Primary confusion

On Saturday, the rules committee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is going to meet to discuss the "Florigan" problem - namely what to do with the votes of primary voters in Florida and Michigan.

As you may (and should) know, Florida and Michigan decided to hold their primaries early, in contravention of DNC rules. The DNC told those states that if they went forward with the early primaries, their delegates would not be seated at the convention in August, meaning their primaries would be meaningless.

All of the Democratic contenders (Clinton, Obama, Edwards) agreed to those rules. Nobody campaigned in Florida, and Obama and Edwards weren't even on the ballot in Michigan. Not surpisingly, Clinton won both states, but didn't make any noise about the votes not counting until it became apparent that her coronation was going to be challenged. Suddenly she had a change of heart, and demanded a rule change mid-game, picking up the rallying cry of "count every vote."

Coming to her defense are political hacks and wannabe hacks who are crying foul, alleging that the failure to count those states' primary votes somehow runs afoul of, if not the Constitution, at least Constitutional principles.

But they are wrong.

You see, there is no right to vote for a party nominee. The DNC and RNC can both simply send approved slates to the convention. Of course, others can appear at the convention as well. Then, the delegates at the conventions get to debate and argue and, ultimately, vote for a candidate.

In fact, that's how it used to work. There were no primaries. But somewhere along the line, the parties decided that rather than have drawn-out, war-like conventions full of back-room deals and viscious party-infighting, they'd let the people select the nominee. Thus, the primary system.

Thus, the primary system is simply a creature created by the political parties solely for the purpose of ensuring nominees who have shown an ability to garner popular support outside of the party headquarters. Because it is a process they created, it is a process that they can control in any manner they chose. The creation of superdelegates is one example - they exist solely to serve as a counter balance to the popular vote in order to prevent voters from selecting a total loser.

Note also that pledged delegates don't have to vote the way they are pledged. Truly, your vote counts for nothing more than a suggestion.

But what this means is that you have no "right" to participate in a primary because you have no "right" to a primary to begin with. In other words, the primary is nothing more than the DNC asking for your advice on who should be its nominee. The DNC doesn't have to follow your advice, or even pay it any heed. It can create and modify its rules as it sees fit.

By not counting the votes of states who didn't follow party rules, the DNC is not dis-enfranchising anybody. It's simply enforcing its rules, and tomorrow it could change its rules to do away with the primary system all together. And there is NOTHING you or anybody else could do about it.

Saturday will see the DNC face the most serious challenge to its authority, and perhaps its very existence as a viable political party. For if a political party cannot establish and enforce its own rules, then it serves no purpose other than to bend to the will of whoever makes the most noise. If the DNC cannot enforce its sanctions against Michigan and Florida and seats those delegates, that will send the signal to every other state that, they too can ignore the DNC and schedule their primaries however and whenever they want, knowing full well that at the end of the day, the DNC rules have no teeth. Hopefully, the DNC will show some backbone on Saturday.