A Stitch in Haste

I have no horse in the race (i.e., by states) to be first or close to first in the 2008 primaries.

So I can only scratch my head in befuddlement at this story:

The Democratic National Committee sought to seize control of its unraveling nominating process yesterday, rejecting pleas from state party leaders and cracking down on Florida for scheduling a Jan. 29 presidential primary.

The DNC's rules and bylaws committee, which enforces party rules, voted yesterday morning to strip Florida of all its delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver — the harshest penalty at its disposal.
...
Donna Brazile, a member of the rules committee who argued for a swift and harsh punishment for Florida, said states' desire to be more relevant in the nominating process does not excuse violations of rules intended to make the system fair for everyone.
...
Under the caucus alternative proposed yesterday, voters could still go to the polls on Jan. 29 to express their preferences for a presidential nominee, but the results would be ceremonial, much like the results of the Republican straw poll held in Ames, Iowa, this month.

Some hasty stitches:

--Brazile's comment is the most disconnected-from-reality gobbledygook I've read today (and I've read a lot today). There is nothing presumptively "fair" or "unfair" about a state party scheduling its primary before, after, or concurrent with another state's. This has nothing to do with "fairness" and everything to do with party bosses (like, um, Brazile herself) flexing their muscle.

--Remember always that political parties are an entirely extra-constitutional concept. They have no (legitimate) powers, no (legitimate) rights and no (legitimate) claims on the government, the election process or any voter who does not voluntarily (and masochistically) subject himself to party membership.

--A corollary: No taxpayer money should ever, under any circumstances, go to a political party or to subsidize the activities of political parties.

--Another corollary: No bureaucratic position should ever, under any circumstances, be legislatively allocated to a political party (e.g., positions on both the SEC and FCC are, by law, "split" between the two parties).

--What was I saying about how "political parties are an entirely extra-constitutional concept"?

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true.

The Framers may not have found the perfect cure for factions in our Constitution. But they certainly diagnosed the disease correctly.

Meanwhile, the best way to undermine the two-party system is by not being part of it.

More thoughts at PoliBlog.

---

*UPDATE: The Republican Party bosses have just announced that they're following suit.