Protest outside DNC meeting from Elizabeth Glover
In an ironic moment completely lost on most party members, protesters on both sides of the Democratic aisle faced off against the Democratic National Committee over the weekend, demanding Hillary's, no, Barack's, no, neither, no, both of their votes in Michigan and Florida should be counted. The DNC was summarily confused and, like good doomed Dems have been doing since 1992, caved to the middle, pleasing no one.
The positions came down to this:
1) Hillary Clinton is a woman and the DNC and Barack Obama are being sexist and, despite the fact his name wasn't even on the ballot, they should count all her votes exactly as they came in on Election Day.
2) Barack Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan and, unlike Hillary Clinton, kept his pledge not to campaign in Florida. The votes in those states should not count the way voters voted them to count, since this would be unfair to Barack Obama. Some would also argue that Hillary Clinton is manipulating her supporters by making constant announcements and sending endless e-mails about counting every vote in those two states, to the point of inciting a riot on her otherwise-intelligent supporters who should see through this cheap cheating-to-win.
3) Neither candidate should receive any of the votes until after Barack Obama (or whoever) is crowned the nominee. The two states broke the rules and it's the fault of those legislators, not the campaigns or the DNC, that chaos has ensued. A revote could also be possible, although, obviously, not anymore now that the DNC has made up its mind.
4) And finally, the position that won out at the DNC: basically split the votes down the middle, as was offered all along, and move on. The votes of Florida and Michigan are then both counted and not counted: counted in the sense that now they can have delegates representing them at the convention and not counted in the sense that it wasn't in any way near how the voting went.
Before the committee's ten hour meeting ended in a consensus on #4, picketers shouted about not wanting to be "half a vote" and supporters of both candidates directed their anger, not at each other, but at the DNC. Of course, this might all be healthy if not for the fact that, when it comes down to it, there's one candidate whose supporters are really, really not happy with the result.
It was definitely a stunning blow to Hillary Clinton's attempt to catch up in the state, popular, and elected delegate vote totals. How she will justify her continued presence in the race beyond tomorrow's final primaries is a mystery, although why she wants to stay in certainly is not...