Time for the DNC to exert control (sorry MI, FL)

Today's meeting of the Democratic National Committee Rules Committee is much less significant for its impact on the current race - give Senator Clinton all the delegates she supposedly won in those farse elections, and she still trails Senator Obama in the delegate race - than it is important for how the 2012 and 2016 Democratic presidential nomination processes are structured.  If Michigan and Florida receive all of their delegates - no matter how they're apportioned - the DNC makes it clear that it has no control over its own nomination process, and that states can do what they want in scheduling their primaries in the future. 

The sense of righteous indignation that folks in Florida and Michigan feel is misplaced.  Except for dedicated party loyalists and political junkies, nobody really cares about state delegations to the party's national convention.  Furthermore, a party's nomination process is not a public election but rather the governing process of a private political organization.  After a primary is complete, nobody takes office - they simply gear up for a general election.  Parties can do what they please in their nomination process.

I hope that the DNC penalizes Florida and Michigan today by awarding them partial delegations or no delegations.  They must exert control over their own nomination process.

And as a next step, it should get out of the practice of outsourcing its primary process to the states.  Parties should retain full control over their primaries and not allow elected officials - particularly those of the opposing party - to dabble in their internal affairs.

Comments

[Rachel]

I'm vaguely okay with the farming-it-out-to-the-states thing, it's the fact that they have no control over the process (as you said the award of a full delegation would suggest) that bothers me. The simple fact that we're even talking about awarding them ANY delegates frustrates me. They knowingly, willingly broke the rules. The consequences, that they were informed of in advance, were that they'd get no delegates at the national convention. That should have been the end of it! Well, it shouldn't have even gotten THAT far, but it did.

The consequences were set, now the DNC just has to follow through. What happens when you set limits for your children and then don't follow through?

[Diane]

yes, and when I heard the rationale (these are two big states and small candidates could not compete if someone emerged early in one of these states), I was even more sympathetic to the party rules. The idea being that a less well known or well financed candidate like Edwards or someone else could spend time in New Hampshire or Iowa and perhaps emerge there by winning, and then get more support because of that (didn't work in Edwards' case, but, that's the idea). I'm all for parity for candidates who don't have $50 million to start with.

thanks for a concise and convincing post, Chris (and not partisan, either).