Or, perhaps better put: the line is held for the DNC.

This was an interesting conclusion to a storyline that I had spent some time analyzing (here, here, here, and here). This is from the Miami Herald:

Florida Democrats, unable to work out a compromise to avoid harsh sanctions imposed by the Democratic National Committee, appear ready to give in and declare the Jan. 29 presidential primary meaningless.

While state party officials insist no ''consensus'' has been reached on what the party should do, there is a growing recognition that within the next week Democrats will announce a plan that renders the primary vote nonbinding in order to comply with national party rules. Florida Democrats will instead decide some time after Jan. 29 which presidential candidate is the winner of the state's delegates to the national convention.

One suggested plan is to have Democrats vote by mail, although another proposal that may win out calls for Democrats to hold a state convention sometime after Feb. 5.

''The positive thing about this is reality may finally be setting in at the party that delegates will not be selected on the 29th of January and if we want to have delegates we need to have an alternate plan,'' said Allan Katz, a Tallahassee attorney and member of the Democratic National Committee.

This conclusion probably came as a surprise to many people. I myself was somewhat surprised. What happened?

I had noted earlier in the month that what mattered was whether the DNC would be able to supply a "credible threat" against Florida if it broke party rules. That is, would the DNC be able to threaten a punishment that it could actually carry out, and would the punishment damage Florida Democrats enough?

Clearly, the answer is yes. Florida would only have backed down if it sensed a credible threat that was genuinely punitive.

But what was this threat? The national party, as I noted earlier in the month, has very few tools in its toolbox. It is hard for it to control state party units. And, given Bill Nelson's somewhat self-righteous column in USA Today following the DNC's decision - it did not appear as though Florida felt genuinely threatened by the DNC's decision. So, what happened?

The sanction came from a source that I did not anticipate. Namely, the party leaders in states that come early according to party rules induced Democratic candidates not to campaign in the states that broke the rules. Those candidates have an interest in courting party leaders in the (legal) early states, and so were willing to sign a pledge to snub the rule breaking states. Winning the "beauty contest" in Florida is not enough for any of them to upset Iowa and New Hampshire.

I think this is what forced Florida Democrats to back down. They seemed willing to have an influential beauty contest. But with candidates avoiding the state, the beauty contest will have no influence - and so they are left with nothing. Their only recourse is to regroup and find a way to influence the convention by following the party rules. The talk now is of a state convention or a vote-by-mail.

It will be interesting to see if there are any negative consequences that befall Florida Democratic leaders. They clearly miscalculated - and GOP leaders in the state must be tickled pink to have thwarted them. After all, RNC rules mandate that Florida will lose only half of its delegates to the Republican convention - so GOP candidates are still coming to the Sunshine State. Florida Democratic leaders seemed to have been outplayed - and, as a consequence of their missteps, Democratic voters will be left with less of a say than they would have had if the party had followed the rules. Will Democratic leaders be punished for their mistakes?