Stop it. (Dennis)

Perhaps the most distasteful thing opinion on the internets is the endless original opinion competition that generates genuinely asinine thoughts in record time.

Example A is the evolving assessment of Hillary's speech last night. Last night, everyone who watched the speech though it was a great speech under any circumstance and incredibly gracious speech given the rancorous campaign that preceded it. As morning came, people on Internet opinion factories, like Slate, thought it was a very good speech, but, left out some things, like the fact that Obama was "ready to be president." Nevermind that she basically said that fate of Western Civilization depended on his being elected. Now, as I sat down to watch Bill Clinton's speech tonight, it had become conventional wisdom that Hillary had somehow left something out, and Bill needed to fill that void. This was a notion which, a mere 24 hours ago, was dismissed as a ridiculous McCain talking point.

You can't tell me honestly that you saw Hillary's speech last night, and detected an actual opening, so why say it, if you aren't a Republican hack? It's because there's this annoying strain of intellectual masturbation from people hired to write online. For some, truth doesn't matter as much as having something different out there, no matter how much sense it makes. I suspect this has always existed, but with millions of opinions out there acessible via the internet, conventional wisdom now devolves more quickly into nonsense. It turns on its head the idea that greater accessiblity to ideas and information make us more informed.

Why Michigan and Florida Should Absolutely Count (JM)

In Florida 1.5 million people cast ballots to help choose their candidate for the presidency. In Michigan, 600,000 people have spoken. Now the time had come and people are calling for compromise on these states between the Obama Camp and the Clinton Camp. This is absolutely the wrong way to look at this, in fact the interests of the respective candidates are secondary to the only interest that ought to matter: the voters in Michigan and Florida.

Florida is the much clearer picture. All the candidates were on the ballot and Obama had commercials running in the state, while HRC did not. 1.5 million people came out to vote, made their votes clear and had an ample chance to hear from both of these megacandidates. The complaint from the Obama side is that they didn't get to go in and meet with people, which is his candidate's strength. This would be a marginally valid argument if it weren't for two things: 1) Hillary's strength (and probably a far more important presidential strength) is debating, a platform Obama seems quite keen to deny Hillary as more and more states come up; 2) Obama's concerns about how he gets to present himself are not nearly paramount in this discussion. Given the information they had the people of Florida went out to vote and deserve to have a say in our next president. This is particularly true given that it is an important swing state.

Michigan is a bit murkier. Hillary being the only candidate on the ballot kind of muddies the water a bit until you ask yourself this question: Why was Obama still on the Florida ballot? The answer is that he thought he had a chance to do well there. Largely speaking pulling off the Michigan ballot was a tactical move Obama and Edwards got behind, because Michigan happened to have been a very favorable climate for Hillary. Here's a video of Chuck Todd discussing this very possibility. Again 600,000 people came out to vote for the president and should not be disenfranchised because their party leaders were arrogant and silly. I would, however, offer a compromise in the case of Michigan. Grant Obama the delegates that would be attributed to Undecided. The truth is that his campaign was largely behind the Undecided movement and he takes a great advantage out of getting all undecided delegates because assuredly Edwards would have strongly cut in to his numbers with his ties to labor.

The only other compromise I've heard discussed is holding caucuses, which is a terrible idea for a number of reasons. I have often, in this space, discussed how wretched the caucus system is: it distorts voting opinions, it's proportioned bizarrely and it is often representative of population size so small that the results would be statistically insignificant if this were a laboratory experiment. But how much worse is it when you count the fact that over two million people have already voted. Imagine the outrage if we hold caucuses and 200,000 people invalidate the results of two million. This is essentially what Obama supporters are arguing for, and it's absurd. Finally, it's just too expensive, both states have said they cannot afford to run an additional caucus (now I recognize that this could be political hardball, but still it's a factor).

Is this a perfect situation? No. But the distortions that currently exist in the Florida and Michigan voting is nothing compared to the distortion that would exist in the national voting if we left their voices out altogether. I would suggest that the first goal of a democratic system of voting is to count as many voices as possible. I would further suggest if the party chooses not to count them that we might see some real blowback in the general election. These are states McCain can compete in, particularly Florida where the Wilford Brimley endorsement will play large. For the sake of the party and the people, Michigan and Florida must be counted.