Source:
Tampa TribuneHOLLYWOOD - A Florida Democratic Party governing committee voted Sunday to proceed with a presidential primary Jan. 29, setting up a collision with the national party.
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"The proposal is that we play chicken with the national committee," said Bret Berlin of Miami, a member of the state Democratic Party executive committee, just before the committee voted for that proposal.
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The Republican-controlled Legislature set Jan. 29 as the state's presidential primary date. That violates rules of both parties that say Feb. 5 should be the earliest date for most states, including Florida.
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The state party could have complied with national rules by holding a caucus Feb. 5 or later to choose its national convention delegates, but that would render the vote Jan. 29 meaningless - guaranteeing state Democratic votes wouldn't be counted.
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http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBHE4R6S2F.html
Basically the Florida Republican party stuck it to Florida Democratic Party. By moving the primary up to Jan 29th, it means that both parties run afoul of their national party's rules. The result is it reduces the number of delegates from Florida for both party's national conventions. However, the DNC also has a specific rule that if a candidate campaigns in a state that has a primary earlier than Feb 5th then the delegates for that candidate from that state will not be counted. In other words, the Democratic candidate gets penalized more than the Republican candidate.
The alternative was to hold caucuses. However, after the various Florida election debacles that resulted in votes not being counted in Florida in 2000, 2004, and 2006, the state Democratic Party did not want to ignore the voters in the primary. A caucus would have also cost about 5 to 7 million dollars and the state party couldn't afford it. Stuck between a rock and a hard place the Florida Democratic Party chose the rock.
This is another blatant play by the Repugs to game the system in Florida. They blocked votes in African American dominated districts along with other election fraud in 2000, they gerrymandered the districts to favor Repugs, there were electronic voting problems in 2004 and 2006, they changed campaign finance rules to favor the Repug nominee for Governor in 2006, and now they bumped the 2008 primary to weaken Florida's Democratic party in selecting our nominee. There is no level they will stoop to consolidate power.