Florida and Michigan

Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, the Clinton campaign is restarting the highly controversial battle to seat the delegates from Florida and Michigan at the national convention.

The states were stripped of their delegates for moving their primaries earlier than allowed by DNC rules, presumably to guarantee that their primaries would have an effect. (Deeply ironic turn of events of course--if they hadn't moved the primaries, they would certainly have had an effect on the race. Hindsight is 20/20, all that stuff.) Thus the primaries existed as mere formalities, stunts-- Obama and Edwards weren't even on the ballot in Michigan, leading to this amusing suggestion from DailyKos.

At first glance, Hillary seems to have a point. The voters in Florida and Michigan do deserve a voice in the primary. It's democracy, right? Is it fair that state legislatures had the effect of disenfranchising large groups of citizens?

But it's not that simple: Hillary's proposal for a simple allocation of the delegates from the primary results is hardly democratic. While no one is denying that everyone deserves a vote, they also deserve the assurance of fair elections--ones where all viewpoints and candidates are given an opportunity. Howard Dean gets it right in his quote in John M. Broder's piece today in the NYT:

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, said on Thursday that it was up to the states, not the national party, to come up with a solution. But Mr. Dean ruled out seating the delegations based on the voting in January.

“You can’t change the rule in the middle of the game,” he said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” program.

Voters in Florida and Michigan are right to be upset; they should seriously consider voting out some state legislators in the next election cycle. But Hillary's faux-democratic, last-ditch grab for delegates is not the right solution.