Michiganders, on the other hand, are a shifty lot, who tend to dress and talk like Ted Nugent and/or Michael Moore, depending on ethnic background. Their food (pasties, Bell's Beer) is smelly and crude. Don't be fooled by their overly polite manner, eventually they'll say something blunt and call you on your bullcrap.

Anyway, as a Michigander who voted Uncommitted because Obama wasn't on the ballot, I approve of this compromise.

I love how the only plans submitted always penalize Obama for following the rules.

LESSON FROM 2008 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY: Breaking the rules is always to your advantage because the DNC will roll over and let you break the rules.

I'm looking for to the first in the nation for the 2012 season Georgia primary to be held on July 14, 2009.

Pretty much exactly what I predicted would happen.

This is OK with me, on condition that before the deal is signed, Terry McAuliffe be required to read aloud, in front of the TV cameras, the following passage from his memoir What a Party!:

"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively.

"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."

He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.

"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.

"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."

We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.

[Source: McAuliffe, Terry. What A Party!, p. 325.]

Hell, Obama's lead is so great they can seat both the 38 delegates from Florida, and the 18 from Michigan!

What's the big deal? Seat them and nominate Obama.

I think having the MI/FL situation resolved when it's irrelevant to the nomination process is a fitting punishment to two states who tried to set their primaries early to give themselves disproportionate influence on the process.

No thanks. We do not reward those who willfully violate the rules that they signed on to. Fifty fifty split of the delegates is all that is acceptable. Otherwise, Michigan get rewarded for their bad behavior, and Hillary gets rewarded for her intentional cheating. No deal. No deal. No deal. Never bribe snatch and grab thieves.

It is the kind of deal that must be done, to finish dealing with the silliness of the 48 states argument from HRC camp.

It is enough for me, as an Obama supporter, to know that he would have won Michigan if it had been truly contested, and that he would have come closer in Florida than he did if he had been able to campaign there. The results elsewhere bear that out. So, yeah, cut the deal. Seat them. Move on. And let's start clearing the way to look squarely at taking the WH in November. Time to stop being distracted with stupid shit like this.

Obama won't make a decision on Michigan/Florida till after May 31st - I'm betting on it. He needs to know exactly where he stands at that point.

Wake up and support your presumptive Democratic candidate.

Why accept any offers/suggestions/compromises from Michigan or Florida - if they aren't accompanied by legislation that returns their primary dates to their original ones? We'll just have to go through this again in four years, right?
I've got relatives in Michigan and Florida, and I love them, but both these states seem populated by folks(my family included) who will cut in line at the donut shop or the grocery store given half a chance, and they'll continue to do it with the primaries if the DNC doesn't make it clear that cutting is unacceptable.
It's Parenting 101, people!

Whatever. It's all moot now anyway. Obama's the nominee, let people do what they want, just get on with the general.

The whole MI/FL thing has all along been been an extortion racket, by those state parties and by Hillary's campaign. I say never reward extortionists, or you'll just get more of the same rule breaking pressures in the future.

Thanks, Subliminability above [10:35 am] for bringing in that quote from McAuliffe's book. That gives a perspective on the fact that Michigan threatened this when McAuliffe was heading the DNC, and tried again against Dean's DNC in this primary cycle.