Dean's Leadership

They can't let go.

A member of Hillary Clinton's national finance team has started to circulate an online petititon that urges the Democratic National Committee to recognize the delegations from Michigan and Florida or else promise to hold new elections [...]

"For whatever reason, the DNC seems to be captive of the Obama campaign," he said in an interview. "The fact is that many, many long-time supporters both financially and non-financially, that have a very different point of view. We very much want to put them on notice."

Kempner said that the petititon's language should not be interpreted by DNC chairman Howard Dean as a threat to withhold donations. But, he said, "We want the chairman to exercise some leadership."

The DNC is captive to its rules, and Dean is in fact exercising great leadership by refusing demands that the DNC bail out Florida and Michigan from its decision to break the party rules -- rules that all 48 other states decided to follow.

If Michigan and Florida get to flout the rules, then no DNC calendar can ever be enforced, which means that there's no possible way to break the Iowa and New Hampshire monopolies. If candidates can't be assured that a rule-breaking state doesn't count, then they'll be forced to campaign on those states.

Dean has already said that the DNC would recognize new contests in both Florida and Michigan. The fact that both states have passed on that option has nothing to do with Dean or Obama (he's not governor of either state, hence can't veto any such legislation). It has to do with the fact that the states which caused these problems for themselves were unable to clean up after their own mess.