Since I am a Republican, I suppose there's not much chance the Democrats will want to follow my advice for the remainder of their presidential primary campaign. However, they've done a lot of other unpredictable things, so you never know. Anyway, here's my advice.

I recommend they spend the next few months arguing over what to do about their self-inflicted problems in Michigan and Florida. If they finally decide to hold some type of "re-vote," television coverage of Florida election officials examining the ballots would be good, complete with hanging chad, pregnant chad, and any other kind of chad they can think of.

Then, after the votes have been counted, they could continue to argue about who really won, and a lawsuit or two would be nice. Maybe they could pursue it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lots of television appearances by Bill Clinton would be good. Maybe we could finally explain what the meaning of "is" is.

I recommend that Clinton and Obama continue to tear each other apart on every issue and argue about which of their own shoddy supporters they should reject, denounce, repudiate, etc.

I recommend that Howard Dean make one of his primal screams on national television, preferably during the opening speech at the convention.

It could all end with the superdelegates giving the nomination to Hillary even though Obama won more elected delegates, thereby overturning the will of the voters and proving that there's nothing democratic about Democrats.

All of this might help us understand what Will Rogers meant when he said he didn't belong to any organized political party, he was a Democrat.

John Rowerdink

Pinehurst