I recently heard a respected Democrat, a state senator, tell an audience that if Florida delegates are not seated, he was not sure he would support the Democratic nominee. This argument has a superficial attraction even when made by the very people who got us in this mess, that is, the leadership of the Florida party including its elected officials.

• In March and April 2007, in the face of warnings from the DNC, the Florida Legislature voted overwhelmingly to move the primary date to Jan. 29, and the Democrats supported this legislation. The Florida Democratic Party and elected Democrats did little to achieve compliance with the national rules, although Rep. Dan Gelber, the House Democratic minority leader, did attempt to amend the legislation setting up the new primary date to provide a later date, and a similar effort was made in the Senate.

The bill being considered at the time called for a paper ballot, an important issue to the Democrats and, when the amendment failed, the bill passed with support from the Democrats in both houses. In line with the party rules and the notice given to Florida Democrats, the party's Rules Committee met in August 2007 and voted to take away Florida delegates to the convention.

We now find ourselves in a very odd situation. The party leadership and many of the elected Democrats took the risk of violating party rules, many promoting the change. They ignored the notice from the DNC and the substantial legal precedent that gives the party control over its own rules and supports its authority to set the terms of its delegate selection. Surely the party leaders and lawyers know of the legal rule that respects party autonomy and avoids the chaos that would exist if the primary and caucus dates were simply left to every state, a system that the U.S. Supreme Court has said would produce "an obviously intolerable result."

Today, the strange situation is that the party leadership, now bemoaning the loss of delegates and loss of the voters' right to participate, are the very people who behaved in a cavalier way to bring us to this situation. The Florida Democratic Party leadership has gotten us into this mess, and some are even threatening to enlist the courts in some kind of epic battle, knowing full well that the courts offer no basis for the relief they are seeking.

Moreover, their announced motivation - to increase Florida's influence - would have been achieved if they had left the issue alone or if they had accepted the DNC offer to fund caucuses. Indeed, if Florida had a primary or caucus some time now, in early March, we might actually have had a real impact on this election.

Wouldn't that have been fun?