The title mocking Bender’s line in “Bender’s Big Score” when he does a power slide across the deck of the Delivery Express building in celebration of Futrama’s return. These great little Lego models make my heart glad (and thinking of the alien bartender signing for his package makes part of me cringe in sympathy with a cartoon character).

HT: David Raynes

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Primary controversy in Michigan and Florida since participating in the comment thread on this post by Epiphany in Baltimore.

If you’ve been paying attention to the Democratic Primary, you probably had the queasy feeling that sooner or later the Democratic National Committee’s decision to not seat the delegates in the Michigan and Florida primaries would come back to bite the party in the rear — and the more closely contested this Primary has been, that outcome is now what everyone is talking about.

Hillary Clinton is demanding that those states’ delegates be seated: well, of course she is — she won those contests. Here’s the hitch, though: all of the Democratic nominees were asked to remove their names from those states’ ballots, and all agreed not to campaign in either states. Florida listed all of the Democratic nominees on their ballots anyway, but in Michigan, John Edwards withdrew. Barack Obama withdrew. Hillary Clinton did not.

I’m in favor of the seating of Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates: with the proviso that the primaries need to be re-held. That seems to be the general consensus, although everyone seems to be asking “How?” Governor Crist of Florida is refusing to use Florida tax-dollars to fund a new Primary, which seems to mean the DNC will have to dig into its pockets: problematic, because when there is a candidate, that’ll be less money available for his or her campaign against John McCain.

Ironically, Florida and Michigan moved their primaries up so that they could have a ’say’ in the primary process, which has usually been resolved by the point their voters … vote. The Democrats behind these moves knew that they’d be in trouble with the DNC, they knew that they might forfeit their delegates, and they considered it a reasonable trade-off in a Primary in which everybody thought Hillary Clinton had the nomination wrapped up and would cease to be competitive after Super Tuesday. Ironic: a move that was intended to give voters an important voice in the process wound up costing them exactly that.

UDPATE:

In my in-box:

Hi.

I’m working over at MobLogic, and we have a show tomorrow about the Florida delegate mess. I’ve loved reading your stuff on the subject, but we think there’s something new to be said here. Check it out tomorrow on the site, or email me for the embed code.

You might find it interesting, you might think it’s bullshit, but let us know. Your opinion means a lot to us.

Thanks!
Amanda Elend

I can’t quite figure out if this is a genuine e-mail or a mass-copy sent to every blog that’s popped up after a search for “Florida delegate mess”, but Lindsay Campbell’s cute, so I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.