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In all of the media commentary on the Florida Primary this week, I didn't hear any that told the Florida primary story like it really is, that once again the voters of Florida have once again been disenfranchised. You would have thought that the Democratic Party would have learned something from the election of 2000 other than to keep on droning "Nader bad. Nader bad."
We all know that that the Democratic Party said it would not seat a delegation from Florida because the state moved the primary election date. Some Florida Democrats went to the polls and voted anyway. I guess that they are counting on the fact that the Democratic Party did not really mean it. I know that Hillary is counting on that. She is probably chuckling to herself that her last minute statement that she will "work hard to ensure that the voters of Florida have a voice" was smart politics, one more slick move in the fascinating game that they play.
For some reason, Florida stays on the front burner when it comes to elections and politics. The election of 2000 proved that it was possible to use the system to depress voter turnout and to influence the eventual outcome. Some would blame the result on the Nader factor:; others blame it on the fact that Gore could not prevent over 100,000 Democrats from voting for Bush. The salesmen for computerized voting blame it on hanging chad. Many specifically blamed Katherine Harris.
That the voters of Florida were disenfranchised by Republican intent is definitely the way that Gregory Palast wrote the story, in The Nation and also at Salon.com. That still has not kept other progressives from writing other scripts. But, if you believe the Palast script, that the actions in Florida were a deliberate Republican strategy aimed at depressing black votes, it only strengthens the racial divide that still permeates our politics.
By now it is all a political game with everyone putting their own spin on the interpretation of results. All of this ignores the fact that the voters of Florida deserve to have the opportunity to make their opinion heard, to have their votes counted.
Now, in 2008, we again have Florida voters caught in the political games the some would play with their votes. I would think that Florida voters would come to the realization that jaded political operatives running the big parties consider their votes, their opinion as only the pawn with which they play their grand game.
Once Floridians get tired of being a pawn in a someone else's game, they should turn to a different style of politics and a different party, one that believes in building opinion from the grassroots rather than allowing party bosses to dictate how the game is played. The option is to forget the “blame it all on Nader” scapegoating and take a hard look at the Green Party. Among the current group of presidential candidates you will find a black woman, another woman, two men with Indian ancestry and one older man whose parents came from Lebanon, a group of candidates a diverse as America itself.
The will find a party where someone like Kent Mesplay, without a national reputation, can build a following based on the ideals that they put forward; a party that welcomes candidates like Cynthia McKinney who are shut out by the purveyors of power; a party where grassroots democracy is a fundamental principle and not just a slogan.
Some will again argue that any third party vote is wasted. I would argue that until a third party is taken seriously, no vote will be valued. Choose your future. Vote. Make sure it is for what you believe in.
