The Blog @ Spolitics

A Question for Howard Dean: When Do Rules Matter?

Mr. Dean, in 2000 the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state of Florida to change the rules in the middle of an election.  You’ve often referred to that as a “stolen” election, promoting the belief that the Supreme Court should have allowed the rule change — even if it was going to lead to an unconstitutional application of the rules to some voters but not others via selective recounts.  Now, here you are facing a similar decision on whether or not to change the rules and allow the Florida and Michigan primaries to count.  Hillary has said recently that the race for the Democrat nomination will not be settled until that issue is resolved.  So the question is, what’s different this time?  Why aren’t you willing to change the rules and let those votes be counted?  Why do the rules matter to you now when they didn’t matter to you in 2000?