The Michigan Presidential primary is this Tuesday. As most of you know, it’s been made a dreadful mess by Debbie Dingel and company, who chose to violate Democratic Party rules by moving it up, before February 5. (Party rules stipulate that only Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina can have primaries prior to that date.) If their gamble had worked, it would have admittedly been a good thing for our struggling state – the candidates would have spent a lot of time here, getting to know us, hearing our concerns, and making promises that could one day translate to actual policy. Unfortunately, however, the Democratic National Committee didn’t go for the idea. They said that, because of our blatant disregard of the established rules, they wouldn’t be allowing our Democratic delegates to vote at the national convention, essentially making us irrelevant in the process altogether. (There’s a chance that they’ll back down from this, as I understand it, but it’s by no means a given.) What’s more, Obama and Edwards, once Michigan had made its gambit, requested that their names be removed from the ballot in order to appease angered Democrats outside of Michigan. So, of the three major contenders for the Democratic nomination, only Hillary Clinton is listed.

Here’s the official word from the Washtenaw Dems:

The 2008 Michigan Primary will be on Tuesday, January 15th. Voters registered before December 17, 2007 are eligible to vote.

You will cast your vote in your usual polling place. If you need information, please go to the Washtenaw Votes website. At the polling place you will be asked for identification in order to vote, but if you do not have ID, you will be asked to sign an affidavit, and are still eligible to vote.

On this Democratic primary ballot the candidates are: Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd (has withdrawn from race), Mike Gravel, and Dennis Kucinich. There are also lines for uncommitted and for write-in candidates. If you want to vote for Barack Obama or John Edwards you must vote the “UNCOMMITTED” line! NO WRITE-IN VOTES WILL BE COUNTED FOR ANY CANDIDATES!

If “uncommitted” gets at least 15% of the vote, there will be one or more delegates elected at the Congressional District Convention which will take place on March 29th, 2008. In order to be eligible to vote at the Congressional District Convention, you must be a member of the Michigan Democratic Party. To join, go to Michigan Dems dotcom and then to the membership tab. If you want to be eligible to influence who is elected as uncommitted delegates, join the MDP and attend your Congressional District Convention!

So, if you don’t want to vote for Hillary, Kucinich, or Gravel, you can vote “undecided.” Our friend Robert, who, like me, supports Edwards, has been encouraging me to vote that way. Here’s a recent note from him, in which he explains his reasoning:

I’m trying to put together a united front for “Uncommitted” in Michigan. I’d like to see if we can get people out on January 15th in a mass protest vote. A vote for “Uncommitted” is a vote against the status quo. It’s a vote against government waste (this empty primary is costing the Michigan taxpayer $10,000,000!) It’s a vote which would tell the cynical politicians and political strategists that we want to speak for ourselves, and we don’t need them telling us what we want and feel. It’s a vote to send the message that we want our government back, and we want our country back.

This fouled-up primary represents perfectly the stupidity, waste and cynicism of the political leadership we’ve been getting over the past several years. If we want to, we can take this otherwise meaningless primary and turn it into a public statement by the people. We have to spread the word that this primary vote in Michigan is an opportunity for the people of our state to voice a resounding “NO” to the politicians’ question, “Do we want to continue with business as usual?”

For years there have been efforts to place “None Of The Above” as one of the choices on our election ballots. those efforts are always blocked. They’re blocked because the politicians fear the embarrassment of seeing clearly what the voters really think of them. I suspect that, if voters had that option, they would vote “None Of The Above” in election after election, because of the gross dissatisfaction we are all feeling with the kind of leadership we have been getting lately…

There also, of course, is a strategic reason for doing so. If “uncommitted” draws more than 15% of the vote, uncommitted delegates will be sent to the convention, and, assuming the national Dems chose to back down and accept votes from the Michigan contingent, these delegates could then align themselves at that point. Certainly a lot of our neighbors are leaning this way. There is, however, another option being discussed. My friend Kerri was the first to tell me about the idea, which was hatched by the folks at the Daily Kos. Here’s the idea in a nutshell - Michigan Democrats, not able to vote for their preferred candidate, should instead vote in the Republican primary for Mitt Romney. (See also here, here, and here.) Here’s a quote from Kos:

…We’re pushing Romney because at the end of the day, Romney is spending a lot of money on ads trashing his fellow Republicans. We want more of that money spent trashing his fellow Republicans. We want an unsettled field with Republicans fragmented and fighting. We want the theocons (Huckabee), the neocons (McCain), and the corportate cons (Romney) to maintain viable top-tier candidates in the race for as long as possible, since it fuels their civil war. Heck, if we truly hit the jackpot, we might even get a brokered GOP convention…

So, I guess it comes down to what you think the Democratic Party will do. If you think they’ll end up seating our delegates, then I can see the logic in voting “undecided.” If, however, you think that they won’t, then why not cast a vote for a Republican? From what I understand, Mitt’s most likely out of the race if he loses here in Michigan. So, your vote really could make a difference… I don’t know how I’ll vote yet, but I think I’m leaning toward “undecided.” I like the idea of using my vote strategically to fuck with the Republicans, but I just don’t think that when it came time to actually do it that I could pull the lever. I just know that if I did, Romney would be elected our next President.