by William E. Gibson

For decades, Floridians have suffered on the sidelines while a couple of small, homogenous, rural states shaped the selection of presidential nominees who ultimately had to compete in big, diverse, urban areas a long way from the cow pastures of Iowa and the north woods of New Hampshire.

Why not give Florida voters some say in picking nominees, since their state may well decide the general election?

After seeing their party lose seven of the past 10 presidential elections, Florida Democrats are especially eager to pick a candidate who can win in the big electoral states and reduce the Republican advantage in the growing Sunbelt.

But their dream of breaking into the lineup of early primaries has turned into a nightmare of unintended consequences. Stripped of all their convention delegates, Florida Democrats are getting a big dose of tough love from their national party, leaving them seething on the sidelines more than ever.

No doubt, Florida is a big brat, spoiled and self-indulgent, used to getting attention while flaunting its 27 electoral votes.

Florida could have avoided punishment by setting its primary on Feb. 5 along with a bunch of other states. Florida Democrats could have made more than a half-hearted effort to prevent the Republican-controlled state Legislature from setting the primary on Jan. 29 in defiance of national party rules.

Even so, it’s amazing that national Democratic leaders would alienate the biggest swing state in the nation by stripping all its convention delegates and refusing to compromise. The hard-nosed response, along with pressure from the early primary states, prompted the Democratic candidates to pledge to quit campaigning in Florida, except, of course, to reach into the state’s deep pockets at fundraisers.

Do Democrats want to win the next election, or would they rather maintain the integrity of their rules? Which would they like to celebrate on election night?

Democrats might take some cues from Florida Republicans, who are laughing all the way to the ballot box. They, too, face sanctions, though it looks like the Republican National Party will take away only half their delegates.

State Republicans decided, if sanctioned, to create a winner-take-all primary to maximize the impact of the remaining delegation. This way, Republican candidates have incentives to campaign in Florida, knowing the winner will still come away with more delegates than most states provide, plus gain a burst of publicity and momentum leading into the general-election campaign.

That’s why Florida Republicans are bound to be punished, yet remain cheerful.

Republican candidates Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney already have visited Florida more than a dozen times this year. For the next four months, they and fellow Republicans will have the Sunshine State to themselves.

The Democratic candidates are left with little to say. Front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton got a lot of heat in Iowa for daring to campaign in Florida last month even before the sanctions were officially imposed. She and the other Democratic candidates have dutifully stayed away ever since.

Even the candidates’ wives and former President Bill Clinton -- the only Democratic presidential candidate to win Florida since 1976 -- are boycotting the state.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, asked his wife Grace to invite the candidates’ spouses to attend a get-together at the Florida Democratic Convention on Oct. 27-28. ``They all are reluctant to accept that invitation,'' Bill Nelson reported. ``This is just getting extreme, and ridiculous.''

It's another sign of how isolated Florida has become in Democratic circles, how much the Land of the Hanging Chad has become the Lost World of presidential politics, a taboo subject on the campaign trail.

What you might call a family squabble was bound to lead to litigation.

In fact, Nelson and Congressman Alcee Hastings sued their own party last week, accusing national Democrats of disenfranchising Florida voters because their primary ballots won’t affect the selection of a nominee. Florida Democrats are especially sensitive to being stiffed because of bitter memories of the disputed 2000 election, when thousands of ballots were not counted in a state that handed the presidency to George W. Bush by a margin of 537 votes.

The lawsuit escalates an intra-party feud just when Democrats were hoping to pull together. It further isolates Florida Democrats, who were hoping to connect with their candidates and raise issues of deep concern to the state, such as offshore drilling, environmental preservation and insurance reform.

Turns out they won’t be seeing much of those candidates, or even their spouses. As a result, whoever emerges from the Democratic pack will have a lot of catching up to do in the largest swing state.

William E. Gibson, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Washington bureau chief for 25 years, has covered six presidential elections and 13 sessions of Congress. He focuses on national news and politics of special interest to Florida, the nation's largest electoral swing state. Before coming to Washington, he covered Miami for the Sun-Sentinel. He has also worked at the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, N.Y., and The Albuquerque Tribune in New Mexico.