The solution to the Michigan/Florida delegate situation that The solution to the Michigan/Florida delegate situation that Rob mentions has one major problem: Who's going to pay for these caucuses?
The DNC suggested this alternative to Florida months ago, when their Republican-controlled state legislature first changed the date of the primary. According to Florida Democrats I talked to while down in the state last week, the money the DNC offered to help pay for a caucus would only have enabled them to reach out to 120,000 Democrats of the 4 million in the state to let them know they were even holding a caucus, significantly limiting participation in this populous, diverse state. And considering recent history in Florida, enfranchising only that tiny portion of Democrats seems like a bad idea when you think of the long-term costs to the party.
As Alison Berke Morano, chair of the Democratic Executive Committee in Pasco County, Fla., put it when I talked to her last week: "Talk about disenfranchised! Only 120,000 people would even be told that there's something going on. I can't imagine having to face the Florida voters and tell them that, after everything Florida's gone through."
If the state Democratic Party were to absorb the costs of organizing a caucus that reaches more people, it would draw from the amount the party could spend on efforts around the election in November -- a price Democrats there aren't willing to pay considering how important their state is likely to be in the general election once again this year. And that doesn't even begin to include the costs of actually holding the caucus, which would also be too expensive for the state party to absorb.
No matter how well-funded, a caucus here wouldn't begin to match up to the turnout at the primary last week. More than 1.7 million Democrats voted in the primary last week. It surpassed the turnout for any primary on record in the state, according to the Florida Democratic Party, and was more than quadruple the primary turnout in 2004. It would be both difficult and expensive to get people out to caucus in a state that's never done it before and that has already voted in the primary. Holding a caucus there would undermine those 1.7 million votes. It doesn't seem like Florida Democrats are willing to do that -- and for good reason.
--Kate Sheppard
