On Political Do-Overs

Redoing the Florida and Michigan primaries is a dumb idea. [Link]

"Our votes should count!" "We're being disenfranchised!" "We want to have our say!"

Folks, the time to bitch was before you voted.

The Democratic National Committee set its schedule -- as is its right -- for the primaries. The state parties all had their chances to argue before it was set, and even after. You folks are represented by those state parties, and they are the ones who decided to ignore the rules and play "chicken" with the DNC.

Guess what? They didn't blink. They said, up front, what the price would be if you didn't play by their rules. And the penalty was "your votes don't count, because you didn't agree with the rules beforehand."

You got a problem with that? Take it up with those who decided to ignore the rules -- your own state parties.

Both Clinton and Obama agreed -- in writing -- to not participate in either of your primaries, in accordance with the DNC. Clinton, naturally, didn't keep her word, but that's only to be expected from her. Obama did, naturally, because he's a newcomer and didn't realize that rules don't matter to Clintons when it means they might lose.

The arguments being made now for counting the results anyway and seating the delegates -- or holding a "do-over" -- all boil down to a few points:

"We didn't know the process would still be going on this late!"

"We didn't know our votes would make such a difference!"

"We thought the DNC would wimp out!"

Well, campaign season ain't over yet.