A friend of mine, active in Democratic politics in the Tampa area, is royally PO'd about Florida not having a say in who the Democratic nominee is.

A Hillary supporter, he is blaming Howard Dean for what is another file item in his "Democratic Party self-destructiveness" folder. He sees this as de-energizing Florida Dems, whose best efforts obviously will be helpful and quite possibly pivotal if Democrats are to win in November.

Hillary is making a good political move making an issue of this. Especially if we head into the convention with the delegate count difference between the frontrunners within the margin of delegates Florida and Michigan have between them, to not count those delegates is going to be tough for the DNC to stick to, regardless of whether it would be the right thing to do or not. (And, on the merits, I'm inclined to agree that the rules should not be changed in midstream.)

It flies entirely in the face of the Democratic party's occasional/sometimes theme or mantra of "counting every vote", itself tarnished in Nevada. The candidate who says Florida's delegates should count builds good will among all Floridians who agree.

So let's hope this looming trainwreck can be avoided and the nomination doesn't get decided with this issue in the mix. We're making it difficult enough for ourselves as it is.

As someone who spent a lot of time and energy sticking up for Bill Clinton throughout the 90s', including in his many dark hours, I am among the many who are turned off by some of the things he's been saying of late.

I know the Clinton campaign wants to marginalize Obama as another Jesse Jackson--in fact I'd written an earlier blog post about a concern I have that Obama might be so at pains to distinguish himself as the "non-Jesse Jackson candidate" that he might shy away from advocating ideas which some identify as "left" even where those are excellent ideas.

But Obama is not Jesse Jackson and we are seeing some of the blowback that comes from making that association among many savvy and committed Dem activists whose support, or at least lack of total hostility, the Clinton campaign will desperately need.

I am also put off by the robo-calling the Clinton campaign engaged in at the last minute to try to take Edwards out in South Carolina. What they said re his employment with the Wall Street firm making foreclosure money off the misery of others was out of line, I felt. This has been a rare exception of late to the two frontrunners laying off Edwards, at least unless and until they know they can win the nomination without support from him and his supporters.

So the Clinton campaign at the moment is working hard to court this Dem's ill will, at any rate.