Raise Your Hand If You Think Florida Is Over

The strong arm of the Obama campaign is (still) passive-aggressively reaching into Florida politics and biting the hands that could now feed him. Sen. Bill Nelson, who sued the DNC for Florida delegates to be fully seated, and last week proposed a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College, is fighting Obama’s decision to change out some current delegates for his own.

Beth Reinhard writes in today’s MiamiHerald.com about the Dems’ continuing delegate debacle in Florida:

So much for party unity: As Florida Dems prepare for Saturday’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner aimed at bringing the party “together once and for all,” a spat over the Obama campaign’s decision to replace some already-designated Florida delegates with Obama backers has intensified.

And how. DNC member Jon Ausman late Thursday e-mailed Dems (and reporters) choice sections of what he says were e-mails from Obama’s Florida finance chair Kirk Wagar — in which Wagar curses Ausman out and criticizes Sen. Bill Nelson and party director Leonard Joseph.

Sound familiar? Ummm, Nelson stood for fully counting Florida’s votes. He’s a bad guy, right?

The highlights: “You (Jon Ausman) f&^%ed us. We are dealing with it. You need to accept the fact that you f*&^ed us.”

And of Nelson: “I am getting very sick of (Senator) Nelson making a bad situation worse.”

Said Ausman to Wagar: “We are at a point in time when we need to heal and come together. Help me understand how these messages, which you have sent to me in writing, help Senator Obama’s campaign.”

Wagar, dude, you’re fighting a phantom. Nelson’s not there. He’s at constitutional amendment level.

From The Hill, Nelson bill would abolish Electoral College

By Michael O’Brien

Posted: 06/06/08 05:18 PM [ET]

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College on Friday, less than a week after the Democrats settled on how to handle delegates from Florida at their national convention.

“It’s time for Congress to really give Americans the power of one-person, one-vote, instead of the political machinery selecting candidates and electing our president,” Nelson said in a release announcing the amendment.

Nelson said his principal argument for making the change is that the Electoral College permits a candidate with fewer votes nationally to win the presidency by capturing narrow victories in big states. In 2000, then-Vice President Al Gore won the popular votes but George W. Bush won the Electoral College.

Nelson cited that election along with this year’s contentious Democratic primary in Florida as reasons for his legislation. He sued the DNC last fall for initially refusing to recognize Florida’s full delegation at the Democratic National Convention.

Democrats on Friday* decided to give each of Florida’s delegates a half-vote as a penalty for moving their primary ahead on the calendar without party approval. The move created a mess for the party after Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), whom Nelson supported, won the primary. The result was disputed because candidates had avoided campaigning in the state.

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The second part of the initiative would establish rotating, interregional primaries between March and June during a presidential election year as an alternative to the current primary and caucus system. The third portion would permit early presidential voting nationwide, require voting machines to produce a verifiable paper record, and encourage voting by mail, among other things.

Interesting Friday=an slip in the article, because the DNC RBC Meeting was held the following day, Saturday, May 31, 2008. It’s made all the more haunting in light of the June 11 disclosure by plukasiak, cross-posted at The Confluence:

A document filed as an exhibit in the Nelson vs Dean Lawsuit that was filed in October 2007 in an attempt to force the DNC to seat the Florida delegation provides indisputable proof that the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee singled out Florida and Michigan for sanctions, and ignored violations of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

The article, which contains excerpts from a document filed as an exhibit, concludes by connecting the dots between the RBC’s selective rules enforcement strategy and the damage to Clinton’s momentum:

It is clear that the RBC violated its own rules for political reasons – to stop Hillary Clinton. Without the opportunity to beat Clinton in one of the early states in a meaningful primary or caucus, Clinton’s advantages going into Super- Tuesday would have been impossible to beat. The corrupt officials of the RBC were part of a “stop Hillary” movement, and chose to ignore their own rules in order to make it possible for someone other than Hillary Clinton to get the nomination, and the complete and utter corruption of James Roosevelt, Alexis Herman, Alice Germond and the rest of Obama’s supporters on the RBC is no longer in doubt.

Keep going, Senator Nelson! Drop him a line, give him a call. Tell him, Thanks!

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