If the Democratic Party leadership does not find a way to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida, either by holding a re-vote (which I think is needed in Michigan, as all the candidate’s names were not on the ballot), or finding some way to count the votes that were cast in the Primaries, McCain will win by default.

John McCain will become the next President.

Not because the nominee will be un-electable.

Not because legions of disgruntled Obama or Clinton supporters will cross party lines to vote for McCain.

Because the election will be stolen.
As it was in 2000, and in 2004.

And a party that has selected its nominee on the backs of the blatant, public disenfranchisement of millions of voters will have no moral authority to stand up to sneaky tactics like “malfunctioning” machines, misleading poll information, confusing ballots, hackers, misdirection, ID challenges, and caging lists. Much less a U.S. Supreme Court that leans even farther to the right than the one that handed George W. Bush the election he lost.

And I know, I know, there are “rules” that were broken. But here’s the thing. Those rules were broken by politicians playing games.

Not by the voters.

We didn’t all get together one day and decide we didn’t want our votes to count.

So the next time you hear someone say, or are tempted to say yourself, “They broke the rules,” I want you to try something. I want you to replace that phrase with one of these ones:

What were you doing on the street at that hour?
He ‘matched the description’ of the suspect.
If you don’t want ‘attention’ don’t dress like that.
Their parents are here illegally.
They’re ‘pushing their lifestyle’ on the public.
She was ‘leading him on’.
He’s a ‘problem child’ who can’t learn.

Because you’re basically making the same argument.