"Hillary, if your campaign meddles...I, a lifelong Democrat, will vote for John McCain in the general election."

I believe this NY Times Letter to the Editor, from a brave and ethical woman, speaks for more of us than Howard Dean and The Democratic Party can even begin to imagine -
Zachary Marcus

My message to the Clinton campaign is this: If your campaign meddles with the nomination process, and somehow manages to assign the delegates from Michigan and Florida to Hillary Rodham Clinton, I, a lifelong Democrat, will vote for John McCain in the general election.

I have had enough of stolen elections. It was bad enough when the Supreme Court awarded the 2000 election to George W. Bush, even though a recount in the entire state of Florida was clearly called for.

Significant questions remain about discrepancies between the exit polls and the voting machine counts in Ohio, the critical state in the 2004 election. It’s bad enough to have the election stolen by the other side, but I will not abide it from my own party.

Hillary Clinton is not entitled to the nomination because of her stature within the Democratic National Committee. If she wins the nomination honestly through the nominating process, then I will support her in the general election.

But if her campaign tries to change the rules in the middle of the game with regard to the Florida and Michigan delegates — delegates who, according to D.N.C. rules, were supposed to have been off limits to both candidates — then I will no longer support her as the Democratic nominee, and I suspect that I will not be alone.

Alexandra Olins
Winooski, Vt., Feb. 15, 2008