Thursday, March 06, 2008

Florida & Michigan - what Obama should do

I've been thinking about the Florida & Michigan issue and I think the best move for Obama would be to drop his objection to those delegates being seated. Here's why.

He has nothing to gain from a re-vote there and a lot to lose. If he concedes those delegates to Hillary he should still have more delegates heading into the convention, so the story remains essentially the same. His argument is that he'll have more delegates, have won more states and (probably) received more votes (excluding those cast in Florida & Michigan where he wasn't on the ballot).

On the other hand, if he loses those two states' replay primaries in the run-up to the convention that would be a big cloud over him. Better to just get that out of the way and look to finish strong after Pennsylvania votes. I think he'll just about run the table after Pennsylvania votes. A strong finish is what he needs, not two tight primaries. He should be magnanimous and let her have them. Phrase it so that she looks small. Could work.