Zzzzzzzzz.

david gergen was right, last night on "a" daily show.

he said that the democrats were shooting themselves in the foor by ignoring the two huge states of michigan and florida.

i think hillary is on to something. she knows dems will need florida in november and is there to tell them she wants their votes. if obama is the nominee, you can kiss florida goodbye.

It's so noble of Hillary to fight the disenfranchisement of Michigan and Florida. She's going to take a lot of hits for it, what with it looking so disingenuous to all of a sudden want to count these votes now that they are in her favor, and it take courage to be willing to look like such a hypocrite. Obviously, anybody would wish she had taken up this cause before it was so blatantly self-serving -- blatantly self-serving looking, I mean.

But it's too late for that; better late than never, right?

Glad to see that Hillary will win at all costs, even if it means claiming delegates from a state that violated party rules...

Here we go again...just more of the lying, cheating, winner take all mentality of the cutthroad Clintonista campaign...

It's nice to see Billary feels so powerful that she gets to make the rules as she goes along.

Geessshhhhh

I can't believe that anyone will stand up for this idiot.

Hillary was the only major Dem candidate not to withdraw from Michigan, too. I guess party discipline does not apply to prima donnas.

Given the demographics of FL, Clinton will get at least 55% of the votes. Obama will be lucky to get 30%.

mccain will most likely win florida for the GOP. latinos there remember his kennedy-mccain package as the only true attempt at immigration reform.

for the dems obama would have lost it, it is a very smart move for him to stay out of a state that makes little or no difference to him, and who knows, im thinking people in florida would not have voted for the candidate who voted to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border (Barack Obama.

the latino vote is huge, and the small ultra right wing cuban american vote, which guliani was counting on is no longer as big as it use to be, specially in dade county.

obama is going to have problems in Cali and Texas with the latino vote, specially after the United Farm Workers, Dolores Huerta, and Antonio Villaraigosa decided to back HRC. Obama does very well with younger Latinos, but their vote is small compared to the older folks. he should keep working at getting them (young latinos) to turn out in big numbers.

edwards is gone so im just staying out. whoever wins the nomination gets my wee vote.

Hillary is so fucking slimy. NOW she wants to seat the Florida delegates? How big of you Hillary! And I suppose it is just coincidentally because you're winning there? Where was your voice about the situation months and months ago?

Hey, if Hillary wins the nomination I will begrudgingly vote for her as a card-carrying Democrat. I might even be somewhat happy if she wins. I will NOT, however, be proud. Obama makes me proud.

To be fair, she HAS to get those delegates counted. Even though, if I recall correctly, the exclusion of them was done by the party machine that she controls.

Fighting elections is starting to look like fighting wars. People always get caught out fighting the LAST war. The Florida-Michigan strategy, of becoming "more important" by voting earlier, has backfired horribly -- there's no benefit to being early this year, quite the opposite; and now they don't count. I think the DNC is absolutely right to punish them, but they've punished themselves more like.

Just another reason for me to want Obama.

Don't kid yourself. The candidates have all mounted "stealth" campaigns in Florida.

As a lifelong Democrat, it's always alternatingly amusing and embarassing to watch my party try to herd the cats.

The Republicans are much more able to keep their minions in order.

But hell, that's why I'm a Democrat. Our house may be full of a lot of competing voices, but the party leadership is less apt to impose some sort of fascistic rule--even among its own rank and file.

Now if it can just get (or keep) its shit together and win in November, regardless of who's on the ticket...

Most of the dirty tricks from the Hillary campaign didn't really make me respect her much less as a candidate. This makes me respect her much less as a candidate. She had her opportunity to complain about the disenfranchisement of Floridans long before it suddenly turned out to work against her electorally.

The truth is, it was 100% wrong of Obama, Edwards and Clinton to agree to the disenfranchisement of those in Florida and Michigan. Period. It was wrong of the DNC and the three front-runners should have fought it.

I don't think the Michigan delegates should be seated since Obama and Edwards weren't on the ballot, but I do think the Floridians should. And regardless, I see nothing wrong with Clinton hosting a rally there tonight. Just because the DNC are a bunch of tools, doesn't mean that Florida Dems have ceased to exist.

@ tsm, honestly this whole flap makes me respect all three Dems much less as candidates. How can we Democrats claim to be a party of the people when we willingly disenfranchise millions in two populous states?

Yes, Hillary should have fought this earlier, but Obama the "dis-establishment candidate" should also have never gone along with this.

I would like to congratulate Sen Edwards on his upcoming surprising surge of support in Florida, where he came from behind to manage to be neck-and-neck with both Sen Obama and Sen Clinton in getting an amazing ZERO delegates from Florida!

Good show, Sen Edwards, it's obvious that by pulling off this surprise upset, you've proven you are not to be discounted!

you know, i'm going to say this knowing that my hillary love has rung loud and clear in other comments, and knowing that someone might think i'm only saying this because i have hillary love.

but, honestly, she's the only one treating this with some level of reality. it's not the voters of michigan and florida who are to blame for their stupid party heads. any democrat who winds up with the nomination is going to want to have sympathetic michiganders and floridians in their pocket, and i think it's smart of hillary to have not ignored them on principle.

and i really don't think she's doing so out of purely self-serving motivation. i think she's doing it because she understands the way politics work, and that it's not worth it to punish the electorate for the stupid squabbling between politicians. i've never though obama really got how politics works, and this is another example.

i hope he appreciates how much work he'll have to make up for in those states if/when he gets the nomination. because lord knows mccain won't have to do any extra work there. and niether will hillary if/when she enters the generals. (ok that sounded dirty.)

@14 - Agreed that the artificially maintained supremacy of Iowa/NH is dumb and the candidates were cowardly. Hell, almost everyone agrees with that. Those agreements the candidates signed were cheap pandering by all of them to those two states. Hillary is just compounding the pander by trying to re-enfranchise for fun and profit now, particularly in the case of Michigan.

The problem is, if they don't punish them, everyone will do it, and the 2012 primaries will be held in 2010. The only way they should seat the delegates is if a serious agreement is made on regional primaries, six of them or so, held on successive Tuesdays in June or July.

and i really don't think she's doing so out of purely self-serving motivation.

Of course! It's purely coincidental that Hillary wants the results of a primary that didn't even include her opponents on the ballot to suddenly matter again. The fact that she wasn't bothered by this until after she won it is purely coincidental, too.

@ 7,
Clinton also voted for the border fence, as did every other Senate Democrat who cast a vote, with the exception of Feingold. As a Latino, I am more concerned by Hillary doing an about-face on driver's licenses after she started to catch hell for it. I don't trust Hillary not to sell us out again whenever it becomes politically expedient.

There is the old saying that progressive movements go to the Democratic party to die. I stated weeks ago that the disenfranchisement of Florida and Michigan by the DNC might of shot the hopes of a Dem in the white house in the head. This is the same DNC that empowered Rahm Emmanuel to fund every Blue Dog Democrat he could find for the last congressional election, and give Bush all the support he needed to keep funding the war. This is the same DNC that ran the campaigns of Gore and Kerry, and lost to the worst president this country has ever produced. It seems the DNC’s only purpose in life is to make sure progressives never have a real say on National policy. And to all you Obama fans that want to see Florida cut out of our supposed democracy, fuck you and your cult of personality. To all you Clinton fans fuck you too, and your god damned war voting candidate. That leaves me, an Edwards fan, the biggest rube of all, I cannot believe I got sucked into the Drama for a Democrat. Idiot, Idiot, Idiot. Looks like Ron Paul it is.

@20
im wit u on that man, the about face on drivers license was lame, like i said, i dont see a big difference between them (obama clinton.) theyre good enough centrists. when it comes to immigration, old man maccain has been the only one to stick his neck out, but he is so bush like on so many levels that there is no way you can support a war monger loon like him for president.

ill support whoever wins the dem nomination.

but the fact remains, obama is going to have a hard time getting the latino vote, specially with dolores huerta and villaraigosa stomping for hrc.

@22 - Nah, just with the older folks, SeMe. Obama's doing quite fine with younger folks - Hispanic, multi-racial, etc.

It's the 21st Century. Time for a rethink.

excactlly, but the younger latino vote is tiny and as incosistent as all "youth" vote. the older latino vote in ny, florida, texas and cali (specially in cali) is older and way more disciplined and then there is the fact. villaraigosa is going to be doing some stuff on univision soon so ive heard. i think obama can take the latino vote in new mexico. he certainly didnt take it in nevada.

i meant, that is a fact.

Young voters don't matter. Sad but true.