2008 Woodie Awards
Democrats hindered by early primary mess
By: Sean Lutzmann
Issue date: 3/19/08 Section: Forum
Who would have thought a year ago that the Republican Party would have chosen their candidate cut and dry long before the Democrats would have chosen theirs?
Conventional wisdom was that Sen. Hillary Clinton would be the shoe-in to get the Democratic nomination while the unhappy conservative base of the Republican Party would make things much more difficult for their own nominating process.
Not to mention the fact that the idea of the party of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity eventually coming to rally around lukewarm conservative (in their views) Sen. John McCain as the presumptive Republican candidate was laughable at best.
The major reason behind this relative lack of stability and predictability of the Democratic nomination can be attributed to two major factors: Barack Obama's record-shattering campaign efforts giving the Clinton campaign colossus a literal run for its money, and the really deplorable decisions made on the part of certain officials in Michigan and Florida.
As anyone who's been paying attention to this election knows, because the big wigs of the aforementioned states decided to hold their primaries right after or in Michigan's case before those held by the established first three states (Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada), the national parties reacted by imposing two different types of consequences on the voters of the two renegade states.
In a surprising reversal of attitudes, the Republican National Committee indicated a rare sentiment of leniency by merely reducing the number of delegates granted to both states to be sent to the convention, while the Democratic National Committee (DNC) played the role of the tough-love, no-nonsense authority figure by eventually banning any delegates from any non-designated state which chose to hold their primaries before Feb. 5.
In the face of an increasingly close and competitive primary race for the Democratic nomination (as of Monday Sen. Obama had a mere 139 delegate lead with 931 to go according to CNN) where every single delegate will matter - from American Samoa to Puerto Rico to Wyoming, it has now become apparent that the delegates from the two states could be extremely influential in which candidate gets the nod.
Conventional wisdom was that Sen. Hillary Clinton would be the shoe-in to get the Democratic nomination while the unhappy conservative base of the Republican Party would make things much more difficult for their own nominating process.
Not to mention the fact that the idea of the party of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity eventually coming to rally around lukewarm conservative (in their views) Sen. John McCain as the presumptive Republican candidate was laughable at best.
The major reason behind this relative lack of stability and predictability of the Democratic nomination can be attributed to two major factors: Barack Obama's record-shattering campaign efforts giving the Clinton campaign colossus a literal run for its money, and the really deplorable decisions made on the part of certain officials in Michigan and Florida.
As anyone who's been paying attention to this election knows, because the big wigs of the aforementioned states decided to hold their primaries right after or in Michigan's case before those held by the established first three states (Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada), the national parties reacted by imposing two different types of consequences on the voters of the two renegade states.
In a surprising reversal of attitudes, the Republican National Committee indicated a rare sentiment of leniency by merely reducing the number of delegates granted to both states to be sent to the convention, while the Democratic National Committee (DNC) played the role of the tough-love, no-nonsense authority figure by eventually banning any delegates from any non-designated state which chose to hold their primaries before Feb. 5.
In the face of an increasingly close and competitive primary race for the Democratic nomination (as of Monday Sen. Obama had a mere 139 delegate lead with 931 to go according to CNN) where every single delegate will matter - from American Samoa to Puerto Rico to Wyoming, it has now become apparent that the delegates from the two states could be extremely influential in which candidate gets the nod.
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