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Parties' Promises On Primaries Ring Hollow

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By WILLIAM MARCH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 20, 2007

TAMPA - Political leaders in both parties are trying to reassure Floridians that despite national party sanctions against the state's Jan. 29 primary, their votes will count in the presidential primaries.

Those reassurances, however, appear to be mostly hollow.

They may mean the usual number of Florida political activists will get to party hearty as delegates at their national conventions, but they probably don't mean much to the primary voters of Florida.

Because of sanctions imposed by the national parties, the Florida presidential primary probably won't provide any Democratic candidate with delegates who actually will count toward winning the nomination.

On the Republican side, only half the normal delegate number will be available for Republican candidates from the primary.

This isn't what the voters are hearing.

'Eventually, this is all going to be worked out,' Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told reporters in Tallahassee recently. 'One way or another, when the votes really count, Floridians' votes are going to count.'
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent the same message.

'Let's just talk reality. That will be determined by the presidential nominee,' Pelosi told a gathering of reporters when asked about the sanctions.

Meanwhile, Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer has promised to fight for a full Florida delegation at the convention, despite the national party's sanctions saying the delegation will be reduced by half.

And GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told reporters during a Florida visit that the state 'ought to have a lot of say in the selection of our nominee,' and promised that if he's the nominee, he'll overturn national party sanctions so Florida will have a full-sized delegation.

The problem with these reassurances is that they depend on a candidate who becomes the 'presumptive nominee' of a party, and then overturns the sanctions imposed by the party.

The only way for a candidate to get to that position, though, is to win enough delegates in other states to clinch the nomination.

In other words, Floridians' votes will count - but not until someone has won without them.

Psychological Impact

Florida's primary returns still will have a substantial effect on the races, but it will be largely psychological, giving momentum and bragging rights to the winners.

'That primary is going to have an impact,' said Tampa-based consultant Mike Hamby, a veteran high-level Democratic operative. 'The coverage of those primaries and the winners and the effect on voters in other states is what really impacts the process.'

Hamby acknowledged, however, that a Democratic candidate would have to get enough delegates in other states to win the nomination before overturning the sanctions on Florida.

The sanctions have been imposed because both national parties have rules saying states shouldn't have primaries before Feb. 5. The Florida Legislature has set Florida's primary for Jan. 29.

For Democrats, the party eliminated the state's entire delegation to the national convention. Republicans face loss of half their delegation.

National convention delegates are what make primary votes count.

Like the presidential election, in which voters actually vote for electors in the Electoral College, primary voters don't vote directly for candidates.

Instead, as the Democratic National Committee's convention Web site notes, 'Their votes are translated into delegates that are distributed according to the level of support those candidates receive.'

State political parties use the primary outcome to pick national convention delegates, who then vote at the convention for the favored candidate.

As the primary season progresses, when one candidate wins enough delegates to clinch the nomination or put it out of reach of anyone else, he or she becomes the presumptive nominee.

The presumptive nominee takes over much of the party machinery, including credentialing convention delegates, and could reinstate the delegation.

Choosing a presumptive nominee isn't a formal, official process. Spokesmen for both national parties, asked this week, couldn't say exactly how it actually will happen. It depends on a candidate amassing delegates by winning primaries; leading in polls in states that haven't voted yet; and on other candidates dropping out.

A presumptive nominee wouldn't want to alienate voters in a big swing state like Florida, and surely would restore the delegation for any state he or she won, Hamby said.

But that candidate might not be so eager to restore delegates who will vote for another candidate, even if it doesn't change the outcome, said Tad Devine, a veteran Democratic campaign strategist. That's because a large delegate majority gives a presumptive nominee greater control over the convention.

So far, Romney is the only leading Republican candidate who has vowed to restore the full Republican delegation; others haven't taken a stand.

'We'll do whatever helps us,' a top adviser to another GOP campaign said recently during an off-the-record chat with reporters.

Barack Obama, in comments to donors at a recent Tampa fundraiser closed to the press, hinted that he would seat a Florida delegation, according to reports from attendees. Asked the question by reporters afterward, he refused to answer, as have the other major Democratic candidates.

Other States Face Sanctions

Florida voters can take some consolation that they won't be the only ones in this situation.

Democrats are on the verge of imposing similar sanctions on Michigan, which also appears likely to violate the national Democratic Party's schedule for primaries. Eliminating both states cuts 356 of the expected 4,416 delegates.

The national Democrats allowed four states - Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina - to hold primaries or caucuses before Feb. 5.

But the national Republicans didn't, so they likely will cut convention delegations in half for those four as well as Florida and Michigan, eliminating 160 of the expected 2,517 delegates, according to unofficial figures.

All those ousted delegates could end up depending for their convention seats on a nominee to be chosen by other states' votes - or, if there is no clear winner, on a battle at the convention itself over whether to seat them.

'If you have a primary process where there is no clear presumptive nominee, where someone doesn't control a clear working majority in the credentials committee, this could be a very complicated situation,' Devine said.

Most experts say that's not likely in either party, but it appears to be more likely in the GOP, where Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are running a fairly close race.

Florida Republicans, hoping to preserve some of the influence of their delegation despite the sanctions, changed their rules for how the delegation will vote.

If the sanctions are imposed, then all Florida GOP delegates will vote for the statewide primary winner, instead of dividing proportionally among the leaders as usual. Party leaders say that will make even the reduced delegation an important prize.

Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761 or wmarch@tampatrib.com.

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