These People Want to Run the Country?

The Democratic Party wants to run the country but they can't even run their own party.

What could have possessed Howard Dean to invoke the primary "death penalty" on Michigan and Florida, denying these states to seat delegates at the convention? At first Howard Dean insisted that if a new primary was run in Florida that the State of Florida should pay for it. But the government correctly rebuked Mr. Dean telling him that is was not the taxpayers of Florida that should pay to correct a mess of the Democratic Party's making!

After considering a mail-in ballot paid for by private Democratic donations it now seems clear that there will be no do over in Florida. The deadline also just passed for the Michigan legislature to authorize a re-do of the Democratic primary, so Michigan is "out" too. Now Democratic donors from those states are demanding that Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) return donations made by them. No representation, no money.

Hillary Clinton is insisting that the delegates from these two states be seated at the convention. This is perfectly logical to Senator Clinton as she was the only candidate who campaigned in these states and was the only candidate on the ballot in one. Barack Obama does not quite see the logic. It may actually happen that two of the most important states in the general election, particularly Florida with its large number of electoral votes, will be disenfranchised by the Democratic Party.

All of this is setting up for the most entertaining (if you're a Republican) national convention since the 1968 Democratic debacle in Chicago. It seems likely that neither Obama or Clinton will have enough primary delegates to win the nomination outright, which brings us to the delicious topic of Superdelegates.

There has been much angst of late regarding the role of the Superdelegates. Many on the left have stated that it would be a travesty for one candidate to win the most primary delegates but have the Superdelegates award the nomination to the other candidate. But, in fact, this is exactly what the Superdelegates are meant to do.

The Superdelegates were put in place after the 1968 convention where Eugene McCarthy, who had no chance of winning the general election, was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate. The Superdelegates were put in place soon after to protect the party from itself. Who are the Superdelegates? They are largely party apparatchiks. That's right - the nomination will be decided by what in an earlier age was called the "smoke filled back room".

As Hillary Clinton infamously said during her crusade to nationalize health care - and I'm paraphrasing, "some things are too important for the people to decide for themselves." This is the rallying cry of liberalism. That a paternalistic government will control and decide everything. Or in the case of the Democratic National Convention, the paternalistic party will decide what is best for their voters.

Now comes a report that the hosting committee in Denver has not been able to raise enough money for the convention. The internecine war within the party has caused the party to take its eye off the ball of the importance of staging a great convention.

This party wants to run the country? Really?