Personally, I would prefer new elections open to all registered Democrats (regardless of whether they voted in the R primary or not), but that doesn't seem like it will happen.

In either case, elections where everyone was told before hand that the results weren't binding can't be treated as though they were real elections. No way in hell Jimmy Carter would sign off on that in another country, and there's no way it should be accepted here.

The shamelessness of this line of attack is purely Bush league. She agreed to exclude FL and MI for breaking party rules and now argues loudly against those that excluded FL and MI. It's mind-boggling.

I am terribly disappointed in the Clinton campaign.

When I see things like this coming from the Clinton campaign, I'm reminded of that scene at the end of Zoolander where Mugatu proclaims, "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!" Has someone actually asked Hillary about the change in opinion about the MI and FL primaries counting?

I've been thinking about the Florida/Michigan debacle and it seems to me that the big deal is that FL and MI want to have some say in the process (even though all this sanctimony gets around the inconvenient truth that they knew what they were getting into) while a lot of other people believe (fairly) that just seating the delegates is not a realistic option.

So, here's my idea: seat the full FL and MI delegations at the convention, don't give them votes for the first ballot, but allow them to participate fully in any subsequent ballots, after the delegates are all released and can do whatever they like. This way, they could still say they have some influence (though I really hope it doesn't come to that) but the sham elections in those states don't get counted like they were real.

This is distressing, I suppose, but don't all candidates say they're going to fight all the way until the convention? It plays a whole lot better than "Give me money so that I can continue my campaign and exit gracefully after I get stomped in North Carolina and Indiana on May 5. Thanx, Hillary Clinton."

Also, states that scheduled their votes for later got proportionally more delgates than did states that held their contests earlier. This is clearly unfair to New Hampshire voters, so Clinton deserves a gazillion more delegates there.

"That would be the same Hillary Clinton who employs Harold Ickes, one of the DNC members who voted to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates. The same Hillary Clinton who could've stopped this plan when it was first announced, but only discovered this fervor for democracy when it became electorally convenient."

You keep repeating variants of this, Ezra, but that doesn't make it true.

The folks who supported the DNC rules always assumed MI and FL would get to vote after 2/5. Allowing for a post-2/5 re-vote was the official DNC position.

I don't think anyone was assuming that Barack Obama would become the reincarnation of Katherine Harris and actively move to stop the re-votes.

Seriously, is this really so difficult to understand?

Obama is acting to stop FL and MI Democratic voters from having a say because he understands he'd lose both states again. And you support this?

Petey--

The issue isn't that he'd lose, it's that an untainted vote would be impossible, given the circumstances-- even if anyone would fund or schedule it, which they won't.

LOVE that Yvonne Elliman song!

"The issue isn't that he'd lose, it's that an untainted vote would be impossible, given the circumstances-- even if anyone would fund or schedule it, which they won't."

So, instead, we end up with a tainted nomination process.

Petey's right.

hmm, now that I think about it:

"If I can't have you, no one can" seems to be Obama's mantra on the FL and MI votes.

Allowing for a post-2/5 re-vote was the official DNC position.

Contemporary citation, please?

The folks who supported the DNC rules always assumed MI and FL would get to vote after 2/5.

O RLY? Do you have polling on this? Contemporary stories say that the expectation was that the delegates would be seated after the nominee was settled or that the nominee might petition to have the delegates seated (which amounts to the same thing).

I always assumed that they thought that the whole thing would be decided long before April and then they could shake hands and say 'sorry for the disagreement but you know how it is, how about a seat at the convention now? I'll buy the first round of beer.'

Tricksy voters have messed up the big plan and now they have realized that two all-or-nothing electoral states with pissed off voters are a bad thing. That darn reality keeps biting the back room boys in the butt and they have to scramble for a solution.

I don't know any reasonable person who believes what Hillary's trying to do here isn't beyond the pale. The contention that all she wants is to have those votes counted is fucking asinine. Seriously, how is this a good sign for what she'd be like as President? No thanks.

Yes, Obama has taken a politically convenient position on this issue. Good for him. However, it is also the one that is consistent with the rules as set by the DNC. Deal with it.

And Petey, please tell us why we should vote for Nader like you plan to, or just fucking go away. You lose more credibility each post.

Seating Florida I can somewhat see, but the idea that we should seat Michigan's delegation where Obama wasn't even on the ballot makes a mockery of the idea that Clinton cares about people having their voices heard.

This will all be moot. The superdelegates are going to come out strongly for Obama after all the primaries are over and decisively hand him the nomination. At that point, he will agree to seat Florida and Michigan. There won't be a convention fight over this.

You've lost, Hillary. Get over it.

Petey, how shocked are you that 'Sure, they did it. But they didn't really mean to!' hasn't gotten much traction?

What Jake said.

If yopu allow elections where a candidate runs unopposed, and another where nobody was permitted to campaign, you can hardly pretend you're standing up for Democracy.

Democracy is about more than holding elections, as a great number of dictators could tell you.

And despite the histrionics of Hillaru supporters, No Democrat is going to win Florida. I too old, it's too red, and it's in total control of Republican vote-stealers. John McCain is not going to win Michigan. It's too economically distressed and John McCain has told them to go fuck themselves on that score one too many times.

I don't know any reasonable person who believes what Hillary's trying to do here isn't beyond the pale.

I don't know how any "reasonable person" can argue, seriously, that we're better off as Democrats by ignoring the input of two major states... but that's me.

But then, there's a lot of notions of "reasonable" these days.

Look, something has to be done, and the fact that Clinton is arguing for a solution that works to her benefit, it seems to me, is not surprising, "beyond the pale," or even, as Ezra suggests, worthy of the dudgeon he's raising here. We have a problem, we need to solve it, and we should, at least, discuss how to solve it now, well before we get to Denver and without a solution make things that much harder and the ultimate resolution that much worse. I'm prepared as a Democrat to accept the decision we reach, whatever it may be; I can't say, with any certainty, that others will, on either side. And that, it seems to me, is why we need to talk about this, figure something out, and get everyone on the same page.

Again, that, to me, seems like the "reasonable" line here. But then, the notion of "reasonable" is also up for debate, these days; and until we can agree on terms like that, it's hard to see how we're going to get a discussion on resolving this in a way that works for everyone, not just diehard partisans.

Hillary could have stopped Florida from having their delegates stripped? Ezra continues to lose all credibility on this issue by repeating this assine claim time after time. Everyone knew that those delegates would be seated, everyone assumed that it wouldn't matter anyway. No one planned on denying these states a say that could make a difference in the process. Now that has blown up in the faces of the idiots on the DNC everyone is scrambling with what to do. Obama refused to revotes because he was afraid he would lose them. Now it is becoming apparent he can't knock Clinton out of the race so we are stuck with Florida and Michigan mattering. Contrary to Ezra's ridiculous lie that Clinton had the power to stop the stripping of delegates to begin with, Obama did have the power to allow revotes to go forward. He stopped it, now it is going to blow up in his face. He took his name off the ballot in Michigan, he refused to agree to revotes, he is stopping Michigan and Florida voters from having a say. He should have won the nomination clean, he didn't. He is a weak candidate who is tearing the Democratic party apart because some Democrats actually want a tough fighter, not a weak neophyte to be our President, and because the process itself is a total mess and a joke. Now no candidate can win it cleanly without using the superdelegates or disenfranchsing two of the most important key swing states. The process is a joke, it is a disgrace, it is unbelievably broken, and it wasn't until Obama's interests were endangered by it that Ezra or any of the Obama supporter gave a crap. If maybe one of them at the time had stood up and said that maybe the Democratic party shouldn't be disenfranchising millions of people in Michigan and Florida to begin with, then we might not be in this position right now. None of them did and now they are reaping what they sewed. When you accepted the legitimacy of a process that would exclude millions of voters from having a say to protect the priviliged status of two small unrepresentative states you have zero right to complain about the process being illegitimate. You have zero moral authority or credibility, so do everyone a favor and STFU.

And PS, Ezra, not to get you too riled... but honestly, you're better than this. If you have a way out of the delegate mess, suggest it, foster a discussion... do something. Railing, yet again, about how the latest e-mail from "the Clinton camp" really cheeses you off, isn't getting us anywhere. We get it; you don't like her tactics. That doesn't change things (i.e., she's still going to make this argument whether you like it, or not). Changing the shape of the discussion we're having about the delegate issues... might get us somewhere.

Just a thought.

no one can deny that Sen. Clinton said one thing last year, "MI and Florida won't count," and she's saying a different thing now (that she needs them).

but the larger, more troubling concern for me, as a Dem, is that she's hyper-politicizing this issue and trying to make it a civil rights campaign. She's saying: "I care about your votes [now]. And he doesn't. Your pain is my pain [now], and he wants to disenfranchise you." et cetera.

Obama has said that he wants those delegates seated, but he wants it done fairly, and in a way that doesn't unfairly change the rules in the middle of the game. How is it that the Clintons can demonize him over something she too supported less than 4 months ago???

Ask the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire how they feel about Clinton's double-speak. After she spent weeks telling them that MI and FL wouldn't count.

The DNC and Dr. Dean did this, this is all them and only them. The candidates weren't a part of the mix when this whole thing started and just because, as the primary season started to take shape, Clinton came to the 'WTF have we done to ourselves?' moment first doesn't make her wrong.
So when McCain is stumping through those two states with the 'I always loved you and he never loved you' ads you can't really be surprised that Obama is going to have to waste alot of time and money on winning back what he should have already had- good will.

The DNC and Dr. Dean did this, this is all them and only them.

I don't recall Howard Dean or the DNC holding a gun to either state's party heads and demanding they schedule their primaries early. In fact, my memory is of the exact opposite.

Isn't the obvious solution to seat the delegations after either Obama or Clinton drop out?

Oh but that wouldn't scew the process in Clinton's favour. Nevermind.

Always entertaining is watching the party *JUST NOW* coming around to the fact that THE CLINTONS ARE LIARS AND WILL DO ANYTHING FOR POWER, something that has been evident for over a decade.

Glad to see you're finally up to speed on this issue.

You're so cynical, Ezra! Hillary is all about the people having their say, except for people who vote in caucuses, who live in unimportant states, or if they don't vote for her, in which case the superdelegates should fix that.

And I do wonder if El Viajero has some other right wing wisdom to share with us. They've gotten so many things right, it's a wonder they're concerned at all about the upcoming elections. I just hope we can get "up to speed" on everything!

I'm finding it a little hard to be shocked that a politician is taking position on an inside baseball issue which helps her politically. Not saying Clinton is acting honorably here, but what this really highlights for me is how messed up the nomination process really is.

Doesn't anyone else think that, regardless of who you're rooting for, entire states should never have been stripped of their delegates in the first place?

I've actually long hoped that a candidate would appear with the platform of fixing up the democracy - making the nomination and electoral process simpler and fairer *coughelectoralcollegecough*, bringing the powers of the president back down to a safer level, etc. Probably not gonna happen.

You know Henry, if Hillary was wrapping this in a broader case of making the electoral system more fair ( eg. proposals to abolish the electoral college, change the primary system for next time), I'd be a lot more sympathetic.

Instead, she's specifically focusing on FL/MI because of the political advantage that flip-flopping on the DNC's decision gives her.

I don't begrudge any politician from looking for partisan advantages, but it would be nice if she was going about it in a way that wasn't destructive to Democratic prospects in November.

"Doesn't anyone else think that, regardless of who you're rooting for, entire states should never have been stripped of their delegates in the first place?"

Yes, the DNC could have done what the RNC did and strip them of half. I don't see a big frou-frou about that in the media because a) their state votes still meant something, less but something, b) their primaries played out on schedule and c) with the states still in play their candidates didn't all play pissing contests with the issue, and I do mean all of them.

You don't play the hand that you are want but the hand that you are dealt. The DNC dealt crappy cards and the candidates will have to play the hand out.

Weboy: I'm prepared as a Democrat to accept the decision we reach, whatever it may be...

Not snarking, just really curious, since I've seen this line of thought repeated. There was a decision, albeit not universally popular: the DNC decided not to seat FL and MI delegates.

What makes you think the issue should be reopened? Why do you think you could be satisfied with the next decision if you aren't satisfied with the original one?

The folks who supported the DNC rules always assumed MI and FL would get to vote after 2/5. Allowing for a post-2/5 re-vote was the official DNC position.

Florida and Michigan still have the option to do revotes. Blaming Barack Obama for this situation is ridiculous. The legislatures of the two states could have scheduled a revote, and it wouldn't have mattered a damn what he wanted. They decided not to.

The members of those legislatures, of course, are the same people who overwhelmingly decided to ignore party rules in the first place.

Doesn't anyone else think that, regardless of who you're rooting for, entire states should never have been stripped of their delegates in the first place?

The DNC were addressing a real problem - the primary schedule is getting to far ahead of the general election. Nobody would consider it reasonable to schedule a primary 18-24 months before an election - and we're getting pretty close to a full year.

Setting a start time before which any vote would be meaningless isn't unreasonable. My problem with the DNC decision is that they allowed several states (IA, NH, SC, NV) to go in January - but everybody else had to wait until February. They could have simply said any vote before February 5th is a straw poll and been done with it.

(Heck push it back to May, we've still got 7 months to go).

Greg - I agree with you 100%.

Still there's a large part of me going, "You know what? All the states SHOULD get to vote."

It seems that because it's not a general election, the political parties can get away with a lot they couldn't get away with in a general election. But if the citizens of the U.S. don't get a fair way to determine who gets on the ballot, fair voting in the general election suddenly means a lot less.

I guess what I'm saying is this:
Hillary's actions = sleazy.
The fact that we're discussing whether some states should be allowed to vote for their presidential nominee = horrifying.

First of all, everyone involved (except the Florida/Michigan politicos who turned their primaries into an exhibition of idiotic posturing) knew and agreed that the primaries in these states were not legitimate and should not count. Clinton said it, Obama took his name off the ballot in Michigan. That's just historical fact, folks.

Now, maybe folks in Florida and Michigan are feeling disenfranchised, but the little polling done on this does not suggest it. Most people are thoroughly indifferent, if somewhat annoyed by the screw-up.

You can't fix an illegitimate primary - which these clearly were - by suddenly talking about saving voters from disenfranchisement. If you legitimize these results - which are clearly incomplete - then you disenfranchise all the voters who did not participate in what they were told was a non-event. If you really want to avoid angering voters, I'd suggest you ought not to effectively tell those folks that they don't get a real voice because they skipped a non-event. That's simply not democratic, and it won't get any better by talking about not excluding Florida and Michigan. They have already been excluded, partly by their own politicians, partly by the DNC which held those politicians to account. That's just history - and we can't fix it.

The only way to produce a legitimate result would be a do-over. If one does not happen, as seems most likely, it is simply not honest for us to go around talking about how one side of the debate is responsible. This is a screw-up by all the Democrats, and both sides agreed that the primaries were not valid. Comments about Obama being like Katherine Harris are simply immature and dishonest. Likewise, blaming Clinton for everything doesn't fly either.

What we need is less of the finger-pointing, more of the recognition that this situation can't be magically fixed. In the meantime, both sides should be quiet, stop trying to score points, and think through the idea that a fight over this may alienate more voters in those states than anything else. If we can't have a do-over, for the sake of Democrats as a whole, please, quit the blame-game, and focus on the issues of the campaign as a whole.

What I don't get from commenters here is how Clinton is lambasted for her political maneuvers around this fiasco, while Obama is praised ("good for him") for doing what's "politically convenient." How do their respective actions differ then, at all? Both are trying to work this situation to their advantage, and neither will be seen as the legit. nominee because of this mess.

And Ezra, why are you against hail mary's????? How boring!

If this is not resolved in June there is one and only one person to blame. Barack Obama.

Revoting in Florida and Michigan would make a definitive end to the nomination process. Popular vote, delegates, states won, momemtum....it will be done.

Barack Obama has vetoed revotes.....which are completely, totally within the rules...no and, ifs, or buts...because he's afraid if they revote he could lose.

If this goes to the convention unresolved it iwill be his fault. If the party is torn apart...the onus is on him and him alone. If the only way he can win is to deny people the right to vote and have their votes matter...well when Florida and Michigan don't vote for him and he loses...he will only have himself to blame.

Real Democrats think people have the right to vote and to have their votes matter.

debcoop, are you going to spend time throwing mud at Obama, rather than being constructive about what democrats as a party can do to fix this? There is fault on both sides, and the sooner we stop the name-calling and accusations, the sooner we can get somewhere. Blaming Obama or Hillary for a collective problem doesn't fix anything.

Characterizing the situation as "if I can't have you no one can" is sexist. Why make a romantic relationship comparison at all? This is a political struggle. Men have engaged in political struggles at every convention in history. There have been credentials fightts time and time again. Senator Clinton is fighting to win the nomination. Was JFK acting like an enraged lover when he fought to win? Was FDR?

The idea that Michigan and Florida should not count is elitist, undemocratic, unDemocratic, and unAmerican. You can bet that if Obama were in Hillary's position he would be fighting tooth and nail to get them counted, and opposition to their inclusion would be characterized as a racist disenfranchisement by you and other Obama supporters.