Abiding by the rules
Saturday, March 29, 2008
At the beginning of this presidential campaign year, the Democratic National Committee issued specific warnings for states to not front-load their primaries, desiring to keep Iowa and New Hampshire as the first primary states. The DNC felt so strongly about this that they included sanctions with the warning. Any state not following the guidelines would be punished by not having their delegates seated at the Democratic National Nominating Convention in Denver. Michigan and Florida violated this directive and front-loaded their primaries anyway. All of the Democratic candidates for president agreed not to campaign in these states and they didn't. Barack Obama even took his name off the ballot in Michigan.