The heavens opened and rained gold down on McCain - in the form of Abramoff's Greenberg-Traurig emails - many of which implicated dozens of Senators, Congressmen and Bush Administration officials, all the way up to Rove himself.  McCain had subpoenaed the emails in early March, when he called for the Abramoff hearings in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee the week after the story broke in the WaPo; however, until the emails arrived on his desk in mid-April, he had no idea that he was in possession of enough blackmail material to demand the Republican nomination in 2008.  Heck, who needed to be VP under Kerry when you could be king!

I wouldn't be surprised if McCain approached Kerry after calling for the Abramoff hearings, thinking he would be persona non grata in the GOP.  But almost immediately after seeing the treasure in the Abramoff files, he sent Weaver on a second mission - to meet in mid-May with Karl Rove.  Three weeks later, McCain was campaigning with Bush, and the Abramoff hearing were postponed until further notice.

Yes, I keep beating this dead horse, but it's amazing how it fits more and more with all the new details which come out over time.  If only Kerry paid attention to our trivial little Indian committee, he'd probably be President today.

I actually have been writing about enfranchisement for some time on my home blog, and disagree that we should use any rule to take votes away from Obama or Clinton for visits to Florida.  But I also strongly disagree with splitting the Michigan vote.  You claim that you're only disenfranchising 5% of the vote - yet offer no proof that the 45% of the uncommitted vote would have gone for Obama, and not Edwards, Richardson, or Biden - all of whom removed their names, or even for "uncommitted", a valid vote on the Michigan ballot.  As an Edwards supporter, I would be thoroughly disenfranchised, as I wouldn't vote for Obama (I probably wouldn't vote for Clinton either.)

The fact is that you either take the vote as is, and allow 45% of the delegation to go to the Convention "uncommitted" (allowing them to be pursued by either camp) or you revote.  It looks as though Michigan is opting for revote, and that works for the DNC.

Should stay in the race for the nomination, as should Edwards.  And Progressives should learn the ins and outs of nominating someone from the floor.

The convention is over five months away - anything can happen.  If Democrats knew in 2004 that the Swiftboating would take such a toll on Kerry, perhaps things would have been different in NYC in August.  But we should be prepared that anything can, and will happen, and shouldn't be left flailing in the wind.  Let the Democratic process work, even if it goes to the floor.  Heck, the floor might be the best place to most Democratically work this all out and have the strongest candidate going into the fall.

net anything?  All Texas caucus-goers had to have participated in the primary.  Are we double counting their votes now?

See, I view "super-delegates" as part and parcel of the "popular vote" - they're there to represent the huge numbers of voters who didn't, or couldn't, vote in their caucus or primary (particularly the former.)  In the Portland caucus in 2004 only 2000 Democrats out of 20,000 registered showed up to caucus - well, actually more, but hundreds left because of the time constraints - it took us hours to caucus, as there was no way we were prepared (and couldn't have been, judging from previous caucuses.)  However, over 80% of Democrats in Portland voted for Tom Allen, our Congressman, in 2002, and thus place their faith and trust in his judgment on political matters facing our state, country and, yes party.  How can we elect these people to make our laws, and yet we don't trust them to make rational choices in regards to who will run our party - which is their party as well?  

We've had the superdelegate provision for over 35 years now - if the rank and file doesn't like it, then fight to change it - but stop whining about it.

I know this, as I ran the Portland caucus in 2004.  We counted bodies, not ballots (even though most people filled out a ballot, it wasn't required.)  I wasn't present for this year's caucus, but it was even crazier than 2004, where we had 20x the turnout of 2000.  For days I had the "ballots" in my kitchen, much to the outrage of the Dean supporters - however, the most important info on those ballots was whether you signed up to be a member of the county committee, and as a city committee executive, I needed those names.  To hell with a fake "popular vote" count for out of state partisans. (BTW, I like Dean as DNC chair, so this is not a hit on him, just some of his more rabid supporters.)

If anyone tries to put out numbers in Maine, they're only placating one campaign or another.  Real numbers don't exist.

As a woman of color (and neither an Obama or Hilary supporter), I'm so glad someone finally made this point.  Prejudiced?  Yes.  Racists?  No.

There is an alternative.  It's called nominating from the floor.

Giving Obama half the votes means you're taking both votes for Clinton (5%) and some percent of Edwards (15%?) and handing them to Obama, which frankly, is vote manipulation at best, fraud at worst.  It's the reason the UN sends in election observers to anti-democratic countries.  And I'm fairly positive that it's 100% against DNC rules.

This is about protecting voting rights and proving the Democrats still have more integrity when it comes to counting all the votes.

Beautifully stated.  Bravo.

Crist and the Republican legislature (which outnumbered Dems 2-1) pushed the primary leap-frog as a poison pill on the paper trails legislation - Florida Democrats were willing to sacrifice their delegates to insure the integrity of the vote.  We should leading them to Denver with a parade, not punishing them.  

In addition, voter turnout at the January 29th primary was very high, due in part to a right-wing tax reform measure opposed by the Democrats - arguing that people would have turned out to vote but didn't because it was a "beauty contest" is pretty sad.

Something has to be done, and not the fraudulent 50-50 split (when in history have we taken votes away from candidates and given them to another candidate?)  Thinking that Floridians won't remember this, particularly when third parties and  527s start hammering in the fall, is very short-sighted.  We should never, ever support any kind of voter disenfranchisement, and particularly in Florida.  It's bad new all around.

(BTW, I'm an Edwards/Gore supporter and don't endorse either remaining candidate - I just think this is such an important issue for Democrats and have been covering it extensively at my home blog.)

Certain elected Democratic officials (governors, House Reps, Senators) are automatically PLEOs.  Others, such as especially beloved former officials, are bequeathed the status.  Spitzer's successor will be a PLEO too.  In this case, it's the office and the party (D) not the person.

I'll try and make it simpler.  

Feb. 28, 2004 - Abramoff story breaks.

March 4, 2004 - McCain calls for hearings, subpoenas Abramoff documents.

Mid-April, 2004 - Thousands of documents, many of which expose the connections between Abramoff and the Bush White House and Delay/Hastert Congress, land on McCain's desk.  If released, they would surely sink Bush's re-election campaign.

Mid-May, 2004 - McCain sends Weaver to meet with Rove (Rove's executive assistant was Abramoff's until 2001.)  Weaver also meets with Kerry around this time.

June, 2004 - McCain endorses Bush, joins him on campaign trail.  Abramoff hearings scheduled for June are postponed until late September, and then only one of three is held before the Nov. election.  Bush supports McCain as his heir in 2008, directs his fundraising "Pioneers" his way.

June-Nov, 2004 - none of the dirt in the 90,000 Abramoff documents is released prior to the election.  McCain sits on the docs until pressure builds the following spring.  Even then, he never subpoenas Norquist or Reed, despite evidence they are as guilty as Abramoff.

It was all about extortion.  McCain isn't a traitor - he's a blackmailer.

In late February, 2004, the WaPo first broke the story of Jack Abramoff taking large sums of money from some of his tribal clients, as well as using that money to get involved in tribal politics (fraudulent elections and the like.)  John McCain was a member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (often called SIAC) and had a long, nasty history with Abramoff, going back to South Carolina in 2000.  McCain jumped at the opportunity to torpedo Abramoff, and so called a press conference where he announced that he would request the Chairman of SIAC to immediately open hearings into the Abramoff affair.

The Chairman at the time was Ben Nighthorse Campbell.  The night of the press conference, Campbell checked himself into the hospital with chest pains.  Turned out to be indigestion.  However, he shockingly announced days later that he would not be running for his Senate seat, despite having kicked off his campaign with a splash weeks earlier.  Turns out Campbell was a little too cozy with Abramoff, his clients and Italia Federici, the ED of CREA.

In early March, 2004, McCain subpoenaed thousands of emails and documents from Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's lobbying firm, with a compliance date in late April.  Two weeks after all the documents were produced, McCain sent his adviser John Weaver to meet with Karl Rove, the first meeting between the Bush and McCain camps since the 2000 primary season.  Clearly, they were able to work something out, as John McCain openly endorsed Bush's re-election campaign a week later, and by mid-June, was on the campaign trail with him.  In return, McCain sat on the Abramoff hearings until late in the fall and then only focused on Abramoff and Scanlon (not Delay, Hastert, Norquist, Reed, Ney, Doolittle, etc., etc., ad nauseum,) and heavily redacted most of the smoking guns from the few documents released.

I suspect that McCain used his meeting with Kerry (which Bush's people of course would have known about) as a little extra incentive in his extortion act.  His goal was to become the heir apparent in 2008, not Kerry's lackey.  

Ever supporting Hillary.  Her record in NY, where she built her upstate support for her Senate races on bashing Iroquian tribes, who are fighting to have 200 year old treaties upheld by the federal government.  She fed racist, anti-Indian sentiment with her "no land settlement" and "Indians only want casinos" rhetoric.

Plus, she's already blown off Kalyn Free's NDNZ debate at the Morongo Rancheria.  Having just spent June working on the Principal Chief's race in the second largest American Indian nations in the US, I suspect Clinton will not get the support of many tribal members, from what I heard around those parts.

Just sayin'...