There are several things that are currently holding the Democratic party back. One of the main problems facing the party when it comes to unity is that states simply keep fighting over the dates of the primary election. The Democratic National Committee is having problems because Florida decided to hold their election on January 29th, which is before the date that the DNC had approved as Super Tuesday – February 5th. Florida states that their reasoning was to pull their state into the limelight faster, forcing the candidates to focus on them and pay attention to their state’s interests.
According to USA Election Polls (USAElectionPolls.com), Obama is trailing Hillary Clinton by about 20% in the national polls. John Edwards has been making small gains in the past two months and Bill Richardson continues to do quite well in Iowa.
However, the DNC stated that this was against the rules, and voted to not seat Florida’s delegates at the national convention if they don’t move the primary back. It would also mean that the Republican Party would not seat half of them, either.
This is part of the Democratic Party’s attempt to keep the primaries from being held earlier and earlier. They are doing so in order to prevent what they call chaos. However, according to several sources, the entire state of the presidential primary is in chaos already, so what’s the harm, really?
The harm is that the earlier the primary elections get held, the less time the candidates have to make their opinions clear. It would also mean that the nation would have their presidential candidates much earlier than usual, which is leading towards having longer and more drawn out elections. This might be good for some, but in the end it is going to cause much more chaos than early primaries themselves would cause.
For poll results updated daily,
http://www.usaelectionpolls.com
