Will This Be the Saturday Afternoon Massacre?

Some of us are old enough to remember the Saturday Nigh Massacre during Watergate, when Richard Nixon and his henchmen fired Archibald Cox, and Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy AG William Ruckelshaus resigned in protest.

That was a bad Saturday.

This Saturday will be another showdown at the OK Corral. The Clinton forces are set to produce hundreds of demonstrators, a la “Brooks Brothers Riot,” in Florida in Recount 2000, to make their case that they should get a windfall from the Florida and Michigan primaries.

I have defended Hillary Clinton’s staying in these primaries and playing out the campaign through June 3. I have been critical of those in the last few weeks who said she should just drop out. I have argued that party unity, due process, and plain ordinary fairness dictate that she be the one to determine when it is right to end her campaign or watch as the tide might turn in her favor.

But the sand is going out of the hourglass, and the notion that both Florida and Michigan should not be penalized for moving up their primaries is absurd. The Republican solution of halving the delegate votes is the right one. Not to penalize these states sends the message that “we were just kidding.” It sends the message that in 2012 chaos reigns and that anything goes in terms of schedules and states running wild. Not smart.

The Clinton campaign should not even think about taking this fight to the convention and dragging out this process. The Obama camp appears willing to bend over backwards to make sure that Clinton gets more delegates and that they appear to be more than fair.

The superdelegates will react negatively if the Clinton camp turns this Saturday into a Saturday Afternoon Massacre, with hundreds of screaming, placard-waving protesters.
Trust me, not a smart move.

Hopefully, that won’t happen, and Florida and Michigan will be settled Saturday.