It's amazing how quickly we grow accustomed to the foolishness of the caucus process.  From Iowa to Maine, we've seen an aggressive paring down of candidate support by mathematical formulae, bizarre "at-large" districts, and multi-day extravaganzas.  From Texas, we saw selection events that would embarrass a Third World republic trying out democracy for the first time.

Now this: persons far less known than any dreaded superdelegate have swung nine national convention delegates away from the candidate who won them according to the rules.  Against the wishes of these voters, folks largely unknown to their own state party staged a by-the-rules putsch for no discernible reason.  This isn't just non-democratic...it's anti-democratic.  And our expectations are so low that we just accept it.

I recently wrote a letter to the various members of the DNC from my home state of Massachusetts.  One e-mailed me back recently (deserving props), but I was concerned about this passage:

"The members of the DNC from Massachusetts have decided to wait until we hear the candidates and then decide how we will each vote. We are also going to take into consideration Senator Kerry's feelings on the issue."

I find it a bit alarming that a loser who may run again for the nomination should have their "feelings" taken into consideration.  I don't like having yesterday's man influencing our future -- think Gerald Ford called a lot of shots in 2000?

One thing that seems to be lost in the debate in the comments of this post on Trippi's endorsement of Rosenberg (and something Trippi seems to have forgotten) is that the Chair of the DNC will be the public face of the Democratic Party leading into the 2006 election, at least.  The new Chair will take a seat as "Leader of the Opposition" in a way no other has, and I think this has to be remembered in the debate.

The highest Democratic elected officials right now are Sen. Harry Reid (NV) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA), both the minority leader in their respective House of Congress.  For fun's sake, throw in an occasional Democratic governor of a big-time state like Jen Granholm in Michigan, or Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell.

Now, while I am content to blame Dubya for the horrible economy, the morass in Iraq, an environment in crisis, and the fact that I can't find my keys, let's lay off the "Bush will cost NYC the 2012 Olympics" meme.

Because New York wasn't going to get the Olympics, Bush or no Bush.  Why?  Well....

1. The games will be in North America in 2010, in Whistler/Vancouver, Canada.  That's pretty close to the United States right there.  Regional rotation between North America, Europe, and Asia is pretty well expected at this point.
    
   
2. Europeans are over-represented within, the small coterie of IOC members who vote on where to hold the games, starting with Belgian president Jacques Rogge.  They try to get the games in Europe as often as possible (why travel?), a little more than their fair share.  France, Spain, and Norway all hosted the games within 32 months of each other, but Canada followed by the US?  Nope.
   
   
3. New Yorkers seem less than enthused about having the games than the IOC would like.  There are plenty of semi- or fully dictatorial countries that want that stamp of legitimacy, (cough, Beijing 2008, looking at you Moscow 2012) and will quell dissent if necessary, or just for practice.
   
   
4. After the scare 'em, finish it at the last minute (or in terms of the swimming venue, not at all) construction frenzy in Athens, the IOC is going to be very leery of the ol' "it'll be ready by the time you get here" routine.  
   
   
5. Anyway, the other choices are front-runner Paris, London, the aforementioned Moscow, and Madrid.  Even in a depoliticized, chimp-free, fair competition, that's a heck of a tough choice.
   

Not to mention, New York's bid sucked as far as I could tell.  The good news, the Olympics come to North America every once in a while for the same reason as the Pope: this is where all the money to run the operation comes from.  

Well, depends on who you ask.  You'd expect the Bush campaign to lie about it, sure.  You'd expect them to use some fuzzy math.  Maybe even expect that they'd at least pick a number and stick with it.  But to have the conflicting numbers on their own site?  Did Kerry vote to "raise" taxes 98 times, or is it at least 350?  

Reminds me of the number of Communists McCarthy was finding back in the good ol' days.  Any other numbers out there?