Unfortunately I think voters are both apathetic to the situation and celebrate it as well. Why would you want someone like Kennedy or Steven or Byrd for the matter to be replaced by someone new. There’s a heirarchy in congress and the senate which provides many benefits to their state constituents in terms of funding.

I’m in California and collectively we must be a bunch of idiots because we keep voting for people who fail to secure more dollars for our state, despite their lengthy time in office. I’m definitely not a fan of the liberal politics of feinstein and boxer, but the least they could do is fight more for the money we send to Washington. (I do have a some respect for Feinstein because she’s stood up to her party in the past).

In my perfect world, we’d keep the money in state. Government doesn’t need to be more powerful than it already is and they don’t manage much of anything well. However, if I have to be in the real world, I’d like our reps to fight more for California.

I have a real problem with the way the primaries are held as well as the caucus process. It puts too much emphasis on a few states and completely ignores others. Moreover, it influences votes and delegates (another issue i have with the presidential election process). Is it me, or does the delegate vote process potentially foster more of the ugly insider negotiations and more of the pay to play issues we’ve been talking about? Does anyone think that Richardson’s appointment to Commerce Secretary was payback for his endorsement? Of course that doesn’t matter now given the controversy, but still smells funny to me.

That being said, it was extremely important that FL and MI not count, and play a role in deciding the nomination for a few reasons.

1. No one (save Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel) campaigned in those two states. That put Obama at an extreme disadvantage, since in the absence of a meaningful and competitive race, voters were obviously going to default to the known quantity (Hillary). Almost everywhere, Hillary was outpolling Obama in 2007, before the campaign really heated up, simply because Obama didn’t have the same recognition, giving Hillary a lot of “soft” support (from people who supported her only for lack of alternative, like me pre-Iowa). Obviously, as the campaign heated up, and Obama made himself more and more well-known in the places he campaigned, his support began to increase at Hillary’s expense. Because no one campaigned in FL and MI, Obama never had the opportunity to expose voters there to him in any serious way, and they defaulted to Hillary.

2. Should the delegates from those two states be allowed to participate and be decisive, what would that say about the DNC? The DNC set a firm rule that no primaries or caucuses could occur before Super Tuesday, with the exceptions of Iowa and New Hampshire out of respect for tradition, and Nevada and South Carolina in order to allow blacks and hispanics a greater role in the early part of the campaign. Florida and Michigan received no such approval from the DNC, and so these “rouge primaries” had to be dealt with accordingly, so as to prevent other states from doing the same thing. If states are allowed to move up their primaries and ignore DNC rules, there would be nothing stopping states from having primaries in December, November, October, etc, a full year before the general election, leading to a primary campaign that would be horribly and unnecessarily drawn out over at least a full year. The DNC had to make sure that this did not happen, and thus they had to punish the states which did attempt to get a jumpstart on the nomination process.

3. All major candidates agreed that these contests would not count. Hillary did, Obama did, and Edwards did. Had Hillary wanted to argue for the inclusion of FL and MI, she could have in the months before those primaries, when the DNC decided to punish them in the first place. Instead, she, like everyone else, went along with the decision. It was not until she won these contests that she said anything about including them, which is why I accused her of hypocrisy. Had Obama (or Edwards, for that matter) won these contests, I find it hard to imagine that she would be out in front leading the protests to seat and count the delegates. It all seemed like opportunism.

But aren’t you absolutely LIVID about this going on? You are right, they spend more time seeking out campaign contributions and the only legislation they pass, hands out our tax dollars to these contributors.

It has to stop, and until we quit electing these people in the Good Ol Boys Club it won’t. Regardless of party, we need to vote these people out. They have clearly forgotten who they work for. These people must be held accountable. If there is wrong doing, they need to be “fired”.

..and by the way, the DNC stripped FL and MI of delegates long before Hillary won there. While campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, she denounced FL and MI for having early primaries, saying “It’s obvious that Florida and Michigan won’t count for anything”. It was only after she won there that she suddenly gave a damn about them. Her hypocrisy was sickening.