Moving up
Florida will move its primary to January 29th – the same day as the South Carolina primary and ahead of other big states, such as New York and California. The parties show that they, as usual, have their heads up their asses by threatening to punish Florida voters. From MSNBC –
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee has threatened to take away half of Florida’s delegates if the primary is held before Feb. 5. The Democratic National Committee said the state would lose 50 percent of its delegates and all its superdelegates. The DNC also said it would penalize candidates who campaign in Florida for a primary earlier than Feb. 5 by making them ineligible for receiving any of the state’s delegates.
What don’t the politicians remember from 1968? It was that year that the Democrats decided to throw out the legally elected delegates from Southern states, including my then home state of Georgia. The delegates were replaced by delegates considerably more liberal than the population at large. Georgia’s delegation, for instance, was led by Julian Bond. The result was that the Democratic party was severely damaged in the state. We’ve written about this before.