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Of course, a wrangle over the symbolic significance of toting up the primary vote from an island that is not permitted to vote for president in November could cause problems for a party that already is facing fault lines over race and gender.
Puerto Rico will deliver as many electoral votes for the Democratic nominee in 2008 as Alabama, Alaska, the Carolinas, the Dakotas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Mississippi, Texas, Utah and Wyoming combined; that is to say, Zero.
And if consistency with the rules governing the General Election is the criteria, then the Democratic Party should be prepared in 2012 to ditch caucuses, super delegates and the proportional allocation of elected delegates.
A draconian decision may well cost the Democrats electoral votes against McCain, but a permissive ruling would definitely undermine the party's authority over future primaries.
Under the DNC rules, New Hampshire wasn't supposed to hold its primary any earlier than January 14th; it was held on January 8th. Yet nothing has been done, or will be done to New Hampshire. So the DNC has already effectively made one permissive ruling.
Interestingly, the GOP faced the same problem with Florida, Michigan and New Hampshire all jumping the gun. Rather than play favorites, all states were stripped of half of their delegates.
