Why is the Democratic Party so stupid?

[Onlooker]

First they screw up with two key swing states, Florida and Michigan. Now, I learn, they're having their convention first. I just don't get why the Dems can be so dumb. If I'm McCain, I keep my VP secret until after the Dem choice has been announced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Republican_National_Convention

The RNC National Convention will be held four days after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention which will be held in Denver, Colorado at the Pepsi Center.

This is the latest any major party convention has ever been convened,and the first one to take place entirely in September. Traditionally, the party who holds the White House has its convention second: the challenging party holds their convention usually in July while the incumbent party holds theirs in August. However, the Democrats wanted to schedule their convention after the 2008 Summer Olympics ended, and the Republicans wanted to keep the political and financial advantages of going second.

[JVS]

1. MI and FL are the faults of the local parties.

And the reason there are problems is that they refuse to accept the authority of the DNC. Probably because they oppose the politics of the DNC's leader Howard Dean.

[Freida5]

3. The problem was created by poor planning and overreaction by DNC

[JVS]

5. No. They did lots of good planning with all the states in setting up a calender.

MI and FL decided to say "fuck that" and went ahead of turn. The DNC's reaction was appropriate. Read up on what Madfloridian posts on this issue. All the facts are there.

[MaineDem]

6. Not true at all

The incumbent party goes second.

Any earlier and our convention would bump up against the Olympics.

[blm]

10. Terry McAuliffe set that rule up when he was chair. DNC voted to KEEP the rule.

Were you fine with that rule when McAuliffe put it in play?

[Occam Bandage]

13. No. They did good, meticulous planning. The state parties then fucked everyone else over.

[cali]

2. McCain will name his VP choice long before the Convention

He'll need to in order to get certain elements of the party behind him. Furthermore the conventions are much closer together than 4 years ago. 4 days is really insignificant unless one is superstitious. And none of this indicates stupidity on the part of the dem party.

[Mass]

4. Because the incumbent party gets to choose last. The Democrats chose a late date this time.

and avoided the problem that McAuliffe created in 04 by choosing an early convention, but the Republicans were able to choose a later date.

At least, Dean was wise enough not to let them have a full month.

[MaineDem]

8. It's not that they choose last; they GO last

The incumbent party always holds its convention after the other one.

And the Olympics are in August and that really had an impact on our choice of a date.

[Breeze54]

7. Florida and Michigan broke the DNC rules, not the Dem Party.

They both jumped the gun/date; after the new primary rules were established.

[Florida22ndDistrict]

9. RE: Florida and Michigan broke the DNC rules, not the Dem Party.

That's why you punish millions of voters rather then the people who made the decision. I guess the next time a kid shoots up a school we should round up all the kids in his state and collectively punish them for the one kids actions. Maybe we can round up all minorities and collectively punish them too the next time one happens to commit a crime. Collective punishment, for someone else's actions is unjust, and in the matters of elections is definitely undemocratic. Its odd to watch members of a party famous for fighting for civil rights who call themselves the Democratic party perpetuate such a bullshit argument for disenfranchising millions of people. You should be ashamed of yourself.

[Occam Bandage]

14. If you don't like that, take it up with the state party that made that decision for you.

[Florida22ndDistrict]

17. RE: If you don't like that, take it up with the state party that made that decision for you.

Echo echo echo... You love to shovel out that line don't you. I have a question for you: who sanctioned the states? The DNC sanctioned the states. They handed out the collective punishment that was inflicted on the voters, and they are the only ones that hold responsibility for their actions. The DNC should have been smart enough not to sanction the voters.

The few democratic representatives that exist in my state (not from my district), should have been dealt with by the DNC, if it was such a problem. I guess New Hampshire's silver spoon is more important then banning electronic voting machines and require a paper trail so that we can have clean elections from now on.

[Occam Bandage]

18. And the states were informed that the sanctions would occur, and went ahead anyway.

Every state approved both the timeline and the sanction rules, including FL and MI. Representation from every state party but MI and FL voted to approve enforcement of the rules. It is not the DNC's fault that your state party chose to strip itself of delegates.

[Breeze54]

19. Michigan and Florida broke the rules....get mad at your party leaders in your state.

Levin sent me an e-mail about this and he said something to the effect that
they did it in 'protest' of the primary date rules and they hope to have it
resolved for the next election. I didn't say I agreed with it and I think it's
stupid those two states pulled this stunt in such a critical election year.

I feel for you and the rest of the country over this....

[Occam Bandage]

11. You no hungry for electoral victory! You hungry for hot pockets!

[blm]

12. Incumbent party ALWAYS GOES LAST. Please do some basic research before you complain

about even the most simple facts.

[Occam Bandage]

15. His two reasons the Dems are stupid are both actually examples of his own ignorance.

I love it.

[karynnj]

16. MCain/Feingold forces that

At the time the date was set, there was no thought that the nominee would definitely opt out of public financing. In 2004, Kerry had to stretch his $75 for 13 weeks, while Bush had to stretch his over 8 weeks. During the 5 weeks between the conventions, Bush could continue to use unlimited primary money. This was an enormous dilemma when the SBVT struck then - had Kerry spent a lot of money, he would have been less competitive in the final stretch of the campaign. He would now be blasted on Democratic boards for vainly wasting money on a issue people would have seen through.

As it is, the experience of 2004 and Obama's ability to raise money may preclude taking federal financing. We need more money as their echo chamber helps them for free. However, the date is already set.

On MI and FL, the Democrats really should have negotiated this better - even the Republican giving half the delegates would have led to reasonable primaries.