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Aaron

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How the Condi Rice non-story became a story?

So Ms. Rice goes to the Grover Norquist meeting on March 26, where she is asked about her "political future."  She basically says she's wants to return home to CA.  No story there.  Basically gets ignored.
Now, republican strategist Dan Senor, on ABC's This Week, says she's "actively [...] campaigning for this".  And what evidence does he add to our non-story?  Nothing.  He only offers that she participated in a "ritual" by showing up to Norquist's meeting.  And yet, people are acting as if there is new evidence.
So, let me get this straight.  There's no "there" there ... until it shows up on ABC's Sunday show?  Is this how news works?  Why are we (or the media that "inform" us) so moldable?  
What am I missing?  Did he say more on the show than appears in the abcnews.com article about it?

Can we fairly resolve Michigan?

I've seen lots of discussion about how best to deal with the Michigan situation, with a lot of focus on trying to be fair.
But what does fair mean? I think the fairness that matters most to getting Michiganders to vote Democratic in November is fair reflection of the will of the people. Without that, I think we could have serious problems. 


Of course, it's very hard to know the will of Michigan Democratic voters because the primary was so messed up. Some voters stayed home who would have voted under different circumstances. Some participated in the Republican contest. Some voted for Clinton because she was the only choice, while others did so because they really liked her candidacy. Some voted for Uncommitted because they wanted to vote for Obama, while others did so because they wanted to vote for Edwards. 

Given the current situation, I just don't see a way to fairly assess the true will of the people. Aside from public opinion polls with large margins of error, the closest data we have is from a seriously flawed primary. Obama's suggestion of a 50/50 split is fair in the sense of not playing favorites to one campaign or the other, but I'm not sure it represents the will of the people. I don't think a fair solution exists, so maybe this unfair one will have to do?


Carville is right some of the time

I don't agree with him on Richardson, but he has a good point about Leahy's call for Clinton to drop out.  On the Situation Room today, he said that Leahy isn't helping Obama with this call.  His argument was that it would be easy to interpret as a call for disenfranchisement.  You might not agree that it is such a call, but you can certainly understand a PA Clinton voter taking it that way.  I'm glad Obama has come out against such calls.
Carville also didn't seem upset about Dean's reasonable call for the supers to make sure the race doesn't end in a messy floor fight.  I'm glad to see James with some of his normal over-excitement removed.


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