Limiting it to Joe Biden is downright undemocratic, our Capitol Columnist writes.
By Bill Cotterell
The News Service of Florida
By Bill Cotterell
The Florida presidential primary started out a half-century ago partly as a publicity gimmick, when Democrats decided putting up a slate of underdogs was better than nothing.
Although the party holds the White House, the Democrats have decided that nothing is their better option next year. The Democrats’ decision effectively awards 250 delegate votes to President Biden – assuming he’s still running, as he currently intends to be, next March 19.
The Florida Democratic Party submitted only Biden’s name to the Secretary of State’s elections office for the primary. Florida law provides that unopposed candidates don’t appear on the ballot.
U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, the Minnesotan challenging Biden’s renomination, was understandably outraged. Common sense indicates he has no chance of beating Biden with some state-by-state slugfest in the primaries, capped by a tense floor fight at the Democratic National Convention.
But not letting him try seems downright un-democratic, with a small “D.” It’s smart politics for Biden, though.
Poll after poll has shown that most Americans – including most Democrats – think he’s too old. And even though likely Republican nominee Donald Trump is only three and a half years younger, the president’s sometimes confused speech and stumbling stage presence makes a whole lot of voters think he’s ready for a rocking chair on his Delaware front porch.
Biden, 81, can’t avoid the rigors of a tough campaign next year. Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis, or any of the other Republican candidates will make age and infirmity an inescapable issue – fairly or not – so the Democrats don’t need Phillips softening him up with a bruising, but losing, primary struggle.
Phillips could batter Biden like another Minnesotan pounded President Lyndon Johnson in 1968. U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy didn’t beat LBJ in New Hampshire, but got enough of the vote to bring U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., into the race – and send Johnson home to Texas.
Maybe Trump will be on cruise control by March 19, when Florida allocates 125 GOP delegates. Or maybe he’ll be slugging it out with DeSantis in a home state showdown two weeks after the 15-state “Super Tuesday” primaries. But in any event, the Republicans will put on a show.
Florida has always been strategically important in November general elections. Who can forget 2000?
That’s when George W. Bush and Al Gore fought over our then-25 electoral votes for 37 days after the election, in a colorful carnival of street protests and courtroom drama, before the nation’s highest court called it for Bush.
But our presidential primary has only really mattered once.
When the Democrats who controlled all of state government in 1972 decided to have primaries, it was a bit of a publicity gimmick as they knew they couldn’t beat Richard Nixon. But it seemed like smart tourism marketing to have TV networks showing candidates slogging through snowbanks of Iowa and New Hampshire, in contrast to scenes of them shaking hands with swimmers on Florida beaches and families at Disney World.
The party also knew former Alabama Gov. George Wallace would lead the Florida balloting, and that there was no way under the Florida sun that Wallace could be nominated. So Scoop Jackson and Ed Muskie and John Lindsay and a bunch of other forgotten Democrats came down and fought for delegates who’d wind up nominating George McGovern, who lost 49 states.
Four years later, Florida had its only time to shine for both parties.
An unknown Jimmy Carter surprised the experts in Iowa and New Hampshire in 1976, then vaulted into the lead by beating Wallace in Florida. President Gerald Ford won a closer one in Florida, but Ronald Reagan bounced back in North Carolina the following Tuesday and their fight went all the way to the national GOP convention floor.
Four years later, in 1980, Reagan scored a lopsided victory in Florida over George H.W. Bush, his eventual running mate and successor in the White House.
One unintended side effect of canceling the Democratic presidential primary next March could be a windfall for Republicans, who’ll have their own closed election to draw conservatives to the polls. Some cities have piggybacked local elections on the primary date. The South Florida Sun Sentinel counted six in Broward and 19 in Palm Beach County, both Democratic strongholds.
Sparing Biden the prospect of losing a chunk of the Democratic vote was a smart move. But with only some nonpartisan offices, or maybe a local referendum here and there, what is there to bring Democrats to the polls?
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