The Primary is Pertinent

Tallahassee Democrat - January 27, 2008
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For the first time in 32 years, Florida's presidential primary really matters this week — despite the best political efforts of both parties.
Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman hates the term "beauty contest," but that's what the Democratic National Committee created by stripping the state of all 210 delegate votes at the party's nominating convention in Denver next summer.
The Republican National Committee has cut the Florida delegation in half, to 57 votes, but state GOP Chairman Jim Greer says he'll gladly "watch the convention from the piano bar of the Holiday Inn," in return for moving the state's primary into prime time.
"What happens this coming Tuesday, as it relates to the presidential primaries, will have an enormous impact on the ultimate nominees of both parties," said Gov. Charlie Crist. "I would ignore what the national parties have said about reducing or eliminating delegates to the conventions. It's much more important what people say."
Not since a relatively unknown Jimmy Carter stopped Alabama Gov. George Wallace in the 1976 primary has Florida been so important on the campaign calendar.
Frontrunners since then have clinched their nominations, or have been infinitely far in front of a lone challenger, by the time Florida has voted in March of past leap years.
That's why Crist and GOP legislative leaders decided to move this year's vote to Jan. 29.
They ran afoul of delegate-selection rules of both parties, touching off both a public-relations battle and some court spats. The four states that the Democrats permitted to go before Feb. 5 — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — made presidential candidates sign a "four-state pledge" to boycott Florida for defying the national rules.
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle threw out a suit by U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and other Democratic members of the state congressional delegation, holding that the parties can set their own nominating rules. Republicans didn't sue, preferring to appeal to the convention floor for a full 114-vote delegation next summer, but Greer and other GOP leaders have ridiculed the Democrats for using Florida like "an ATM machine" — collecting money at private receptions in the state, but not campaigning publicly or advertising in Florida.
Greer, Thurman and other players privately hope that once someone wraps up the nomination, he or she will magnanimously readmit Florida, Michigan and other defiant early birds for the sake of party unity at the conventions.
On Friday, Nelson applauded candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton's pledge to seek seating the state's delegation. He also sought to get the other candidates to promise the same thing.
"In the end, the Florida vote will count — and, so will all its delegates," Nelson said in a statement.
But if one or both parties still have a raging contest for their nominations next summer, no candidate is going to want to bring in votes that might put someone else over the top.
One wild card on the GOP side is a rule giving Greer virtual control of the delegation, whether it's 57 or 114 votes. That means he can broker the Florida bloc to the candidate who does what the state wants — such as putting Crist on the ticket for vice president.
Delegate math aside, operatives on both sides know that Florida is still Florida. From Jay Leno's monologues to the U.S. Supreme Court's docket, this is the state with a demographic mix of elderly, Hispanic, blue-collar, agricultural and urban voters — the state that swung its electoral votes from red to blue and back again in the Bush-Clinton-Bush era.
After all, HBO isn't making a TV movie about Iowa's or New Hampshire's 2000 election.
Even with no Democratic delegates and only half the Republican votes at stake, Crist said, the symbolism of a Florida win will give each party's leader bragging rights on "Tsunami Tuesday" a week later.
"They'll be coming off the bounce of the first mega-state to weigh in," said the governor.
On Feb. 5, Democrats will choose 2,075 delegates in 22 states (plus "Democrats abroad") and Republicans will select 1,073 delegates in 21 states. No one will win them all, but that's about half the total needed for the Democratic nomination and just 100 fewer than a GOP candidate needs to go over the top.
Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, said that even without Democratic delegates — and only half the GOP delegates — at stake, "it's going to mean everything" for a frontrunner going into the coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses a week after Florida.
"I'm confident we're going to know the nominees after Feb. 5, and a lot of that will have to do with what happens in Florida," said Ring. "The reason I pushed the bill as hard as I did is, it's imperative that candidates start talking about issues important to Florida, which has happened. Getting a national 'cat fund' will be stronger than getting 210 convention delegates."
Creation of a national catastrophe fund to help states with massive hurricanes or killer earthquakes was not mentioned much in the first four states with primaries and caucuses. But Crist asked all visiting Republicans about it.
State Rep. Luis Garcia, D-Miami Beach, the vice chairman of the state party, said Florida's cultural mix makes the state a political harbinger for every campaign.
"We are a state that will be a good indication of what the national vote will be like," he said. "Florida is more of America than a homogenous state like Iowa or South Carolina or New Hampshire. Florida is America."


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