Americans Away From Home

What might have been can never be. 

In elections, things change.  You endorse one candidate; another appears, racking up more of everything that counts than your first choice does.  Is precipitous too soon if you can't see the full scorecard in front of you?

In politics, things change quickly.  You go to bed one night thinking you lost; you wake up, astonished that you won.  People change their minds, votes, houses, email suppliers; they change husbands, phone providers, and brands.  Loyalty is alive, but has less of a mass following these days.

Is the same person you voted for in 2004 the person you'd vote for today?  What about 2000?  1996?

Which leads to Florida and Michigan.  Freeze frame:  Take a snapshot of how everyone would have voted the first time, had candidates campaigned in both States, with all votes counted.  Live the past months since both elections, then - click! - open the frame.  Redo the vote, and it will be just like it was before. 

Not so fast.  Minds change!  People grow, they think, they learn, they read, they talk to others.  Life intrudes.  You learn not to buy a toaster that's unreliable, not to do again whatever you did that you'd like to take back.  People change.

Why then would anyone think votes in Florida and Michigan would stay the same?

A redo, but not the same, isn't a re-do.  It's maybe a replicate-do, but that's not quite right either.  Is it quibbling to suggest that people in the great states of Michigan and Florida might have heard a news item or two since the original elections which might have affected their views?

Then there's this: While Hillary agrees to Michigan's new redo plan, Obama refuses to commit.  Under Democrat Party rules, anyone who voted the fist time, if they voted Republican, may not be allowed to vote in a redo.  So if you wanted to vote for Obama, but found the only name on the ballot was Hillary, and you voted Republican to exercise your vote, it would mean you can't vote now in the vote that would count, the re-done-vote.  (NY Times article here).

Do people do things like that?  People do!

In Florida, none of the candidates campaigned.  But in Michigan, not only didn't they campaign, their names weren't on the ballot.  Except for Hillary's.  How did that happen?  Have you seen news stories about that?

"The best athlete isn't the best athlete.  It's the athlete who performs best on the day of the race," I was once told by an expert in sports performance.  So the one candidate who performed best on the date of the original vote might not be the best performing-one on redo date. 

Ok, I've solved it:  Give the States the right to sit at the convention; let them give half their votes to each caniddate, effectively staying neutral, while being able to be seated and vote.  Then take the money offered to pay for the redo votes in Michigan and in Florida, and give it to a charity that will funnel it to low-income mothers, or children who need medicine, or some similarly good cause. 

Since that's too good to be true, we're left with the Florida Democratic Party chairwoman killing the chance of any possible redo, due to impracticality and unaffordability.

I'm getting tired of claims saying people's votes are being "disenfranchised."  The Constitution gives us the right to vote in elections.  It doesn't give a "right" to vote in primaries. 

If the party responsible is the party, it's not the system, or the redo, or the re-don't, or even the candidates.  Voters, look to your State party to see who took the votes you feel entitled to.  If you live there, you have a chance to get involved in electing those people - or at least, in voting (or not) for them.  If rules said "Do This" and your State party didn't, It's Your Party, Stupid.  That's who to go after.  Seems fair they're stuck with unraveling the mess they created when they ignored national Democrat rules.

Carole