Got your attention.
Everyone is saying that Obama has the lead in the delegates and in the popular vote, but that is not exactly true as far as the votes are concerned, according to Clinton supporters. The figures from NBC are:
Including Florida And Michigan, Clinton wins by 30,657:
Clinton 13,521,832
Obama 13,497,175
In the Approved Contests Obama wins by 598,266:
Obama 12,920,961
Clinton 12,322,695
With Florida, where both were on the ballot, Obama wins by 303,494
Obama 13,497,175
Clinton 13,193,681
(RealClearPolitics has close to the same totals)
In Florida, it was kind of cool to see a primary with no campaigning. No money spent at all. Everyone on the ballot.
I don't see why the Florida votes shouldn't count - except to punish the Democratic voters of Florida, who really didn't schedule the early primaries. The Republican Governor and legislature scheduled the early vote and forced the Democrats to go along.
Democrats should also be very wary of turning off Florida voters - a significant swing state that decided the last two presidential elections.
In Michigan, Obama supporters urged people to vote the uncommitted line, which may have been larger, or smaller, had his name been on the ballot. But counting Michigan is a harder position to sell.
Florida has 210 delegates at stake, and Michigan has 156. Should their Super Delagates be seated?
What is fair? We should probably have new primaries in Florida and Michigan, and see how they come out. If nothing is done, one side is going to feel very aggrieved and the Democrats may lose the general election to the Republicans. 2.1 million Democrats cast votes in the Florida primary.
If the Super Delegates are going to be guided by the popular vote, we might as well get a good idea of what that popular vote is.
Complicating all this is the fact that much of the popular vote came from caucuses, which on the one hand may not be fair to Hillary - since her older voters don't want to spend two hours arguing about who they are going to vote for - but on the other hand may not be fair to Obama, since caucus voters often only represent a small fraction of total Democratic registrants in the state. One figure I saw stated that only one in twenty registered voters comes to the caucuses. So caucus voters are over-represented in the delegate vote and under-represented in the popular vote.
One solution might be to have a re-vote in Michigan and Florida and allow no campaigning. No Television. No Radio. No Newspaper ads. Maybe one more debate.
This would be a novel experiment in how to take the money out of politics.
Campaign contributions, of course, have been perverting and grossly distorting the political process for decades, as Obama has said many times.
Another idea that has been floated is a "firehouse" contest in Michigan in May or June, which would involve fewer polling places and shorter hours. What we need is a really rich guy, how about it Bloomberg or Soros? ... to come up with the money to show the rest of the world that democracy can work in the US.
Ironically, Florida and Michigan flouted the rules because they wanted to have more of an influence in choosing the next President. Now with a possible Do-Over looming, they may be the most decisive primaries.
jfleetwood@aol.com
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Posted March 6, 2008 | 05:57 PM (EST)