Stop Whining about Michigan and Florida

 

Seriously, stop it. Why am I still seeing articles like this one from Time Magazine that likens the Michigan/Florida situation to the 2000 Florida recount. Why are people still talking about how Michigan and Florida's primaries are a controversial issue that's casting a pall over the Democratic Primary and angering a lot of voters?

 

The reality is that in the scenario most favorable to Hillary Clinton that would ever possibly be agreed upon by the two states (and other Democrats not affiliated with either candidate) would give Sen. Clinton a 66 point gain over Sen. Obama, who is currently leading her by 168 delegates at the time of this writing (2 days ahead of West Virginia).

 

So even the most Clinton-favorable resolution to the Michigan/Florida issue will still leave her trailing by 102 delegates, with only 217 more pledged delegates available in the remaining 6 contests. That means she'll need to beat him 159 to 58 in the remaining contests — that's 73% to 27%, an average that will be even more impossible considering Obama is expected to beat her in half of the remaining contests, so she would have to either open up a 50% lead in those states out of the blue or else win the states favoring her by 90% or more.

 

As one observer puts it, Under Clinton's Rules Obama Still Wins. The Clinton camp (of course) disagrees with this assessment, but on what basis is unclear. On the other hand, the facts are very clear: With an even split of Superdelegates she cannot possibly win. The only path for her to achieve victory is for nearly 3/4 of the undeclared Superdelegates to flock to her, and that's simply not going to happen unless she overtakes Obama in the pledged delegate count — which as we just discussed is pretty much an impossibility.

 

Basically, adding Michigan and Florida back into the mix makes Clinton's chances go from less than 1% to a slightly higher number that is still less than 1% so please don't let the press fool you into thinking this is some sort of an issue. It isn't. In fact, here's how bad it's gotten: Sen. Clinton actually turned down a plan proposed by Michigan.

 

Yes, that's right. Michigan basically said, We would like our votes counted and here is what we think is fair, and Hillary Clinton turned them down because even though their plan gave her a 10 delegate boost she knows it would do her no good. She seems to be living in some imaginary world where she thinks Obama's name not being on the Michigan ballot means she should get all the delegates (or an imaginary world where Democrats use Republican rules in their primary, or… the possibilities are endless when you make up your own imaginary alternatives to the actual rules). That's simply never going to happen, but it's the only way she can win without Obama's campaign imploding. 

 

And just to rehash old facts, Obama and Clinton both agreed in writing that Michigan's primary wouldn't count because they violated DNC rules and most of the Democratic candidates removed their names from the Ballot except Hillary Clinton. In effect, the Michigan Primary became a referendum on Hillary Clinton. Hillary won 55% of the vote, but 40% of the voters chose to vote for "Uncommitted" rather than vote for her.