First of all, we are nowhere near deadlock and if that occurs then let the super delegates choose - that's why they were created. Do not do anything about Florida and Michigan - certainly don't let them cast ballots - why reward bad behaviour (on both their part and on Hilary Clinton's)? Same thing when it comes to redoing the primaries. As it turns out, if they had waited they would have been players in this drama - let it be a lesson. When it comes down to it I doubt that Democratic voters in either state are going to vote Republican (or not vote at all) in a fit of pique and the Republicans who might cross over could care less whether the delegations are seated at the convention or not.

It would be unfair to the voters in the two states who made it to the polls in January to have to repeat the process under different circumstances. A revote would just disenfranchise them, in essence.

A more fair way to enforce the party rules would be to penalize those who made this dumb decision in the first place, i.e. the SUPER delegates of those states. In other words, count the votes that were cast in the primaries, and apportion the elected delegates according to vote distribution. But penalize the superdelegates by taking away their voting privileges. Isn't that simple?

Well, maybe in FL where everyone was on the ballot, nobody campaigned (exept for Obama who was running ads on cable), it could be pretty straightforward.

In MI, perhaps a little more complicated because so many candidates took their names off the ballot (what were they thinking?), but there must be some way for those candidates to get together and decide what to do with the "undecided" votes that were lumped together as the anti-Hillary vote. Or just give them to Obama by default, something along those lines.

But the penalty for MI and FL for breaking the rules should fall on the superdelegates who decided to break the rules, not on the millions of voters who went to the polls.

Sorry if someone else suggested this... I didn't have time to read all the letters.

If Hillary Clinton doesn't want to be portrayed as conniving and unethical, here's a couple suggestions for her:

Quit conniving.

Be ethical.

Your average 7-year-old on the playground understands that changing the rules in the middle of the game is cheating.

And spare us the sanctimonious utterances about disenfranchising Michigan and Florida.

Clinton didn't care about that until she went 0-for-February, and if she could figure out some other way to rig the game, she'd go right back to not caring about it.

Lots of retired people in Florida, who would go to the primary to vote just for the fun of it or who would vote on principle, even if they knew it wouldn't count. They're retired, they have a lot of time on their hands, and they're more likely to view the voting process as its own reward, whether or not it means anything. This is HRC's block, and they turned out and voted.

On the other hand, Obama's block of younger working professionals are more likely to skip a meaningless exercise where the results don't matter. They're working class, more likely to have younger children which makes finding time to vote a hassle, and wouldn't typically view going through the motions of voting as a reward in and of itself.

There is a generational difference in mindset here, and I'd bet if Florida does re-vote, you'll see more overall votes, with the split being about the same numbers for HRC but more votes for Obama.

hillary will slash and burn the party before she can even think of conceding. there are scenarios:

--if she somehow manages to wrangle out a nomination, Obama supporters will leave the party

--if she is nominated, McCain will be a shoe in. Make no mistake about it

--if Obama wins the nomination, hillary will pull a lieberman and then McCain will ask her to run as his VP.

hillary is a lieberman Democrat. She is a stealth republican. Just consider how bill and hillary moved the DNC to the right in their terms of office.

Hell no. For the Democratic Party, already on the verge of imploding (yet again) and losing another un-loseable election, to jury rig the rules mid-stream to placate Princess Hillary might just be the last straw. Let the process, fractured and flawed as it is, continue as advertised. If you want to redesign it next time around, all well and good. For now, absolutely positively not. No.

They are acting the way democrats have been acting for the last 8 years. Don't worry, it is all part of the show. How do you like the idea of President Romney?

Does it really make any difference who will be in the white house when we attack Iran or Pakistan?

Who do you want to get the blame? The democrats or the republicans?

America gets the blame and the taxpayer's grandchildren will be paying for it. It's no problem for those who vote for these criminal idiots. Let's party like it's 1999. Screw the world screw our children and screw their children - we don't care about anything except what the msm tells us to care about.

I guess they were right about Y2K - the whole thing has gone to hell in a handbasket.

There were other things on the ballot. Not just a "pointless" primary. Nice try though. Obama lost. Just be glad it probably won't count.

Thanks for the link. We seem to be recycling a lot of material on this topic lately, so it would be great just to be able to drop in a prior letter thread that one thought definitive. Plus someone could look at it without copying and pasting links. [That's a hint to Manjoo to start hacking the slashcode].

I'm pissed at the party heads (though 'tails' may be more accurate) over FL & MI. Even at Dean, who's the advocate of the 50 state strategy. Where was the outrage before all the voting started?

We've always had this tension between small states and big ones, it's why we have a house and senate. So I can see cutting a primary deal with dinky states like IA and NH; though I think a rotation scheme is overall fairer. We are supposed to be a nation of rules, though steadfastness in that idea continues to erode. No matter what happens now, we're in the middle of the contest and somebody will feel ripped-off no matter how the issue is resolved.

As far as the joint ticket goes, I have no clue. I think I feel the same as I did before March 4th. We need to keep going. Now the dust (and the TX caucus votes) needs to settle from the 4th. I'd like to see what McCain does as well. He's already re-positioning himself away from the 100 years in Iraq stance.

One question in my mind would be, "will a joint ticket increase or decrease chances for success"?. Always a judgement call.