Voronwë wrote:To me, what would be a worst-case scenerio would be to have the race unfairly influenced by votes that simply can not be considered by any standard to have legitimately reflected the will of the voters. That would be the most undemocratic result of all, because it would essentially disenfranchise the voters of all the states that had legitimate votes.
I would like to address this in parts, as I'm having difficulty approaching the intertwined ideas as a unit.
To me, what would be a worst-case scenerio would be to have the race unfairly influenced
The race has already been irrevocably influenced unfairly. Nothing can be done to change that. We will never know how those states would have voted had they run uninterfered-with primaries at the appropriate time. It isn't fair to the candidates, it isn't fair to the voters of those states, it isn't fair to the voters of the other states, there is nothing fair about it. If your criterion of success here is fairness, then you are sunk, my friend, any which way you turn.
by votes that simply can not be considered by any standard to have legitimately reflected the will of the voters.
The votes recorded do reflect the will of the voters who voted, with respect to the ballots they voted on.
What the MI and FL votes don't and can't reflect is how voters who chose not to vote because of the confused situation would have voted, or how many of the Michigan voters who voted 'none of above' were registering a vote for Obama, or how the vote would have been different had the candidates campaigned, or how any one of a myriad of factors in the campaign would have been different had that vote taken place at a later time.
That would be the most undemocratic result of all, because it would essentially disenfranchise the voters of all the states that had legitimate votes.
If you view the illegitimate aspects of the primaries as disenfranchising all the rest of the electorate, then that is a fait accompli regardless of how the problem is dealt with. Those primary votes can't be made legitimate. By that calculation, ignoring the vote entirely would be no more nor less disenfranchising than allowing it to stand as is. If I understand your view, the voters of all the states that had legitimate primaries have already been disenfranchised, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
So here, as I see it, are the issues you isolated:
1. race unfairly influenced - already done, nothing you can do about it
2. will of all voters not reflected - already done, nothing you can do about it
3. undemocratic due to disenfranchisement - already done, nothing you can do about it
You are wanting to deal with aspects of this that are beyond reach and simply can't be affected at this point. If this is your focus, then from my point of view, you might as well cover your head with a pillow until after the convention.
These are the aspects of the situation that concern me, which I think we can still react to on principle:
1. Leadership handled the situation badly -- should take responsibility
2. State leaders disrespected the authority of the party -- should bear a consequence
3. Voters did nothing wrong -- should not be penalized
So I would suggest that Dean and whoever else was responsible publicly admit that they handled it badly, that they threatened punishment to the voters when it was the party leadership that were misbehaving, that because their threat was misguided and the results horrendous, they are not going to make the voters or the eventual nominee suffer for their mistake, so they are either
1. withdrawing the originally proposed penalty and substituting a more appropriate one -- they are excluding from the convention any superdelegates who had any part in orchestrating the advancement of those primaries.
or,
2. withdrawing the originally proposed penalty and announcing that next time, any superdelegates who have any part in orchestrating the advancement of primaries counter to DNC rules will be excluded from the convention.
That is what makes sense to me, on principle.
River wrote:Fine, so long as the party leadership in MI and FL goes down with him. There's a lot of shared responsibility to go around here.
Absolutely! (Btw, I'm a big fan of Howard Dean, regardless that he handled this poorly.)
). It is quite clear which way the superdelegates are going. Landslides in WV and Kentucky are not going to change that.