Who’s refusing to see potential? There is always potential. But until you have a workable mechanism to realize that potential, it’s still just wishful thinking. Nor is it radical cynicism to see the world as it actually works. False dichotomies in a multi-valued reality.

Always happy to see someone attempt the difficult. Been doing it myself for over a quarter of a century, and have had some successes. Still doing it now. But I am still bound by the parameters of the real and the possible in the existing system, however much I might wish it to be different.

There is no magic wand to wave that will change human nature overnight. There is no special oil for re-lubing the wheels of democracy. "Fixing" a political system is like working on a running engine from the driver’s seat, when you can’t allow the engine to shut down for a moment without crashing the vehicle. You don’t just tinker with it aimlessly or you make things worse, regardless of any purity and nobility of intentions. So, what mechanisms do you propose? Because the only alternative is indeed radical. Revolution.

If you  want to change the perverse incentives in the DNC primary/caucus system, you have to start with the basics of that system itself, not the candidates bound by it. They can only work with what’s there, and they will work it to the edges or lose.

And a desire to reform is not "wishful thinking" if it recognizes the practical problems of perverse incentives and seeks ways to change those specific causal factors. The hallmark of “wishful thinking” is a failure to see the practical issues invoked by trying to make change, not a desire for change itself. A refusal to see potential for changing perverse incentives is cynicism, not realism. And I am saying that we can deal with practical problems to reduce perverse incentives that encourage double-dealing by rejecting Hillary’s attempt to use it in this instance. Whether Obama would have done the same thing in some counterfactual world is simply irrelevant to the question of whether we should reward it in the actual factual world. Does rejecting Hillary’s effort to play both sides magically create a “new kind of politics”? Of course not. The only people who would/will make such an accusation are those who want to misrepresent ALL reform as radical and naive reform because they get off on seeing the cynical status quo continue without any limit. But any single rejection of manipulation like Hillary’s is a victory, however small.

The practice of automatically labeling anything that departs from radical cynicism as "wishful thinking" is, I think, what irritates so many of us about the predominant tone around here lately. The net effect of radical cynicism is not only to describe politicians’ pandering and corruption, it is to reinforce it by insulating it against any and all criticism.

Or you can just fool yourself–but that’s not analysis. It’s fantasy and wishful thinking. What is, is.

I’d agree with that on general principle, regardless of the effect on the race. Those are the rules they played under.

Not a justification at all–I’m pointing out that hypocrisy is part and parcel of politics, always has been, and that’s not going to change. Obama’s not immune either, though I would agree he seems less corrupt than Clinton. Then again, he’s had much less opportunity. Guess we’ll never know unless we give him a chance, eh?

Wanna change the game? First, you’ve got to get in the game. Unless you have a magic wand.

Yeah, I noted Clinton’s "civil rights" speech. Made me cyncical old self laugh. The only principle that applies for seating FL and MI is the classic "What’s in it for me?" principle. The DNC, Obama, and Clinton all have different answers to that and are seeking a meeting of minds–and bargaining power. If Clinton were leading and Obama needed those states, she’d be screeching about "the rules," and he’d be arguing about not disenfranchising the people. There’s some justice to both arguments.

Bottom line remains that the party insiders get to pick the nominee. Unless Obama implodes/explodes in a grand fashion or Clinton acquires God-like powers of persuasion, it’ll be Obama.

Of course she’s a hypocrite–she’s a politician, and her lips are moving. But she kept that pledge, and did not campaign in the line-jumping states.

This sort of justification is repeated endlessly by Clinton’s defenders. Basically, her history of low standards is somehow a magic shield that protects her against any backlash due to yet another iteration of low standards.

At the point that a history of being corrupt becomes treated as a virtue, I don’t think we can blame solely the politicians for pervasive corruption. We are getting exactly what we reward. Clinton’s supporters use cynicism as a way to give her a pass on every new debasement while taking any candidate that is even SLIGHTLY more ethical to the woodshed every time that candidate falls short of absolute perfection. This is a logically and ethically perverse process of reasoning, yet it has become dominant among the so-called conservatives around here. What incentive does any politician have to even TRY to achieve a higher standard? Any shortfall of perfection simply becomes an excuse to condemn them as a hypocrite while the MORE corrupt politician gets a complete pass.

Clinton seems to me MORE corrupt than just the average politician. Her propensity to parse and misrepresent and demonize is not unique — she isn’t the only one doing it — but it is worse — she does it more and does it more severely. For example, her crusade to reverse her position on Florida just yesterday expanded to include a comparison between anyone who disagrees with her position (the fact that they agree with her old position is ignored) and the dictator of Zimbabwe.

And she gets a pass. Again. And again. And again. And again. And again. The equivalent in a non-political setting would be to say that a repeat felon should go free while the first time offender should get life. Yet that is exactly the same logic that gets applied routinely to the Obama/Clinton comparison.

Bottom line: Hillary should be held accountable for her original position and her cynical attempt to hope that no one notices while she changes her position to pose as some kind of grand defender of the “disenfranchised”. And the appropriate way to hold her accountable is to deny her the fruits that she seeks to gain by being blatantly dishonest. The best solution is to go back to the 50% penalty for Florida and Michigan, which would give them representation while denying Clinton the extra votes she would use to gain leverage in support of her demands to be awarded the nomination.

It may be true that all politicians pander and all politicians are corrupt. But it does not follow that they all pander or are all corrupt to the same degree. Cynicism should not become the prime virtue of political analysis.

Unfortunately, around here it has.

And we believe the DNC’s rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role.

When we complain about someone "breaking the rules," it’s always nice to know what the rules really are, don’t you think? Especially at the time they were "broken." I refer you to the official delegate selection rules for the 2008 DNC National Convention, as published by the party, and ask you to note Rules 11.A and 20.C.1.a, which are respectively the standing rules governing the permitted timing of caucuses/primaries for the 2008 nomination, and the party-prescribed penalty for violating same.

Do a little calendar math and you will see that the ONLY pre-Super-Tuesday state that did NOT violate 11.A was Nevada. When NH, IA, and SC moved their votes even earlier than originally scheduled in order to beat out MI they too violated 11.A, which is the same rule that MI and FL violated. They have not been penalized as called for in the rules. The Rules Committee allowed them to violate 11.A with impunity. Selective justice.

Note the penalty for violating 11.A per the standing rules for 2008. It’s the traditional 50% reduction of delegates. But when FL and MI violated Rule 11.A, the Rules Committee stripped them of ALL their delegates instead of the stated penalty of only 50%.

So, in the interests of accurate representation and reporting, please note that we have three states which violated Rule 11.A and were not punished at all, and we have two states that violated Rule 11.A and were given TWICE the penalty prescribed, a total stripping of all representation rather than a 50% reduction called for in the official rules.

Were we to be absolutely "fair" and enforce the rules as issued against all violators, five states would lose half their delegates, rather than two states losing all their delegates and three states losing none. 

The DNC changed the rules and selectively applied them with arbitrary penalty as they went along in their attempt to micromanage the primary process. As I said at the time, such ham-handed diddling portended a party determined to return to the old back-room selection process for nominees, in which insiders picked the nominee. Well, guess what’s happening today? The party insiders (superdelegates) get to pick the nominee, just as predicted. 

I also beg to note that the change in penalty to 100% was decided on and applied AFTER the FL and MI primaries were scheduled. When they scheduled early they accepted the penalty in the standing rules, a 50% reduction. The 100% stripping was the DNC spanking them, but it was a retroactive rule change and selective enforcement that permitted the other three states to go even earlier in violation of 11.A without being penalized.
 

The practice of holding her withdrawal and her endorsement hostage to the payment of a $20 million bribe only seems to me to highlight the absolute moral and ethical bankruptcy of the Clinton campaign.

Not a conspiracy theory, a reality. You can google up some insider news accounts of what happened with Michigan if you disbelieve my account. Here’s a lead for you.   You can disbelieve that account as well, but I had multiple sources for the same story, some of them insiders in two of the campaigns involved. It was actually a pretty neat piece of electioneering strategy on the Edwards/Obama part, if you ignore the somewhat short-sighted nature of it.  Of course it sounds conspiratorial. Opposing campaigns categorically and definitionally conspire against one another.

but rather that it will be cost-free for him to throw her a bone now that he has clinched the nomination anyway

Not exactly cost-free but pays him what HE wants. He will go along with the deal as long as he gets the nomination cinched out of it. He has to go along–damage control in those crucial states. His required payment is the nomination and Clinton’s open support. Hers is other political compensation–and it will be considerable–and probably her campaign debt, half of which is her own money. $10 mil is $10 mil, after all. 

I’d even give odds.