The 2008 presidential field at-a-glance

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by AGDee

I am so mad about the whole Michigan primary debacle but I don't know if the rest of the country knows what's going on here. Bottom line, we aren't really having a primary. Here's the deal:

Under Democratic National Committee rules, only Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina are allowed to hold primaries before February 5.

Michigan Democrats moved their state's primary date to January in an effort to increase the state's influence in the nominee selection process, arguing Iowa and New Hampshire unfairly dominate the process.

Obama, Biden, Edwards, and Richardson took themselves off the ballot since it was an "illegal" primary. Clinton and Dodd are still on the ballot, but Dodd has dropped out of the race after last night's Iowa caucus.

On our ballot will be Clinton, Dodd, Kucinich and Gravel (who???). We can also vote "Uncommitted" or we can Write In. However, write ins for the candidates who dropped off the ballot WILL NOT COUNT.

Additionally, since the Michigan Democratic Party did not follow the Democratic National Party guidelines, the DNP has voted to exclude our delegates from the Convention anyway.

Why even bother???? Most are saying to just go and vote Uncommitted if you don't want to vote for Clinton. The MDP needs some new leadership.. ugh!

I'm LOL at your Gravel comment! A politico friend of mine is a great friend of Mike Gravel (pronounced grah-VELL), and he asked me about a year ago to see if anyone had heard of Sen. Gravel on any and all message boards/blogs I'm on (here's the GC question). Former Sen. Gravel was from Alaska, and you can read about him at Gravel 2008, and he also has blogs on myspace, facebook, YouTube, etc.

Again, I did this for a friend, not because I'm involved in any way with his campaign.

BTW, that really stinks that Michigan is being treated like the redheaded stepchild of the DNC. I've been saying for years that some of the bigger states should be more involved in the early primaries. I heard that Romney poured $10 million into Iowa alone!