All they will understand is that the DNC is hemming and hawing and selectively applying rules so that they are penalized but other states are not.

Alice Huffman, a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee from California who is supporting Clinton, said she has been barraged with e-mails in the past few weeks. She said the senders include Floridians who are upset that they are being disenfranchised, and she has started printing out the messages so she'll have a record to explain her decision.

"This is a really, really significant issue to women. Obviously it's a significant item to people of color too. So I'm just preparing myself as best I can," said Huffman, president of the California NAACP.

The shoe shipments are being organized by WalkAMileInOurShoes.org and1 the orange idea was promoted by a group called Florida Demands Representation, which plans to bus Floridians to Saturday's rally outside the meeting. Blaine Whitford, a volunteer helping organize the effort, said they are unaligned with any candidate.

Susie Buell, one of Clinton's top fundraisers, has formed a political action committee encouraging women to support full seating of the delegates. The WomenCountPAC has taken out ads in USA Today and The New York Times promoting attendance at the rally.

_

Associated Press writer Juliet Williams in Sacramento, Calif., contributed to this report.

The Dem party is a laughing stock. All the so called leaders do not together have the collective brain power or courage needed to lead us out of a paperbag.

Have we ever been shown to be this inept? Can you say not fit to lead?

Damage done, 527 written, filmed and ready to go.

I guess there are some people who would feign surprise at learning that politics, not "law", should be the determining factor here. In balancing the competing interests, ticking off the voters of Florida and Michigan seems to be an absurdly high price to pay to mollify state officials in Iowa and New Hampshire with their cozy little presidential primary monopoly arrangements. It is preposterous to suggest that the voters of Iowa or NH would care about whether the Florida and Michigan delegations are sufficiently "penalized".

Sadly, this dispute has never been about the "rules", and always about the fact that the Obama team has either feared or even calculated for some time that they were going to fall short of a majority of delegates in the contested primaries and caucuses, and decided that backroom infighting on Florida and Michigan was the less risky course. You would have thought that the Obama team would have revised its thinking after the win in North Carolina, and certainly after the win in Oregon, but I guess that's not the Chicago way of doing things.

Hillary has sent out an email today which says that the race is up to the voters, and she will continue to fight for every vote.

There's really no reason for Florida to be a red state.  If the Democratic Party cared about Florida, it would be a deep, deep blue.  There are so many liberals in Central Florida who don't bother to vote because they feel that the DNC doesn't give a whit about them, and they only continue to prove that they don't.

I don't want to be a Democrat anymore.  I really don't.  This party needs to be burned to the ground.  I've had it.

...

Last week, Levin told the Detroit News he wanted Michigan to sit at full strength. "If we're punished in any way by the rules committee, I would be in favor of going to the floor" of the convention, even if it kept the nomination process alive.

The dem leadership has been getting lambasted since little georgie started getting away with murder.  Other dems have been a huge disappointment.

After losing a bitter battle for the Republican nomination in 2000, McCain became an ardent Bush surrogate during the 2004 campaign -- rehabbing his image among party insiders in expectation of a return run in 2008.

I'm not colluding in this electoral fraud. It's despicable, and disgusting.

If Hillary spent 29 days a month campaigning for Obama and he lost the general, she'd be blamed for not campaigning more.

Arguing about whether politics or the rules should be the primary consideration misses the point.  The point is that this is a body which is not actually interested in enforcing the rules seriously.  If they looked at the facts and the evidence the way a real judge would, there wouldn't be a tension between the rules and the political considerations any longer.

The New Yorker sends a letter and memo to every superdelegate, arguing she's the party's strongest contender against McCain.

ALERT! Local Paper Actually Allows Vets to Say Something Not Fawning about Obama Visit!

Given this, I don't think she should accept a 50% ruling. And she is a strong position to do so, this gives her the moral right and the DNC know they have no chance in November if she and her supporters feel aggrieved.

Emphasis added

On the other hand, it can be argued that the primary as a whole could not possibly have served as a "fair reflection" of presidential preference because most of the candidates then running for the nomination were not on the ballot. Under the law establishing the January 15, 2008 presidential
preference primary, any presidential candidate that did not wish his or her name to appear on the
ballot could cause his or her name not to appear on the ballot by filing an affidavit with the
Secretary of State.9 Pursuant to this provision, all candidates seeking the nomination at that time withdrew their names from the presidential primary ballot with the exception of Senator Clinton, Senator Christopher Dodd, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Senator Mike Gravel.

4 withdrew and 4 remained. How is that most? How does that deserve a sentence stating "all...except" withdrawing?

And there's this:

and were not permitted
under applicable state law to withdraw their names unless they declared themselves no longer a
candidate for the nomination.

They sourced the statute but didn't read it. They had time to remove their names PRIOR to the need to declare themselves no longer a candidate.

Nelson also told Taylor County residents that Florida's 27 electoral votes will "decide the election" next November. He said the Democrats are hurting their chances of carrying the state by punishing Florida for moving its presidential primary from early March to Jan. 29 this year.

Nelson, who unsuccessfully sued his party in federal court to force recognition of Florida's 211 convention delegates, said he will make a presentation in Washington on Saturday to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee, which is considering Florida's appeal for seating of all or part of the delegation.

"What I'm going to tell them on Saturday is that in Florida, we're pretty sensitive about our right to vote and have that vote counted," said Nelson, citing the 36-day saga of court fights and street demonstrations following the 2000 presidential election. "Eight years later, we've got Democrats trying to take away the Democrats' right to vote."

Nelson said he expects the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee to postpone a ruling on Florida and Michigan, which held its primary on Jan. 15, until Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama finish their primary struggle next week.

DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee Member Tina Flournoy, senior adviser Ickes and communications director Wolfson hold 11:30 am ET media call with reporters.

The proportion of FL and MI voters ticked over "disenfranchisement" will shrink a little after the first RBC ruling, then will shrink further still after Obama and the Credentials Committee recommend seating them at full strength.

Of those who might remain ticked, well, my guess is that some of them would be ticked even if Obama parroted Clinton's position this week.  

My guess is that Obama picks up at least 40 of the MI uncommitted delegates(since he has 31 out of 36 who have already been selected, with 19 more to go), plus the 69 pledged from Florida, plus at least half the remaining 18 Edwards delegates, plus at least 32 from the last 3 contests(even if there's a blowout in PR), plus at least 10 superdelegates from FL/MI, plus the 5 dozen he's lined up next week...

....that brings him to 2199.  About 34 more add-on delegates have yet to be selected, and he'll pick up at least half of those from what I hear, putting him over the "magic number" of 2209.  

After all that, there's still around 130 superdelegates left over.  

I agree with some of above, I think this is a big enough issue, and the injustice is clear enough, that I'd go to the convention and not concede if I were Hillary. I'd in fact say (assuming it's still try by then) that no one got to 2210, so we're off to the convention. Or even stronger, when the votes are actually counted and they add up to 2210 in Denver, then we'll know who the nominee is. We'll see what happens.