The thing is, Republicans are good at running as "uncommitted." That was more or less George W. Bush in 2000, and McCain is close the the ideal person to serve as a not-Hillary candidate in 2008.

Oh, please! Running against "Uncommitted" -- as the sole nominee -- is running against "None of the Above." That Hillary ONLY got 55% is a comment.

I ran as an Uncommitted delegate in NJ, and got 2/10 of one percent in my district. Pretty impressive, huh?

Trying to convince primary  voters not to commit to a candidate in an historic, precedent-breaking campaign was to put it mildly a non-starter.  

But then why is Obama trying so hard to block re-votes in Michgan and Florida? As he often does --"oops, I hit the wrong button when i voted!"--he is saying one thing but actually doing another. But why is he so afraid of a re-vote in Michigan or Florida? IRe-votes are apparently the last things he wants.

Perhaps because he realizes that allowing Hillary Clinton to rewrite the rules of the nomination process is the only way she can win, and he'd rather not give her carte blanche to do so.

pccostello,

First, he's not trying "so hard."  In fact, he's not trying nearly as hard to block revotes and HRC tried to get those original delegations--the ones that almost everyone now admits should not be accepted--seated.  On the same talk show as Ed Rendell this morning with Russert, Tom Daschle made it clear that the Obama campaign no longer has any objection in principle to revotes--it is only a question of details (albeit important ones).  Details like who's gonna pay for all this, caucus vs. primary vs. mail in, etc.  But the principle has been conceded.

Second, insofar as he *was* trying--albeit not very hard--he was trying because to have a revote in MI means having a revote in FL as well, and he just didn't see the percentage.  Is that naked self-interest?  You bet.  So what else is new?  Given HRC campaign tactics, he was entitled to a little push back, I think.

Actually, I think revotes are a bad idea in principle.  The people to blame are not the DNC, and not the various campaigns, but the elected officials of FL and MI who screwed all of this up.  They should be punished by the voters this November, not rewarded with a mulligan paid for either by private interests or the campaigns.

Idiot. Just what I'd expect from him.

I get Rendell's point though I don't think it applies perfectly here -- the reason John McCain is the GOP nominee isn't because most republicans wanted him but because most republicans thought he was better than the specific individuals running against him -- you see that happen a lot in polls.  

The DNC shares blame here: they could have gone with the 50% delagate penalty like the GOP, but no, they had to be SO protective of Iowa/New Hampshire's ridiculous role in picking the next president that they completely disenfranchised millions of voters, even in Florida where the Dems weren't the responsible for moving the date!   Look, Obama is going to do just fine in Michigan with its large African-American population and a good number of those liberal college grad types he does well with (and dare I say that even though Obama is not a Muslim he may hold some appeal for the state's large Muslim population -- more than Hillary Clinton)?  If he wins an unquestioned total vote count (he'll already win pledged delagates), Hillary is through, so I think he should bite the bullet and support the revote.

"...even in Florida where the Dems weren't the responsible for moving the date! "

I thought I'd read that though the Republicans control the legislature in Florida, the Democrats there voted for the change in date anyway, making this line of argument rather silly.

I'm a huge Uncommitted supporter. I send $20 to Uncommitted's campaign fund every month from my bank account. I have been out making phone calls and canvassing on behalf of Uncommitted---urging voters to get out and not vote. In the Texas caucuses, I firmly held my ground in the middle of the aisle and declared that as a die-hard Democrat I would be voting for Uncommitted, because Uncommitted spoke to my issues the way no other candidate had.

I went to a rally for Uncommitted, actually. It was an elevating experience---an indefinite number of anonymous non-entities milling out in a Schroedinger field, listening to speeches we may or may not have heard.

"Idiot. Just what I'd expect from him."

Rendell is not an idiot by any stretch of the imagination.  I took a class that he teaches at Penn and the guy is sharp.  That said, this one is pretty ridiculous.  In some sense, I guess there are a couple reasons why you wouldn't run against uncommitted, namely that you can't contrast yourself with (read: attack) your opponent, and the opposing campaign is solely based on attacking you.  Also, there is very little to gain by beating an uncommitted option, but a whole lot to lose.

The problem with that logic (and I think that interpretation is being as charitable as possible to Rendell), is that Clinton wasn't running a campaign there at all.  From her campaign's point of view, staying on the ballot was a low risk move, with a potentially high reward if she could somehow convince people to count those delegates.  Rendell himself stresses how much campaigns matter.  It was a pretty dumb thing to say.

"I thought I'd read that though the Republicans control the legislature in Florida, the Democrats there voted for the change in date anyway, making this line of argument rather silly."

It's a little more complicated than that.  The primary move was packaged in an bill with election reforms Dems had been pushing hard for, and there was really no way they were going to vote against that.  On top of that, they had no chance of defeating the bill, and voting against it would have an unpopular move, so many of them just went along with it, although they did make a token effort at an amendment to move the primary date to Super Tuesday.  That's my understanding of it anyway.

In any case, I'm a little confused.  Isn't Obama on record as saying several times that he would support a redo in Florida and Michigan if both candidates had a fair chance to campaign?  Has he been saying something differently recently?  I know Plouffe floated the 50-50 split possibility (which is effectively the same as not counting the delegates at all), but it didn't seem like something his campaign was really pushing.  I think Obama should not only support new elections, but offer to help cover the costs.

And isn't that really the whole point that supports *not* seating the delegates from MI's and FL's early primaries -- that the primaries were more on par with elections in Hussein-era Iraq or Fidel-era Cuba -- elections more in name than in substance due to the DNC's promise to not seat the delegates and the candidates' promises to not campaign there?

I speculated back then that Hillary had an ulterior motive for having her name on the ballot in MI, and that is playing out.

What a way to win an election!  Tell everyone that it doesn't really count ... then try to get the election to count once your opponents have bailed out.

Is Rendell term limited or something?

"Idiot. Just what I'd expect from him."

Rendell or pccostello?