There seems to be a lot of grumbling over presumtive Democrat nominee John Kerry. Kevin Baker seems to think the situation is ripe for another episode of the Torricelli Precedent. This is in reference to the former Senator Bob "the Torch" Toricelli, who upon realizing he had a snowball's chance in hell of being re-elected, summarily resigned to make room for a new Democrat candidate. The only hang up was New Jersey law, which stipulated that ballot changes could not be made less than 51 days before the election. Not one to let a little thing like the law stand in their way, Democrats appealed to a friendly court to get "permission" to violate state election law. (Nevermind that absentee ballots had already been mailed out.)

The difference in this situation is that Kerry is not yet the nominee. He is the presumptive nominee, meaning that he *should* be nominated at the Democrat convention. But the convention is still quite some time away, and should the Dems want to ignore their primary voters and dump Kerry for a more "desirable" candidate (like Hitlary Clinton) that is their business. Although it's not a situation I would like to see, it's not something I would characterize as corrupt. In my humble opinion, it's altogether different than illegally switching the candidate a mere few weeks before the election.