Now I realize that there are no delegates being awarded and maybe there won't be at the convention either. There are people talking about holding a new caucus later in the process so they do a mulligan in the state. And I also know that many people think Clinton is running some sort of scam and that she'll unfairly try to seat her delegates and that it's inappropriate for her to have a rally in Florida to celebrate "winning" etc, etc. Fine. That's all party politics and it's not what I'm talking about. It will be worked out one way or the other.My point is that actual human beings voted today. If it is inappropriate for Clinton to declare victory it's also damned inappropriate for every gasbag on television to say that all these votes are completely meaningless. They may not add to the delegate count, but they were cast in good faith by American citizens and they should be treated with respect by these jackasses.
A few readers have asked why we chose to include the Democratic results on our scoreboard to the right since the DNC says that these delegates will not be seated and each of the candidates have pledged not to participate in the election. For these reasons, originally, we were not going to include it, just as we did not include the Dem results in Michigan. However, unlike in Michigan, each of the candidates names is on the ballot. And there clearly is an election taking place, with hundreds of thousands of registered Democrats voting. So for each of these reasons, we are reporting the results.
Me:
Human beings did in fact vote, but they voted in a contest that quite literally had no meaning. For something to have meaning, it must have an end or a purpose. Given that there were no delegates at stake tonight, there quite literally was no purpose to today's vote. And an election? For it to be an election, you would have to be electing someone to something. But again, that did not happen. There was a vote, but it was one with neither purpose not meaning. That's a clear, indisputable fact. I feel bad for the people of Florida, but that doesn't mean I can't also be honest about how what they just did was meaningless. What, am I supposed to lie about it to make them feel better? Is that really the best solution here?
As for Digby's complaint about the attitude of the commentators, c'mon... they were laughing at the way the Clinton campaign was trying to nothing into something. They weren't mocking the voters; they were mocking her campaign.
More on McCain's big win tomorrow. Until then, I'm outsourcing to NRO's Michael Graham
Assuming there is no shocking revelation or health issue, the GOP nomination is over. Conservatives need to start practicing the phrase "Nominee presumptive John McCa....."
Sorry, I can't say it. Not yet.But it's true. When the campaign comes here to Massachusetts on February 5th, I'll proudly cast my vote for any option on the GOP ballot other than You-Know-Who. But it will be a futile gesture. Mr. "1/3rd Of The GOP Primary Vote" is going to be the nominee.
He's going to win the big, left-leaning states on Tuesday. Huckabee will stay in and deny Romney a one-on-one contest for GOP voters that Captain Amnesty would almost certainly lose. The result: More wins for He Who Must Not Be Named, and fewer wins for Romney—regardless of delegate count.
Florida has launched the one ship that Romney's money and Rush Limbaugh cannot stop: The U.S.S. Inevitable. It's gonna happen. Even if there were a realistic pathway to stop him, the media have seized control of the process now and are declaring him inevitable. He is, after all, the favorite son of the New York Times.So it is over. Finished. In November, we'll be sending out our most liberal, least trustworthy candidate vs. to take on Hillary Clinton—perhaps not more liberal than Barack Obama, but certainly far less trustworthy.
And the worst part for the Right is that McCain will have won the nomination while ignoring, insulting and, as of this weekend, shamelessly lying about conservatives and conservatism.You think he supported amnesty six months ago? You think he was squishy on tax cuts and judicial nominees before? Wait until he has the power to anger every conservative in America, and feel good about it.
Every day, he dreams of a world filled with happy Democrats and insulted Republicans. And he is, thanks to Florida, the presidential nominee of the Republican party.
And on that note, I'm off to climb into a bottle of Bushmill's. It's going to be a LONG nine months.
UPDATE: Great points here from Ezra:
In comments, many of you asked how I could be so dismissive of Floridians who voted for Hillary Clinton. And the answer is, I'm not. I didn't keep their vote from counting. Hillary Clinton did. When the Democratic National Committee decided to impose order on an out-of-control primary process by stripping Florida and Michigan of their delegates if they refused to return their primaries to their original dates, there were three individuals who could have restored the franchise to those states. Howard Dean, the Chairman of the DNC, could have changed his mind, or changed his proposed penalty. Even in the face of his intransigence, however, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama could have simply refused his entreaty to avoid the offending states. A declaration by either that they disagreed with the DNC's decision and would instruct their delegates to alter the rules at the convention and seat Florida and Michigan would have forced all the other candidates to do the same, and the DNC's prohibition would have collapsed. The voters in Florida and Michigan would have attended speeches, and seen ads, and hosted a debate, and been able to make an informed choiceThat didn't happen. Clinton's campaign manager backing the DNC, said, "We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process, and we believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role." So Florida and Michigan didn't get their primaries. They didn't get campaigns. They didn't have serious Get Out The Vote efforts. And now, they're being cynically used, the language of democracy revisited and dusted off in service of a power play for additional delegates. Where, rightly or wrongly, the campaigns agreed to deny them a primary, now Clinton's campaign, which in Michigan won because they were the only campaign on the ballot and in Florida won because no one contested their lead, is demanding they be seated. The intervention did not come in time to give Florida and Michigan a full role in the democratic process, only in time to let the Clinton campaign benefit from their essential disenfranchisement.
As a longtime Californian who's cast many a meaningless vote, I sympathize with Florida and Michigan, both of whom deserved better than to fall victim to an ambitious state party clashing with a retrograde primary system. But these votes are only meaningful if they have rules, if all involved believe them to have been free and fair. In 2000, Florida's vote was not free, in 2008, their vote will be used such that it is not fair. This would be wrong if Barack Obama had done it, wrong if John Edwards or Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich did it. And it is wrong when the Clinton campaign does it. If they believed democratic principles were at stake, then there was a time to stand for democracy and ensure Floridians would host a campaign and have a voice. They let that moment pass. And they did not do so passively; they spoke up in agreement with the DNC's decision. Now they are circling back for advantage, pretending to speak up for the process when in reality they are only advocating for themselves. That does not honor Florida and Michigan's participation. It cheapens it.
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