As much as I disagree with what I believe to be your gross mischaracterization of the above events, I assume that the states will be seated in full at the convention.  That would be the case regardless of who the nominee is.

I do think you are being overly optimistic, plus I don't see how that would assuage you.

But the most ironic part of what you wrote is that, if Obama does, as you suggest is possible, break from the RBC, that will be yet one more thing he has been forced to break from in order to pursue his dream of becoming president.

One of my biggest beefs with Obama is that he knew damn well that Wright, Pfleger, TUCC, Rezko, etc. would pop up at some point.  Personally I don't consider him necessarily unfit for being president because of those things, but he must have thought he would be immune to the Rethugs going after him in a general election.  His hubris and his ego will cost us the White House.  

Listen, before people start piling on me about how unfair that is to Obama... Not everyone can run for prez; I'm an atheist so I don't have a chance in (ahem) hell.  Is that fair?  No.  But it's reality.

On This Week this morning George asked Roosevelt and Dean if they thought Obama would seat them in full at the convention and they said that was his prerogative and I got the impression they approved of that. So I think it will happen.

I hate these sort of polls that in their choices give us added commments that make it impossible for me to choose either..

I think it likely that Obama will make a gesture to seat the states fully -- but I don't think this has anything to do with the RBC's motivations, and as such, I don't think the RBC decision "brilliant" as such.

I believe the RBC was motivated more by the feel for the need for compromise -- though Hillary supporters keep suggesting that a proper compromise solution would be surrendering everything to Hillary, and though I actually agree that such may have been the most wise choice. (Defeating them via surrender -- Jean-Luc Picard anyone?)

However, I can neither be sure nor can you assure me that in such a case, Hillary wouldn't have seen such a move as evidence that the RBC was scared of her. Nobody can be sure that Hillary would not have seen it as a sign of weakness rather than of strength. And nobody would be sure whether it'd have encouraged rather than reconciled the dead-enders.

Nothing is certain, not even in hindsight.

As soon as he has the nomination I guarantee that he will seat both delegations.  Everyone also has to realize that not many "real" people care about the fl/mi delegations.  I am a volunteer here in Missouri and have spent countless weekends working for Obama and have yet to hear anyone talk about FL/MI.  People here care more about whether he is a Muslim or not than any perceived hurt feelings by a select group of Florida and Michigan voters.  

Once again, I am not saying it is cool the way things turned out with FL/MI, but a lot of us need to realize that the general population cares more about the economy, the war, and how they are going to pay for their healthcare than whether a group of delegates get sent to a convention.  

While it's possible Obama will do this if he's certain it won't affect the outcome, I don't think it would be the right thing to do, and it would just be his attempt to accomidate a certain kind of stubbornness.

It would be one thing if the FL and MI elections had simply occurred before the window set out by the RBC.  That was the situation anticipated by the rules which, had it occurred, would have merited a 50% penalty (as happened in the Republican primaries).

What happened in the Democratic race, though, was this business of the RBC's declaring that these elections wouldn't count, candidates couldn't campaign, and most took their names off the ballot.  Nothing like this occurred on the Republican side, and this did change the issue.

Historically, many disenfranchisement strategies are simply based upon people making sure that their voters can get to the polls and those who support other candidates can't or won't.

Eg., fliers sent out to inform voters that the election will be held a week later than will actually be the case.  Literacy tests.  Caging.  This is all stuff people did during Jim Crow (and to some extent it still goes on).

And in every situation like this, the winners will argue that the election was good enough because enough people turned out to vote.  The ballots cast by actual voters have to be respected.

There is no way to correct an election where voters were told in advance that the results wouldn't count.  All one can do is choose from among several bad fixes.

And while it's completely obvious this particular situation wasn't caused by either of the campaigns (that's where the analogy to Jim Crow ends), the slogan "we have to count every vote" is one which just ignores how deep the problems were with these two elections.

The accusation that Donna Brazille simply acted as a "shrill partisan", besides being arguably sexist, is unfair.  One of the more interesting moments in the meeting yesterday occurred when she said words to this effect: don't lecture me about what the word disenfranchisment means.

Because one could just tell she was totally prepared to go into the long and sad history of this (the history of disenfranchisment during Jim Crow usually turned on counting every vote cast, what made these elections deeply immoral were the lengths people went to to ensure that black voters wouldn't, or couldn't, show up at the polls).

It occurs to me there's a possible cultural difference here.  To many, the term disenfranchisement is rooted in not having the right to vote.  That's only half of the story (and in the modern world when voters are disenfranchised it's usually in this second way).

So no, I don't think the Dems should seat FL and MI in full (esp. if Clinton's campaign isn't willing to give full weight to the importance of these other considerations, right now their strategy seems based upon denying that they exist, that's not something the RBC should concede--it would require affirming something that's wrong).

I believe the reason why the four delegates were an issue had to do with the framing of the popular vote in Michigan.  That is, by making this decision, it became clear that the popular vote was perceived as being illegitimate by the Committee.

all along.

"Although the DNC has said it will not recognize delegates from Florida, the Party plans to appeal to the eventual Democratic nominee for President to be seated at the Convention."

http://www.makeitcountflorida.com/page/c ontent/makeitcount-faqs/

he has not "shunned" the gay press, he mentions the LGBT community in every stump speech. This gay man is a proud supporter of Senator Obama.(I otherwise enjoyed your diary)