Good news for Michigan and Florida Democrats. You might not get cut out of the party's messy primary voting process again in 2012.

Of course, with an incumbent Barack Obama, the Democrats' presidential-candidate-picking process may be moot:

Assuming the rookie Great Change Agent quickly fills five dozen empty slots at Treasury, fixes the nation's economy, creates multiple millions of jobs, reforms the country's entire education system, makes it affordable to every American, creates a thriving green economy, reduces dependence on foreign oil, solves the housing crisis, keeps interest rates low, prevents inflation, avoids an Afghan quagmire, cuts taxes for 95% of Americans, screws over the other 5% and halves the national debt.

Oh, and cleanses the culture of greed and entitlement on every U.S. street including the one named Wall.

Last year's Democratic primaries were hardfought even bitter affairs, not helped by the initial banning of the results of those important twin states, which denied Hillary Clinton two crucial albeit sneaky victories.

And all presided over by another former unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate, Howard Dean.

Dean is gone now, unceremoniously dumped and denied a Cabinet job by the Obama camp, in favor of parttime chair, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia. He''ll take over fulltime next year to earn his D.C. chops and, come 2012, probably replace aging Joe Biden as Obama's VP who, you may remember, was a senator way back when Obama was a sixth grader. (Although keep your eyes on Missouri's most Twittering senator.)

But watch out. CNBC announced today that Dean has signed on there as a commentator. Now, all that cable channel needs is some viewers and Dean can be heard to get even on-air.

The 37-member Democratic Change Commission will be headed by Sen. Claire McCaskill (who likes to Twitter) and Rep. James Clyburn, both ardent Obama backers. And Obama's ex-campaign manager David Plouffe is also on.

The goal, Kaine says, is "to put voters first and ensure that as many people as possible can participate." A complete list of commission members is below; scroll down or click on the "Read more" line.

The commission, which grows from a convention resolution by Obama last August, will have three goals: chop the number of superdelegates, reform the caucus system and change "the window of time" for caucuses and primaries. Should Iowa and New Hampshire be worried?

The commission's report is due by next New Years Day.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Reform yourself. Register here now for automatic alerts via Twitter on each new Ticket item.

Photo: Associated Press

From time to time in the next couple of weeks The Ticket is republishing some of our favorite items from the fascinating 2007-08 election seasons. This one was originally published June 5, 2008:

Since it's pretty clear this morning that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is not going to withdraw from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in the face of Sen. Hillary Clinton's admirably annoying tenacity, it falls to the New York senator to adjust to a harsh political reality that a year ago today was absolutely unthinkable:

She lost.

Whatever your personal feelings are toward Clinton -- and the Ticket's Comment boards reveal a rude intensity on both sides -- or toward any of the other losers in either party who gave up the electoral marathon weeks or months ago, running for office like this requires a profound commitment by the candidate, his/her family and those around them who invest up to 20-hour days for very little pay over what now spans nearly two years.

This nation's chief executive weeding-out process is brutal, as it should be to force only the most qualified, savvy, lucky, smart to the top.

But we don't have to bring out the violins for any of the....

From time to time in the next couple of weeks The Ticket is re-publishing some of its favorite items from the 2007-08 political season. Here's one from Feb. 8, 2008, on a little-noticed power play by Ron Paul on Mitt Romney:

Clearly spooked by a few of Rep. Ron Paul's second-place finishes kind of close behind him, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Romney was so flustered in his dropout speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington Thursday, that he didn't even mention Ron Paul.

That's not unusual, actually. Hardly any other candidate and virtually no major media, especially CNN, has mentioned his name for the last year, so terrified are they of his stare and his libertarian-like views, including downsizing the federal government, bringing American troops home and abolishing the Federal Reserve.

Sometimes it seems almost like a media conspiracy to ignore the former ob-gyn. Except for not one....

During the next couple of weeks The Ticket is occasionally republishing some of our favorite items from this incredible 2007-08 political season. This item originally appeared May 9, 2008:

Ah, Oregon. The beautiful Northwest. Rain. Trees. Clouds. Rain. Friendly territory for Sen. Barack Obama, the leading contender for the Democratic Party's long-disputed presidential nomination.

So there he was in Beaverton today at the start of a two-day swing through Oregon, virtually ignoring his remaining Democratic opponent, what's-her-name from New York, as part of his new strategy to act like the actual nominee while she flails around way behind in numbers.

Naturally, this being the Northwest where everything is not ruined quite yet, his staff had Obama visit an eco-friendly company, Vernier Software & Technology, that makes products for science teachers. He could get education in there too, see?

In his prepared remarks Obama was ready to start blasting Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, to show the Illinois Democrat is moving on to the general election campaign.

But first the freshman senator had to go through all the....

ST. PAUL -- It was a passionately partisan crowd. Its 20,000+ members were eager to love her. And after recent relentless days of negative stories about Sen. John McCain's pick for a running mate, the Republicans packing the Xcel Energy Center here were feeling besieged by an alien media, as the GOP has for decades.

But tonight for the first time in its more than 16-decade history, the Republican Party nominated a woman vice president, and fell in love with her at the same time.

Whether that translates into enough votes for the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket to win the White House on Nov. 4 will be decided in the next 61 days of campaigning. But for tonight among her own extensive family and among the GOP family assembled in this graceful old city named for a saint known for patience, Gov. Palin scored a rhetorical hat trick (a term any hockey mom would know).

At least inside the building.

We'll publish the historic speech's entire text below, along with some of the crowd's favorite lines. And here, before we describe more, are some video highlights:

Palin praised the top of the ticket for his courage and leadership. She vowed they'd reform a national capital that was once a swamp.

She delivered some pretty sharp elbows to the opposition's chin, as she did on the high school basketball court, where her nickname was Sarah Barracuda.

And she presented herself as a determined small-town mom aware of the needs and challenges of real American families.

The 44-year-old Palin had the presence of a former broadcaster, the poise of a former beauty contestant. The down-to-earthiness of a mom with five children, from 19 years old down to 4 months. And the realistic eye of a natural politician who knows the sales appeal of reform and the power of the pause.

And in doing so, Palin won the hearts of the delegates, who were but enthusiastic extras in the television drama transmitted into millions of homes. There, many Americans got their first impression of....

ST. PAUL -- Excitement is already beginning to mount in the convention hall for the arrival at tonight's podium of the first female ever on a Republican presidential ticket. All of the men in the 114-member Florida delegation, gentlemen all, have given their floor passes to the women in their lives.

Their spouses, daughters and other women now sit in the official delegation seats so that they can all rise as one to salute Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin when she arrives shortly to give her speech at the Republican National Convention.

As 35-year-old Jennifer Samuels, a Miramar homemaker standing in for her husband, explained, "She's very human. And I think a lot of women relate to that."

Like tonight's speakers, many of the delegates blamed members of the media for what they consider unfair initial coverage of Palin and her family.

Arlene Krings, an interior decorator from Fairway, Kan., complained that liberals in the press "ridiculed" Palin's pregnant teenage daughter, Bristol.

"I believe the only two groups that attack children are terrorists and liberals," she said.

-- Bob Drogin

Photo credit: Reuters

So what was the final, official vote, anyway, in that race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? And how about the breakdown in the mammoth California delegation?

As of earlier today, almost a week after the much-publicized roll call vote that officially anointed Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee, party officials still had not released the convention-wide numbers. (It's an academic exercise, we know, but we're still curious about it).

The state-by-state roll call was memorably cut off by Clinton herself, when she moved to make Obama the nominee by acclamation. At the time, 32 delegations had weighed in and Obama was leading 1,549 to 341.

California had passed when its turn came up early in the roll call because, state party advisor Bob Mulholland later related, votes within the delegation were still being counted.

Today, Mulholland said the count finally had been completed and the final numbers were: Obama, 273; Clinton, 166 (remember, Clinton won the Feb. 5 California primary).

Two superdelegates missed the convention and did not vote: U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Carole Migden.

As for the total vote, well, Democratic officials were still working on it as of late this afternoon.

A spokeswoman for the Democratic National Convention Committee, Natalie Wyeth, said paperwork had been shipped back from the convention site in Denver, but that the Labor Day holiday delayed the tally.

Wyeth said she expected the official count to be released soon, perhaps by day’s end.

-- Peter Nicholas

Now, it's the Republican Party's turn for hoopla, this week in St. Paul. Allright, subdued hoopla. First, a little history for Ticket readers who think they know what GOP stands for.

Hint: It's not Grand Old Party.

It's Gallant Old Party, according to contemporary publications referring to the party that was launched in 1854 and only six years later captured the White House. Its candidate: a little-known fellow named Abraham Lincoln and an even lesser-known vice presidential partner named Hannibal Hamlin, who happened also to be a former Democrat who fled his old party because of its stubborn support of slavery.

Our blogging brethren over at CQ.com have generously posted a fascinating brief history of political party conventions, which we share below here on the day the Republican National Convention officially opens, sort of.

The proceedings will be perfunctory because of the approaching hurricane down south.

For a long time in our nation's history, these quadrennial conventions actually made decisions instead of making merry. Guess why they changed. (See answer below.)

It looks like a lock on the nomination for Arizona Sen. John McCain. Thank goodness we won't all go through what the Denver Democratic get-together did in 1924 in New York. That one lasted 16 days and 103 ballots to pick someone we've all come to know and love through the years, John W. Davis.

-- Andrew Malcolm

(The answer: TV.)

Join the growing throngs preparing for the rest of this week's convention and the rest of the political season and beyond by having every Ticket item -- plus special offline Tweets from The Ticket's writers starting with these two parties' conventions -- sent directly to your cellphone?

To register for instant Twitter updates from The Ticket, go here and sign up.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Governor is in the house.

Sarah Palin, Alaska's governor but John McCain's new vice presidential partner, has arrived in St. Paul for the abbreviated Republican National Convention, where the selection of the relatively unknown 44-year-old mother of five has energized thousands of Republicans gathered for the GOP's first nomination of a female national candidate since its founding in 1854.

Not to mention easily erased any media mention of that celebratory night in Denver's Invesco Field -- when was it? -- a month ago.

It won't be a normal first day for the quadrennial party event. In deference to the immense circle of tumultuous tropical winds now known as Gustav, McCain canceled all first-day convention events save a perfunctory opening.

He said it was a time for Americans to be Americans together, not Republicans or Democrats. If Nature serves you a lemon, make lemonade.

We'll see what the rest of the week brings for scheduled events. For political purposes, to be honest, no one will say this out loud except the Ticket, but not having President Bush present to dominate a night's national TV coverage of McCain's convention is a fortunate byproduct of the schedule change.

But after a day of campaigning down south and in the Midwest with McCain, Palin arrived in St. Paul late last night with Cindy McCain, along with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Palin has no public events penciled in for today. But the presidential nominee's wife and sons are scheduled to have breakfast with the delegation of the possibly about-to-be storm-battered state of Louisiana. And wouldn't that be a swell time to bring along a surprise guest for a formal introduction?

We're just saying. (UPDATE: And we were wrong.)

According to Maria Comella, the pre-picked press secretary for Palin who used to work for a one-time Republican front-runner named Rudy Giuliani, Palin will spend the day in a mix of briefings, meetings with delegates and other governors and working on her acceptance speech for Wednesday night.

With her husband, Todd, and four of their five children en route to Alaska, Palin has reportedly already put some words to paper. Or into a laptop. Whatever.

Her fifth "child," Track, who's 19, is in the Army preparing for deployment to Iraq in two weeks while his mom prepares to deploy to political battleground states back home, with a special emphasis on the West, if our guess is right.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Stephan Savoia / Associated Press

ST. PAUL -- Hurricane Gustav reached to the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center today, where Louisiana’s delegation to the Republican National Convention here crowded into a Crowne Plaza Hotel lobby.

Having just arrived, some were staying. Others were planning to return home. All were checking in back home on their friends and relatives.

Before coming to Minnesota, Lloyd and Jill Harsch had cleared out their kitchen pantry and refrigerator, boarded up their home, and carried boxes of photographs to the second story of their home in Gentilly Parish of New Orleans.

“I’d love to be home," said Lloyd. "But if I were going back to New Orleans, I’d be arrested.” The 47-year-old alternate delegate added, “I figured that right now, I’m at the best place I can be.”

Others cheered at news that the John McCain-Sarah Palin campaign had chartered a DC-9 plane to fly members of the Gulf Coast delegations to Jackson, Miss.

Vickie and Rhett Davis, delegates from Walker, La., had left their four children with Vickie’s 83-year-old mother, who is healing from a broken foot. When they learned about the plane, they called Vickie’s mother who, with the help of friends and relatives, bundled the children into a car and raced to meet the plane in Jackson.

“I don’t want them down there, by themselves, sitting in a house for day after day with no power or maybe no water,” said Vickie, a 48-year-old stay-at-home mom who runs her own accounting firm.

“My daughter’s birthday is next week, and the best gift I can think to give is to bring her back here with us –- and make sure the whole family’s safe.”

-- P.J. Huffstutter

Get instant updates of every new Ticket item, plus special messages from on-the-news-scene writers, delivered straight to your cellphone for free via Twitter. Go here and register.