“She is going to be a great asset when we go into November to make sure we beat the Republicans. That I promise you. Whatever differences Senator Clinton and I may have, those differences pale in comparison to the other side.”

Says in South Dakota he called Sen. Clinton to congratulate her on Puerto Rico Victory and praises her campaign in the event.

55 delegates at stake, polls open until 3PM Eastern and Clinton favored to win the popular vote.

Highlights

Clinton won with every level of education except for post-graduate, which she split evenly with Obama. Clinton won with every income group.
Clinton won with every age bracket.

It has been a long time since the Democrats have been this close to tearing themselves apart but thanks to the awesome fundraising and organizing potential of the Internet, it is a position the party could be in every election cycle from this point on. At issue are a series of antiquated party rules that have created a system that seems destined for utter chaos and I hear almost no one talking about the fact that it needs reform.

So with that in mind, here are the top five things I believe the Dems need to do to solve this problem.

1) Enough with Iowa & New Hampshire

Sorry to be a hater here but giving two states that couldn’t be less representative of the nation an unruly amount of power is downright silly. The Iowa Caucus itself is a mess that can easily be influenced by outside forces and demands an obscene amount of attention by candidates a year in advance at the expensive of the other forty-eight states. Not even New Hampshire, home of the first primary in the nation, sees as much personal attention as Iowa and they too take up enough of the candidates time.

This year Michigan and Florida, two obscenely important states for the general election, were snubbed by the DNC, the candidates and the media at a cost that could be measured in November. All to keep Iowa and NH front and center.

Sorry, I know this could come back to haunt me, but at the very least a giant state like NY, California, Texas or Pennsylvania should be tacked onto their early dates to even this out.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston Globe reports that the Co-chair of the Rules and Bylaws Committee has said the DNC will not cave to pressure to seat Florida & Michigan delegates based on their primaries and instead both states will need to hold new votes.

Re-votes in both states seem very unlikely meaning that if the DNC doesn’t give in the primary will continue as a mess and leave voters in both states feeling snubbed going into the general election.

Update:
8:09: FOX news calling it for Obama

8:07 CNN just e-mailed me that Barack Obama has won Mississippi HOWEVER the network hasn’t called it yet on TV.

The Mississippi polls have closed and I expect a call shortly!

Two Clinton backers have offered up a plan to re-stage the Florida and Michigan primaries.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania said Sunday that they would be willing to raise half the $30 million it would take to run new contests in those two states. Mr. Corzine and Mr. Rendell submitted their proposal to The Washington Post.

The two governors argue that the Democratic National Committee, and not taxpayers in Florida and Michigan, should pay for a re-election in those states.

Meanwhile The NY Sun reports that Al Sharpton is now threatening to sue the Democratic National Committee if it uses the results of the Florida primary to seat delegates.

Rev. Sharpton is traveling to Florida today to compile lists of residents who skipped the January contest because they thought their votes would not count. He plans to have those residents sign affidavits saying they would be disenfranchised by the seating of the Florida delegation, in the event the Democratic Party allowed that to happen.

The party had promised to exclude Florida and Michigan from the nomination process after the states scheduled their primaries in January, earlier than party rules had allowed, but the close contest between senators Clinton and Obama has turned attention toward those primaries, prompting debate between the campaigns and party leaders over how to handle the lockout.

From WFTV:

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said a mail-in primary is “actually a very good process.”

“Every voter gets a ballot in the mail,” the former Vermont governor said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It’s comprehensive, you get to vote if you’re in Iraq or in a nursing home. It’s not a bad way to do this.”
As for who pays, Dean said, “That is a problem,” reiterating that the party needs its money for the general election campaign against Republican John McCain.

He also ruled out the state of Florida, where Republican Gov. Charlie Crist has nixed the idea. Dean suggested the state Democratic party might foot the bill. Florida’s political parties, unlike the DNC, can accept unlimited contributions.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., supports the mail-in solution, comparing it to an absentee ballot process. He also pinned his hopes on the state party to pay for it.

AP is reporting a gigantic turnout already in Wyoming.

During the first caucuses of the day, it appeared the state’s Democrats were showing up in record numbers. In 2004, a mere 675 people statewide took part in the caucuses.

As I said when I was on BlogTalkRadio the other day, for years now we’ve heard people complain that states like Wyoming have been taken out of the process. Now that we have it, we hear people complaining that the contest should be over. You never can win can you?

The new site MobLogic.comhosted by Lindsay Campbell, put together a great rundown on the Florida Democratic primary mess and pointed out something I and others should be doing a better job of explaining. It wasn’t the Democratic state Party wanting to move the primary up in violation of rules, it was the states Republican party. Democrats fought the decision but because of maneuvering lost out. Again the video above does a wonderful job of explaining so I wont rehash it.

Regardless I still maintain the DNC is ultimately to blame and here is why. They created a system that prizes Iowa and New Hampshire above all others and because of this system they were forced into penalizing Florida and Michigan. Regardless of who was to blame for breaking the Democratic rules, states are the ones who make these decisions and because of that any state could have been taken in the same direction Florida was. Because of this, it makes little sense to bind everyone to this, Iowa and New Hampshire media monopoly, for the pure and simple fact that the party continues to want to favor this system instead of courting gigantic swing states like Florida and Michigan which could help them out in November.

In addition, no one forced Obama, Edwards and the others to keep their names off the Michigan primary, they did it to again appease Iowa voters and score some political points. So though the Democrats are not to blame for the state decision, because of maneuvering by Republicans in Florida, this is true, they are to blame for creating this system and standing by it knowing full well it could create the mess we are currently in.

Still a wonderful rundown from a new site so check it out.