Shameful: RNC Reince Priebus, Lenny Curry Make a Jackass Out of Florida Voters, AGAIN!
The RNC, have its rules in WRITING and have been circulated through the populus and PEOPLE know the TRUTH as STATED BY both the state and national chairman of the RNC! Lenny Curry and Reince Priebus MUST Enforce & Follow STATED RNC Primary Rules NOW!
The RNC MUST Enforce It’s own Rules!
Shameful: Reince Priebus, RNC National Chairman
Shameful: Lenny Curry Florida RNC Chairman
Florida-RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and Larry Curry are dancing and pretending they did not warn Florida or were fully aware of the NO WINNER TAKE ALL Status! However it is in writing between BOTH gentleman and clearly states that A) If Florida moved its primary to the January 31 position, they would lose half the delegates, (b)No RNC member would be able to be a delegate, (C) and the delegates would be proportional, PERIOD! The proportional rule was stated clearly and was not tied to the penalty. It was freestanding!
Reince emphatically states in a letter to State RNC Chairman Lenny Curry that “Winner Take ALL” States CANNOT hold a primary or caucus before April 1 2012. This self-incrimination by both gentleman indicate that now they are willfully dishonoring their own stated rules, and are making them up as they go along for pure political expedience.
See the incriminating letter Click HERE!
The RNC, have its rules in WRITING and have been circulated through the populus and PEOPLE know the TRUTH as STATED BY both the state, Lenny Curry and national chairman, Reince Priebus of the RNC! Yet, indeed Lenny Curry is also dancing and pretending he never read these words, and is making a jackass out of the state of Florida once again leaving doubt for voters to even trust the election process. Not following the rules the RNC put in writing and agreed to which were beneficial to woo disaffected voters. In 2008 primary voters saw their vote not count when only 36% of the vote for John McCain, in a “winner take all” left the other 64% of the vote in the trash heap of wasted energy during that primary! The proportional delegate count was the solution and moving the primary to Jan 31, 2012 mandated that the vote WOULD most assuredly be proportional! The writer below states Romney overwhelmed the other candidates, but anything under 50% is NOT overwhelming, and in reality is UNDER whelming! Voter turn out in many precincts hovered around only 20% indicating Florida as not trustworthy, and clearly, neither is the RNC on a national scale!
Florida Flubs Again !
Rule Breaker: The Florida Republican Primary, Winner-Take-All Allocation, and the Undoing of American Democracy
Photo Credit: Joe Raedle, Getty
Alligators and orange juice, space ships and sunshine be damned, Florida’s greatest claim to fame over the last decade has been its penchant for political controversy. Having labored and lucked its way into the spotlight of successive election cycles, the Sunshine State is today an almost mythical place for presidential candidates, a land of both hope and hazard. And more than any other state over the last decade, Florida has demonstrated to Americans the perils of reflexive adherence to current voting procedures and the overwhelming need for election reform.
Two days ago, Florida once again found itself on the frontlines of a presidential election, as it played host to a Republican Party searching for clarity amid the disorienting fog of war. In the GOP’s 2012 nomination contest, three states had gone before Florida, each coronating a different would-be nominee—Iowa for Rick Santorum, New Hampshire for Mitt Romney, South Carolina for Newt Gingrich—a lack of concurrence that positioned Florida as an all-powerful tiebreaker with the schedule to itself.
After days of attention, a handful of nationally televised debates, and millions of dollars in advertisements, the candidates—having made their respective pitches—could only wait for Floridians to render a collective verdict. In the end, Romney overwhelmed Gingrich, winning with 46.4% of the vote—his largest plurality of the campaign thus far—to 31.9% for Gingrich, 13.4% for Santorum, and 7.0% for Ron Paul.
Not only did Romney right the proverbial ship after a sobering loss in South Carolina, but the former Massachusetts governor collected all 50 of Florida’s delegates to the Republican Convention, the Sunshine State’s winner-take-all “rules” inflating the strength of his non-majority victory (46.4% of the vote yielding 100% of delegates). Despite combining for a 52.3% majority of the vote, Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul exited Florida empty-handed, delegate-less.
Perhaps most disquieting for Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul is that, had the RNC enforced its own rules, Florida would not have been able to employ winner-take-all allocation. In a confrontation last year, the RNC stripped the Sunshine State of half its delegates for violating party scheduling rules proscribing a primary date that encroached upon the privileged status of Iowa and New Hampshire. With the RNC apparently unwilling to penalize the state by reducing its delegates twice, Floridian powerbrokers subsequently broke the RNC rule requiring all states holding pre-April contests to employ proportional methods of delegate allocation, opting instead for a winner-take-all primary. By breaking these two rules and holding an early winner-take-all contest, Florida, as The Washington Postnotes, made itself “one of the most pivotal states in the presidential race.”
While the RNC should be commended for moving to proportional allocation* for convention delegates for the pre-April contests this election cycle, its inability† to force an insubordinate early state like Florida (soon to be followed Arizona, which also is breaking the rules with a winner-take-all primary) to obey party policy threatens to undermine the key changes—such as a longer nomination battle and its corresponding voter enthusiasm and media attention—the party hoped to effect with its rule modification. Forty-nine confiscated delegates to the Republican Convention in exchange for a much-hyped winner-take-all contest and two weeks of adoration from doting candidates might have been a good deal for Florida, but it was a sour deal for the American people.
Put simply, proportional allocation keeps a nomination battle going in that it enables more than one candidate to seize delegates—and therefore, influence within the party. Winner-take-all allocation—which many states prefer because it provides for larger swings in the delegate race and increases their importance—tends to abbreviate the process, as the candidate with the most votes in a state, no matter her share, lands all of its delegates. Such a result is undemocratic, as it not only leads to delegate counts unreflecting of the vote, but also often drives the de facto nomination of a candidate before the majority of Americans have had an opportunity to vote.
For example, in the 2008 GOP nomination battle between John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani, Florida’s January 29 winner-take-all primary proved decisive. McCain, despite winning an unimpressive 36.0% of the vote to Romney’s 31.0% (a mere 5% margin), gathered all 57 of the state’s delegates, or 100%. Like Romney, Giuliani and Huckabee, despite 14.7% and 13.5% of the vote, respectively, received no delegates.
Although McCain’s margin was small and the race extremely competitive, Florida’s winner-take-all rules portrayed the Arizona senator’s victory as absolute—the latest step in his inexorable march to the nomination—and gave him enormous momentum heading into Super Tuesday on February 5. In other words, winner-take-all allocation made an admittedly vulnerable candidate look invincible, a storyline that subsequently shortchanged the process, as each of McCain’s challengers—having staked so much on one state, Florida—retreated into premature obscurity, the race essentially over before millions of voters and the majority of states had a chance to weigh in. Trademark winner-take-all.
Never one for nuance, winner-take-all undermines American democracy, reducing million of voters to irrelevancy. The RNC was correct to move away from a winner-take-all system. Importantly, proportional allocation of delegates is more likely to lead to a prolonged nomination fight, which gives more voters an opportunity to evaluate formally the candidates. Proportionality, additionally, is more reflective of the popular vote, including—rather than excluding—candidates, rewarding them for their effort, spreading—rather than concentrating—influence, and granting voters of all stripes a voice at the party convention. The GOP must make an example of Florida in order to deter similar rule infractions in 2016, by Florida or any other state. If it fails to do so, then winner-take-all will continue to slither its way back into American primary politics.
_________
* In 2010, the RNC—recognizing that states prefer holding early, winner-take-all contests—changed party rules to prohibit winner-take-all allocation of delegates to the Republican Convention for any primary or caucus occurring before April 1, 2012, with the exception of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada (see Rule 15(b)(1) and 15(b)(2)). In other words, states were presented the choice between an early primary employing proportionality and a winner-take-all primary occurring later on the schedule. By doing so, the RNC hoped to accomplish the twin goals of prolonging the nomination battle and deterring front-loading of the schedule.
† Florida could be compelled to allocate its delegates to the Republican Convention proportionally, although for now, the winner-take-all method stands. A provision in the RNC’s rules allows a registered Florida Republican to file a challenge with the RNC Committee on Contests, asking the committee to force Florida to allot its delegates proportionally. If such a complaint is approved by the Committee on Contests, the RNC could force the Sunshine State to retroactively give delegates to Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul. If the race between Romney and his competitors evolves into a delegate-driven war of attrition, debate over Florida’s delegates could take center stage once more. http://www.fairvote.org/florida-the-GOPrule-breaker-winner-take-all#.TzVM_sghySo
Actually Florida WILL BE COMPELLED to proportion the delegates as stated by their own rules prior to the change, and agreed upon when the change occurred! The change itself mandated that Florida Could NOT possibly qualify to be a winner take all state. This will be pushed by the voter to the maximum challenge to the willfully arrogant and UN-abiding RNC for self political gain. My question is, were they paid to act in such an ignorant wrong manner to ignore their own rules?? This must be investigated throughly, and to completion.
We will not stop, until this is resolved!
Voter tampering is still an offence punishable by imprisonment if found guilty! To date, Newt Gingrich is the only one to contest the primary vote to force the RNC to follow its own stated and written rules. To date, as of the time of this article Newt has 55 delegates placing him in the lead. Failure of our media and the RNC to recognize this constitutes voter FRAUD! Former Attorney General Bill McCullom who was involved in the process of moving the primary knows the rules and is assisting the fight over this contest, and is standing with both the citizen and Newt Gingrich. Remember it was a voter who contested the primary vote initially, before the primary and on its face value that Florida was being advertised as a winner tak all, when it never was! The Gingrich Campaign stated it will take further action if Priebus and Curry do not correct their course of action to date! The rules apply to all primaries nation wide, not just Florida!
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