I would say your analogy falls a little short, at least on Florida.
The Florida legislature (both houses) and the Governorship are in the control of the Republicans. The moving of the primary date to its early position was the result of Republicans putting it in as an amendment to popular legislation on voting reform to create a paper trail for elections. It was a political no-win for the Florida Democrats. If they opposed the legislation, it would still pass with a party-line vote and provide ripe political fodder against them in their next election.
Michigan, on the other hand, moved up their primary after Florida had already been admonished by the DNC. I'm unclear whether it was the Michigan Party or the legislature that moved the date, but the Democrats are in control of at least the Michigan House of Representatives, so, either way, the moving of their primary can clearly be seen as a more egregious violation of DNC rulings.
The final decision will lie with the Credential Committee, but the tendency to lump both FL and MI together, I think, misses the huge differences in the situations.
Personally, I'd say the DNC was right in initially chastising FL, if only to serve as a disincentive for other states to try and move up their primaries. However, considering the circumstances, their delegation should be recognized as decided by the primary. MI, on the other hand, I think should be possibly allowed to attend the convention, but not stand to vote until a candidate is definitively decided upon.
Then the DNC can spend the next 4 years(or hopefully 8, assuming we have an incumbent to defend in 2012) figuring out a better way to handle these primaries and to get rid of these ridiculous, antiquated caucuses.
Why do we have such silly rules? Did anyone expect that the DNC rules would control what state assemblies choose to do?
Why do we have the silly rule that NH and Iowa must go first? Did we all decide that? If so, why? Couldn't it be argued that other states, like Florida and Michigan, are more important than Iowan and New Hampshire? Who would we rather alienate? New Hampshire or Florida?
Our rules are just silly. They make no sense. We'll be fighting about this foolishness from now until August, if not November. It's just not helpful to our chances of winning in November. When will we learn to keep our eyes on the prize and not these silly rules?!
A FL Dem co-sponsored the bill to move up the primary date. The FL Dems were willing accomplices to this debacle.
FL votes should not count unless a re-vote can be done and the re-vote is done fairly and credibily.
