Calendar chaos: Florida and Michigan stand their ground

• Florida Democrats press on

The showdown between Florida Democrats and the DNC has been prime political entertainment for weeks. Last week, the Florida party appeared ready to back down and renounce making the January 29th contest anything else than a beauty contest -- which would have weakened even further Clinton's already tenuous Florida firewall.

But yesterday came news that Florida Democrats had no intention of changing their plans, and that they were pressing ahead with a late January primary. Rep. Schultz said at a press conference in over-the-top rhetoric, "The 4 million Florida Democrats will be enfranchised. We will make sure Florida Democrats have a voice and that voice will be heard." Comparing the plight of Florida voters to voter disenfranchisement is certainly overdoing it -- after all, Florida voters are courted more than anyone else in the country come the general election, so they can hardly be said to be left out of the electoral process. But the point still stands that the DNC is not planning to punish IA, NH, SC, NV even though those four early states are also planning to break DNC scheduling rules.

Overall, this means that the Florida primary will still help Clinton. She is almost sure of winning the primary there (unless her campaign suffers some unforeseen dramatic collapse), and the media is sure to report that victory, especially since Republicans will a competitive primary the same day. News reports will probably mention that Florida's delegates will not be seated at the convention because of DNC sanctions, but who will really pay attention to that? It could have been more problematic if - as had been reported last week - Florida Democrats themselves had agreed to dilute their primary's significance, not assign delegates, and call themselves a beauty contest. But yesterday's press conference insures that that does not happen, and the Florida primary will still loom large in the Democratic race!

The chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, Karen Thurman, could not have been clearer: "Don't let anybody call this vote a 'beauty contest' or a 'straw poll'... There will be no other primary. Florida Democrats absolutely must vote on January 29th... the nation will be paying attention." There is no reason to doubt that it will.

• Michigan still favoring Romney
  

Michigan is the second rogue primary state. It is now set to vote on January 15th, which would likely make it the third state to go to the polls. This is excellent news for Mitt Romney, whose father was governor of Michigan and who is in a much better position in Michigan than in any of the other large states. He could capitalize on victories in IA and NH by winning here.

All Republican eyes were turned to Michigan this week-end for the state Republican Party’s biennial island conference. The major Republican candidates all gave a speech, and the event was followed by a straw poll. This vote is not very significant, but it still says something about the state of mind of the Republican establishment. Romney won with 39% of the roughly 1000 voters, followed by McCain with 27%. Giuliani (10%) and Thompson (7%) came far behind, trailing even Ron Paul who came in third at 11%!

These results highlight Romney's strenght with the party apparatus. The Politico reports, "Indeed, Romney’s ground game is formidable. He has support from four of the state’s Republican congressman, 55 legislators in the state House and Senate, many top donors and county chairs in 82 out of 83 counties. What’s more, he has already begun organizing precincts and coalitions." But the results also demonstrate that McCain has an opening in Michigan: McCain pulled off an easy victory here in 2000 against Bush, and he still has many influential backers in the state party.

To counter Romney and McCain's opening, Giuliani is hoping that independants cross over to the GOP primary and support him (Michigan has an open primary). He could also benefit from McCain's summer collapse, as many McCain supporters would be likely to flock to him if McCain really droped out of the top-tier. In his speech, Giuliani emphasized the electability favor:

And if there are some disagreements that we have about some policy here or some policy there, I ask you to evaluate that in light of the fact that right now if you look at every one of the public opinon polls that have been taken for the last six months I am the only Republican candidate that can defeat Hillary Clinton. We need to defeat her.

The Politico's Jonathan Martin has a rundown of the days event, and he reports that Republicans were particularly disappointed in Thompson's showing:

The "Law & Order" star gave a listless version of his stump speech to a packed dinner crowd last night that failed to meet the considerable anticipation many Michiganders had for him going in. It was Thompson's debut in a state that will now likely vote third in the GOP contest next year, and few came away impresssed. Trying to be as charitable as possible in describing Thompson's performance, Michigan Republican Chairman Saul Anuzis said in a chat with reporters this morning that "It appeared that it was a very off-the-cuff speech."