Changing the rules after the game: Dems shouldn’t seat Florida, Michigan delegates
We were going to have a seven-game tournament. So, the Conference set up the rules. The first game was scheduled in a place that just didn’t want to play by those rules. So, all of the players agreed not to play, saying “We can’t play that way; this game can’t count! We’ll take our names off the schedule.” But after everyone else had withdrawn, Player A decided to stay and play, and the local sponsors said that player won by a forfeit.
In the next game in a new location, all of the players were on the schedule, but they all said they would not play there either, because the game sponsors had also broken the conference rules. Player A, the same player that had won by forfeit in the first game showed up again and said “I’m the only one here, I win.” The sponsors were glad. All the players played the remaining five games. Player A won two and player B won three.
Player B played by the rules and should have won, right? Player A threw a tantrum. “Look at all of the people who came to see us in the first two games. Look at everybody who helped us. They deserve recognition!” Someone said, “You didn’t play by the rules. You can’t win. It would not be fair; player B had no chance in the first two games. How can those games count now?” Player A said, “Count them anyway. I want to win!” Should we let Player A win the tournament?
If that happened in a sports contest, the fans of player B would go nuts. The news media would report about the rules changes. Even the fans who “didn’t have a dog in the fight” would say that the conference was running a kangaroo league if the first two games counted.
Well that is exactly what is happening in the Democratic contest for President. Senator Clinton’s supporters are out there talking about Michigan and Florida’s right to be heard. What happened to agreements? What happened to fair play?
I remember the 2000 election. Most Democrats said the election was stolen because the rules were changed after the vote. Maybe we should have cleared the air and had a revote in the county where all the problems occurred. That would have been better that just awarding the election to the side with the most members on the Supreme Court.
The Democratic Party cannot let Senator Clinton’s supporters continue to denigrate the process that she originally agreed to. The super-delegates can make it clear to her and her supporters that they will not vote for her if she decides to try to seat delegates elected in a tainted process. If the party does not want to stick to its guns because “It will hurt us in Michigan and Florida,” then let the Democratic Party have those two states vote in caucuses after everybody who went by the rules holds their delegate selection processes.
The Party cannot allow this to go to the floor of the convention; it could be 1968 all over again. Let’s not give the election to the Republicans.
Patrick C. Squires
St. Joseph, Mo.
This isn’t about Obama vs. Clinton. It’s about Missouri (and every other Feb. 5 state who played by the rules) vs. two states acting as though they are above the rules. Both Michigan and Florida were equally represented during the DNC’s rulemaking process. They should not be rewarded for their rule-breaking.