MI and FL are spoiled results and they can't be treated like any other primaries

[George_Bonanza]

In MI, Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot. Some may argue that it was his (and Edwards' and a bunch of other candidates') choice, but nevertheless, trying to validate the results of essentially a one-candidate "contest" is an insult to democracy. Plus, Hillary herself said that MI should not count, but I guess she left her name on just in case she needed a backdoor plan to subvert democratic values in order to catch up in the delegate count. And how are we supposed to divide the "Uncommitted" votes? How are we supposed to tell the difference between an "Uncommitted for Edwards" and an "Uncommitted for Obama"? Are we just supposed to guess. Are we just supposed to give it all to Obama? No wait, THAT'S ludicrous and undemocratic.

In FL, there was confusion among the voters about whether or not their votes would only be significant in a beauty contest. Hillary partisans can scream "1.7 million!" until they turn red in the face, but the embarrassing fact is that the Republican turnout was even larger, which goes to show that there was a mass Democratic electorate that did not show up (unless you try to argue that Romney, McCain, and Giuliani are more electrifying than Hillary or Obama). Some may argue that a large enough sample is enough to validate results from FL, but using that logic, why not let Rasmussen or Zogby just do the primaries for us? Why bother letting everybody vote when you can just take a cross-section and hope that it accurately reflects the true sentiment of the electorate? Making assumptions about how people would've voted is no way to run a democracy. There's no way to know whether or not the confused folks that decided not to vote would've made much of a difference, but there's also no way to know that they wouldn't have made a difference. And in a healthy democracy, that shred of doubt should automatically spoil the results. Unless, of course, you proscribe to the Republican school of thought where Supreme Courts should be allowed to decide elections.

I don't advocate completely shutting out MI and FL, though they must be punished in order to maintain the credibility and order of the Democratic primary process. But there's no way that I'm going to tolerate the anti-democratic agenda of Penn and Ickes, and if they somehow succeed in pressuring Dean and the DNC to cave in, I'm going to campaign for McCain in protest of one of the most cynically and selfishly anti-democratic maneuvers in recent political memory.

[stray cat]

1. I agree but will vote for the dem rather than McCain

the repubs have such a great reputation for taking away my civil liberties, my economic well being, my employment, my health care and my social security and minimal but helpful pension.

[George_Bonanza]

2. I'd rather vote for the bastard who won fair rather than the bastard who cheated