be like "Starship Troopers" and limit the vote to people who show they "care" enough for their nation to have served in the armed forces.  Secret ballot?  Screw that -- if you are, say, the only African-American you know who thinks Hillary is the better candidate, you should take whatever abuse comes your way by making that public at the local caucus.  And if your Obama-fanatic boss just happens to be in your district, I'm sure he or she won't notice.

Damn!

mmathog,

I do owe you a dollar, sort of.  I have to admit, I did not foresee either of these states caving without apparent pressure from the candidates or the DNC.  But I still don't see any new primaries, just caucuses, maybe, once Hillary stops kicking and screaming and throwing tantrums.  Watch what I said about Hillary not supporting this development but arguing against it.

Kudos to you.

There are a lot of legitimate arguments against caucuses, and pccostello makes them.  But civil rights violations are not among them.  The Clintons will now be thoroughly hoist with their own petards (whatever the hell those are).  They have been arguing that the rules permit Supers to vote how they want and thus there is no objection.  The rules prohibited the MI and FL primaries, will permit the caucuses to come.  The results will favor Obama and he will come to the convention with an even larger lead and they will not be able to raise any objection to this outcome.

One wonders.  There was the line in the Times article yesterday that the party elders are seeing Hillary as an "obstacle" to the party's chances.  Was this really coming from MI, or is this an ingenious way for the party bigs who cannot directly lean on HRC and Bill to dump them?

Are party primaries and caucuses subject to the Voting Rights Act?  Not saying this as an Obama partisan, just curious if any of our more knowledgeable commenters here might now.

"Caucuses are unfair -- like gerrymandering, they attack fundemental American democratic (small "d") principles. They prevent people from voting and eviscerate the popular ballot."

These statements just aren't true. Caucuses don't prevent anyone from voting -- they just require a greater personal commitment of participants. Why, exactly, should people who aren't willing to commit two hours to conducting party business once every four years have a say in whom that party nominates for office? It's important to remember that these aren't elections to public office. A political party is a private membership organization.

It's especially jarring to hear Hillaristas claim, in the same breath, that (1) Polls show committed Democrats actually favor Hillary and (2) Caucuses, which by definition limit participation to committed Democrats, are unfair to Hillary. If either of those statements is true, then the other one must be false.

Anyway, if caucuses are undemocratic, then so are New England town meetings, which also require attendance at a scheduled event and non-secret voting. Funny, I don't recall Hillary or her supporters lecturing the small towns of New Hampshire about their offensively undemocratic systems of local government.

pccostello, interesting points.  I have a few questions/arguments.  Not sure which.  Bear with me.

1) Are women really being disenfranchised?  I mean, legally.  Is there a concerted effort to keep them out, or is it just a timidity thing.  That seems a fairly odd thing for you to argue.  I mean, I can't imagine Hillary being intimidated or more fearful of the procedeure.  I grant you that broadly, working ins stereotypes, women might feel less comfortable with it, but a)it isn't as if Barack has zero female supporters and b)that isn't a good thing for Hillary to argue ("Caucuses are unfair because women don't feel comfortable with them or can learn how to use them!").  

2) Was the Nevada caucus unfair?

3) The caucus system was in place before the election started.  Why wasn't it challenged then? (I grant you MI is a different case here, but i mean in general.)  T-Mac set this schedule up.  Caucuses have always favored the person with the most name recognition, generally.  It wasn't until Hillary started losing them that her camp started to complain.  I didn't hear this after Iowa (and certainly not before), I sure didn't hear this after Nevada, when they were tied at 1 each.  So, even if they are distortions, where were the complaints beforehand?   Does that matter at all?  

"Er, hold on, folks. You really think that the bluest of blue-collar states, the UAW stronghold with a surging hispanic population in SW Detroit, is in the tank for Obama?"

Gotta disagree, Tep. The AA community here in Detroit would overwhelm the Hispanic vote. And then there's Ann Arbor, which I have to think would go solidly to Obama. A MI caucus plays to Obama.

Well, you're at ground zero, sully, so I defer to thee on this one.

"If the caucuses were challenged via a civil rights lawsuit, I think they would be judged illegal because they disenfranchise categories of voters on the basis of sex"

Come again?  Is there a sign at the caucus door that says "No females allowed?"

Equal protection and due process cover "equal access" to the voting procedures being followed, not equal results once inside the caucus room.  

I don't think either state should have a re-do because they chose to break the rules.  

Now they are paying for it - and expect DNC members to pay for their arrogance with funds reserved for the general election on top of it!  

I think they broke the frigging rules and when you do that, bad things happen.  It amazes me that this is even being considered.

Rhubs:

Yes, they do prevent people from voting -- some people in Iowa work the night shift, you know.  And I don't see why there should be a poll tax for single moms whose only option for attending a caucus is to find daycare.  

Also, I note you don't say anything about the value of secret ballots. Again, consider an African-American who supports Hillary but whose entire community, including their boss, is at the caucus spewing Chris-Rock-like race crap.  THe caucuses ask too much of such a person.

If you extend your logic, the party can require more than a committment of 2 hours, they can require that you are a registered Democrat (or Republican) -- some do, but I suspect most favor the open primaries (and if you don't, isn't Hillary winning the registered Dem vote?)

I don't know much about the New England town meetings and what gets passed at them -- I think anything substantive should be done by secret ballot and all primaries should be elections, not caucuses.  I said that before 2008 and I'll say it afterwards.    

This is from the Chicago Tribune, speaking of rules vs. fairness:

>>

The day after New Year’s 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city’s South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama’s four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.

Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.

But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.

A close examination of Obama’s first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.<<

Well, wandrey, they did not forfeit their right hold timely primaries or caucuses just because they held them earlier than allowed.  As long as they pay for it themselves, no else has the right to complain about a re-do in Mi and/or Fl.  I'm just glad it will be caucuses.   I can't wait for the Clinton campaign to start screeching and squirming.

But what really was the punishment then roi?  And what would stop any state from raising it's own funds (who would set the rules and monitor THAT monster?) and having primaries or caucuses whenever they wanted?  Why have a DNC?

Caucuses are a lousy system compared to primaries, but they're hardly a new creation.  I didn't hear Clinton complaining about caucuses until she started getting crushed in caucus states on Super Tuesday.  If her objections were to the process itself (and there are plenty of legitimate objections that have been raised), she would have been voicing them earlier.

For all its flaws, a caucus is still much better than a primary where voters are literally barred from voting for certain candidates (write-in votes for Obama and Edwards were not counted in Michigan).  If that's what Michigan decides to do, Clinton had better start trying to work within the system instead of bashing it.

I see no contradiction between wanting to empower disenfranchised citizens and exposing fraudulent signature lists that lock in long-timer pols in districts where, usually, nobody questions their power.

I think in FLA it was the GOP establishment that wanted an early primary, dragging the Dems along kicking and screaming, the GOP stripped half their delegates while Dean stripped all of them.

"If the caucuses were challenged via a civil rights lawsuit, I think they would be judged illegal because they disenfranchise categories of voters on the basis of sex (which I think is covered by the voting rights act), and age and income (which may not be covered by the voting rights act--I don't really know)."

I love it when people without legal training jump to conclusions about the law - particularly when they don't bother to read the law in question.  42 U.S.C. s1973 protects only against discrimination on the basis of "race or color."  Further, the law protects only the "opportunity" to vote - probably meaning that it is only concerned with preventing the erection of barriers to voting (e.g., poll taxes or literacy tests).  

It's pretty far-fetched to suggest that merely having to attend a caucus is the type of barrier we should be concerned with; this is especially true since caucuses tend to favor institutional candidates with the support of the 'rank-and-file' HRC supposedly has.  

PCostello:

Your "compromise" solution is hilarious: Hillary gets to steal some delegates in exchange for Obama being able to compete against her in Michigan. Ridiculous.

Wandrey,

The punishment is that they wasted time, effort, money and the goodwill of party members in a stupid exercise and now have to do it again.  The fact is that the could have tossed coins before the permitted date, it wouldn't have counted, but that would not forfeit their right to hold timely primaries or caucuses.  "Punishment" wasn't the issue -- you don't punish a couple of million people any way.  It was appropriate to make the untimely primaries a nullity, useless.  That's enough.

boneill & naomii,

The advantage that Obama has amassed in caucuses comes from the role of young and highly committed activists (think moveon.org) in his campaign and organization. I don' t mean to suggest that all women would be more intrimidated at caucuses, but i do think that lower paid single women with less education would be easier to intimidate in this type of situation. They would also have difficulty, relative to high income groups and students, showing up at a specific time and staying for several hours because they have less control over their jobs, child care, and time.

Hillary did win the caucus in Nevada. But I would be willing to bet that she won the caucus by a much lower margin than she would have won a primary in the same place on the same date.

Voter participation is ALWAYS lower in caucuses, which is in itself evidence of disenfranchisement. The question is, who gets disenfranchised? But the caucuses are always a distorted slice of the eligible voter population, and the distortion helps Obama and hurts Clinton--or more precisely, it helps obama supporters and hurts clinton supporters. It helps the affluent successful, and it hurts those with lower incomes and less education.

I think Naomi is wrong that there has to be a formal exclusion in order to justify a voting rights act violation. I am not a lawyer, but I think that if a group is "protected" under the law, then the question is simply whther the procedures in use result in a significantly lower representation of that group. But we would need a lawyer to address this But this is why picture id laws and poll taxes and lists of questions that must be answered may be held to be voting rights violations. There should be an easy way to determine the gender and income mix in caucuses versus polls. Every video image of a caucus that I have seen shows a man running the show.

I don't think this issue will go anywhere. But I don't think there is a real argument about which form of voting better represents the opinions of the eligible voting population in a state and which form biases toward a select and privleged group at the expense of people who are poorer and have less education..

odan,

Thanks for the snideness. I am sure that is why we are all so fond of lawyers.

Apart from the voting rights laws--if none of them apply--I would assume that there are also constitutionally based due process protections under the 14th or 5th amendments as well as protections for women's vote under the 19th amendment. And I would say that scheduling caucuses during the working day and requiring a process that takes several hours to register your preference does in fact impose a barrier to specific categories of voters, thus disenfranchising them of a right of citizenship.

I also wonder about the fact that caucuses require a public rather than a secret ballot.

I think the caucuses were allowed because no one thought so many people would care. If one tried to actually elect a president using public votes that could only be cast by participating in a complicated process for several hours during the working day, there would be an enormous sense of unfairness and endless legal challenges. And I bet the legal challenges would be successful.

It should be a fairly easy matter to determine if the caucuses have resulted in a systemmatic disenfranchisement of women, single women, or poorer women.

Even if the lawyers don't think that matters, I bet there are a lot of women voters to whom it would matter quite a lot. And many of them have not voted yet.

Pccostello and lymon, I agree that primaries are far more democratic.  Without a doubt.  I would rather have all primaries, in a heartbeat.  But you really can't complain about that now.  Hillary thought she was going to win Iowa.  Why nothing before Super Tuesday about how wildly unfair these were?  I don't understand.  

More good news for Obama: A member of the DNC's Rules And Bylaws Committee--the committee that stripped Florida and Michigan of its delegates for moving their primaries before February 5th--told...

boenill,

i think it is okay to complain about something that is unfair whenever that unfairness becomes apparent to you.

As lymon's excerpt from the Chicago Tribune makes clear, Obama first entered politics with a shrewd, legalistic, and highly technical approach to disenfranchising voters ande throwing opponents off the ballot. He did this in his very first campaign. So it is not much of a surprise that he has now concocted a campaign strategy that gets him more delegates by having fewer actual voters participate in the selection process.

When he says he is going to bring us all together, who does he mean by "us"?

pccostello -

"Apart from the voting rights laws--if none of them apply--I would assume that there are also constitutionally based due process protections under the 14th or 5th amendments as well as protections for women's vote under the 19th amendment. And I would say that scheduling caucuses during the working day and requiring a process that takes several hours to register your preference does in fact impose a barrier to specific categories of voters, thus disenfranchising them of a right of citizenship."

Disproportionate impact isn't the test of discrimination under equal protection - it's purpose.  I sincerely doubt that anyone would suggest in that in choosing caucuses over primaries, states are intending to diminish the participation of members of 'protected classes' (e.g., sex or race).  If they are meant to discourage anyone, it would be new participants.  I highly doubt that any claim of discriminatory practice would even survive an early motion to dispose of the case.

I apologize for being snide in my original post, but it's increasingly aggravating that HRC supporters (of whom I assume you count yourself) try to argue that it's only an unfair process that leaves her behind BHO in votes/delegates/states/etc.  More annoying to claim that it is not only unfair process, but also the result of some type of constitutional or legal violation - particularly when the claim is made off the cuff.  

Obama should now make an audacious move.

Offer to pay for a new Florida primary with the $20 million he beat HRC by in Feb fundraising.

bunker

pcostello, how dare you criticize The Anointed One?

You people gleeful about a caucus, where people with certain jobs or who can't afford babysitters, are way undemocratic. Primaries are the way to truly gauge the will of the people. Obama wins these tiny contests... he is the candidate of the wealthy liberal elite, I am a Clinton supporter, but I almost hope Obama can get the nomination and get his ass whupped just so you can see how many res states vote for him. @#$% the caucus system. It should be illegal, just like the electoral college.

The "anointed" one, Sleepyval, is Obama.  And whether the legal test is "disproportionate impact" or not, it is INHERENTLY undemocratic. Just because the US Constitution says it's okay or the law (e.g. the electoral college), it is indeed undemocratic.

jadamsf  good lord, Hillary does bad in caucuses, therefore caucuses are bad. Hillary does bad in open primaries, (because independents and Republicans vote for Obama) therefore open primaries are bad. English only ballots are bad, because many hispanics can't read them (we should have big pictures, right?)

Why was I not surprised to see you are a Clinton supporter? Such blatantly silly arguments (what suits me is good, what doesn't is bad) is the logic of 4 year olds. If you don't like caucuses, agitate in caucus states perpetually. Whiny ass bitching after the fact doesn't cut it.

We don't have government by opinions, and whining on a blog doesn't change laws. If you don't like it, do something about it.

As to myself, we have 50 states and our political parties allow them to choose whatever process they choose (it is called Democracy). I am satisfied with my states sytem: Pa. closed primary, but would prefer an open one under the theory it is better to have a more centrist candidate, but that is just me. I won't whine about it, nor do I even care enough to try to change it.

odan,

Thank you for your apology.

Fairness in election processes is always a legitimate issue. Courts are used, for example, to keep polling places open later when flooding causes delays or limits access or when there are other problems. However the key issue is not whether there is a legal case, but rather the disenfranchisement of voters and what the results actually mean in terms of voter preferences.

This problem for Obama is very visible in the Texas results. In the most heavily voted primary that has ever occurred in Texas, Hillary won 51% to 48%. ON THE VERY SAME DAY, the caucus in Texas, with a tiny fraction of the votes cast in the primary (1 or 2%?), is giving Obama an 11 point lead. This is extremely anti-democratic. But these kinds of caucuses account for an enormous number of Obama's delegates. Obama got as many delegates for winning Idaho in a caucus as Clinton did for winning New Jersey in a primary. So what doe Obama's delegate count actually mean in terms of a democracy and its electoral processes?

The fact that Obama has taken a very nasty approach to gaming the electoral process since the beginning of his political career in 1996 (see lymon's excerpt from the Chicago Tribune, reproduced below) makes it clear that Obama's exploitation of the non-democratic nature of caucuses is a coldly calculated approach to reducing the influence of real voters, just as he previously did in Chicago.

From lymon's post:

lymon1 said:

This is from the Chicago Tribune, speaking of rules vs. fairness:

>>

The day after New Year’s 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city’s South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama’s four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.

Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.

But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.

A close examination of Obama’s first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.<<

March 6, 2008 9:34 PM

.

Those of you supporting caucuses, take a gander at this:

althouse.blogspot.com/.../why-are-results-so-different-in-primary.html

While monkey business can go on in a regular old primary, the potential of abuse in a caucus system is much easier to achieve, as this post shows.

I am not certain, but believe that a voter's right to attend a caucus is protected by the same rights for those who cast ballots.  The law requires employers to give employees a reasonable period of time to vote at their precinct on election day.  I arrange work schedules on election days to allow each employee two hours to vote.  I can not imagine the same law does not apply in states where caucuses are held instead of casting ballots at the polls.

From The New Republic: "A member of the DNC's Rules And Bylaws Committee--the committee that stripped Florida and Michigan of its delegates for moving their primaries before February 5th--told me that Michigan plans to get out of its uncounted delegate

Oh, come now, pccostello-

"So it is not much of a surprise that he has now concocted a campaign strategy that gets him more delegates by having fewer actual voters participate in the selection process."

Bollocks, and you know it.  It is a winning strategy.  You think Hillary choose to lose the smaller caucuses because she thought they were unfair?  I don't remember her protesting in Iowa or in Neveda (actually, I remember her protesting that there were MORE voting places in Nevada than she wanted {this after she lost an endorsement}  Remember that?)  They agreed to have special caucus sites than after she didn't get her endorsement she threatened a lawsuit against them.  Which is exactly her MO- complain about something after it is clear that it is hurting you.  If she had taken a principled stand against the system beforehand, I would give her a lot of credit.  But this post-fact bellyaching is the sign of a petulant and entitled child.  

Also, you rail against Obama being a typical politician by complaining that he used the fucking law to take apart a machine politician?  I would call that, hm, not gaming the system.  Using it for progress.  Are you from Chicago?  Do you know how hard it is to beat Combine entropy?  If you had even a shred of objectivity, you would actually like the fact that he used campaign law to make sure an election was fair.  Taking ILLEGAL NAMES off a petition is actually GOOD for democracy.   This is so obvious I can hardly breathe.

And give me a break, jadamsf- you think Hillary will win Red States?  She is the goddamn anti-Christ to convos.  I am not saying Obama will, but Hillary has no chance, especially after she and Bill alienated African-Americans.  

It&#39;s a near-certainty that neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will finish the primaries and

This all sinks to high heaven!

A caucus can't replace a primary, especially if one's an expat.

Thanks for the consideration! Thanks for disenfranchising me! Thanks for both making the mistake, and then acting like weasels attempting to limit the damage to the PARTY's rep!

God, I hope both parties implode now! But, a broken Democratic party will suffice!

Insgesamt 366 Delegiertenstimmen hatte die demokratische Parteiführung Florida und Michigan gestrichen, weil sie bei der Terminerung gegen Parteiregeln verstoßen hatten. Da es beim Rennen zwischen Barack Obama und Hillary Clinton jetzt auf jeden einzelnen

The New Republic reported that a member of the Democratic National Committee&#39;s (DNC) Rules And Bylaws

The arrogance of people to outlaw caucuses because they didn't go for their campaign candidate. Again, we live in a Democracy, each states Democratic party has the right to choose the process they want. Whining about it is pathetic. If you don't like it, move to a caucus state and agitate to change it, otherwise shut your yap because it is just noise from whiny losers. I don't care what you think about caucuses or primaries because since you are doing nothing about it besides run your trap you don't truly care either.

As a Pa. resident I have the right to only speak about my state. Everyone who talks about how other states choose of how to run their own system (as long as it is allowable by the DNC) is essentially against American Democracy.