Florida Democrats "Victims" of GOP in Primary Problem?

Somehow it's our fault that Democrats in Florida are in a mess!

Brit Hume Interviews Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (D-FL)
Fox News Sunday
[video here]
March 9, 2008

HUME: The Democratic presidential nominee could be decided not in the remaining primaries but in the outcome of the bitter fight over what to do about Michigan and Florida.

Both states lost all their convention delegates when they were penalized by the Democratic National Committee for moving up their primary dates earlier this year in violation of party rules.

For more on this, we turn to Debbie Dingell, a DNC committee member and a superdelegate from Michigan, and, from Florida, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who is also a convention superdelegate.

Thanks to both of you for being with us.

First let me start with you, Congresswoman. What do you think is the fairest way to settle this question?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Well, I think when you're talking about fairness, we have to remember that this was started by the Republican- led legislature here that actually set the date of our primary.

So the victims here in all of -- in the decision by the DNC to strip us of our delegates are Democratic voters in the state of Florida.

HUME: Can I stop you there? Just let me stop you there for a second, if I can.

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Sure.

HUME: In the Florida state senate, who introduced the bill to move the primary forward?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: The bill was introduced by a Democratic member, a new Democratic member of the state senate.

HUME: And in the legislature, senate and house as well, how many Democrats voted against it?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Well, that's an inappropriate line of questioning, Brit, because that bill ultimately...

HUME: Well, wait a minute. Well, inappropriate or not...

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Excuse me, Brit.

HUME: ... could you just answer the question?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Can I answer your question?

HUME: Yes. How many?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: I would like to answer your question without you asking me another one, if you don't mind.

The legislation that was originally sponsored was amended into an overall election package that included the major provision to ensure that we could have manual recount and a paper trail. So this is a major election package that the change of a date in our primary was included in.

So the vote total was unanimous, but that was because there's no one in the Florida legislature that was going to vote against changing our voting system so that you could have a paper trail and make sure that every vote can be counted, unlike our touchscreen voting system right now which doesn't allow for that.

So to try to hang a unanimous vote on the fact that Democrats supported that -- that's misleading, because they supported it because they certainly weren't going to vote against making sure there was a paper trail in Florida.

Democrats proposed the legislation and voted for it UNANIMOUSLY and Ms. Wasserman-Schultz says it "misleading" to suggest they supported it? Correction Ms. Wasserman-Schultz: it's not only misleading but WRONG to suggest that somehow Democrat voters in your state are the VICTIMS of the Republican legislature. Democrats in Florida were warned in advance not to move up their primary date and like the Florida 2000 recount you boobs messed it up again and are now trying to change the rules.

Ms. Wasserman-Schultz: qualified for what?

As readers can probably tell, I'm not a big fan of Debbie's. I first saw her on C-Span a few years ago and my first thought was that I had flipped to the nearby Home Shopping channel by mistake. Like some presenters on the shopping channel, Ms. Wasserman is an empty-headed pretty face trying to sell you something you don't need.

And this time, she just makes Florida Democrat voters look even more foolish than they already are.