First, the Super Delegates were "supposed" to represent the will of the voters in their district/state/maybe in their dreams. Now, "pledged" delegates can switch with impunity?

DNC leaders, your party discipline is completely disappearing.

Maybe the Obama/Axelrod hostile takeover will succeed. I'd been thinking it was a stretch too far, but, gee, with this kind of thing going on.

And recall that the initial "rules" for states skipping head of IA/NH was to lose half their delegate count (not clear if SD's were included in that). Then the DNC itself decided to abrogate the rules and came up with The Roolz, taking all delegates away. Wow.

BTD: Let me put it bluntly, anyone holding up the pledged delegate count as representing the "will of the people" is simply full of it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I cannot believe that people make that argument, but they do. In fact someone argued with me just yesterday that the pledged delegate count was a more accurate measurement of the will of the people than was the popular vote. I just didn't know what to say  to that, so I just shook my head and moved along. Been doing a lot of that lately.

And Obama was my first choice. But between the spectacles of this primary and the behavior of his supporters, I have been led right back to where I was before the invasion of Iraq: convinced that the political process has little or nothing to do with me and serves only those with the loudest mouths and the most money.

That said, the flawed system cannot be used as a wedge to JUSTIFY that the nomination should in any way be Clinton's. Why? Both campaigns strategically campaigned and operated under the working assumptions contained in this flawed delegate system. It is precisely why Clinton lost: Penn was an idiot in his strategic planning for the caucuses and primaries after February 4th.

So while I would agree with any Clinton supporter that the system is a terrible mess currently, both candidates played by the same flawed rules, and understood well (I hope) how the game worked.

And now, not a single peep out of those phonies about voter disenfranchisment and the will of the people.

That shows there is no meaning for the pledged delegates.  We should value only the popular vote totals and abolish caucuses and pledged delegate system.

As we have known for a long time, the Democratic delegate selection process is a travesty.

 We have? The collective "we" that has known this is, apparently, the Clinton camp, which prepared a shock and awe strategy designed to end the nomination process after Super Tuesday.  Outmanuvered by a smart, cost-efficient grassroots campaign, a large percentage of anti-war progressives and a media that, to be fair, was suffering from anti-Clinton bias and a perverse sexism, the strategy was disastrous.  

 Regarding Florida and Michigan, I concur, the Dems screwed that one up royally, but only from a PR perspective.  No one has the "right" to participate in a political party's primary process.  But those were not contests, and the Clinton camp is not doing itself any favors by calling for the delegates to be seated as is, at least in Michigan.  The notion that Michigan Democrats who would have preferred a chance to vote for Edwards (as my family was planning on) or who would now support Obama (ditto) will be placated by seating a Clinton delegation is not only absurd, it is insulting.  Politically Michigan is a 50-50 state, for all intents and purposes.  The only reason Senator McCain doesn't have a chance in hell is because of the economy.

If you were serious about how absurd the primary rules are, you would also be attacking the inclusion of Guam, Puerto Rico, etc.  You're not, however, which leads me to conclude that you're simply upset that the Clinton campaign did not have the foresight and vision to contest caucuses and primaries, that they did not have the organizational skills to pull it off, and that they are now in a position where they are making an ugly electability argument that assumes, inter alia, that whites will not vote for Obama.