sisyphusshrugged | timely thoughts

Tim Padgett, Time's Miami Bureau Chief, has some strongly-worded analysis (although it's not labeled as such) of the DNC's decision to penalize states that unilaterally change their primary dates

I don't know where the Democratic National Committee chairman was in late 2000, but I was here in Florida, shuttling between Miami, Tallahassee and Palm Beach County to cover the surreal presidential vote recount. You didn't have to have a Ph.D. in political science to learn from that crisis that Florida, because of its burgeoning size and centrist electorate, can swing a general election. It was also clear that Florida's losing Democratic Party had suffered wounds, some of them self-inflicted, that would take years to recover from. Until this year, in fact, Democrats seemed virtually irrelevant in the state legislature, and their 2002 and 2006 gubernatorial candidates had all the charisma of Gulf sea sponges. While the party triumphed all over the country in last year's national elections, the only major Republican opponent it defeated in Florida was Senate candidate and former Secretary of State Katherine Harris — an erratic lightweight who most G.O.P. leaders privately hoped would lose.

So now, just as that state party is regaining full use of its limbs, it defies credulity to watch Dean and the DNC go out of their way to chop them off. This past weekend the DNC threw the book at the Sunshine State's Dems for signing on to Florida's recent move to hold its 2008 presidential primary election two months earlier than usual and a week earlier than DNC rules allow. Florida's Democratic Party has 30 days to back out of the new Jan. 29 primary or face forfeiting all of its delegates and votes at the Democratic National Convention next summer, according to the draconian DNC ruling. (The Republican National Committee's rules also frown on the earlier primary, but the RNC hasn't demanded that Florida's G.O.P. reschedule it for a later date.)

and, in fact, the RNC had not demanded that when Mr. Padgett's much-viewed think piece came out on Monday.

They demanded it on Tuesday

The Republican National Committee plans to penalize at least four states holding early primaries, including New Hampshire and Florida, by refusing to seat at least half their delegates at the party’s national convention in 2008, a party official said Tuesday.

Much of the focus in the primary scheduling fight up to now has been on the Democratic National Committee’s moves to penalize Florida by not seating its convention delegates because of the state’s decision to move up its primary. But the Republican rules are even more stringent, and the national party said today that it would not hesitate enforcing them.

The actions by Republicans and Democrats to move against states holding early contests is a rare instance of the two parties moving in concert, in this case to regain control over a rapidly evolving primary calendar that has thrust the nominating system into deep uncertainty just months before it is to begin.

“The rules are clear,” said Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. “Any state that holds their primary outside of the window shall be penalized delegates.”

It appears that Mr. Padgett's sources were less than forthcoming with him.

I'm sure we'll be seeing an equally fierce article castigating the Republicans for their lack of judgment and listing their missteps over the past six years (the phrase "Florida vote" didn't become a joke in a vacuum. Neither did Florida child protective services or Florida education) in next week's edition.

Because that's how Mr. Padgett sees his job

[Wabash Magazine] In your experience, what is the greatest misconception the public has about your vocation (or field of study) or the people in that vocation?

[Mr. Padgett] That journalists are supposed to look at the world through an impossibly objective lens. Objectivity is an illusory aim for any chronicler—but fairness, which is really the edifying goal we aspire to, isn't.

I'd have to agree with that.

Looking forward to next week.