Michigan and Florida Must Have Their Real Votes Counted

Let's be honest. Hillary wants their votes to count because they are her best shots at beating Obama in the popular vote if not in pledged delegates.

But, it is also clear that Obama does not want their votes to count, at least as they currently exist or could turn out in a re-vote, because he is afraid that Hillary will get what she wants.

All the Obama talk about rules is simply a cover-up of this simple equation. One need only think about the issue if the roles of Obama and Hillary were reversed. Can anybody doubt that Kos et. al. would not then be so fixated on the "rules"?

The case for Florida is simple. All the candidates were on the ballot; they were all subject to the same campaigning rules - and Obama's commercials were played throughout the state.

Michigan is harder because Obama was not on the ballot. Those who argue that it was his choice (as it was) are playing the same "rules" game that Obama is playing.

As for those "rules": the DNC should never have given in to the blackmail by Iowa and New Hampshire. If any states should have been excluded, it should have been those two for their selfish insistence on being first. It is well past time to develop an alternate primary setup (regional, groupings of states by pop., etc.)and simply ignore N.H. and Iowa if they don't agree. The most important part of any new primary setup is that it be changed for every election. It is imperative that the media not be able to rely on past performances in early states to call a winner before all the voters get their say.

Back to the current situaton: if Dean, Pelosi, or the Florida and Michigan representatives in the House and the Senate think that Obama (or Hillary) can become the legitimate candidate without counting the real votes of Florida and Michigan, they are living in a dream (nightmare) world.

After the 2000 debacle in Florida, the reactions of Obama supporters and the DNC (to date) re the legitimacy of the votes in Florida and Michigan are bizarre, to say the least.