Talk:Florida Democratic primary, 2008

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[edit] revote08

i added notes about it being fraudulent, do not revert unless proof is available to the contrary. all internet sources point to it being fraudulent (lack of non-profit status, refrence in news, etc. ) The notes about it should be left alone though, to help those who have donated —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.226.231.76 (talk) 11:00, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with your conclusion that revote08 is fraudulent but do agree that there are zero news references, and only eight Google hits (nearly all from Wikipedia and blogs). Whatever it is, it's not notable enough for inclusion on a Wikipedia article. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 19:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Delegate Controversy

Can someone cleanup the references in the "Delegate Controversy" section? It seems a bit excessive to have 7 references, with some of them repeating the same information and others being blogs/opinion sites.

  • I think if we start removing the references, some of the statements made may no longer be fully supported. Feel free to be bold though.98.203.237.75 (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I was just going to say the same thing. By reading it, it makes it seem as if Obama was somehow responsible for Florida's delagates not being counted and Hillary is demanding voting rights for all. I think it is a bit more complicated than that. WikiTony (talk) 19:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Apologies. I am personally an Obama supporter, and find what Hillary did to be despicable, which is why I wrote the section. Knowing my own bias, I tried to counter it to achieve NPOV, although it looks like perhaps I swung too far in the other direction.98.203.237.75 (talk) 22:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this is better. But I changed it and it seems more neutral. Yialanliu (talk) 03:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  • I think there are three factors here: (1) like you say, people might be more likely to vote for her because she wants to seat their delegates. However, I think the bigger issue (and more reported issue) is that (2) she is trying to change the rules to get them seated only after it is clear that it would give her an advantage - you didn't see her out campaigning to get florida and michigan seated back in the beginning of January. It was only after she lost big in SC and after had already "won" michigan by virtue of being the only one on the ballot, and after it was clear she was leading in florida that she made this move. Finally, (3) there is the issue of dishonesty since she had previously agreed that florida didn't "count", and that she wouldn't campaign there.98.203.237.75 (talk) 06:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Um I'm not an American and frankly I don't really care that much which of the two idiots win. But it looks to me like you're wrong. According to [1] and the article she started to ask for Florida to be counted on the 25th. This appears to be while she was campaign in South Carolina which according to wikipedia had it's primary on the 26th. So your claim that she only did this after she lost South Carolina seems bull. Perhaps she thought she was going to win SC but it seems she hadn't actually lost it (and previous primaries/caucauses have shown how fickle polling can be). In reality, it wouldn't surprise me if Hillary is smarter then you seem to think. It could easily be more then just her realisation Florida would be an advantage to her. If she does win, she's going to need to convince Americans to vote for her as President. And let's not forget how important Florida was in 2000. If Florida hates the Democratic party for not counting their primaries votes, this is hardly going to be good for her. However she risks alienationg people in other states so by leaving it to the night before the SC primary, she would hope her comments don't influence SC voters too much but people can't claim (as you appear to have) she only did it because she lost SC. Indeed who knows if Barrack Obama wins and Hillary endorses him there's a fair chance her stance is going to help him a lot when it comes down to the presidential election particularly since he appears to have been smart enough to stay out of the conflict directly. And did Obama really ignore Michigin and Florida because he wanted to follow the rules or perhaps he had a good feeling he's do poorly there anyway so by convincing people to ignore their delegate votes and pretending he's just following the party rules (which as I've mentioned is liable to please people in other states) he get's a net benefit in both ways. Would he really have remained out if he was going to win for example? The reality is no one knows what's on their minds. Who knows perhaps they both drew straws and one agreed to be the good guy who'd please the Michigin & Florida voters so they wouldn't be screwed when it comes to the election and the other agreed to forsake these knowing full well it would benefit them in the primaries/caucauses. All we can report is what has been said and done. And this is all a bit OT but it really seems to me as if people are getting worked up about nothing and ignoring the complexity of the situation. Politicians are politicians, don't assume you know what's on their minds since you're probably wrong. P.S. Your claim that she campaigned for Florida also seems to be wrong, from what I can tell, she didn't campaign there she just said they should count which while obviously helped her a lot, is arguably not campaigning Nil Einne (talk) 18:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not passing a value judgement, I'm just noting the controversy, as documented in reliable sources. 98.203.237.75 (talk) 03:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Results

Why does it say 100% of polls reporting when the polls have yet to open? The source links to CNN's results page which itself states that polls haven't open yet as it happens tomorrow.CoW mAnX (talk) 01:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to know how it is possible for the DNC not to count Florida's votes? I recently relocated from Los Angeles, CA. to Florida and I walked into a mess. Isn't it my constitutional right to vote for a presidential candidate? And why is it that the news is covering every inch of this election though ignores the Florida's delegate issue? Particularly, why the Republican government of Florida decided to break the rules, causing a ban on the Democratic candidates and a slap on the wrist to the Republican candidates? Can someone say conspiracy? AGAIN! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deserie33 (talk • contribs) 22:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The DNC removed Florida's delegates because the state moved up it's primary in an attempt to, presumably, get more national attention against the DNC's wishes. It's your constitutional right to vote in the general election but primary rules are set by the DNC which is why some primaries are open (anyone can vote) and some are closed (only registered members of the party may vote). As for the news I've been following CNN for the last month and a half and they often mention both Florida and Michigan, Wolf Blitzer in particular has been mentioning it quite a bit the last few days with the race so close.CoW mAnX (talk) 20:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Here is just the latest example of mainstream media discussing Florida: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/14/michigan.florida.voters/index.htmlCoW mAnX (talk) 00:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Context - HB 537

Added content relevant to the context of this event. It did not just happen in a vacuum. The Florida House Bill passed in 2007, (HB 537) was not even made with the express purpose of rescheduling ANYthing. It was made to mandate a paper trail for voting in Florida. Amendments were added during the legislative process, presumably so that other representatives could get things passed on the coat tails of something that had such popular support.

Whatever the case may be, all the content on the Florida primary in 2008 has made it sound like Florida was changing the date to be feisty or rebellious or for some random reason, when in fact, what you have is a bill co-sponsored by 20 Republicans and 6 Democrats, that was passed with a crap load of riders, ONE of which, changed the date for the primary.

So now this article reflects the context. Antelope In Search Of Truth (talk)

I'm not sure if this is too much detail for the main article and so I'll drop it here for now.
The original election day was the second Tuesday in March. For this election cycle that would have been March 11, 2008.
On April 27, 2007 5:23:36 PM House Democratic Leaders Dan Gelber and Joyce Cusack offered the following House Amendment
party shall, on the first second Tuesday in February March in[2]
  • This would have moved the election to Tuesday February 5, 2008 (Super Tuesday).
  • This was apparently voted down (no citation found for this).
  • The amendment was withdrawn on May 03, 2007 11:20 AM[3]
Two hours after the the Gelber/Cusack amendment there was a senate amendment
April 27, 2007 07:44 PM SENATOR AMENDMENT - Republican senator Lee Constantine moved the following amendment:
party shall, on the last second Tuesday in January March in[4]
  • This moved the election to January 29, 2008.
The same wording is found in a second senate amendment a minute later
04/27/2007 07:45 PM SENATOR AMENDMENT - Senator Constantine moved the following amendment:
party shall, on the last second Tuesday in January March in[5]
I don't know about the reliability/verifiability of the source but this article says the Democrats were between the rock and hard place in that they wanted the February 5, 2008 date but that it would be political suicide to vote "no" on a bill that was about providing a paper trail for voting. The net result is that both parties in the house and senate voted to pass HB 537.[6]
Chamber Date Yeas Nays Actions
House 03/21/2007 01:24 PM 115 1 Passage Vote [Seq# 30]
Senate 04/27/2007 11:49 AM 37 2   Vote [Seq# 28]
House 05/03/2007 11:31 AM 118 0 Passage Vote [Seq# 457]
Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 02:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


The article is incorrect. HB537 did not start off as a bill to eliminate touch-screens voting machines, it was introduced to move up Florida's Primary Election. Here is the link to the history of the bill.

http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/index.cfm?Mode=Bills&Submenu=1&BI_Mode=ViewBillInfo&Billnum=0537&Year=2007

An early copy can be found on this website, it is dated 1/23/2007:

http://www.flsenate.gov/cgi-bin/view_page.pl?Tab=session&Submenu=1&FT=D&File=hb053700.html&Directory=session/2007/House/bills/billtext/html/

An amendment to eliminate the touch-screen voting machines was added after the Florida House passed the bill on 3/21/2007. The copy of that bill passed on 3/21 can be found here:

http://www.flsenate.gov/cgi-bin/view_page.pl?Tab=session&Submenu=1&FT=D&File=hb053702e1.html&Directory=session/2007/House/bills/billtext/html/

The amended bill that includes the elimination of touch-screen voting machines can be found here. It is dated 5/3/2007.

http://www.flsenate.gov/cgi-bin/view_page.pl?Tab=session&Submenu=1&FT=D&File=hb053703e2.html&Directory=session/2007/House/bills/billtext/html/

The Democrats in the Florida House voted twice to support this bill. It is not that they were caught up in some political battle that made them support the elimation of touch-screen votings, thus they were forced to support this bill. The vote on 3/21/2007 showed they supported moving up Florida's primary date without the voting machine amendment. Rustymustang (talk) 00:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you - I see my mistake - I was looking at the senate side of things but the bill started in the House and yes, it started out as a bill to move the date to Super Tuesday or earlier. I'll edit the main article.
A note to those verifying the links; Start with the history of the bill and mid-way down the page is a section titled "Bills" that has dated versions. When you click to view the web or PDF files you'll discover that the files themselves are not dated meaning you'll need to use the "Posted" date from the history page to know the dates of the various versions of the bill. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Obama campaign advertisement controversy

I'm uncomfortable with the current wording of Florida Democratic primary, 2008#Obama campaign advertisement controversy.

  1. The date(s) the advertising ran in Florida as a result of the national television buy is not mentioned other than it must have been on or before February 5th. I've heard it was during the Superbowl on February 3rd but was not able to locate a verifiable source for when the advertising actually ran. The references for this section are dated January 22, 23, and March 20 but none of them mention the date(s) the ad ran and for the January articles on if they had already run.
  2. The reference for the last part of this section is an anonymous blog.
    • The data used from this blog in the the wikipedia article seems "opinion" by the blog author rather than verifiable facts and that statements from this blog were distorted to make them appear more factual. Specifically:
      • "South Carolina did not consider the national cable buy" - The blog quotes the chair of the South Carolina Democratic party and it's not clear if she's stating personal option or was making an official statement on behalf of the South Carolina Democratic party.
      • "the other three deferred to South Carolina" - There was no comment cited in the blog from anyone in the other three states. That's not the same as "deferred to South Carolina."
      • The blog makes at least one factual error in stating "Florida is holding its Democratic and Republican primaries on Feb. 29" (the primary was on January 29th). While that seems like an honest mistake it shows that the author did not use the greatest care in citing and verifying his or her data.
    • I've reverted the most recent edit that contained data based on this blog and then ended up removing the blog reference entirely and replacing that sentence based on it to instead use data from an established news article. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 17:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I reread the Carol Fowler comment[7] again and realized this is a news article quoting Obama's campaign spokesman Bill Burton who in turn is commenting on Ms. Fowler. Mr. Burton is not NPOV wrt Obama and we have no idea of how the question was put to Ms. Fowler nor the context other than it was "before the ad ran." A news search[8] finds that Ms. Fowler is backing Obama[9] and thus may not be NPOV either. I'm leaning towards removing the last sentence of the "Obama campaign advertisement controversy" section in the wiki article entirely as it really seems to be about a spokesman for the Obama campaign citing another Obama backer who said she had no problem with Obama's national ad running in Florida. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 18:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why was the date of the Florida primary changed, and who changed it?

Wouldn't it help a lot to understand the current situation with the contested Florida and Michigan primaries if there was an explanation as to why the election dates were changed in those states? Why were they changed, who was behind the decision to change them, what was the logic behind the change, were the Democrats in those states lobbying for the change, were the democrats in those states opposed to the change - or even in a position to stop the change? And why are these questions not covered or explored by the political news media?

Why does the Democratic National Committee even set hard rules for the dates of these primaries when it's the legislatures of individual states that ultimately controls when those primaries are held? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.71.143.243 (talk) 15:18, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It's an interesting question. Although the state of Florida has the power to finance and run its own primary, the Florida Democratic Party, as a private organization, has the freedom whether or not to use the primary election to select its delegates. In theory the Florida Democratic Party could have organized and scheduled its own primary for any date it wanted.
However the problem is money. Holding an primary election is extremely expensive, and no state party wants to use its own money to pay for one. This is the main reason why caucuses (which are much cheaper) are held in many states. Thus, when the Florida legislature said "we will pay for a primary and it will be on January 29, 2008", the Florida Democratic Party had the following choices:
  • organize and finance its own primary at a later date that did not violate DNC rules (prohibitively expensive)
  • organize and finance its own caucus at a later date
  • stick with the publicly financed primary, even though it violated DNC rules
In hindsight option 2 might have been the best choice. Interestingly, a few states, such as Texas and Washington state, hold their own privately financed caucuses even though the state government finances a primary. Grover cleveland (talk) 16:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

"Although the state of Florida has the power to finance and run it's own primary..."

What business is it of the state of Florida (or any state) to operate and pay for the election of partisan political delegates for a Federal office?

If the DNC and RNC stipulate when a given state is allowed to have an election to select it's delegates, then it should be the political parties themselves to finance and operate those elections, and not state taxpayers.

-->AND IF<-- the parties freeload on an election process that the state is going to pay for, then the parties have no choice as to when those elections will take place.

In other words, when the State of Florida decided to change the election to Jan 29, then the Federal DNC should have immediately instructed the Florida Democratic Committee to organize it's own election process to be held in February on the original date, and should have GIVEN the Florida Democratic Committee the money it needed to carry out it's own election if it didn't have enough of it's own money. And if the Federal DNC wasn't willing to partially or totally fund the Florida election as scheduled in February, then it abdicated or negated it's ability to barr the Florida delegates from the upcoming national convention.

This whole thing with Florida and Michigan smells like a republican trick to screw around with the DNC presidential nomination process, and the DNC is stupid enough to sucker-punch itself. Like I said, what options did the Florida and Michigan Democratic Committee's have when their state legislatures changed the dates of their respective elections?

Why was there no media coverage of these date changes when they happened, and no exploration of their implications and complications for the national DNC convention? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.71.143.243 (talk) 02:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Delegate numbers post R & B Committee decision

The Dem Rules and Bylaws Committee decided to award ½ votes to Florida. The actual numbers voted by the committee were 52½, 33½ & 6½. These are the numbers that are widely reported, but because Florida was off the radar, sources have yet to adjust their numbers for the Edwards delegates from Florida that have stated they will vote for Obama. This is shown by the DCW Edwards Delegate page, which clearly indicates that 11 delegates (5½ delegate votes) remain with Edwards, and the remaining 2 (1 vote) have publicly declared for Obama. Hence the original 33½ & 6½ become 34½ and 5½. This is a more accurate set of numbers, derived in the same way as those in other states where Edwards delegates have been shifted to Obama. This is explained in the Delegates column footnote. If you think it is unclear, then please make it more clear. If you think the endorsements of these Edwards delegates to Obama is invalid, I would like to hear why. Agricolae (talk) 16:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)