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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 13, 2008 / 6 Adar II 5768

Michigan and Florida deserve do-overs

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Despite their apostasy in holding early primaries in defiance of the powers that be in the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Michigan and Florida both deserve to have do-over primaries. It is ludicrous to suggest that their current delegations should be seated and equally inappropriate to disenfranchise the nation's fourth- and eighth-largest states. The obvious and only fair solution is to hold do-over primaries.


In Michigan, Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) name did not even appear on the primary ballot. He obeyed the national rules and pulled out of the contests, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) chose to keep her name on the ballot. It is obviously unfair to take the results of a contest between Hillary and "uncommitted" as a fair measure of the relative strengths of the two candidates. In Florida, both did appear on the ballot, but the talk surrounding the primary emphasized how it woul d not count. The result was that the Democratic primary turnout was about the same size as that for the Republican primary, though Florida tradition has the Democratic primary drawing substantially more votes.


Clearly, large numbers of Floridians took the party at its word and did not vote.


To deny these states representation would also be totally unacceptable. What was their sin? The national committee was craven in bowing down to the pressure from the tiny and unrepresentative states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, which sought to prolong their time in the sun by monopolizing the early-primary selection process. They did so on the urging of the presidential candidates who were outdoing one another in currying favor with the voters of these states by ostentatiously backing their pretensions. But since when did the need to cotton to the desires of four states with a combined population of 10.6 million outrank the rights of two states with 27 million residents — 10 percent of America — to be represented in choosing their president?


Under the proportional representation system, which has made it almost impossible for any primary to be decisive, neither do-over will be likely to affect the final result in any major way. One candidate or the other will win by a few points — a big margin is unlikely — and the lead that will accrue in delegates is not likely to be decisive.


It is worth noting that the additional delegates Hillary won in the Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island primaries on March 4 have been totally offset by Obama's victories in the Texas and Wyoming caucuses and the Vermont and Mississippi primaries. When all the votes in all the contests are finally counted, Obama can expect to maintain his lead in elected delegates of between 100 and 200 votes.


The superdelegates, honorifics who represent only themselves, do not dare defy the will of the electorate and deliver the nomination to Mrs. Clinton. If they do so, they will provoke exactly the same kind of reaction that destroyed the Democratic Party's chances in the streets of Chicago in 1968. It took the party two and a half decades to recover its popularity among the baby boomer generation. If Hillary steals the nomination by manipulating the superdelegates, the party will alienate blacks and young people for decades. No superdelegate can permit this to happen.


But neither can the party sanction the violation of the process, which seating the rump delegations from Florida and Michigan would entail, nor can it deny representation to two such large states.


The Credentials Committee, composed of three members from each state and 25 named by DNC Chairman Howard Dean, will be pro-Obama. With Obama carrying about two-thirds of the states — and with Dean at odds with the Clintons — the committee cannot be expected to look favorably on Hillary's efforts to steal the nomination. Without Florida or Michigan seated, the convention floor will doubtless sustain the committee. A new election might be the best deal Hillary can realistically hope for.

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the United Nations, Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection, and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off . . . And". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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