Rules Are Rules -- Except for New Hampshire

As the status of Michigan and Florida's participation in the presidential nominating process remains in limbo, everybody in the country seems to be weighing in. A common refrain is that Michigan and Florida's delegates to the Democratic National Convention cannot be counted because those two states broke the rules and held nominating events in January.

Rules are rules, and the state parties knew in advance that they would be losing their delegates if they broke the rules.

But guess what? Another state broke the rules and is not being punished.

That's New Hampshire.

According to Sen. Carl Levin, the party had agreed that the first four states would be Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. "New Hampshire went apoplectic," Levin said. But New Hampshire broke the rules and moved its primary up to be ahead of Nevada.

Levin said that when the national party failed to respond to questions about whether it would enforce the rules against New Hampshire, the states of Michigan and Florida decided to move their procedures into January.

Here's the video again, for those of you who missed Levin explaining the background of Michigan's decision to the Livingston County Democrats.



It would be nice if all those national pundits insisting that the rules can't be broken would at least mention that New Hampshire broke the rules and is getting away with it.

And sound bite journalism is not an excuse. Cable news shows are an hour long. They have time to discuss the ins and outs of every adviser's comments on each side in the campaign. They can certainly find time to mention that New Hampshire broke the rules and its delegates are still being counted.