Well, after the President's dismal showing in West Virginia Democrats are moving quickly to let others who might be running as "protest" candidates that the votes they recieve won't count at all, even if they win the primary. Take for example John Wolfe Jr., who is running in the Democratic primaries in Arkansas and Texas. A recent poll taken in Arkansas 4th congressional district had the following results:
45% – Barack Obama
38% – John Wolfe
17% – Undecided
Wolfe, who has run for office as a Democrat multiple times in Tennessee, also won 11% of the vote in the Louisiana primary, awarding him 3 delegates. But the Party has denied him the delegates, saying he wasn’t qualified. They are now making the same claims in Arkansas.
When your candidate only gets 57% of the vote while the rest go to a Texas convict in a closed primary, you can be assured that a substantial portion of the base is unhappy.
Democrats can vote for any candidate they prefer in the primaries, but Obama will get every delegate. When you have to announce that only your anointed leader will get delegates regardless of the vote results, you are admitting a weakness in your candidate. You are saying that you cannot accept any dissent, even from your own side. There are historical precedents for this kind of election, but none of them are well regarded by your average American.
But if this is how Democrats want their primary elections to work, I guess more power to them.
Just don’t expect the rest of us to sit still if that’s how they want the vote on November 6th to work…..
BTW, here is John Wolfe’s campaign site, just in case some lefty thinks he is a right wing spoiler.