The announcement is hardly surprising, but I wouldn't necessarily regard it as definitive. I don't assume that the Sovereign board can unilaterally make these decisions.

When the party with no power can raise more money than the party with all the power, it means people are pretty disturbed about the country's condition.

It actually would be virtually impossible to exaggerate the magnitude of the state's fiscal problem. And the governor-elect means what he's said about campaign-finance reform. And that intrinsically creates a very tough agenda.

It is obviously in the interest of Sovereign management to attempt to avoid a shareholder vote until after shareholders have been deluded.