It's the 3:10 to Minneapolis for Republicans, But Playtime for Democrats

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

Three-ring circuses are so 20th century. These days our attention is directed to a much vaster arena of diversionary political spectacles -- big states vs. small ponds, important constituencies vs. negligible ones, blissful primaries vs. abhorrent caucuses, genteel vilification vs. monstrous impropriety, permissible resume padding vs. real inexperience, etc. etc. and soon, if we're not careful, something as unimaginably absurd as the meaning of is vs. is -- and each success only encourages the barkers to add yet another ring.

Actually it's more daycare center than circus; but what the hell, it distracts from petty nuisances like buffoonish foreign wars and coming soup lines, and of course nothing thrills or grabs attention like victimhood -- He started it.

And naturally with toddlers there's always the problem of rules -- laying them out, making sure everyone understands them, and encouraging the mature following thereof. But there's always one in the room with budding lawyerly instincts and a nose for exceptionalism, for special dispensation from Hoyle. Yeah, those were the rules all right, but the prepubescent's losing proves beyond any reasonable doubt that they just weren't fair.

Hence ...

"Party leaders and the rival campaigns," reports the New York Times, "started searching in earnest on Thursday for a way to seat barred delegations from Florida and Michigan." Yet "they remained deeply divided over how to do so ... [and] much remains to be settled."

That's likely because the plastic tippy cup of toddler earnestness isn't exactly overflowing these days.

Some hold positions that are critically reasoned -- not that reason plays a part in this romper-room imbroglio any longer -- if not entirely dug in.

Party chairman Howard Dean, for example, has bellowed in frustration that, in effect, it's not his department. It's that of the cranky and incorrigible states and their object of affection, so, instructs Howard, take a hike and try rereading the rulebook while you're at it.

"You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game," he protested on NBC’s "Today" show. But he knows you can; persistent whining pays, and every adult has his breaking point.

And of course there's poor Obama, futilely begging that we all just get along: "I’ll leave it up to the Democratic National Committee to make a decision about how to resolve it," he told ABC News in an impressive display of behaving beyond his playmates' political age. And, he added, "I certainly want to make sure that we’ve got Michigan and Florida delegates at the convention in some fashion." Did you hear the creaking?

Obama camp counselor Bill Burton was a bit sterner, but not by much. "Our campaign will support whatever the DNC rules are, including a fair remedy to this problem" -- meaning this fair and balanced fait accompli.

"However, allowing Sen. Clinton to change the rules and award her the nonexistent delegates when there was no campaign in the state is not the answer." Ah, Sir, your reasoning is formidable indeed, but it fails to confront the emotional power of a sustained, flat-out tantrum.

The one amusing aspect of actually seating these nonexistent delegates, however, is that the bleating victim of the otherwise manufactured unfairness would still come up short. "If the results of the two [unheld] primaries are allowed to stand and Mr. Obama is awarded the delegates won by 'uncommitted' on the Michigan ballot, Mrs. Clinton would pick up 64 delegates ... according to calculations by her campaign. [An Obama spokeman] said he believed Mrs. Clinton’s net advantage would be slightly smaller." But by either account, not enough to take the lead.

One fair remedy to the intolerable existing fairness is that in exchange for seating nonexistent delegates, everyone agrees that the supers simply side with the simple majority of the pledged ones. But naturally that's even more intolerable, since it would yield the winner who actually won.

Meanwhile in Michigan this week one other proposal was nearing dangerous harmony and grown-up consensus, thus the Clinton-siding governor scrapped it as being problematically "insurmountable." Said one negotiator of unfashionable, old-school earnestness: "That took the oxygen out of the room."

But it was in Florida that Senator Bill Nelson, a cheerless and manifestly clueless Clinton backer, unintentionally pronounced the probable object of this goalpost-forever-moving game: "If we don’t do anything, we’re looking at a train wreck."

Senator, a lot of people are beginning to think that's precisely what your candidate seeks. It's her choo-choo and she'll wreck it however she wants.

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THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter