With Senator Clinton's narrow delegate pickups in Ohio and Rhode Island and narrow delegate deficits in Texas and Vermont, today's Clinton campaign meme is, again, that the delegations from Florida and Michigan should be seated.
"There has to be a way to make them count."
Further, Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Florida has written a letter to DNC Chair Howard Dean requesting that the DNC pay for a re-vote.
Dean's response?
"[The DNC's] job now is to elect the President of the United States and we're not going to have the resources to run a primary in Michigan or Florida," Dean said on CNN's American Morning Thursday. "So we hope they can comply with the rules, but they're going to have to figure out how to pay for it."
Uh, yeah.
I'm with Howard Dean on this one.
Look, while it's true, as Senator Clinton said today, that the people of Florida had no choice when it came to the date on which they could vote, they are the ones who elected the legislators who made that decision on their behalf. That's how democracies work - we elect people to represent our interests.
Guess what? The people of Florida and Michigan elected people who did a very poor job of that. As a result, when they went to the polls, they elected no one. The DNC had already said if they voted early their delegates would be stripped, and warned the legislators in those states to move their primaries to super Tuesday or later.
The legislators played chicken with the DNC and lost. Now the politicians in those states want the DNC to pay for a redo because the state legislators made a colossal blunder? Sorry, no.
If Florida and Michigan want to have a say in this election, they should pay for a re-vote. I hope they do so, though it's going to cost the taxpayers some additional money. And I hope the taxpayers remember that when they go back to the polls the next time the legislators who did this to them are running for reelection.