Maybe one of the many posters who agrees with the memo can explain this point to me. I don't care if the party has criticized the idea of seating these delegates, I want to know how the party is going to clean up this mess they have created. These states are going to be critical in the general election, and the Democrats are not off to a good start by disenfranchising them.

I said nothing about either candidate. Yet, soopergrover, you accuse me in rude language of "lawyering," without answering my point at all. I think there is a contradiction in the Obama camp's argument that "actual voters" are more important than "the rules," except when those voters are in Michigan and Florida.

The MI and FL primaries do not affect the delegate count (as of now) but they do, of course, affect the popular vote: people there voted. Whether and how you count Michigan's "uncommitted" votes, Florida's votes, caucus votes, votes in places that don't vote in the general election, or what have you, is all up for debate, however, which is why it is so ridiculous that anybody talks about "the popular vote" as if it were some kind of objective, empirical truth.

All the complaining from Obama supporters about "the rules" misses the point that the reason there are superdelegates in the first place is for precisely this situation, in which more than one candidate gains a large share of delegates. Pledged delegates are an imperfect measure of popular support, as proven (tacitly) by the mantra of the "Why won't she drop out already?" crowd that Obama not only has more pledged delegates, but also "more states" and more of the popular vote. As someone who votes in a state where the electoral college tally breaks double digits, I don't care for it when pundits lump CA - where the margin of victory was 400,000 votes - in with, say, CO, where 120,000 people caucused in total.

If we had a system with 50 state primaries (plus District of Columbia, territories, etc.) in which the winner of the popular vote became the nominee, there would be nothing to argue about. What we have instead is a sea of asterisks, inconsistency, and spin. If you don't think it's fair to your candidate, you're right. The candidates will make their cases to the superdelegates. And we can all hope for better "rules" next time.

I agree with you that it is unfair to the candidates and to the non-line-jumping states to count the MI and FL results as-is. I also agree that the democratic party cannot write off the "red states" - I did not even use that term in my post. However, your argument contains a fundamental contradiction - rampant among Obama supporters - in arguing that we cannot possibly count all of the states in the primary while insisting that of course we must go after all of the states in the general. (And yes, there are Clinton supporters who seem to argue the opposite.) Ever since it became clear that Super Tuesday was not decisive, a re-vote was obviously the best way out of the MI & FL mess. Remember, when those states were told they would get no delegates, everyone assumed this thing would be over, one way or another, by Feb 5. That, of course, is why MI & FL moved up their dates in the first place. If they were to hold re-votes (which doesn't look likely) there would be nothing to grit your teeth over - the only thing wrong with the original votes was that they were held too early. A re-vote would also not give them "disproportionate" influence, especially in this weirdly momentum-free campaign. It is their influence now - two large crucial swing states with no representation at the convention - which is out of proportion. I expect there will be some resolution which gives each candidate some share of the disputed delegates. Maybe you saw Terry McAuliffe tell Tim Russert that their side would accept a 50% reduction in the MI & FL delegations. I'm not sure exactly how this affects the math, but I think both sides could live with it. If as you say, we shouldn't anger Democrats in the "red states" by counting them out, then surely we shouldn't do it in the purple ones? An outcome along these lines may not be the best option, but it is probably the best option left.

Finally, caucuses did not become undemocratic when Clinton started losing them. My point about the popular vote total was that adding primary votes to caucus votes is like adding apples and oranges, so how you go about doing this depends on your level of statistical purism. Also, some states do not release the actual vote totals from caucuses. Caucuses are undemocratic on many levels and really should not be a part of our primary system. No secret ballot, no absentee ballot, the requirement to come at a specific time and stay for the duration, and above all the abysmally low turnout; I can only believe that they have survived this long because they have never had so much influence before. That, and because they are cheap.

I thought my friend was crazy when she said her kids loved this '80s version with Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, and Linda Rondstat, but my kids did, too! While they don't usually watch it from beginning to end (they are 5 and 2) and don't really follow the plot, who cares? They have requested it again and again.

I remembered some of my own long-ago favorites from this list - I haven't thought about Rats of NIMH or The Point in forever. I must join the protest against the exclusion of Pixar. I have watched Cars dozens of times, but I still don't cringe when that is the requested fare, and it's not even my favorite of the bunch (that would be one of the Toy Stories or maybe Nemo).