One Man, No Vote

Recently, I wrote a post objecting to the primacy of the Iowa and New Hampshire in the presidential primary and caucus process. This bugs me every year but it irks me even more today. You see, I don’t get to vote.

Why? I’m a Democrat and I live in Michigan. In the past, Michigan has held its presidential primary in February along with many other states on “Super Tuesday.” This year, it moved its primary to January 12 to give the state more relevance. This violated the rules of both parties prohibiting any state from moving its primary to occur before February 5. The Republican National Committee (RNC) penalized Michigan by deciding to seat only half of its delegates. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted to seat none of them. This caused several Democratic candidates to withdraw their names from the Michigan primary ballot.

My party has no winners in this fiasco, only losers. State Democratic chair Mark Brewer decided to play chicken with the DNC and lost. DNC chair Howard Dean caved in to the self-appointed, haughty king makers of Iowa and New Hampshire. Michigan Democrats must either cast a meaningless vote in their primary or vote in the Republican one to help defeat the candidate they consider most objectionable.

This is actually the second time I’ve been disenfranchised in my life. In 1980, I was turned away at the polls because the state canceled my registration in my old city of residence but did not activate my registration in the Detroit area. I still remember how angry I felt. Now, it has happened again and I feel almost as bad.

At this point, I don’t know what I’ll do. I could stay home in protest but that’s not me. I could vote in the Republican primary but that feels disingenuous. I will probably vote in the Democratic one then work with others to convince the DNC to moderate their previous decision (perhaps to match what the Republicans have done). It isn’t much but it’s all I have. The professional pols responsible for this screw-up may feel like revolutionaries but, to me, they’re merely revolting.