They only want to bust out a few percentage points.

The DNC disenfranchised two whole states.

————————————————————————
“The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.” - Molly Ivins (RIP)

Howard Dean ran on a slogan of I want my country back, right now I would settle for my party.

It is a political party, not an assemblage of saints. In 1968, when Bobbie Kennedy entered the race and started to make some headway, “Clean” Gene McCarthy the peace candidate cut a backdoor deal with Hubert Humphrey the war candidate to try and squeeze Kennedy and stop him; there was a co-ordinated effort to dry up funding, threats of recrimination against politicians to keep them from providing Kennedy with resources or endorsement, and an organized whispering campaign with the press to attack RFK’s character.

It wasn’t pretty then, any more than it is now, but as bad as the Dems are they are far far better than the criminal gang that controls the Republican party and the only available tool we have at hand to slow if not stop the madness.

More constructive critique, please, and less wailing.

not the voters.

If we as a party want to claim the moral high ground, we need to place principles ahead of “rules” or convenience.

We may not always live up to our principles, but we can never abandon them.

————————————————————————
“The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.” - Molly Ivins (RIP)

But I took this:

“I’m so old, I remember when Democrats cared about this.”

and this:

“The DNC disenfranchised two whole states.”

and this:

“Howard Dean ran on a slogan of I want my country back, right now I would settle for my party.”

to be both an unwarranted conflation of the Republican-led sytematic voter disfranchisement in a general election with what has happened in the Democratic primary - not at all the same thing - and some sort of mythic reconstruction of the Democratic Party as having at some time been completely free of anything untoward in the primary process - not at all true.

Democratic primaries have always been tainted to some degree. The collusion by McCarthy with Humphrey was kept hidden from the voters, and Humphrey ran a surrogate in California to try and deceive Democrats about who their vote actually was for. If lying to and deceiving voters weren’t a form of disfranchisement, well….

The Democrats in FL and MI have some housecleaning to take care of, and the place to do that is in MI and FL. Blaming Dean and Brazile and Obama and Clinton and everybody else for their own screwup is just cheap denial. They and their reps made this mess; they need to clean it up and stop whining.

They’ve had plenty of opportunity for a redo, by ballot or caucus or convention within the rules, or just say they’re sorry and settle for 50%. No need for approval from anyone else for any of that and they haven’t gotten it done. At this point the blame for their ineptitude and voter disfranchisement is all on themselves.

DFL and DMI need to put up or shut up. I am sick to death of all the whining.

… is no excuse for screwing the voters. If the leadership of the Democratic Party can’t step in, and figure out a way to make the voters of those two states whole, after they voted in record numbers under the, perhaps foolish, impression that their votes might actually be meaningful, then the Democratic Party is in even deeper trouble, institutionally and ethically, than I imagined (and that’s going really deep). Until they do, I’m afraid my Unity Pony’s going to be on back order, along with a lot of other people. Ditto for the make-up sex.

And I, personally, am sick of having legitimate concerns dismissed as “whining.”

Maybe Nancy Pelosi could take a break from buffing her halo, step in, and do something? Or is it not her place to do anything but rule out a “dream ticket”?

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

Pelosi hell, what is this thunderous silence from Conyers????????

I agree that Republican systematic voter suppression needs to be dealt with on its own merits, but I put it to you that the political degeneracy that permitted Republican misconduct has now matastizised to the Democratic party. First we were silent in the face of this, now we embrace it.

I agree with you lambert. I am almost to the point that I think the Dems have already past the point of no return. That it is somehow controversial to count FL and MI is a problem.

And DCB, you need to remember that Dean had the “MY” in his slogan. This may very well be what he meant by “my country”. It sure as heck seems to mean disenfranchisement is A-OK if it benefits “my” candidate. As far as I’m concerned this is where I’m headed if FL and MI are not counted. I’d rather lose in November and save the principle of democratic elections than win in November at the cost of democracy.

Conflating these two IMHO won’t help. One is not the same as the other.

In a general election for public office, citizens have constitutional rights; the persistent VRWC attempts at voter suppression are unconstitutional, a violation of the compact between the citizenry over how we wish to govern ourselves.

The party primary is a private affair. There is no constitutional right to participation. There is no constitutional requirement that the voter’s voice be heard or respected. If the party leadership wants to get together and choose a nominee at some drunken orgy - oh, wait - they they have every right to do so.

What happened in FL in the 2000 general election - and what happened in DC to allow it - was a travesty. What happened this year in the FL and MI primaries was a screwup, but as it turns out the screwup will not much affect the eventual outcome nor would it matter if the Party right now accepted the pledged delegates either as the two primaries selected them or under the Obama pull-it-out-of-my-ass formula. The election results from FL and MI just don’t matter any more; bummer, but true.

The superdelegates are going to get together and determine this nomination just like in the good old days, and then there will be some kabuki show make-up posturing and the delegates from FL and MI will get seated somehow and everyone can get together in Denver for the drunken orgy convention - just like in the good old days.

Now, about John McWar and the criminal VRWC….do we have a plan of attack there yet?

If the superdelegates are going to decide this anyway—and even including FL and MI, they will—why the deliberate effort to construct rules that result in disenfranchising voters? The problem is counting only certain people’s votes in an system that is premised on counting everyone’s votes. If FL and MI are meaningless, then so should be all the other states as well. I would have less a problem with not counting any votes in the primary than selectively choosing who’s votes to count.

Lessee, Lambert; when someone screws up, who should be responsible for cleaning up the mess? How about the people who screwed up? Personal responsibility and all that liberal invective. The Democrats in FL and MI screwed up. The Democrats in FL and MI should have cleaned up their mess. They could have said “Sorry” and gotten a 50% penalty, or held another election, or held caucuses, or just as a change of pace held a state party convention, and done by the rules they would have had all their delegates seated. They didn’t. So sad, too bad.

L: “And I, personally, am sick of having legitimate concerns dismissed as “whining.”” Which “legitimate concerns” would those be? If I’ve done that, I’ll correct myself. Point it out with specificity, please.

L: “Maybe Nancy Pelosi could take a break from buffing her halo, step in, and do something?” Really, now. Why don’t all the Anti-Nancy folks get together and oh, hell, I dunno, take a vote or something; is she supposed to step in and settle this or STFU and stay neutral? Or is it just her fault no matter what, like it is for Hillary? No damn wonder she gets snippy periodically.

Bringiton writes:

The party primary is a private affair. There is no constitutional right to participation. There is no constitutional requirement that the voter’s voice be heard or respected.

IIRC, Fat Tony scrutinized the Constitution carefully and found no constitutional right to have one’s vote counted in the general either. So, in important respects the cases are the same. In any case, the parties don’t own the voters’ votes. The voters do or should. In this respect, I don’t care what Teh Rulez are.

In a way, I find bringiton’s cynicism and/or realism bracing, even refreshing. Then again, it seems to me that the attitude here boils down to:

Silly voters! Turning out in record numbers, as if they thought their votes would count! What’s wrong with them?! What kind of system do they think they live in?

I don’t think that’s a wise attitude to take, even from a purely pragmatic standpoint. It’s not good for the candidates, and it’s not good for the party. And I don’t think it’s good for the country.

You know, I was really hoping to live in a country with a legitimate government again. Sigh.

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

You write:

The Democrats in FL and MI screwed up. The Democrats in FL and MI should have cleaned up their mess.

You’re confusing the Democratic voters with the Democratic Party functionaries. I don’t care who’s responsible at this point. I just want a solution that makes the votes of those pesky voters count. (That is my “legitimate concern,” which I apologize for not making sufficiently obvious.) Fuck the functionaries.

What’s your solution for making the voters of FL and MI whole in this election?

UPDATE Re Pelosi. From the part you did not quote:

Or is it not her place to do anything but rule out a “dream ticket”?

Apparently, she wants to help pick the nominees, so she’s intervened to that extent. But as far as helping actual voters pick the nominees, well, not so much. Odd.

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

Feeling like a one-armed paperhanger here.

GQM: “I would have less a problem with not counting any votes in the primary than selectively choosing who’s votes to count.

Exactly what has resulted. This long and, I submit, eventually productive process has done just as you suggest. When all the primary contests are finished, barring something near-miraculous, none of the voting and caucusing will have determined an outcome. Did serve to winnow out the candidates I liked but hey, welcome to the wonder of collective wisdom.

Take the results from FL and MI as they are, have a do-over, or apportion the delegates by coin-flip; it won’t matter. I’m all for running out the string on the rest of the contests because I believe that it will strengthen the eventual nominee – I’m Nitschian that way – but it still won’t matter in the selection.

The superdelegates will decide this nomination, exactly as if none of the voters had participated at all. Just wipe them out; may as well not have ever happened.

Less of a problem; Go In Peace.

haven’t votes mattered this time precisely bec 1/2 wants one, and 1/2 wants another?

in recent years it’s the DC pick who gets the nomination, and the party ensures that, and all the big money people too.

this time, DC hasn’t had the power to get rid of Clinton bec she has DC and Nat’l power too, and voting actually is mattering, no?

and I can even understand and support it.

But just because the outcome is the same, the process doesn’t matter?

But to say:

nominee = SD vote + Some popular votes

is the same as:

nominee = SD vote + All popular votes

might as well imply that:

nominee = SD vote + No popular votes

Why not? Surely, in a democracy, that’s nonsense.

Why wouldn’t it be simpler and a lot cheaper if we all gathered together at the country’s 50 yard line, say, the Mississippi, had a televised coin flip, and then referred the ultimate decision to the SDs?

I want maximum pressure from the popular vote on the SDs. It seems to me that in a representative democracy, even one with checks and balances, that’s the right set of values to have. Of course, YMMV. A process where all the votes are counted affords that pressure.

NOTE I note the absence of an explicit solution from bringiton for making the voters of FL and MI whole. I don’t know if that’s because he thinks he’s offered one, plans to offer one, doesn’t have one, or doesn’t think there’s a problem. The ball is still in his court.

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

Actually for the primaries, it’s pre-1981. That’s when the controlling Supreme Court decision was rendered, pre-Fat Tony. The case is DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF U.S. v. WISCONSIN, 450 U.S. 107 (1981), as fun a read as any of them. Nut of it is that the Party makes the rules, and nobody else can do anything about it.

For all that’s been written here about how unfair and unrepresentative the caucuses are, the screwy systems in Washington and Texas, the multi-tiered delegate system just now playing out where the candidates select the pool from which the eventual delegates will be selected by state party apparatchiks who will, as happened in Iowa, not necessarily follow the pattern the voters established, on top of which we all know that the so-called pledged delegates are not actually pledged but are free to vote as they please which means that whatever the voters may have had in mind the delegates can do as they damn well want or, just maybe, as they are directed by The Party, and then the superdelegates and the special delegates and goddess only knows who the hell else that will be at the convention and unencumbered with any obligation at all to the voters and will have a real meaningful Nomination Vote not like the funny little votes of the little people voters, it is charming to read that anyone still believes that “the voters” have any real direct actual control or influence over anything.

Easy to see how a person might get the impression that individual voters could matter in the primaries; the rules are confusing, I’ll grant you that. Here’s a graphic representation of the Democratic Convention Call and subordinate Rules that might help make things clearer:

The parties, both of them, make a pretense of openness but the Rules – those in writing that can be interpreted and re-interpreted to mean whatever the people in charge want them to mean and those not written but simply understood, the ones that are much less malleable - are such that only the chosen few are ever able to compete.

And while amberglow postulates that in this season the voters have kept the battle alive, I would say rather that the party apparatus itself cleared out the riffraff and thereafter has been split between Clinton and Obama; if there had been a clear favorite among the Party Powers then the other one would have already been dissuaded.

Once that division has been resolved, the winner will be selected by the superdelegates; the process will have been observed, the formalities will have been ritually genuflected, and let’s all hope the choice this time is more successful than so many times in the past.

In a follow-up post I’ll explain the truth about the Easter Bunny and Schwarte Pete – if that won’t be too disillusioning.

Note: FL and MI; voters were never actually enfranchised, thus they could not be disenfranchised. This is not snark; the Party rules are explicit – the delegates can do whatever they want, regardless of voter intent. The only thing that needs made whole is the delusional state of voters who actually believe that they have a material input in the primary process; it is a Party process, controlled by the delegates – get over it.

At this point, the Democratic voters in FL and MI will just have to accept that they made bad choices when they selected their state authorities and the illusion of meaningfulness got shattered – too late now to clean up that mess. At some point Rules will find an excuse and seat some or all of the pledged delegates plus the supers. Everyone Important goes to the Party. Little people stay home and watch on TV. What part of that is unclear?

Note: Lambert’s legitimate concern – making the voters’ votes count. Legitimate indeed, and a concern I share; I certainly don’t view that as whining, and apologize if anything I said gave that impression. I, too, wish that primary voters’ votes would matter. Reality, however, is that they don’t count, never have, and probably never will unless the entire nomination process is overhauled by the very people who are vested in keeping the power in their own hands. Not likely, but don’t let that discourage you; best of luck, really.

Come the revolution….

make laws that change and affect party primaries?

At least not outside the Rules of the Party. If they do, the Party decides whether or not to seat the delegates. The legislature can set the dates, as long as they fall within the boundaries that the Party has established; if not, well, you know. The state parties have very little say these days except in selecting the actual individual delegates, and even then they have to let the candidates winnow down and approve the pool they can choose from. Then, Credentials gets a final pass - acting as agent for the last Convention of Delegates - and can, if they choose, reject any delegate for essentially any reason.

It is a nice communal tribe-building exercise, and gives the folks in Iowa and New Hampshire something to look forward to in an otherwise bleak existence so there is that aspect of charity about it. Otherwise, well, best not to look too closely and just enjoy the noise and the bright lights. I squint; it really does help.

this Rule 12B from that case link—

“At all stages of the delegates selection process, delegates shall be allocated in a fashion that fairly reflects the expressed presidential preference or uncommitted status of the primary voters or if there is no binding primary, the convention and caucus participants except that preferences securing less than the applicable percentage of votes cast for the delegates to the National Convention shall not be awarded any delegates.”

how can it fairly represent votes unless it actually matches up with votes?

At this WaPo article.

Well, sort of final. There’s still one more round in Iowa IIRC, the State Convention; I’m too weary of the process to go look it up but I think the way the selection process works in Iowa if the overall race shifts significantly there could still be some reshuffling of delegate “pledged” loyalty, and even then they can always do as they please at the Convention.

Voters in the primary are a lot like parents handing over the car keys and a credit card to the teenagers; all you can do is smile and hope for the best.

… the Dem Party has decided to hand the keys to some teenagers and not to others. Grossly unfair. Delegitimizing, in fact.

I’d really like to hear a campaign spokesman get up and explain to the voters what’s really going on using bringiton’s truly cogent analysis — that they have no right to have their vote counted, and all the rest of it. Na ga happen. Why? Because the pesky voters have this crazy notion that they live in a democracy and that their votes should count, and they aren’t counted, that’s a problem. And they’re right. So the cogent analysis doesn’t matter.

I’m also entirely certain that the voters didn’t go to the polls thinking their votes were irrelevant, given the realities of the process. Nor should they have, since counting the votes is one element of reality and, indeed, might be said to create it, regardless of process formalities.

Most of the endlessly repeated “math” on delegate counts, and ditto the popular vote “math”, depends on FL and MI being “disenfranchised” (a word I will continue to use, despite bringiton’s learned elucidation, since, relative to the other states, that is exactly what they are, obfuscatory Inside Baseball legalese regardless).

I’d go with the coin flip….

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

Dropped that comment upthread about Brazile and the DNC chair with some foreknowledge, and since have talked again with a couple of people who know some people.

Darling Donna is indeed angling hard for the chair at DNC when Howard’s term is up after the November election. Consensus opinion from, sigh, yes, anonymous sources is that the only thing that would stop her from making a run is if Clinton is elected President - yet another argument in Hillary’s favor.

If either Dem loses in the general she’ll run on the premise that Howard has failed and a change is needed, plus it is time for either a woman or a black to be in charge of the Democratic Party and hey, she’s a twofer able to represent both constituencies. (Based, of course, on the preference Democrats have shown this primary season for having either a woman or a black running things as opposed to any old white man, so Lambert’s fervent wish that the primary voters have an influence on the Party process may yet be realized – another exposition of the Law of Unintended Consequences and the principle of Be Careful Of What You Wish For.)

If Obama wins the general, Brazile is a shoe-in. Just think how much fun awaits.

Mark your calendar, you read it here first.

Oh, and Lambert dear fellow: “obfuscatory Inside Baseball legalese regardless” and “the cogent analysis doesn’t matter”? If so, that is very sad. Isn’t it?

I’m sure that the pre-Bastille Code Louis was beautifully crafted.

It’s not sad because:

In a democratic society, we should at least not be moving backward in terms of extending the franchise. At least in voter’s perceptions, that is exactly what we are doing in FL and MI.

I like the rule of law. I like rules. I like Constitutions. Then again, the Constitution did have that little 3/5 of a man problem, and these rules are being tendentiously applied by, among others, Donna Brazile. So fuck her.

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

Accurately portraying reality is to be disregarded if it conflicts with a desirable illusion? That’s what I say is sad.

Better by far I think to make perfectly clear to voters that they have little to no say in the actual slelection of a presidential candidate, than to continue upholding a mythological construct in the name of fairness where fairness does not exist.

As a democracy we will be well served when voters’ perceptions are aligned with reality, however difficult that may be for them to accept - or so I think. No disrespect intended, your intentions are pure, but you seem instead to be arguing that maintaining an illusion is preferable to ripping the curtain back and letting the voters see the shriveled little gnome pulling on the levers.

The presidential primary system is not democratic, give or take FL and MI and their voters; never has been, isn’t now and won’t be without a huge change in Party policy. “Reinstating” what never was can’t be done. “Fixing” isn’t even a concept that applies; it assumes something is broken when it is not - the Party apparatus is just fine, thank you very much, and does not need the voters of FL or MI or anywhere else for that matter. Harsh, but true.

I say let the people see what a sham the whole process is, nothing but a new suit on the same old swine of Party insider politics, and maybe just maybe over time a movement towards real democratic selection begins to take hold. I for one celebrate the tears in that shiny pig suit, and wish for more.

both the primary processes and the electoral college in the general as well as all the suppression shit, and voting machines, counting votes, etc—Congress never acts on it tho. in 2000 especially.

we can’t change these things—only lawmakers can, really.

but we changed from party bosses to this system, which simply obscures that the real power is still in their hands—they’ll never give up the power truly—they created supers because they tried giving up control (in their eyes at least) and hated it.

Je repete:

I’m also entirely certain that the voters didn’t go to the polls thinking their votes were irrelevant, given the realities of the process. Nor should they have, since counting the votes is one element of reality and, indeed, might be said to create it, regardless of process formalities.

Most of the endlessly repeated “math” on delegate counts, and ditto the popular vote “math”, depends on FL and MI being “disenfranchised” (a word I will continue to use, despite bringiton’s learned elucidation, since, relative to the other states, that is exactly what they are, obfuscatory Inside Baseball legalese regardless).

I don’t deny that the analysis is cogent. Just that legalese is an awfully flimsy peg to hang “reality” on.

“Reality” right now is broken, and if they don’t want to fix it, then Fuck them, the Rules they rode in on, and the beneficiaries of the broken-ness, too.

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

counting votes, and protecting voting rights, etc—and not the opposite.

But politics can be amended. Amberglow, amberglow; what will I do with you? “we can’t change these things—only lawmakers can” makes an old Lefty’s skin crawl.

Change the lawmakers.

Start local. Walk your precinct. Knock on doors and talk to people. Go to meetings. Show up at the school board and the city council and the county planning commission. That’s where the rightwingers get hold of the process, and that’s where it needs to be taken back. Call reporters, not just at the NYT and WaPo where you’re a voice in the maelstrom but at your local paper. Point out the rightwing crap going on in your city and town, shine a light on how wrong-headed national policies are damaging your neighbors. And if you can write - and you can - offer those same reporters small pieces they can copy and paste; they’re jammed for time and lazy just like actual human beings, which is why the corporate and GOPer propoganda gets disseminated - it’s the easy thing to do. And go to your county Democratic committee meetings. Some places just a handful of people show up and run everything for the whole county, and sometimes those few people are not very bright. Bring your passion and determination and carve out a slot, build a power base for yourself or another and start the transformation.

Be the change.

(most of them anyway)

and local focus and action is vital—but it’s not affecting those who actually have big power.

that’s the problem—as long as most Dem Congresspeople have safe seats for life and respond to money ppl instead of local constituents, etc—voting is the only actual contact point with those who actually make and pass the laws that hurt or help the whole country.

things aren’t trickling up at all—not on war, not on healthcare, not on infrastructure or stopping bad policies or protecting rights or stopping the gop, etc—not on anything—and the majority of all Americans want a more active federal govt helping ppl on these issues and are blithely ignored.

from patriot act to bankruptcy bill to energy shit to trade to budgets to tax cuts for the rich, etc—none of those things were wanted, yet all happened—and all have devastating effects that can’t be changed locally.

there’s a horrendous disconnect bet DC and the rest of the country—and candidates to get into DC have to pass thru Schumer and Emanuel and are not progressive—and then are reliant on Pelosi and Reid and Committee Chairs like Rockefeller and Biden and even Lieberman, for god’s sake. All the gatekeepers are lifetime—and are selecting obedient and/or non-liberal future lifetime members.

is a place to begin when you want to hold the people who fucked it up accountable.

So, you can say (A) “Change the lawmakers,” because they fucked up on basic principals and values.

Alternatively, you can say (B) “Change the lawmakers,” even though they acted according to the rules, as my very cogent arguments prove.

I have to confess that I find approach (B) a little less than inspiring. But maybe that’s just me.

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

Perhaps I’ve not been clear.

I don’t like the party primary system either.

I’d like a process where the candidates all get blocks of free air time on TV, radio and NPR web-based video to make their case. Have real debates, not these stupid Tim Russert and Clones wankfests. Let them start on their own whenever they damn well please but move the start of the formal campaign to springtime, say a kickoff on April Fool’s Day just because. Have the primaries in blocks of ten states at a time regionally so the candidates aren’t running all across the country, spread out two weeks apart. Total popular vote wins. Have the convention end of June and spend four months on a national dialogue. Dump the damn Electoral College system.

That’s what I’d like, but it isn’t what we have. Some voters think the party system actually cares what they want in a direct way. I say that isn’t true, and that patching over the defects by arguing that somehow “fixing” FL and MI will make it be so just perpetuates the fraud. Your viewpoint may vary.

I’m not at all trying to argue that the Party rules are morally right, or the most desirable way of doing things. I am arguing that so long as voters think they have a direct say they’ll continue on the one hand to act as though that were true instead of working to change the system, and they’ll continue to be unhappy and disaffected when things don’t go according to their projections based on false apprehension.

The voters in FL and MI certainly had time to bring pressure on the Democratic state officials to get in line with Party rules. They didn’t do that. Banging on Dean, who under the rules has no actual say, or banging on Brazile who does have control but won’t budge, is in my view useless whining. (MY view, yours of course may vary.)

From a political Overton Window perspective there is some value to Clinton in pressing Obama to change his stance, and I am bewildered as to why she isn’t being more aggressive. If I were her I’d have a presser a day just beating him on it, until he caved and gave in. Win-win for her, she gets more delegates and a boost in the popular vote but more importantly she leads on the issue and forces him to be subordinate. Carville had him by the throat; they should have squeezed him ‘till his eyes bulged.

So if the intramural politics of it is what you’re on about, by all means carry on. If anyone is convinced that “reinstating” FL and MI fixes the underlying undemocratic nature of the primary process, well, IMNSHO that’s more harm than good.

I choose all of the above. What do I care why? It’s the fear of being thrown out that matters. Won’t change all of them but it will change some, and just turning the contents of the kettle is good in and of itself. More and better primary challenges, please.

Amberglow, it is a never-ending process. There is no victory. They just keep coming. Like weeds, you have to hack at them every day or they take over.

And no, dear, I wasn’t aiming the “you” at you specifically; sorry, shouldn’t have joshed at you that way. An editorial “you” is what was meant, to the readers out there who are not as active but will read what you wrote and nod their heads and accept that it’s up to the lawmakers so what could I possibly do about it?

The people who piss me off the most are the ones who don’t participate, and that includes the nitwits who say they won’t support this or that Dem in November. Idiots. Democracy doesn’t work as well as it should because too many people are too damn lazy or stubborn or stupid to participate. End of rant.

Calling out injustice now not important. Check. Onward!

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

beyond the obvious potential to split the party, depress Democratic turnout in those states in November, and hand the presidency to McCain, is that it greatly weakens Democrats’ abilities to speak out about real voter suppression. The GOP kind.

Once you accept the principle that it’s not the voters that matter, but the rules, then it gets a lot harder to complain about votes done according to rules. The Supreme Court, which under the rules gets to be the ultimate decider in these things, said that Bush won under the rules. Likewise, when the GOP seeks to impose voter identification and other requirements, they’re just rules. What’s wrong with asking people to follow rules before their votes are counted?

In other words, it reduces us to arguing over which rules are reasonable - when a primary is scheduled, producing proof of citizenship - instead of aruing over the principle that every voter should get to vote and every vote should count. It’s a lot harder to argue against a voter identification rule when you won’t count votes in two states because they voted on the wrong day.

And, yes, I know that there are legal differences between general elections and party primaries, but most voters don’t see the distinction. All the voters know is that some votes didn’t get counted because the rules were broken.

Once you cross that threshold, where you’ve essentially agreed that votes can be discounted if rules were broken, all you’re doing is arguing over the rules. Which, again, is a lousy place for democrats to be on this issue because the GOP has been screwing Democrats over with the rules for years. But more importantly, it’s a lousy place for liberals to be because it permits the elite rulemakers to disenfranchise the voter.

And that story about Brazile’s plans is horrifying. It only makes it clearer to me why the principle of counting votes is more important than any rule - many of those making the rules, make them out of their self-interest and not because they’re trying to protect democracy. In that sense, it looks like it was in Brazile’s self-interest to enforce a rule so that it disenfranchised voters, just as it is in the GOP’s self-interest to enforce voter identification rules. It’s always in someone’s interest to suppress a vote and it’s never the voters’. Which is why we must always fight voter suppression.

L: “OK, I give. Calling out injustice now not important. Check. Onward!”

I said no such thing, nothing even close. All I’ve done is express a different viewpoint on what the root causes of the problem are and suggest that there is another way of dealing with it that strikes - in my opinion - more directly at the heart of the beast.

But now I’ve brought you to frustration, no good for anyone, and I truly had no intention of doing so - not this time. Perhaps we should for a while debate instead the relative merits of certain vegetables; there’s no looming shortage of political topics on which to disagree, and the spring garden will not wait.

— whether the system is f*cked or not.

And participation is vital at all levels and desperately needed—that’s why any hint of denigration/dismissal of actual voters who actually DID get off their asses and come out and participate is so horrible.

And the fact that so many Democrats can’t see that, has made me so sad this primary season.

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

Shorter bringiton:

It’s useless to call bullshit now on FL and MI because there is, in fact, no bullshit to be called.

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

Sometimes it helps to paraphrase, as I don’t memorize these posts.
btw the entire Michigan and Florida thing was complete BS. I might even say it again in 5 years.

[ ] Hitler (D) in the general. [X] Cthulhu, is my (R) homeboy.