Monday, March 10, 2008

Democrats' dilemmas - Florida & Michigan

As I noted back on February 18 ("Rules, Rules, Rules" - Democratic nomination dilemmas), through the combined effects of a not-terribly-well-designed nomination process, poor judgment, and bad luck, the Democratic Party finds itself facing two very difficult conundrums--for which it had better find workable solutions whose legitimacy can be widely accepted.

The first concerns the role of the so-called "superdelegates"; the second (which strikes me as a lot more potentially disastrous and difficult to resolve) is the question of what do about the delegates from Michigan and Florida.

I have some thoughts of my own about that second problem, which I may share soon. Meanwhile, here's a video from Talking Points Memo that offers a good round-up of the dilemmas involved:
TPM-TV: Deep Doo-Doo-Over
And by the way: Amidst all the serious controversies, genuine complexities, and rhetorical posturings flying around in this video, what George Will says here cuts right to the heart of the problem. The question is how to solve it

--Jeff Weintraub