My Simple Life in Ithaca

So, it all comes down to this. After 8 candidates, almost 50 states, 20 debates and over one year of campaigning – it’s all come down to Tuesdays vote in Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana. Well… kind of… as it turns out, it has actually come down to Michigan, Florida the stupid DNC. Ay ay ay.

Here’s the skinny….

First of all, EVERY state wants to be Iowa and New Hamsphire when it comes to presidential elections. They have the distinction of being the first two and therefore the ones that everyone pays the most attention to. Candidates spend months in Iowa getting to know people. And maybe 1 or 2 days in other states. (If I lived in Iowa I would have met Barack at a grocery store or some quaint restaurant, but I live in New York so ‘rack doesn’t even know I exist).

BUT, according to the rules (at least on the Democrats side) only Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada are allowed to have primaries before Feb. 5.

Some how, Florida decided they wanted some of the early action and moved their primary to Jan. 29. And seeing the boldness of Florida, Michigan decided to move theirs to Jan. 15. The DNC was a little annoyed by this and said.. yo.. if you do that yo votes not going to count. We ent gonna invite yo delegates to the big convention in Denver. The state legislatures for both Florida and Michigan were like… whateva man.. we gonna do this and deal with the consequences lata. Uhm hmm…

So all of the democratic presidential candidates at the time agreed not to campaign in Florida and Michigan. But one of them decided that she would keep her name on the ballot …a very good chess move.

Here’s a piece of an article published in the Detroit Free Press back in January…

“The reason for the confusion is a fight between Michigan’s leading Democrats, including Sen. Carl Levin and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and the Democratic National Committee. Frustrated that Iowa and New Hampshire were getting so much attention, Michigan’s political elites in both parties changed their Feb. 9 caucus to a primary and bumped it to Jan. 15.

The Republican National Committee did not object, meaning the GOP results will stand. But the DNC declared that no delegates chosen that day would be seated at this summer’s convention — the same sanction imposed on Florida. Neither side budged.

During the stand-off, Clinton kept her name on the Michigan ballot. Obama and Edwards did not.

Mo Elleithee, a Clinton spokesman, said the New York senator will not be campaigning in Michigan. “
“We signed a pledge saying we wouldn’t campaign there,” Eleithee said, “and we’re honoring that pledge.”

When she decided to keep her name on the ballot, it was because she thought she was going to win anyway… not because she felt some great passion that ‘every vote should count’ as she claims now. If that was the case why didn’t she say back in January that she was keeping her name on the ballot, and that she was going to campaign there?!? Your girl is so out of control. We see you Hilary!

All of this is nonsense. Seriously. They all wrong. The state legislatures were wrong for moving the primaries when they knew Howard Dean (Mr. Ye-ah!) was shortsighted for saying the delegates wouldn’t count (since he knew they would in some way) or did he think Hillary would have had the nomination by now? The Michigan and Florida voters were wrong for not raising a stink to tell their state reps to play by the rules. And my man Barack was wrong to think that Hillary was going to just roll over.

Man, where is Al Gore!!?!?!?

So, on Saturday, the Democratic Rules Committee is going to have a nice sit down to figure out what to do about this mess. Unfortunately, this Rules Committee is full of pseudo-superdelegates most of whom have already picked a side. (Most for Hillary) So why would they come to any compromise?

I hope Barack wins Montana and South Dakota by big numbers so Hillary can just go away. We really have to start the general election campaign… we gotta stop old man McCain.