Day: June 15, 2007

Deja-screw all over again: The GOP is going to party like it’s 2000 next year when Florida, through vote-count fraud and the machinations of then-state attorney general Katherine Harris, stole the election from Al Gore and gave it to George W. Bush. This time, however, the Democratic Party is playing the role of Harris in giving the election to the GOP.

That’s the takeaway from Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean’s comments to a bunch of worried rubes from New Hampshire the other day.

“Their primary essentially won’t count, ” Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said of Florida. “Anybody who campaigns in Florida is ineligible for delegates.”

Why? Because Florida’s Republican legislature and its Republican governor decided to move the state’s presidential primary to Jan. 29 in clear violation of DNC rules that decreed that no primary was to be held before Feb. 5.

What’s at stake here are Florida’s 208 Democratic Party delegates and its 27 electoral votes. Florida is the nation’s fourth most populous state, which is why it can swing an election. Which is why the GOP engineered the primary move — to render the Democratic Party meaningless in Florida in the upcoming election.

Which is why the Republican candidates can ignore a major Hispanic political gathering, because they know they’ll have Florida and its large, politically active Hispanic populace to itself during the campaign.

So Howard Dean is taking his cue from George Bush and is sticking by his guns and refusing to waive the DNC’s rules, effectively punishing the Democratic Party because the Republicans screwed them over by moving the primary date. Yeeaaugh!