Florida and Michigan aren't going to help Hillary. Let's say she gets the best possible compromise: Florida delegates divided as is and Obama getting all the undecided vote in Michigan. This scenario, which would be fantasically unfair to Obama and to the states that followed the rules, would net her about 58 delegates and about 35 going to Edwards and Kucinich. After the Montana and South Dakota primaries are done it would still leave her around 100 pledged delegates behind Obama. Possibly more depending on what Edwards decides to do with his delegates (or as in Iowa, Edwards' supporters decide who to support).

She would still have fewer states and fewer votes (even if you exclude the four caucus states that don't release individual votes).

This leaves her in the same place she was after Wisconsin: having to convince Superdelegates to vote differently than the regular voters. A case that will rest on the notion that things have changed since February so it is ok to go against those voters because they would have changed their minds.

However, this will be a case made to people that know she is only in striking distance because of the results of two blatantly unfair contests that occured in _January_. It will also be case made to an audience that will not have seen a seismic shift in voter support for Clinton in the final contests. She will also be facing this challenge without the Superdelegate advantage she had when she first pinned her hopes on victory by superdelegate decision.

Basically, she will have to stand in front of the remaining undecided delegates and say, "Yes, even after being given a huge gift in the form of Florida and Michigan, I still failed to beat Obama by any reasonable metric. He got more states, more votes, more pledged delegates.

He has set fundraising records while I had to loan myself money. We saw every state have record turn out, where first time primary voters and first time Democratic voters and they heavly voted for him. He has grassroots campaign orgainizations in every state. He have over 1.5 millon campaign donors. His base is people that will be voting over the next 50-80 years. My base is people eligible for Medicare.

However, I'm a winner. Therefore you should endorse me at a 3 to 1 margin."

Basically, the Florida/Michigan/Superdelgate coup was only plausible at the time where she still had an opportunity to prove that she could win big against Obama. A time where she could have shown that she could retool her campaign and attack Obama well enough that she could win states like Texas or Indiana to the same degree that he won states like Wisconsin or Maine.

Maybe I am missing something but I can only think of two reasons why trafficking occurs in countries where prostitution is already legal.

The first is that the guys seeking out the services of underground prostitution are seeking a service that is unavailable in the legitimate market. The most obvious would be men seeking underaged women. However, there is probably an wide ranging number of dangerous things that a guy could want that a legal prostitute, in a position to give or deny consent, would not do. Obviously, this campaign won't affect those types of consumers.

The second is that sex trafficking probably occurs for the same reason that regular trafficking occurs: trafficked sex workers probably provide a similar service at a lower price. The same way that the guys in the Home Depot parking lot will work for less than a Union carpenter.

This aspect may be where the campaign will have the best effect. By tying the cheaper prostitutes to an unethical action they can push people to willing pay more for an ethical service. The same way people pay more for organic foods, sweat-shop free clothes, fair trade coffee, and dolphin-free tuna.

"To all who would like to get rid of the superdelegates, there still needs to be a mechanism to counter possible mischief by republicans trying to pervert the process by voting in democratic primaries."

For Republicans to actually cause mischief the contest would have to be close. If it is that close both people running would probably be good candidates. Hillary would have been a good enough candidate, she just didn't win.

This week I was reminded of what can be good about the drawn out contest. Hillary was in Portland restating the case for mandated health care for everyone as opposed to just madating it for minors. I don't agree with that point of her plan, but I do think it is great that the terms of the debate is what policies to put in place in order to cover the uninsured/underinsured. If it were just Obama and McCain the debate would regress to "Should we have universal access to health care?"

It is like: if you really love apples, you want to hear grocers arguing over whether to stock Golden Delicious apples or Red Apples. The chances of apple delivery drops when the grocers are arguing over whether to stock apples or prune juice.

I'd love to have multi-party system but our current electoral process doesn't really support it.

I like the Libertarian party because it does a better job of clarifing who their voters are. If a Democrat or a Republican wins an election it is tough to tell what the mandate is for, there are just too many shades of Democrat and Republican.

I also like the someone with Bob Barr's recognition level is running as a third party candidate.

I think he has a better chance of getting the nom than Mike Gravel or Ron Paul. There are a lot of states that have "sore loser" laws that prevent primary losers from being on the November ballot. Assuming that the Libertarians want to run a real campaign they are going to have to be able to get on the ballot in as many states as possible.