Hillary Clinton Pushes to Make Florida, Michigan Count

Primary season doesn't start until February 5th. That's impossible you say because several states have already held primaries and caucuses. Both national parties have a rule that states cannot hold any primary or caucus before February 5 except for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. In addition to those four states, Michigan and Florida have also held their primaries before the February 5th date, and they were penalized for those actions. As punishment, the Democratic National Committee stripped Michigan and Florida of all of their state delegates. The Republican National Committee stripped Michigan and Florida of half of their delegates.

Senator Hillary Clinton is now pressuring the DNC to reconsider their decision to unseat the delegates from Michigan and Florida. Of course, since Clinton won Michigan and Florida, she would benefit most from having the delegates count for her this summer in Denver. Her push for the delegates to be recognized seems self-serving. But there is a larger problem brewing for the state of Florida that should be addressed. In 2000, Florida was the site of contentious and heated debate over hanging chads and ballot problems in several voting areas throughout the state. Does the DNC want to risk a debacle by forbidding delegates from participating in the Democratic convention?

Florida and Michigan's delegates should be counted at the convention, but both states knew what penalties were at stake when moving their primary dates up before February 5th. Losing delegates is effectively nullifying the ability of the states to decide who should be the nominee. If the winning the nomination comes down to the delegates from Michigan and Florida, these delegates will become a huge issue. None of the candidates want to offend voters by refusing them to be represented at the convention; if the nomination comes down to Florida's 210 delegates and Michigan's 156, any candidate might have objections to the DNC reversing the decision to unseat all of each states delegates.

Is it fair for the Democrats to loose all of their delegates while the Republicans only loose half of their delegates? Probably not. If parties are supposed to treat constituents equally, the DNC should restore half of the delegates to Florida and Michigan in order to dole out the same punishment as the RNC handed down to the states. The states still are being punished for moving the dates of their primaries, but the punishment is equal across the board. If the DNC restored half of the delegates back to each state, Clinton would gain ground and meaningful victories over Senator Barack Obama.

The only way these delegates will affect the Democratic nomination is to have a close race between Clinton and Obama. If Obama pulls away from the other candidates, the stripped delegates won't matter to the nomination process. However, the candidates need to show the voters of Michigan and Florida that they are an important part of the election process. Any one of the candidates should implore the DNC to reconsider the decision to strip the state of all of their delegates, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be punished at all for breaking rules. If the DNC was interested in being fair, they would match the penalty imposed by the RNC and give half of the delegates back to Michigan and Florida.