Michigan and Florida

The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws committee will decide whether and how to seat Florida's and Michigan's delegations on May 31st. Clinton is pushing them to seat those delegates and allow them to vote, as that would favor her candidacy.

But where was Clinton's tongue when the rules were being made? Had she said then that she would fight as long as it takes to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations, then, obviously, the other candidates would not have agreed not to campaign in those states, nor to keep their names off the ballot.

You see-- this is what really bothers me and a lot of people about Hillary. She acts like this is some important democratic principle, that every vote be counted. But can you even imagine her still making that argument if she had lost those states? Is that even conceivable to anybody? She'd be saying the same arguments that are so obvious to everybody else: that it's not fair to change the rules in the middle of an election. Election monitors condemn elections when they do that in other countries. And while I happen to prefer Obama, I would still hold this position, even if Obama had won these states, and even if he needed these states in order to win the election. Because it's right. It's so obviously right. How is it fair to anybody to tell people that an election doesn't count, and then let people vote or stay home based on that, and then decide that you're going to count the election after all? Is that really a democratic ideal in action? Hillary isn't fooling anybody.

But it's all neither here nor there. Clinton would only pick up a net gain of 56 delegates, even if those results were to stand. That's not insignificant, but it would still leave Obama with a pledged delegate lead of more than 100. She's alienating fair-minded people everywhere, and for nothing.