This is driving me nuts. So I go on-line to find the final results and delegate count from the Texas caucuses. I go the New York Times' Election Guide 2008 results page and poke around. What I find are useful graphics and numbers, but they leave a firm impression that Florida and Michigan are done deals.
The Democratic results map shows the two states with Clinton as the "leader/winner," no different from all the others. Move your mouse over them and the explanatory note says: "The Democratic Party stripped Michigan/Florida of its convention delegates." As if: (1) the delegates were legitimately chosen and then "stripped" by the party; (2) the primary vote was held with no knowledge on the part of the state or the state's voters that the delegates would NOT be seated.
Go to the Democratic delegate count table. The "details" notes for Florida and Michigan say: "All delegates stripped by Democratic National Committee." Again, leaving the definite impression that it was nothing the state parties did, and the DNC is to blame. Click on Florida and you find this explanation:
The Democratic National Committee plans to penalize Florida Democrats for holding an early primary by stripping the state party of all its delegates to the national convention. If the penalty is lifted, the state party will have 185 pledged and 25 unpledged delegates.
Same for Michigan. Again, the big bad DNC is to blame. Worse, in fact; the DNC plans to penalize.... implying that the DNC (1) hasn't done anything yet, and (2) aims to delegitimize a legitimate result. One can easily imagine the very talented reporters of the NYT coming up with some more objective alternative explanation, along the lines of: "Michigan's state Democratic Party held a primary on January 15. The primary was held despite the warning by the DNC that the results would not be recognized and its delegates not seated at the national convention."
For comparison purposes, I went to a few other news outlets. The national map at CNN has the same "Clinton winner" coloring. The asterisk note in the Michigan map explains: "Michigan lost all 156 of its Democratic delegates for allocating delegates outside of the Democratic National Committee-approved timeframe." (Same language for Florida). A little more subtle impression there! It implies that it was the allocating of delegates, not the holding of the primary itself, that was "outside the... timeframe."
Over at the Washington Post, the primary map again shows Clinton "winning" Florida and Michigan. Click on Michigan and here's the explanatory note:
The Democratic National Committee has stripped Michigan of all its delegates to the 2008 national party convention as punishment for scheduling an early presidential primary in violation of party rules. The Michigan Democratic primary, therefore, will have no direct effect on the race for the nomination. Some Democratic candidates' names did not appear on the Michigan ballot.
Inadequate, but marginally better. Ditto the Florida explanation:
The Democratic National Committee has stripped Florida of all its delegates to the 2008 national party convention as punishment for scheduling an early presidential primary in violation of party rules. The Florida Democratic primary, therefore, will have no immediate effect on the race for the nomination. Democratic candidates did not campaign heavily in the state.
The overview map at MSNBC is undifferentiated by party, which is ok. But its Michigan and Florida results offer no explanatory notes at all. That just seems plain inadequate. In the interest of fair and balanced research, I made the ultimate sacrifice and went to the Fox News election results page. They've done essentially the same thing as MSNBC. The overview map does not show the winners by party. Click on the map to get to Florida and Michigan and there's a "latest news" box, but no explanatory material about the primary/delegate problem.
It's a limited sample, but the NYT's graphics stand out as the most irksome. I say this as an Obama supporter, but I'm also deeply bothered that an unfair process in those two states will hurt whomever the eventual nominee is. If Obama had gathered more votes in those two states, I would have objected just as much to the graphics. I am not writing this diary in order to set off another round of debate about what to do about FL and MI. I do think there is (or should be) a shared interest in minimizing the potential for this to become even more bitter and divisive. It would seem to be no small chore to give those two states a different color and special explanatory notes describing the problem in clear and complete terms. So who do I write to at the NYT to state my objections?