I just learned today that the Dem party awarded North Carolina and Indiana more delegates at the same very time they stripped Florida and Michigan of theirs.
If you wanted to screw Hillary and assist Obama, you couldn't have come up with a better plan.
Now, the only thing left to wonder is whether or not any of the party elites on the rules committee knew at the time that Hillary would do really well in FL and MI, and that Obama would do well in NC and IA (remember Obama was projected to win IA all along, until the last week).

*and no, I don't think 911 was an inside job.

is that true? why?

(is it growing populations? did they do that for other states?)

North Carolina, Indiana rewarded with more delegates for holding later contests
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER , Associated Press

May 5, 2008

WASHINGTON - Good things such as Democratic delegates come to those who wait.

North Carolina, which holds its primary Tuesday, got an additional 24 delegates for moving its presidential nominating contest from April to May. Indiana, which also has its primary Tuesday, got six extra delegates for keeping its primary in May. North Carolina has 115 pledged delegates at stake, Indiana has 72.

If only Florida and Michigan had the same foresight.

...

http://www.startribune.com/politics/1865...

Nice timing, too.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Clear in what way, Lambert?

but it does tell me that more states would've become FL and MI -- DNC obviously felt it necessary to reward the ones who stayed late.

I hope PA and the others got the same treatment tho--I bet they didn't.

MCCASKILL: Well, all of us look forward to cheering our nominee with the delegates from Florida and Michigan. And all of us are confident that that will happen.

We just have to make sure that we don't change the rules in the middle of the contest. The voters in Florida and Michigan are not at fault here. It was the leaders of their party that decided to go ahead and break the rules, and they knew when they were doing it they were breaking the rules. And we have got to play by the rules.

After all, that is what our country is about. But all of us want them to be included. All of us want them to be seated, and they will be. It's just going to probably not be determined how or when until more of these primaries take place.

----------------

You see, we must follow the rules, except we aren't really going to follow the rules. We're going to seat FL and MI, but we're going to do it on our terms, not the terms of the voters in those two states. Because we are a democracy after all, and it's up to party officials to determine the will of the people, not the voters.

they're all very careful to talk about seating them and that they'll attend, but never about delegate viability or allocation or anything...

and in terms of rules: why didn't Obama take his name off FL like in MI, and why did Obama break the rules by campaigning in FL?

Why did we lose in 2000 and 2004?

If you reflexively muttered, "we *didn't* lose", well then, you see my point. We didn't get our candidates into the Oval Office because they gave up on the American people, and backed none of their hopeful, highfaluting rhetoric about every vote counting with enough cash and actions.

I want a Presidential candidate who knows how to fight, even when the most important people in this country tell that candidate's team to stand down, there'll be other elections, maybe it isn't your turn, we don't want to disrupt the system, it's a time for healing, now.

BULLSHIT.

If bastards like David Bender want to imply that HRC is Rush's candidate because she won't repudiate voters already committing crimes by registering under false pretenses, when a few weeks ago it was fine for BHO to accept openly Republican votes in his wins, then why in the hell isn't Obama chasing progressive votes, instead of tacking right?

If the act of conducting competitive primaries is itself seen as too fraught with the potential of voter fraud, then why pretend people have the right to test their party's candidates when they are most responsive to their constituents?

If Clinton's main flaw is that she will not quit, are we even fucking surprised that Gore and Kerry folded, in the clutch? Kerry even sent out email promising Ohio voters that every vote would be counted.

Both black and non-black voters remember broken promises.

If BHO stands up tomorrow and says "I've got a war chest ready" to challenge the outcome of any state's tally that does not jibe to a list of generally-accepted benchmarks for free and fair voting, or is resolved past the doubt of a close statistical range -- and if the nimrods of the DNC stand right behind him, during his announcement -- then I'll consider him to be a candidate worth taking seriously, because at last he has persuaded his backers to stand for something more than their future lobbying contracts.

Until then, I'm paying attention to the only person in this contest who considers fighting to be a virtue, especially against a corrupt party who'd like nothing better to call the general election off, on account of terror. Her name is Hillary Clinton, and in the face of the catcalls, death threats and general meanness she's faced this year, she makes McCain, campaign-wise, look like a (insert non-offensive-yet-pungent metaphor here)