How Democrats should handle Florida and Michigan

What happened

Members of the Democratic National Convention’s rules committee, which meets Saturday, said Wednesday that the party will likely seat half of the convention delegates from Florida and Michigan. The Democratic National Committee stripped the states of their delegates as punishment for moving their primaries earlier than party rules allowed. Hillary Clinton, who won the votes in Michigan, where rival Barack Obama was not on the ballot, and Florida, has been pushing to seat as many delegates as possible from the states. (CNN)

What the commentators said

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“Poor Howard Dean,” said The Boston Globe in an editorial. The head of the Democratic Party has to strike a compromise that is bound to anger everyone. The “cleanest option” would be sticking to the punishment, “but excluding two key swing states is turning out to be untenable politically.” So “docking” both states half of their delegates—which is what the Republicans did—is “the least-bad option.”

Try telling that to Clinton, said Christopher Beam in Slate. She’s still “fighting tooth and nail” for “full seating, but that scenario remains extremely unlikely.” Obama, on the other hand, is “willing to compromise,” because he “can afford to. Even the best-case scenarios don't have Clinton closing Obama's 195-delegate lead.” That might explain why Clinton is talking more these days about the popular vote, which is tighter than the delegate race.

And why shouldn’t she? said Rich Lowry in National Review Online. In 2000, “Democrats brayed 'count every vote' in Florida and discounted George Bush's eventual victory in the Electoral College because he lost the national popular vote to Al Gore.” Back then, Democrats were “contemptuous of rules and technicalities,” and said the only thing that mattered was the “popular will.” How Clinton must “yearn” for a return to those days.