party politics

as the primary progresses, i am increasingly disappointed with the democratic party. i understand that we want to put a democrat in the white house. believe me, i want that too!

that said, i also want the people of this country, not some party-loyal elites, to determine who that democratic nominee will be. this may be unavoidable due to our "protect the ignorant masses from themselves" delegate structure which gives totally out-of-whack super-representation to a few elite party leaders (and don't even get me started on caucuses), but it's too late to restructure the system for this election. what really concerns me, and what can be resolved in the here and now, is the democratic party's disenfranchisement of nearly 1 in 10 americans -- simply because they live in michigan and florida.

it is abhorrent that the residents of michigan and florida who took the time to vote are having their votes thrown out because of decisions made by party leaders in those states to move up primaries against the will of the national party. i see no democracy in this kind of petty party politics in which the punishment for not playing by the rules results in the mass disenfranchisement of citizens.

i also want party leaders and the media to start reporting the results of this competition with some sense of statistical context. again, i understand that there can only be one winner, and i understand the implications of the math if we're dealing with delegate counts which exclude michigan and florida. however, the reality is that obama's lead over clinton is less than 10%. that's a pretty small margin, if you ask me, and surely is not a decisive lead. what i don't understand is the audacity it takes to ask someone who trailing by such a small margin to drop out of the race. politics are gnarly, unpredictable stuff, and an upset can't be entirely ruled out with such a small margin and so many variables. furthermore, i wouldn't want to be counted out or asked to quit something when i trailed by less than 10%. would you?