Rules Are Made To Be Broken

So the Clinton campaign's all worried about disenfranchising voters in Michigan and Florida. Except they weren't worried about it when they agreed to abide by DNC rules in stripping the two states of delegates, sanctions that Hillary's top delegate counter voted for himself.

They're also worried about the way delegates are distributed in Texas, which they only recently discovered, a distribution they feel will blunt their support in Texas' heavily Hispanic districts, when in fact they are distributed through the same process as practically every other state in the union, based on past turnout numbers in Democratic primaries. This is something that of course has been well-known for years.

If they believe so much in one person, one vote, then they ought to acknowledge that right now, by any standard you use, Obama is ahead in the popular vote totals. But the response is that if you count only Democrats instead of independents, Hillary is ahead. Because the established manner in which states hold their primaries doesn't jibe with the Clinton's new rules.

Look, Sen. Clinton, I'm sure there are plenty of other political parties that have rules you might like better. But these are the rules of the Democratic Party, they have been the rules for quite a while now, and if you don't like it maybe you shouldn't contest that party's nomination. I'm sure the Green Party would give you everything you want, restrict the vote to Green party members and hold the primaries whenever you want and make the delegate counts reflect whatever system you deem worthy. So really, check them out.

The truth is that you kind of weren't expecting to actually have to contest this nomination, and certainly not beyond Feb. 5. So you're desperately trying to change the rules in the middle of the game. The only thing that says to me, considering that you campaign the way you govern, is that you'd take a whole lot of things for granted and not take into account new information and not prepare for every eventuality. Because that's what it looks like right now.

UPDATE: CNN's reporting a new poll from Texas with Obama and Clinton in a virtual tie. So maybe that tilt of delegates to Obama isn't so unfair. Publius has more. A smart campaign knows the rules and uses them to their advantage. A dumb campaign gets caught flat-footed and claims that the rules are unfair.

UPDATE II: More nonsense. As I prefer Obama to Clinton, all I can say is "keep talking and alienating Democratic superdelegates and voters across the country. Good strategy."