1. No "do over," you made your bed now lie in it MI and FL. And Howard Dean is a craven coward to even consider allowing it. How effective of a teacher am I if I give a student a consequence for some action and then take it away? Parents, how well does it work to promise and not follow through with your kids?

2. 527s Suck!! But they should die because people ought have an abhorrent attitude toward them. Don't donors have better was to spend their money? If they are found to be illegal great but would even private litigation be resolved before the election?

3. Rush is a jackass but he does have the right to free speech. And he has a point about the visceral reaction people have to Hillary. I hate her, and could never cast a vote for her. That doesn't mean I wouldn't vote for any Democrat, I just can't cast a vote for that mean, spiteful, monster, and her philandering, spotlight-hogging husband. Personally I don't care if that means a McCain administration instead of a Democratic one.

1. I think a do over is inevitable for both states. The DNC has gotten themselves into a corner over this. They can't seat those delegates because that would be rewarding breaking the rules, but then, they can't afford to just diss two key swing states, either.

2. Yes, 527s do suck. They were specifically created in the 2002 McCain-Feingold law, so they are legal. Personally, I think it would be a sweet irony of the dems set up a 527 and used it to bury McCain. The lines between the 527s and the actual campaign committees often blur. If you remember the Swift Boat Veterans, several of their members were working directly for the Bush campaign.

3. Agreed. That much should be obvious. Rush is an ass, but even asses are protected by the 1st amendment.

Update: Howard Dean has been asked about the party headquarters paying for the "do over." According to Yahoo News <link>

Dean rules that out because the party needs its money for the general election. Bravo Howard!!!!!!!!!

This is like two kids who were told not to play with a toy until the glue was dry. They played with it anyway, and it broke. Now they're whining for us to fix their problem.

If they want their delegates to be seated in anything other than a 50/50 distribution (or 100% for the nominee) then they should stop whining and start figuring out what they can do to fix their own mess.

mithros:

This is like two kids who were told not to play with a toy until the glue was dry. They played with it anyway, and it broke. Now they're whining for us to fix their problem.

If they want their delegates to be seated in anything other than a 50/50 distribution (or 100% for the nominee) then they should stop whining and start figuring out what they can do to fix their own mess.

I agree, but you must remember that the Republican Governor and Legislature in Florida caused this problem for the Democrats. I'm not sure about what took place in Michigan.

Why do the taxpayers pick up the tab for party nominations anyway? It's not like these are real elections.

The FL legislature voted 118-0 to move up the vote. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it their problem.

As for primaries being tax payer subsidized, I don't why that's allowed either.

Well its an "election" and any party can participate for no extra fee.

The simplest solution is for MI and FL dem parties to run a caucus as a do-over. That costs a bit of money - but not all that much. High School gymnasia aren't that expensive to rent for an afternoon.

That's what I think that they should do, except that it will cost about $20M to run it in both states. Everyone wants an election, but no one wants to pay for it.

Disenfranchising the voters of MI and FL is a big deal, I just want to see the blame dumped on the legislators who were responsible for this mess.

Of course, Obama supporters want a caucus, because Obama has done significantly better in states with caucuses, which are much less representative of the rank-and-file voters and much more reflective of the more elite voters with more leisure to spend sitting through interminable hours while arcane rules are debated.

And, of course, Hillary supporters want to just count the vote that wasn't supposed to count. Had Obama been the only name on the ballot when these elections took place, Hillary might have a different opinion.

degsme:

Well its an "election" and any party can participate for no extra fee.

The simplest solution is for MI and FL dem parties to run a caucus as a do-over. That costs a bit of money - but not all that much. High School gymnasia aren't that expensive to rent for an afternoon.

In my State, there was nothing else on the ballot. That may not be the case in other States. I think that it is wrong to soak the taxpayers of a State for what is essentially a private Party function. If the Parties want the State government to facilitate their primary elections, they should reimburse the government for the expenses.

Educatordan

Some questions:

Mr. Teacher: What if the classroom teacher set a rule that is no more than favoritism? For instance, if you said, "Joey, Sally and Bubba gets to talk but nobody else can--Joey, Sally and Bubba don't deserve to talk any more than the rest of you, but for the sake of maintaining order and rules, I'm going to let them have a say and punish the rest of you if you dare talk:"" would you regard this rule as just and properly enforcible?

Forty-nine-year old Floridians voters have never voted in a primary election that mattered. The candidates have always been fixed long before Florida voted. The national party committees decided that Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina should matter most in 2008 and be at the front of the line. Florida balked and, using its own laws, set its own primary date in an attempt to matter for a change. Instead, for this "insolence," 1,7000,000 American votes were voided by a party committee.

All Floirda wanted to do was matter for a change and because it wouldn't stand in line like that mean old teacher at the DNC said it must, it got the death penalty--its doesn't count at all: it's tongue was cut out for doing what Joey and Iowa were allowed to do.

Some more questions, Mr. Teacher: Do you teach your kids that in America every citizen matters; that the vote is the tool by which citizens hold leaders accountable?

If, as Madison, Hamilton, Jay, Mason and all those other guys said, the foundation of our democracy is the vote, what superior value justifies voiding some Americans votes?

Is it that political party national committees must keep a bunch of unruly state legislatures in line and so must impose a strict regimen on them--punish voters to control state legislators? Is voiding millions of votes akin to spanking a school kid with a ruler?

Is it because Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina must be kept primary in the primary process? Is there something about them that justifies the preference Florida denies is justified?

Is Florida wrong? Wouldn't it be better for the nation if the among the first primary states was one that wasn't homogeneous and disproportionately white? What's so special about them to justify voiding millions of votes?

What do you think of the Democratic Party rules that treat the mostly Hispanic voters in South Texas as half as important as the voters in Dallas for delegate apportionment purposes? That is a rule. Are you ready to disenfranchise millions of Americans to enforce it?

What are the American values more important than counting votes? Give me a list. I'd interested to know what our kids are being taught as civics these days in the wake of this debacle of an election cycle--two such elections of the last three.

If you teach about the Civil Rights Movement, distinguish for me why it is bad to tell people they don't count in our elections because of the color of their skin and it is acceptable to tell people they don't count in our elections because of the state they reside in?

Do you think picking the candidates for election to highest national office in November is a purely private matter that private party committee ought to exercise absolute control over? If so, why do we have laws that prevent disenfranchisement based on race, religion and nation of origin? Isn't state of residence at least as relevant as nation of origin?

Shouldn't primaries be governed by the one-man, one vote legal principle? Wouldn't it be better for the political parties and the voters if the law took the election rule-making power out of the hands of the morons who run the political parties and set them on a one-man one-vote basis? As a teacher, do you think American elections should ever be run on a basis other than one-man one-vote? Is there a better formula you know of?

Teach me teacher. That's a bunch of questions, but they are all fair in light of the role and position you assume.

A Caucus would not cost $20 mil. but HRC doesn't want to agree to a Caucus since Obama does better at Caucuses.

Sadly Adams, Hamilton and most of the whigs did NOT believe in direct voting. That is why Senators were APPOINTED by state legislatures, and why the Electoral College members wre APPOINTED by state legislatures. They profoundly feared the "mob rule" and "tyranny of the Masses". In fact, when Andrew Jackson was elected, President John Quincy Adams was reputed to have said:

"I fear for the Republic: the rabbel have taken the White House".

You defend the power of political committees to disenfranchise primary voters by suggesting that the founding fathers intended to create a government controlled by elites?

You deny the central purpose and result of the American Revolution. Even before the Declaration of Independence, every single state had adopted constitutions that place sovereignty in the hands of the people and control over the state governments in the hands of voters.

The federal government's founders did, in fact, fear "tyranny of the masses," but that does not deny the central understanding they built into the Constitution--rule by the people through representative democracy.

They sought to build-in "cool down" procedures not displacement of popular sovereignty. The very point was that they--the elites, were basing their power on assent of the voters. That's why both George III and Napoleon I said Washington was the greatest man of the age--not because he feared the masses.

Indeed, the indirect election of federal senators hasn't even survived to this time. The selection of presidents--including the electoral college has always followed the popular vote with only two exceptions--Hayes and Bush. It is without controversy that one of those exceptions (Hayes) was the result of corrupt political manipulation by party operatives. Tens of millions of Americans believe both exceptions were caused by the corrupt interventions by "political elites," but we need not get into that controversy.

The House, meant to be the strongest arm in the government is specifically based on one-person one-vote democracy.

I could go on at great boring length about how the theory of popular sovereignty is built into the nation's governance--federal and state, but I suspect you already realize defending political party committees' disenfranchisement of millions of Americans on the grounds that it is what the founders intended is so attenuated from historical reality that I can curb my propensity to pontificate pedantically. Heck, I already want to punch myself in the nose. I apologize for being obnoxious--if I'm being so, but I am right on the substance....ain't I?

Primaries are not "private" matters that affect only "private" issues. No elite should have the power to say any single American's vote doesn't count. If the public goes to the extensive trouble and cost of sponsoring primaries for the benefit of political parties then the political parties ought to be required to honor votes on a one-person one-vote basis.

It'd be good for the political "elites" too. This election cycle has proven that they are not wise enough to cook up rules for American elections. With the mass disenfranchisements, the counting of some citizens as twice as important as others and all the Rube Goldberg rule contrivances, party insiders will be better served if we proscribe their truly unamerican impulses. Applying the one-person one-vote rule draws a healthy playing field inside of which these energetic mensches can frolic.

To go off point, since we've fixed the Senate's insulation from the "tyranny of the masses," wouldn't it be a good idea to fix the electoral college by eliminating it and taking away that playground for mischievous elites?

Shouldn't we believe in ourselves?