Occasionally I feel passionate enough about an issue to post a rant, and today is one of those days.
What the heck are the Democrats in Michigan thinking in this whole primary election debacle?!? As I understand it (kudos to today's Detroit News), the state will host primary elections on January 15. But the ballot for the Democratic primary will be missing FOUR canidates - Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden. Essentially, Michigan voters will be denied the opportunity to vote the majority of the leading Democrats! Where does that leave citizens who feel passionate about electing a Democrat, but don't like Clinton? It takes their opinion completely out of the equation.
As far as I can tell, Gov. Jennifer Granholm is backing this whole idea. (She's a Clinton supporter, by the way. I wonder what she would think about this whole thing if her candidate was not on the ballot?) The Michigan legislature comes off just as badly. The Senate could have passed a bill to add the four missing Democrats to the ballot, but they declined. So a Republican-controlled body is deciding which candidates the state's Democrats get to vote for?!
In a supposed effort make Michigan more relevant in national politics, the state's leaders have severely limited citizen's choices. They've also limited the money that could be coming into the state from visits and advertising of four additional candidates.
This state desperately needs some sensible leadership. I can absolutely say, I'm glad that I'll be voting in New York. I was born and raised in Michigan and I love the state. But right now I'm very happy to be leaving it. That's a sad, sad statement.
5 comments:
Yes, yes, yes....it is scary and frustrating and I can hardly believe its real -
Jack Lessonberry loves talking about this topic - read his essay from today at:
http://jackshow.blogs.com/jack/
I completely agree with you. And now I have no idea who I'm going to vote for.
It's not the State of Michigan that screwed this up, it's Michigan's Democratic party. Those four candidates withdrew to comply with the Democratic National Committee's wishes, and Clinton should have as well. It's interesting that Michigan's party leadership chose to buck the system (as did Florida's), since there will certainly be repercussions.
You are so right - it was the democratic party - lead by Debbie Dingle and Debbie Stabinaw - I heard today that Carl Levin said he thinks that its a hallow threat and the Michigan Dems will be able to vote at the convention -but my next question is who will those people represent if no one has their names on the ballot except for Hilary -
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