Can someone explain this to me? Democrats violate party rules

I don't understand exactly what is going on here, and I don't understand what they mean.

Can someone explain it to me in lamen terms?

VIENNA, Va. - Democratic leaders voted Saturday to strip Michigan of all its delegates to the national convention next year as punishment for scheduling an early presidential primary in violation of party rules.

www.msnbc.msn.com...


Pretend im dumb, lamen terms anyone?

The party rules are set up by the respective party- democrat or republican.
The members agree to these rules. Apparently the Michigan branch decided to do things how it saw fit, against the wishes of the DNC, so as a result the DNC isn't going to allow delegates from Michigan to the convention next year. It's all about strategy.

The Michigan Democrats set a date for their primary that was earlier than, I believe, New Hampshire. For some strange reason, the Democratic National Commitee (DNC) has decreed that New Hampshire is to have the first primary election among all the states. So, since Michigan had the unmitigated gall to schedule their primary against the wishes of the DNC, Michigan voters in the Democratic Primary will apparently not have any say this year.

Democracy is a strange animal, isn't it?

TheRedneck

Does this mean that they have decided to exclude the votes of an entire state full of people? I'm not going to ask whether this is legal or not because we all know that anything can be made legal nowadays, but is this right? Can you discount the votes of a large group of people because their leaders messed up?

Originally posted by Scalamander
Does this mean that they have decided to exclude the votes of an entire state full of people? I'm not going to ask whether this is legal or not because we all know that anything can be made legal nowadays, but is this right? Can you discount the votes of a large group of people because their leaders messed up?

The Democratic Party has no control over presidential or any other elections, nor does any political party. They simply decide and fund presidential candidates.

OR if you were talking about the DNC elections:

yes

reply to post by TheRedneck


This isn't democracy; this is party politics.

But think about it this way: the delegate system does nothing more than rubber-stamp the popular decision. Thus, delegates are important to neither the party nor the candidates.

So why would Michigan's Democrats intentionally anger the party? Because they don't need the delegates. But they do want the publicity and the money that comes from having a ton of presidential candidates braving their state's streets.

The political candidates will still participate in Michigan's primary because they want the national press that comes out of winning a popular vote. They will campaign in the state and hope that a win there will change the polls nationally in their favor (it's happened before).

Michigan's democrats have decided that the power to vote at the convention is worth less than the economic and intangible benefits of being an early-primary state. Can't say that I blame them.