Wouldn't that be a smart move for them, considering Hillary's negatives?!

http://OsiSpeaks.com or http://OsiSpeaks.org

Sounds like Edwards is in favor of the old corrupt ways of Washington where special interest insiders control elections instead of opening up the process to the people to decide.

Oh for goodness sakes.  Your crazy theory gives Michigan Republicans credit for far more intelligence than any of them possess.

Seriously, the idea that everything is a secret Rovian plot has become an embarrassing cliche at this point.

This is weird , a conspiracy theorist as a front pager.

Your post was frankly incoherent and you all of a sudden come to a ridiculous conclusion based on nothing.

This front page diaries are becoming funnier.

Someone insinuated on the front page that a presidential candidate dropped out of the presidential race because of the Daily show and the fear to face Jon Stewart.

Now why the hell will anyone be scared to go on the daily show , all he throws out is softballs and to can your presidential race based on that is ridiculous.

I think you are pretty right on in terms of the caucus and primary deliberations going on in MI right now; it certainly makes sense given the statements that Mark Brewer has been making.

Given the fact that, in Michigan, Clinton beats Giulini by 9, Romney by 10, Thompson by 13, and McCain by 13, I doubt it!

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_conte nt/politics/michigan_clinton_leads_gop_h opefuls_by_9_13_points

It's just stupid that Democrats are falling to the Republican machine.

Rove coming out against Clinton was just a ploy to have Democrats attack each other.

Clinton is already leading the nomination. If this is what the Republicans want, it's on the way. Anybody asked why the hell is it necessary for Rove and the right-wing nuts to go to the media and point out that Hillary cannot win a general election?

If you look at thee right, they may not be decided on who their nominee is but there is really not a lot of fighting among themselves.

But hell, look at the Democrats, the Clinton camp is always on the offensive against Obama's and Edwards' while the Obama fanatics discredits any poll showing Clinton in the lead.

I think the people in Michigan prefer a primary.   That should be the overriding factor, not what Bonior wants or what Penn wants.   In a primary many, many people can attend.  A caucus is very hard to attend.  Why make it hard for people to cast a vote?  It makes no sense.  Make it easy, the populace wins.   Clinton is right on this one, Edwards wrong.  Get a primary going.  May the best man/woman win with as many people voting.  

As for "motives":   This was first proposed by Carl Levin, a Democrat.  I think the "Rove" connection is a major stretch.  I agree with Lori that it is becoming comical to attribute everything to the beaten-up, defeated, retired Rove as if he is some sort of uber-God.   He has no bearing on any of this.  Republicans have their own reasons to move primaries.  I know for a fact that CLINTON had nothing to do with the Florida legislature moving its date up to Jan. 29.  It was merely the desire to make a difference, to be part of the process, which is what Michigan has in mind as well.  

No, they don't WANT for Clinton to celebrate a rousing victory in every state of the union to be thus so WEAK as to fall easy prey to the gargantuan superb Republican candidates.   The whole idea itself is illogical.  Clinton would come out of a rousing nomination victory that sees her virtually sweep the entire country very strong, very hard to beat for the GOP, very popular (because of the feat.)

    The only thing that makes sense for the GOP to hope for is for a fractured nomination process that is in doubt, with none of our candidates winning enough delegates to look strong, all top-tier candidates showing weaknesses in certain geographical areas and demographics, a contested election that is not decided until the convention.   That way they would battle a nominee who comes out of the process weakened.   A super-strong Clinton with virtually all delegates going to her but a few would be the GOP's nightmare to go up against, especially since none of their candidates are in any way dominant figures or can claim strong status.    

I am also unsure of all these "conspiracy theories" about the state-level Michigan Republicans banding together to try to serve Karl Rove's supposed bidding. Even if this were all part of Rove's master plan to meddle in the 2008 election, he should be careful what he wishes for lest he wants a Democratic candidate who can "win in a bar fight" with Republicans, as someone once observed (appropriately, IMHO) on this site.

I am unsympathetic to the idea of a caucus and consider myself a pretty faithful progressive. Special interests are a fact of not just politics but life. James Madison essentially asserts this in Federalist No. 10:

"The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them every where brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society."

But when these special interests being to subvert the basic principle of voting, which is the only real input the people have in our republic, my patience begins to evaporate very quickly. Those who've written here before me in favor of a primary have said most of what there is to say, so I won't repeat them.

I think most of us are missing the mark. The real question should be: should the states have to follow the DNC's rules as to when they are able to hold their primary? Let's debate that instead of Karl Rove and primary v. caucus (both of which are borderline absurd debates anyway).

The DNC rules committee, which is as insider as you can get, is talking about sanctioning Michigan if it goes before Feb. 1.  So, what does that mean?  Probably nothing other than the committee wants to enforce the rules. I think we all tend to read too much into all the tea leaves.  The Michigan Republicans probably want a primnary because they want to get as many people out to vote as possible to do party building. The Democrats probably want a caucus because they have always done it that way.  Not everything is a conspiracy to benefit a candidate!  

Do you have any doubts? Hillary's their girl! That's why they want her as the candidate....so they can keep the white house.

going to be MORE open than a primary would be-- as they were planning for INTERNET VOTING.

In 2004, anyone willing to declare themselves a Democrat was able to participate in the caucus.  I voted by mail, myself.

Anything allowing internet voting would HAVE to be considered "more open" than the usual primary election with NO internet voting, IMHO.

There was a lot of angry discussion on this topic over at Kos today. Kos was in favor of the michigan move, which always seemed to me like a sure way for Hillary to cinch the nomination and NOTHING else.

Thank you Todd for being seemingly the only person in the blogosphere not so blinded by Iowa hate that they can't see past what's obviously going on here.

Those backing former Senator John Edwards prefer a caucus. Why? Mr. Edwards's campaign manager is David Bonior, the former Michigan Congressmen, who has strong ties to organized labor. The unions can be highly influential in a caucus, which depends largely on ground organization. They would have much more control over a caucus, which is too complicated and time-consuming for the average person to attend.

For those that don't know, Michigan's caucus as it is for this cycle (and as it was for the 2004 cycle) is simply an election held by the party instead of an election held by the state. This is not an Iowa style caucus. You come in. You vote. You leave.

It seems that before CQPolitics.com labels Michigan's Caucus as confusing or time-consuming they should perhaps look into doing some research.

If they are stating that caucuses are time-consuming for the party (including local party organizations) to run, they are correct. I was a caucus site volunteer during the 2004 Caucus and an enormous amount of time was spent during the lead-up to the Caucus and an enormous amount of volunteer-hours were expended the day of the Caucus. The people that I know that participated in the administration of the 2004 Caucus care deeply about their party and their respective communities. All involved were passionate about providing a fair means for people to express their preference of candidate, even when the results did not agree with their own personal preference.

There are a lot of theories regarding this debate that really don't seem to raise the level of political discourse and quite frankly I expect more.