More primary shenanigans threaten to divide Dems further

This is beginning to get out of hand.

There are people -- largely Clinton supporters, of course -- planning to protest -- yes, actually protest -- about the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan. Not surprisingly, the Clinton supporters are most vocal in demanding that the election results from those states in January stand as is. The DNC committee in charge, the Rules Committee, meets tomorrow in Washington.

Among those who may go to bat for Florida on Saturday: Florida Democratic Party chairman Karen Thurman, Florida's Sen. Bill Nelson and DNC petitioner Jon Ausman.

"Clearly, (Nelson) is going to let the committee know his preference that the entire delegation be seated in accordance with the votes that were cast in January," said Bryan Gulley, a spokesman for Nelson, who endorsed Clinton.

"This isn't about Obama or Clinton," Gulley said. "It's about doing the right thing and seating the entire delegation. We want to make sure Florida is seated at the convention and that their voice is heard."

[...]

Outside the meeting, several hundred Floridians plan to protest on the sidewalk in front of the Marriott-Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Many of them will be Clinton supporters, but others say they are simply angry at the party.

"To say that we don't matter because of a rule that was not of our doing, that's unconscionable," said Blaine Whitford, who is a "special events" organizer for a group called Florida Demands Representation. "I don't mean to sound jaded, but I am. I prefer Democratic policies on the whole, but I don't like this. We don't elect presidents from 48 states in this country."

Florida Demands Representation and Florida Hispanic Caucus said they had 700 people register for the bus trip to Washington, which could get on the highway as early as today. Also, a group of Clinton supporters called Hillary Rapid Responders will be there. The Clinton campaign on Wednesday eagerly pointed out all the protesters, denying they had a hand in organizing it.

I've never seen such internecine squabbling within one party in my life. (Admittedly, I was just a tot in 1968, so forgive me if my political memory doesn't stretch back quite that far.) The Clinton backers really will stop at nothing to promote their candidate, even if it means that Huggy Bear gets a boost, or even wins the election in November.

This is unconscionable. Can't the Clinton supporters see that the country would be vastly better off with a President Obama than with a President Huggy? Don't they realize that if the tables were turned, Sen. Obama would have stepped aside long ago? In short: what the fuck is wrong with you people?

Any rational, objective observer can see that the only fair way to fix the Florida-Michigan mess is to have a do-over -- a new primary or a caucus or something, as long as it was a fresh start and run as fairly as the primaries and caucuses in other states have been. Why? Because the January primaries weren't fair and weren't necessarily an accurate representation of the voters' wishes. You just can't seat delegates based on those primaries -- period. In Florida, many Democrats stayed home rather than vote in what they thought might be a meaningless primary. Michigan's case is even starker, as Sen. Obama wasn't even on the ballot there, while Sen. Clinton was. Any contention that either primary, especially Michigan's, was fair is a farcical argument on its face.

Of course, the Democratic Party in each state decided, in their infinite wisdom (yes, that's snark), that a revote just wasn't going to be possible -- I don't know about Michigan, but I'm sure the fact that the decisionmakers in Florida are Clinton supporters was purely coincidence (that's not just snark, that's outright sarcasm, people).

This has gone far enough. The time to unify behind a single candidate is now -- well, actually, it was weeks ago, but now is the best we can do at this point. We can gripe about why things are the way they are and why the DNC screwed up and why Florida sucks, etc., until we're blue in the face. But it's far more important to make sure that America is blue on the map in November.

Quit fighting each other and start fighting the Republicans. Before it's too late.