Now the Democrats are back in the Sunshine state, but this time it is their own power elite being framed as the ones trying to steal the voting power of the people of Florida.

Let's review.

The Democratic National Committee decided this year to punish states for falling all over themselves to be "first in the nation" with their primaries, by decreeing that any state jumping the mysteriously sacrosanct date of February 5 would have its delegates zeroed out and not seated at the Denver convention. (The GOP only struck half of theirs.)

Florida and Michigan defied the party and rolled the dice. Hillary Clinton won both of them, alone on the ballot in Michigan, and with Obama in Florida. (Well, functionally "alone" in Michigan--there were six choices: Hillary, Christopher Dodd, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Uncommitted, and Write-in. Those wishing to vote for actually viable Democratic candidates were told to vote "uncommitted," because thsoe candidates were not eligible to be written in under Michigan law.) Nevertheless, she did win them.

After the fact, certain people--mostly Hillary people--started complaining that it was "unfair" to the voters to have just taken away their votes like that, and their votes should somehow be made to count. There was a brief moment of flirtation with the idea of doing the primaries over, but of course that would cost a fortune and still could not re-create the political atmosphere that would have existed, had everyone in Florida been free to vote in a meaningful way. So that was dropped.

But, now that she's beaten Obama in a few states by something like forty percent--and considering that the states she has won are likely to be keenly important in the general election--Hillary Clinton can think of nothing but helping the poor, disfranchised voters of Florida make their votes count, and get their delegates (her delegates) seated.

Now comes word that there is in fact a lawsuit coming. Some Florida voters are suing the Democratic National Committee for taking away their right to vote.

They do have a point. After all, if the party didn't intend to have a meaningful election, what was the point of all those balloting centers all over the state? Certainly there must be some Florida voters who were too out-of-touch to realize that they were wasting their time driving down to the polling station to vote, just as there were voters in Florida too (apparently) stupid to figure out how not to vote for Pat Buchanan. It's not much of a stretch to see that the average Florida voter was, in some sense, defrauded by the Democratic Party, disfranchised by the Democratic National Committee, and victims of a civil rights violation.

Hillary is hammering home the point. And it has a good deal of resonance, coming from the first-lady whose Vice President had the election "stolen" from him by electoral malfeasance of some unspecified kind. Moreover, the DNC had better fix this problem, and soon. They plan to meet on May 31st to figure out what to do, but common sense dictates that they can't offer the media the opportunity to pan empty delegate seats in the hall, can't re-do the voting process, can't afford to make it too obvious that the whole thing is controlled by the elites, and--most crucially--cannot afford to risk losing Michigan and Florida (and their 44 electoral votes) in the general election.

What's Doctor Dean going to do?

And, of course, all of this (excuse the expression, Mr. Limbaugh) "chaos" plays into the hands of the Republicans. Imagine how disturbing it will be in November, when the calm, grown-up Republicans run footage of the screaming, angry Democrats, and ask, "Are these the people you want to put in charge? They couldn't even design a nomination process they could figure out how to run. What are they going to do when you hand them the US healthcare system?"

See, boys and girls? I told you--politics is fun!