A Note on the Democratic Primary Process

There is an issue that is not being addressed by any of the spokespeople for the Democratic Party, Barack Obama's campaign and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Much is said about "count every vote," and people on both sides talk about what is or isn't fair. The contentious battle yesterday to seat Michigan's and Florida's delegates (despite the fact that both states broke party rules), aired a lot of spurious and facetious verbiage about democracy, and the voting process that does not apply to party nominations.

Like it or not, we have only two major political parties in this country. So the primary process feels like it should be 100% democratic, one-man-one-vote. But that isn't the case. The parties are essentially clubs--they are not mentioned in the Constitution at all--who have the right to determine their own rules for selecting a candidate. And they do. That is why the Republicans and the Democrats can have different rules.

Now, the Democratic National Committee has a set of established rules that all Presidential candidates were aware of, going in. When Michigan and Florida broke the rules--whatever the reason was--the party was in its full rights to admonish and punish them. It wasn't necessary to seat delegates from either state, but yesterday was an attempt to do so.

For all of the cranky-pants out there still kvetching about the way it was settled, and who don't like the present nominating process, start now to work to change it. But not for this election, for the next one. You've got four years to work to fix it. Stop complaining and do something.