By Scott W. Winchell – As we all expected, the Democratic Primary season was just a coronation exercise for Obama; an expensive one for tax-payers. However, laws dictate that primaries be run and that anyone fulfilling the state’s requirements, may get on the ballot. For whatever reason, several have done just that. Seven states do, or did have others on the ballot challenging Obama.
Most famously to date, perennial candidate, and convicted felon, Keith Russell Judd (A Texas prison inmate) won 41% of the vote in early May in West Virginia. He actually won in ten counties. However, even though he took more than the 15% required to earn the minimum of one delegate, state party rules dictate that he is ineligible to garner any delegates.
Depending on each state’s law and each state’s party rules, when voters cast ballots for a candidate in a presidential caucus or primary, they may be voting to actually award delegates bound to vote for a particular candidate at the state or national convention (binding primary or caucus), or they may simply be expressing an opinion that the state party is not bound to follow in selecting delegates to the national convention (non-binding primary or caucus). (Read more here.)
Another perennial candidate, John Wolfe, Jr. of Tennessee won four counties (parishes) in Louisiana, and next Tuesday, is likely to win at least one county in Arkansas, but party officials are moving to make sure that he is not awarded any delegates. (See below) In Oklahoma, there was more minor intrigue, Randall Terry, a pro-life Democrat from West Virginia won 12 counties and Jim Rogers, another perennial candidate won four.
The interesting thing in this coronation cycle is that Obama has won all primaries, taking 100% of the vote in 14 states, over 80% in 15, and over 70% in two. However two primaries stand out, West Virginia, and Oklahoma, where he won with 59.36% and 57.1% respectively.
But despite the fact that Obama is winning by very wide margins, he is not winning it all. This is apparently troubling to the DNC who wants nothing less than total agreement at their convention. They do not want even a scintilla of controversy; just a coronation of the “one”. Now it appears they will disenfranchise voters to get it. The cult-of-personality rules, damn the vote.
Dems Disenfranchise Voters After Polls Show Obama in Close Primary Race
“Is this some kind of North Korea thing?”
BY MICHAEL WARREN – Weekly Standard
After a poll released this week showed President Barack Obama only beating his Democratic primary opponent John Wolfe Jr. by seven points, 45 percent to 38 percent, in Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District, state Democrats moved to practically disenfranchise Arkansas voters. “[D]elegates Wolfe might claim won’t be recognized at the national convention,” national party officials are telling state Democrats. Wolfe is being accused of not following the party rules.
“They want a coronation,” Wolfe tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “They’re conflating [Obama] with the party. Are we supposed to call him ‘Dear Leader’? Is this some kind of North Korea thing?”
Wolfe insists he’s done the due diligence to qualify for delegates and that the state party is making decisions ad hoc to get the results they desire. “This is ridiculous,” he says. “These guys are trying to tamp down voter enthusiasm.”
If he’s denied delegates he’s rightfully won, Wolfe says, Democrats would be effectively disenfranchising those who chose him over President Obama. And if that happens, he’ll take his own party to court.
“They took my money and put my name on the ballot,” he says. “They’re trying to make people think it’s hopeless to vote against Obama.”
Wolfe is also on the ballot for Texas’s primary on May 29.