Democratic party leaders will meet this week to determine what to do about Florida and Michigan, a decision that was already made before the primaries started and which all the candidates (including Hillary) agreed to stand by.

The party’s legal analysis, contained in a 38-page memo to the committee, says the committee can either seat only 50 percent of the delegates or seat them all but give them only half a vote, which amounts to the same thing.

Whatever the committee decides about the delegates may not be a big factor in Mrs. Clinton’s pursuit of the nomination. Even if she were awarded all the delegates in proportion to her popular vote in those states — her best-case scenario — she could not overtake Senator Obama’s delegate lead.

It is not entirely clear what the Obama campaign intends to ask for at the meeting but Mr. Obama has said he wants the delegates seated. His top aide, David Axelrod, has said that the campaign could go “half-way” on any compromise.

The important goal for the Clinton campaign is to include the popular votes from those two disputed states in its overall vote tally. The Clinton campaign is already doing this, but because Michigan and Florida have been stripped of their delegates, an air of illegitimacy hangs over their votes and her opponents do not recognize their popular vote.

And Florida Democrats respond:

I am Floridian, and was told from the beginning that "my state would not count." For that reason, I stayed home ... to now "count" the Fl vote would disenfranchise me even more than if Fl were not to count at all. To the DNC & Howard Dean: I played by your rules, decided that you were telling me the truth when you said Fl votes would not count so I stayed home. Now, you're going to count it? Well, screw you.