Full steam ahead

Florida is going ahead with their plans to move their primary up, despite the Democratic National Party's wishes. Personally, I think it's a great, great thing that both Michigan and Florida are moving into the front. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada are not representative of the country as a whole and there is no good reason why voters in those states should have a greater hand in choosing the candidates for President.

Here's hoping that Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, is right when she predicts, "I think this will be the final straw that will break this ridiculous primary process and give impetus to create a regional primary process that respects diversity and the appropriate role that a variety of states should have." A regional primary would be much better than the current system; even better than that, though, would be a true, national series of primary elections - perhaps narrowing the field down two or three times before the candidates are chosen. Right now, the voices of a few people in a few states are heard much too loudly. At some point, we need to change the rules so that the individuals in the greater whole are heard equally.

Florida Defies the DNC
Newsweek

The Florida Democratic Party is in a defiant mood. Over the weekend it decided to press ahead with plans to hold its presidential primary on January 29, in violation of Democratic National Committee rules that allow only Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina to hold contests before Feb. 5. As a result, the DNC is expected to make good on it's threats to strip Florida of its delegates at the party's nominating convention in August 2008. The state faces an additional punishment, too: the leading Democratic presidential contenders signed a pledge, promoted by the four early-voting states, not to campaign in Florida if the state stuck to their pushed-up date. Though Florida Democrats debated alternatives, such as holding a caucus or mail-in vote after Feb. 5, in the end they decided to hold firm. To find out why, NEWSWEEK's Arian Campo-Flores spoke with U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Broward County. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How did Florida Democrats arrive at the decision to stick with the January 29 primary date?

Debbie Wasserman Schultz: The party leadership has been going through a pretty deliberative and communicative process over the last months, as well as, concurrently, the congressional delegation going through the same deliberations. We all came together in agreement that the only way to maximize Florida Democratic participation - 3.4 million of them - in choosing who we believe should be the Democratic nominee was to make that selection on Jan. 29, and that any other option would disenfranchise our voters. Mail-in [voting] would require paying to vote [since voters would have to pay for postage], and was extremely expensive anyway. And a caucus would have been incredibly exclusive and internal, and the rank-and-file average voter would never have been able to participate. So there really was no viable option to maximize our Democratic voter participation. We also couldn't risk, given that we have a very important property-tax cut that's on the ballot that would devastate social services across the state and education funding as well, we couldn't risk not having enough Democratic voters show up at the polls and have that pass. There are also regional and municipal elections on the ballot.

How much internal dissent was there over the decision?

It really wasn't difficult. There were a few dissenters in the party leadership -- quite honestly, the normal lead dissenter in the Democratic Party leadership in Florida [Jon Ausman, a DNC member from Tallahassee, who frequently disagrees with the party leadership]. But there was actually significant unity both in the elected and the party leadership. Three-quarters of the executive committee members indicated their support and took two separate votes. This is the most significant swing state in this election. It's incredibly important that we have our say and make sure that our votes are counted.