JaBbA's Hut

MoveOn.org is conducting a virtual poll of it's members this week to determine whether to endorse a specific Democratic candidate thisearly. The voting process was clearly outlined to each candidate,and included an early straw poll to determine the early leaders, whowere then invited to send an email to the MoveOn membership. However,each of the candidates was given an opportunity to participate, all the emails had links to all the candidate's responses, and all the candidates except Joe Lieberman (Say it ain't so, Joe!) participated.

But apparently some people at the Gephardt campaign felt slighted. Probably because his campaign seems to have this attitude of "Hey, we were here first, we've been running for president for years, all you other Johnny-come-latelys should just go away".

Anyway, a campaign staffer decided to take matters into his/her own hands, and complained to an AP reporter that "we are concerned that the process seems to be rigged."

Here's a hint for campaign workers. If you aren't the official spokesperson for your candidate, stick to your own opinions. Don't go tarring your candidate with your uninformed, emotional views. Or was that the Royal "We"?

The AP Reporter wrote it up, and actually did a reasonable job of balancing the report. But, of course, it was picked up and ran on Yahoo! and other places as "Vote-Rigging Suspected in Virtual Primary". So the process gets bad press, and those of us who understand the process now think of this when we think of Gephardt. Not that he was my favorite candidate, but as a Democrat with name recognition, he was on my list of possibilities.

More information about the "Gephardt Flap" can be found here. To make sure that the vote isn't hijacked by people who wish to discredit MoveOn, the voter registration process has closed, but you can read about the candidates here.