The problem with the original votes in Michigan and Florida is that they do not meet these basic standards for legitimate elections as the ballots were not fully honest and legitimate, citizens may or may not have participated because of the lack of meaning in the vote, and none of the campaigns could campaign fully in the state.

An internal Party matter between national and state arms in theory - nothing to do with the candidates, other than being told what the determination is. Ditto the voters.

2. The voters in those states were then unfortunately given "mixed messages".

Record turnouts, especially in formally run primaries alongside the Republicans doing their thing, suggest most voters chose to vote "in good faith" and "just in case" it did end up being the only opportunity they were going to have during the entire season.

3. When push finally came to shove, Dean's decision, included that the candidates had to have a say?

Very odd. If its an internal Party dispute over Party rules around delegates, then the candidates should have little to do with it.

Dean effectively passed the buck to the candidates.

4. BUT - once the power was given to the candidates by the Party leadership - it was then Obama's campaign which has blocked and stalled.

Very odd indeed. I agree with you, neither candidate should have been given veto vote powers over an internal Party dispute.

That's just speaking theoretically though. Of course a nominee will have supporters in the state legislature who he or she is able to influence. And more importantly, there may be laws or rules a revote would have to satisfy that may be difficult to meet. In that case, unless both campaigns were willing to wave legal objections they could make, it might be impossible to do the revote.

My understanding is pretty superficial, so please don't take my word for any of this. But as I understand it, this has been an especially big problem in Michigan, due to the requirement that people who voted in the Republican primaries can't participate in the Democratic. In that case, depending on your point of view, Obama is either unwisely and undemocratically killing the process through raising unreasonable objections, or raising ones that while reasonable, are just too difficult to meet at this late date.

Fundamentally, the problem is all of this should have been worked out in advance. It's nuts to try to come up with a new voting process, figure out the potential problems and legal implications at this late date; it should have been started months ago. At this point, it's not clear that it's possible, and the Florida legislature has indicated virtually unanimously it doesn't want to. So the method of how the votes would be counted and the delegates selected should have been determined well in advance. At this point, we're kind of trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together.

And one could argue it actually was worked out in advance. One could argue that the Florida and Michigan legislatures decided the method they wished to use was to have an early primary, and they were content not to have the delegates counted. The potential impact they could have on the process through an early primary was worth the loss of actual delegates, which in the end wouldn't be likely make a difference (California has plenty of delegates, but in most primaries they have no impact as the results are determined by the time the primaries make it here). In practice at least, that's the decision they made. Of course the primaries stretched on longer than anyone imagined they would, the delegates really could make a crucial difference, so the states involved would like to have their delegates after all, and we'd prefer not to hurt our chances in the general election by disenfranchising two states we'll need then. But unmaking that original decision may involve breaking enough rules that we need both candidates to agree to wave them.

Consider this example. Suppose the voters in Iowa decided they wanted to do a revote. They decided they'd held their primary far too early, and as a result voted before all the information about Wright came out. They decided that it's just wasn't fair they voted without that information that so many other states had, and they want to do a revote, which would probably shift some delegates to Hillary.

So their legislature votes to do a revote, which certainly doesn't violate the restrictions against early primaries, and they inform the DNC their going to reapportion their delegates according to the new results. No problem right? No reason why the campaigns would have to agree to any such change?

Well of course there is! They want to change the rules in the middle of the game. The only conceivable way it could even be considered is if all of the candidates agreed it was fine. And of course any change that gave an advantage to one candidate or the other would never be agreed to by both.

So that's what's happening here. We want to change the rules in the middle of the game. The citizens of Florida and Michigan through their elected representatives chose to have early primaries at the cost of having their delegates seated before the convention.

This probably won't be a popular position here, where the voters are considered victims of this whole process, but in a representative democracy, citizens are considered to be responsible for the decisions their elected representatives make. I am personally responsible for the Iraq war, even though I opposed it. For example, I can't get out of paying taxes to support the costs of occupation just because I completely opposed it in the first place. In one sense, I'm a victim, but in a representative democracy, I am considered to be responsible for the decisions the government I help elect makes. It stinks. But it stinks less than dictatorship or monarchy.

So, via their representatives, Florida and Michigan voters elected to have an early primary at the cost of having their delegates seated before the convention. Those states had plenty of chances to change their minds; the DNC had mechanisms in place for caucuses or other work arounds, and those states did not take advantage of them. And now we are where we are.

And now most of us would like to change this. Florida and Michigan would like to change it, because unlike any previous primary in memory, the race has turned out to be so close that the delegates they appoint might have an effect on the outcome of the nomination, if they were allowed to participate. And we'd all like to change the rules, because no one wants to anger the voters of Florida and Michigan shortly before a crucial national election. But the time to push for a change was before the process began, because now we're trying to change the rules in midstream, and the only way to do that is to get all the parties involved to agree. And that's difficult to do. Clinton and Obama have been both consistently pursuing their own campaigns interests in all of this, which is what you'd expect them to do.

Do you remember the 1935 (and similar) Packards?

Fun cars.

when what he really means as "We'll seat them after they no longer count."

But to most people "seat them" MEANS "count them." So such headlines are deceptive.

A prolonged primary has some very dangerous risks for the democrats.  It allows republicans time and opportunity to consolodate support around McCain while Dems still stand divided between Clinton and Obama.  

There is a slight benefit in that the republicans have 2 targets to divide their attention on instead of one, but if it goes to convention it will allow the eventual nominee far less time to counter the republican juggernaught that will surely follow.

You can let your vote be pissed away all you want, but I want me vote to count, I want my neighbors votes to count and I believe in one person one vote. I believe a strong democracy depends on our votes counting.
I believe very strongly in that, I believe my vote is my most prized  right.
I believe so much in my vote and that of those who have served this country and those who have not..that i was willing years ago to do something about my vote and your vote being stolen with these corrupt voting machines, that i got off my rear end and did something about it, and educated myself about the machines. And Dug my hand into my pocket and put my money where my mouth was  to fight for audits and pay for them when the state and county would not.

My husband and i put up the money for an Audit after the 2006 election of our county voting machines..did you care enough to do anything to make sure votes were counted?

Well I did , I trained people in 2003 and 2004 to work on getting these voting machines auditable or removed from service in my county, because votes were swapping..did you care ?

I did.

My husband and son had their votes not counted because the county said their signatures did not match..they were their signatures on absentee ballots, but could anything be done to stop this practice? no..

and many in my county from the dem party voted absentee because they did not trust the Sequoia voting machines.

I have a home in another state and i was asked to be in court for 3 candidates that lost their votes by 11 , 18 and 20 votes respectfully in a very large county ..and 75 votes swapped and went to voting machines 40 minutes away by car..and no one could answer how it hbappened,the machines Sequoia were nit supposed to be hooked up to anything that could teansmit votes..so how did it happen?????????????
i was asked to inspect those machines by the candidates, and check the insides of the machines by the candidates when the judge ordered the wherehouse open and the machines inspected and new tallys run off the machines..did you care, i guess you didn't , but i do...and no there was no way to audit those machines either.

I am happy for you that you don't care enough about your vote to be disenfranchised.

I wonder did you ever fight for your vote to count, i bet not..but i have.

I was one of 5 people who tested our voting machines in 2004 after the 2004 pres election and the machine i had selected radomly out of the wherehouse swapped votes badly and was all filmed and the newspaper reporters all stood behind me and watched it happen and yet the next day on the front page of the large Fla paper the reporter reported the test went just swimmingly!..oh and we had verifiers watching what we voted into the machines..and when my machine was swapping votes..first time it took 3 times to vote Kerry, the second time it swapped it took 5 times to vote kerry, the third time it happened it took 9 times to vote Kerry...the third time " the verifier" did the random votes..oh and it only happened on Kerry votes.

And yes i do cry a river..i cry for lost democracy that you don't seem too interested in, but i do..enough to fight for the votes of those who do care and even those who don't.

There is an old saying, you never know what you have lost until it is gone..well I certainly know my vote is gone..and I watched as people didn't care enough to do anything about it, and just shrugged their shoulders..and i was told by the state and national Democratic party to be wuiet about the machines that were stealing our votes..yes they did tell myself and others to be quiet..until 18,000 votes dissapeared in 2006 in Sarasota.

 I also know people and have worked with people who have sat outside wherehouses watching to make sure voting machines were not compromised and people willing to put up the money to pay for audits and people who worked day and night to count all votes, and make sure they were counted legally and to their fullest.

So you can be cavelier, that is your right, but it is my right to make darn sure each and every persons vote is counted, and no one will tell me my vote doesn't matter.

Oh and PS: I was a crew member of one of the airlines involved on 9/11 ,I took off out of Newark ahead of UAL Flight 93..as #1 flight attendant on my flight and my airline....my co-workers died that day..they have no voice or vote ..but i will continue to work to make sure everyone else has a voice, so we are never put in that postition again in this nation, and so no one else loses Co-workers or their sons and daughters and husbands and wives, or mommy's and daddy's again.

Oh and two of my neighbors in NJ lost their sons that day as well. My neighbors think their vote is important!
I do too.

millions of people in Florida and Michigan who went to the polls aren't being heard. The delegates they elected won't be seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August -- and that's just not fair to those voters.

this is where we are headed with or without michigan and florida.

it is true that obama cannot get the magic number through pledged delegates.  but what is overlooked, is that he can get damn close even if the remaining contest play out as expected.

"I'm sorry.  We're moving apart from each other.  It's over.  We're through.  Don't call me."

The people of Florida who call themselves Democrats, who contribute to the party, canvass for the party, and vote for the party, did not have any say in the matter. We are punishing them for something over which they had no control. We are taking their votes from them because their leaders did not object strenuously enough when Republicans changed the election date.

Some of these people are quite upset. Some of them will not vote Democratic in November. Given that Florida is generally a difficult state to win, that might damage our chances of winning Florida, and that might damage our chances of winning the general election.

And Hillary Clinton supporters, or in your derogatory terms "Clintonites" believe that people have a right to have their votes counted. And upset voters aren't "contrived". You would know how upset some voters in those states are if you bothered to read their comments posted here. But you would rather post your condescending opinion about what they should be "happy" about.