Your view uses at the very least Hillary Spin and at worst fuzzy math when you attempt to refute the "will of the people" position by not saying you conviently added in the votes of Florida and Michigan which to date has been disqualified. Remove those totals and the disparity between votes for Obama and Clinton becomes much greater.

Additionally, having worked on local races where the difference between winner and loser were less than 5 votes, I'd argue that that is how democracy works. An election decided by a single voter is still the will of the people. (An election decided by a single Supreme Court Justice is another matter completely.)

Then your argument that Clinton wins where only Democrats can vote...well NJ allowed independents to vote in the primary so so much for that argument. Besides Democrats in each state decided what THIER rules would be. Who are you or I to somehow rule that thier standards are less righteous than ours.

Finally your plea that readers investigate the matters of Republicans supporting Obama for nefarious reasons. I'd suggest they google Republicans supporting Hillary and they will find the likes of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh in those many links.

Being a Democrat means being fair minded. I suggest that it may be time for you to turn in your membership card.

The candidates didn't agree to the rules. The rules were drafted by the party, and subject to the laws of the states.

What an imbecile.

Any Dem candidate can win NY, CA, MA, NJ, if John Kerry won there so can Obama. But this is a delegate contest. So whoever has the most delegates should win. 

Remember, Michael Dukakis won all the 'big' states but he lost big time. 

maybe I'm wrong but it seems like the Obama supporters have a real dislike of Hillary.

I support Hillary and want her to win but don't despise Obama.

I guess thats what happens when you get a lot of younger people involved in politics for the first time.

No, the candidates DID actually sign off on the rules

 http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2008/2/25/editorialFollowDncRulesOnSeatingDelegates

(one of MANY articles) 

The math you're using is not only wrong because of the additions of Florida and Michigan, but also because most of the caucuses don't record the number of votes. That's not how caucuses work.

Regardless, the delegates, who are allotted however the states prescribe, choose the nominee. Part of being a Democrat is believing in fairness and rule of law. And if you are willing to throw that all out the window because you don't like how the rules play out, you may need to question how REAL of a Democrat you are. You can actively take steps to change the rules, but trying to subvert them is antithetical to being a Democrat.

And your claim that the "will of the people" is somehow behind Clinton because Republicans and Independents are sometimes allowed to vote in the Democratic Primaries, you may want to check the national polls of DEMOCRATS...lately Obama has been ahead (www.realclearpolitics.com)

Your assertion that Republicans are voting for Obama because they are afraid of Clinton, despite what some websites may say, a Clinton candidacy is probably more advantageous to the Republican cause. McCain does not motivate those on the far right. They may stay home on Election Day. But if Hillary Clinton is the nominee, many of these folks start to foam at the mouth. Not that their visceral reaction is at all warranted, it isn't. But Clinton-hysteria will be back in full swing if she is the nominee. At this point her candidacy would most likely: a) depress the unprecedented enthusiasm we’ve seen this year but killing hope; b) drive most all moderates, Independents, and some centrist Democrats over to McCain and; c) motivate the wing-nuts to go to the polls in droves when they may otherwise stay home.

And to address the comment that hate for Clinton is the result of young (and therefore naive) voters getting involved and supporting Obama. I happen to be 24 years old. And I am supporting Obama. While I do not hate Clinton in any way, I do have a number of legitimate concerns as a Democrat and a Progressive with her and her candidacy. She has over-paid consultants up to the eyebrows; she voted the wrong way on the bankruptcy bill; she receives more money than any other Senator or Member of Congress from defense contractors, pharmaceutical & health insurance companies; she voted for the war in Iraq; she essentially endorses Bush's diplomatic policies by forcing concessions before negotiations; and from a purely pragmatic stance a Clinton-McCain contest scares the crap out of me. I am against her not because I am young and immature, but because I don't think she's right for the job, especially with the situation in Washington as it is. She can't make the changes that need to be made to get Washington to function, because she is part of the problem. She is so ingrained into the system, that she doesn’t believe that she should change it.

...McCain suffers some serious malady, which is possible since he refuses to let the American public see his medical history. The Clinton name (if not Hillary herself) has too much negative baggage attached to it, and that will only increase if it appears that Clinton wins the Democratic nomination by manipluation and political dealmaking.

Enough with the Bush-Clinton dynasties. When is Obama going to put Clinton on the defensive? A simple Powerpoint presentation enumerating the various aspects of the Clinton legacy should be enough. Whitewater, the Rose Law Firm, a disastrous health care plan, Vince Foster, Paula Jones/Monica Lewinsky, campaign finance irregularities, Bill's perjury, Kenneth Starr, Travelgate, pimping the Lincoln Bedroom, questionable pardons, etc., etc.

Is this the "experience" people want in the White House? I guess after two terms of a corrupt Bush administration, anything is an improvement...

The problem with counting the current Michigan and Florida results is that no one campaigned there (actually Obama did run a commerical in Florida for a short time). If the candidatez were allowed to campaign how would that be prjudicial to anyone? If anything, it would seem to advantage the candidate  with more money Obama.

This is not a second chance shot for anyone (well, maybe Obama); it's a first chance shot for everyone.

If you are so set on blind enforcement of the rules, the remember, the rules explicitly say the super-delegates get to vote for whoever they want.

Seems to me that Democracy is the better solution.  

And clearly the campaigns will agree to whatever the states ask for. What choice do they have? If they oppose it, and then a contest is held, they'll be screwed in the contest. If they oppose it, and the contest is not held, they'll be screwed in November.

Rock and I disagree about our choice for the nominee, but are in complete agreement about Michigan and Florida's delegates not being seated based on their pre-Super-duper-Tuesday primaries. I think it's a wrong headed strategy for Hillary to be claiming that these primaries should count.

As to "redos," I think they should.  Howard Dean has said the DNC will not pay for them to rerun them and think it's a correct decision to make. These states violated the DNC's plan and their citizens have to live with that, unless they come up with the money to redo them themeselves. The DNC should be spending money on getting a Democrat in the White House, increasing our majorities in both houses of Congress, as well as supporting local races. It would be a huge giveaway to the GOP for the DNC to spend the millions it would take to pay for FL and MI to fix their arogant mistakes. (I think they thought it would all be over with Hillary winning that all would be forgiven and there'd be little issue with their delegates being seated, which is what would have happened if Hillary had clinched the nomination early).

Why is including Super Delegates in the decision making any more or less democratic than including the Caucus Delegates?  The Caucus Delegates are chosen by regular folks who came out on a single night to argue with each other and the Super Delegates are either office holders, party elders or individuals who petitioned and were elected to their positions.  Why are they of less democratic character than someone in Iowa who had a four wheel drive to get through the snow to the high school gym?

 I like Obama and will have no trouble voting for him. But, holding the party to a naive, unsupportable standard in democratic bonafides will just help the Republicans.  Partys exist to win elections.  Party democracy is unimportant if it doesn't help win elections.

 There are lots of good reasons for a do-over in Michigan and Florida not the least of which it will be a good motivator of democratic voters before November.  However, both states wanted to leap ahead of everyone else presuming the election would be decided by now.  What a surprise, it wasn't.  Now they will get a second bite of the apple.  Looks like a good spring for the auto industry and social security.

Voters in every state follow the rules of voting organized by both or all the parties involved.  So if you're going to point fingers and place blame, place it not on the voters but where it belongs - on the party leadership and representatives at the state and national level. 

Of course it's not the people who should be blamed. What people fail to comprehend is that Primaries are about party, not really Democracy, and each state, etc. has it's own way to pick 'em, hence we have more than 50 ways of picking delegates (50 states, DC, PR, VI, Guam, Micronesia?, American Samoa? are there others?). SOH's point regarding "Democrats" choice though, doesn't really resonate. States have the choice of who to allow to vote in their primaries. You can't change the rules mid-stream.

Here's a little known fact: Howard Dean won the NH Primary in 2004 among Democrats who were Democrats the day of the Primary. Independents and Republicans with nothing to do becuause no one ran against Dubya changed their registration to Democrat the day of to vote voted for Kerry in droves. But that's the system. We ended up with John Kerry because of Republicans. I wish I could say it was a conspiracy, but probably a lot of them hated Dubya by then. I think Dean would be president now because he had legions of supporters (more volunteers than every other Dem COMBINED), plus he had the anti-Bush Vote (which is pretty much all Kerry had). But, NH has an open primary, oh well, so we got 4 more years of Bush.

It is important to remember that the Democratic Party has lost many potential members due to the uninspiring nature of its politics and, unfortunately, much of its leadership.

Right here in New York City, an overwhelmingly Democratic town, thousands of registered voters in each Congressional District are either members of smaller, left-leaning political parties or, more importantly, not enrolled in ANY party.

Rather than insist on being the rulers of our sandbox simply because we have been in it longer, we must be inclusive in our appeal to potential Democratic Party supporters -- particularly on the left of the ideological spectrum (I really don't care about the anti-choice and homophobic folks).  Accordingly, there must be candidates and officeholders who personify that appeal.

Senator Barack Obama has stepped up to fill in an important void within our Party.  We should be thrilled.

As an Alternate Delegate for Obama, I believe he will eventually win the Democratic nomination.  If he does, some have said he should offer the VP position to Senator Clinton.  There are important pros and serious cons regarding such a move (should she accept.)  Some have said that he must, at a minimum, offer the position to a woman other than Clinton.  This has some cons but more pros in my book.

Looking the other way, however, the constraints are greater.  If Clinton manages to win the nomination, it will be the result of much ugliness and negativity and, frankly, she MUST offer it to Obama in order to unify the Party.  Whether or not he chooses to accept will be a whole other discussion.

Nothin' like makin' history!

Maybe Rock, but conceivably she could arrive with the popular vote with a dominant performance in the core Democratic States.  That could turn the superdelegates who were wisely put in place to decide very close contests with the sole goal of actually winning the election.  Maybe Obama will have enough of a lead that won't work.  In the end though Clinton needs Obamas voters to defeat McCain and vice versa.

 The superdelegates have a much higher level of democratic legitimacy than do the caucus delegates.  The caucuses discriminate against those who have to go to work tomorrow and don't have time to waste four or five hours being yelled at by some college kid.

Rock: Looking foward to it.