ABOUT FIRST READ

First Read is an analysis of the day's political news, from the NBC News political unit. First Read is updated throughout the day, so check back often.

Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director

Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC News Political Reporter



Dean to candidates: abide by calendar

Posted: Friday, August 31, 2007 12:10 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Per the Atlantic’s Ambinder, DNC Chairman Howard Dean sent a “strongly worded letter,” urging candidates to abide by the DNC’s nominating selection process calendar. This comes a day after Michigan dared the DNC by moving its primary up to Jan. 15. The DNC leveled heavy sanctions against Florida on Saturday for moving its primary up to Jan. 29th, before the allowed Feb. 5th window.

"My goal as Chairman, and our objective as a Party,” Dean writes, “is to structure a nominating process that adheres to rules that are clear, straightforward and published. The vast majority of states have complied with these rules.”

MAIN PAGE

Email this EMAIL THIS

Comments

Contents of Dean's letter:


YEHHHOOOWWWWWW!

Each state that has tried to push themselves up is saying screw you to the other forty-nine states in their statement; it's always something to the effect of "our voter concerns are more important than the politics of the nomination process" - in otherwords, our needs are more important than every other state in the nation.  It's childish, narcissistic, and embarassing; let's hope everyone listens to Howard Dean.
I absolutely agree with Shadow.  I don't necessarily think the system we have at the present time is the best one, but for better or worse, it is what it is.  I understand states with later primaries/caucuses wanting to have more of a voice in the process, but I maintain that the time to have done all of this jockeying for position has long since passed.  It's pure insanity, and if the DNC wants to sanction states that keep leapfrogging, then I am all for that.  Something has to be done.
Howard Dean was The one, who last year said Dem's had to have a 50 state strategy. No one beleived him, waalaa, Dem's take both houses of congress. Now, individual states ( with the backing of hillary)want to move up there primary's, so as to avoid the upcoming EMBARRASSMENT of losing her so-called lead in the National poll's. Dean is only telling them Now, do so at the risk of your delegates not being counted @ the national convention. Go Howard, you may have lost in 2004, but president was Not your calling, leading Democrat's back to power IS.
Actually, it's not that the states want to move up so Hillary will win.  The states want to move up so they have more of a voice in the nominating process.  That has been the issue for years, long before Hillary ever entered the presidential race.  
Carrie - Yes, but that's no guarantee that other motives don't also exist in moving up the bigger states.
Actually Carrie, if you look at whose behind moving these state's up, the fact that these states are expensive media buy states, making it financially impossible for any one other than Obama to even try to compete against Hillary, in those states and the first 4 in January. And the fact that Hillary is willing to go ahead and campaign in those states alone, despite the agreed to calendar etc, it is clear this is part of Clinton's campaign strategy. It is sleazy! If you can't allow yourself to admit the obvious, which is that this is part of Hillary's campaign strategy to steal the nomination, or if you are prepared to admit the obvious, but think it is OK for Hillary to try to change the agreed upon calendar to enhance her chance at winning the nomination this late in the game, you will regret that decision once she gets her clock cleaned in the general. If Hillary can't win the Democratic nomination by abiding by the agreed upon calendar why would anyone want to support her, especially anyone in  IA, NH, SC, or NV? She won't be able to change the rules in the general. I wouldn't doubt it if California approves the electoral vote split referendum if Hillary's the nominee. Californians will know who are the parties nominee's by the time they vote on the referendum and given how many independents and the GOP hate Hillary the anti-Hillary element will turn out in droves, and the measure will probably pass. A less divisive candidate won't cause the high turn out making it harder for the supporters of the referendum to get it passed. If California passes that amendment any hope Hillary would have of winning the general election would be gone, and the Democratic party would be screwed in future races until it could get enough red states to do the same.

I just hope you either  wake up, or can live with the consequences of your support of Hillary!
Thank goodness someone believes in following what they preach and upholding rules and laws.

I cannot believe these folks all wishing to break the rules and expect to be accomodated.

Gee, gee, it sounds so Republican.

Thank you Governor Dean for standing firm and doing the correct thing.

...and I might add.  Thank you Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina for joining the call for candidates to uphold the rules and laws set by the DNC to not break the rules by campaigning in those law breaking states.  The candidates answered your call, knowing full well, they didn't want to piss off the early states they have been campaigning in!

Power to the People.

Gooo Howard!


SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are links to weblogs that reference this post. Like comments, trackbacks do not appear until approved by us. The trackback URL for this post is: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/trackback.aspx?PostID=341627

First Read e-mail alerts


Sign up for First Read alerts
The first place for key political news and analysis

Syndicate This Site

Add First Read to your news reader:
live.com xml
myyahoo msn
bloglines newsgator
google