POLITICS-US: Florida Can&#39t Resist a Good Electoral Row

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Mark Weisenmiller

TAMPA, Florida, Sep 25 2007 (IPS) - A showdown is looming between Florida Democrats and the national party leadership over their decision Sunday to press ahead with an early primary date to select the candidates for next year&#39s presidential election – still some 406 days away.

Under Democratic National Committee (DNC) guidelines, only four states can hold their presidential primaries before Feb. 5, 2008 – Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Known as "Super Tuesday", that is the scheduled primary day for many key states like California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, all of which have large numbers of delegates in the electoral college.

But in May, Florida&#39s Republican-led legislature, backed by the governor, decided to raise the state&#39s political profile by moving up its primary from the originally scheduled date of Mar. 4, 2008 to Jan. 29, 2008.

Stacie Paxton, DNC spokesperson, told IPS that if the Florida branch of the party refused to reschedule, "sanctions will then automatically be put into place".

That sanction would be to bar all of Florida&#39s 210 delegates from the party&#39s national convention – which will formally nominate and confirm the presidential and vice presidential candidates.

"Whoever the nominee is will seat the delegates," state senator Dave Aronberg told the media. "But whether they do or don&#39t, Florida&#39s primary will matter because it will be a reflection of the votes of millions of Democrats in our state."

The Republican Party of Florida also could be affected by the early primary. According to Republican National Committee (RNC) rules, Florida could lose as many as half of its Republican delegates due to the early primary.

Amber Wilkerson, RNC spokesperson, explained that all 50 state Republican Party organisations must submit their respective states&#39 election plans to the RNC and that "the review process of all of these states plans is currently underway…If a state submits a proposal and it&#39s not approved, then they lose delegates."

Still, many analysts believe that once the two parties&#39 officially name their candidates at the conventions next year, all Florida delegates will be reseated to ensure the support of the state&#39s more than 11 million registered voters.

With Florida casting the fourth-largest share of electoral college votes – 27 out of 538 total for all 50 states – neither the Democratic or Republican candidates would dare risk the state&#39s wrath in what is predicted to be the closest presidential election since 2000. That year, the U.S. Supreme Court awarded the presidency to Republican candidate George W. Bush, over Democratic candidate Al Gore, when it ordered that a recount of Florida ballots be terminated.

Electoral controversies are not new to Floridians. From the time it was admitted to the Union in 1845 to the late 1960s, the state was primarily Democratic. However, in the 1968 presidential election, Republican candidate Richard Nixon included Florida in his so-called "Southern Strategy," a political plan to break the Democrats&#39 domination of numerous Southern states by appealing to white voters on a coded "law and order" platform.

It worked: Nixon won Florida in 1968 and since that year, the state has only voted for a Democratic candidate twice, in 1976 for Jimmy Carter and in 1996 for Bill Clinton.

What really irritates Florida Democrats about the latest flap is that the three Democratic frontrunners – Senators Hillary Clinton of New York, Barack Obama of Illinois, and John Edwards, a North Carolina attorney who was John Kerry&#39s running mate in 2004 – have pledged not to campaign in Florida before Jan. 29, but the DNC is allowing them to continue fund-raising in the state. If any or all three of the above violate the pledge and do campaign before the primary, the legality of such a pledge, if tested in the judicial system, is unknown. In any case, the candidates have largely refrained from commenting on the dispute.

Meanwhile, the leading Republicans – Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Rudy Giuliani of New York – appear to have no compunctions about campaigning as usual in the state, despite the displeasure of the RNC leadership.

"These discussions are for the state and national parties to work out, while we&#39re focusing on getting Mr. Giuliani into as many states with early primaries as possible. As more and more states adjust their primaries, the Giuliani campaign will visit these states," said Elliot Bundy, spokesperson for the former New York City mayor.

"It&#39s fair to say that you&#39re seeing an election cycle like you&#39ve never seen before," noted Kristy Campbell, Florida press secretary for Romney&#39s campaign. "Our team knew that Florida was going to move its primary up early. So that&#39s why the &#39Mitt Mobile&#39 (a campaign bus ferrying Romney around the U.S.) is going to try to visit as many counties in Florida as possible."

The U.S. presidential primary process has traditionally been viewed in the context of state&#39s rights, with the courts reluctant to intervene.

However, this may end as Victor DiMaio, a Tampa-based political consultant for the Democrats, has sued both the Florida Democratic Party and the DNC in federal court for not formally recognising all of Florida&#39s Democratic delegates, and effectively disenfranchising the state&#39s voters.