Using the logic of the Clinton campaign, Barack Obama doesn't to discount the votes in two states. Hillary, on the other hand, seems to want to discount all 50:
Well, 50 plus DC, Americans' abroad, Guam, VI, PR, and anybody else I'm forgetting.
The latest from MI appears to be this: An idea proposed by Chris Dodd to split the MI delegates 50/50 -- supported by the Obama campaign and nixed by the Clinton team. No surprise on either end, but I can’t get over the rank hypocrisy by the Clinton campaign on this:
"Michigan is populated by people, not numbers, and those people need to have their voices heard in this process," said Clinton spokesman Phil Singer.
This of course, sounds really good, everybody wants to enfranchise as many people as possible right? Right?! Oh, wait....
From today’s well-known NYT piece:
And Mrs. Clinton is looking for some development to shake confidence in Mr. Obama so that superdelegates, Democratic Party leaders and elected officials who are free to decide which candidate to support overturn his lead among the pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses.
Fair enough -- I suppose their are rare situations in which even we hardcore Obama-bots would want the superdels to turn it over to HRC; e.g., if it discovered that Barack eats puppies. But...WTF does Michigan have to do with that? Numerous calculations have shown that Michigan will have no substantive impact on the pledge-delegate count. So, what’s the point?
As David Kurtz at TPMputs it
It all goes back to their last-ditch strategy to pull out the nomination by making Obama seem, between now and the convention, unelectable in a general election. And there is probably no better way to do that than by running off a string of victories in the remaining states, especially in a big state like Michigan.
In other words, it’s all about momentum, and we should pay no attention to the actual, cumulative election results. And, this being the case, why the hell do we need to spend millions of dollars for a donor-funded primary? Lets save the cash for the general? If "momentum" and "electability" are going to decide the election, can’t we assess this by phone-polling? Elections are for counting votes and making decisions according to a previously agreed on procedure. If we want to rely on metrics that can't be directly, objectively measured, let’s have Gallup decide the nomination.
Bottom line: Please, Obama campaign, call the Clinton camp on its bluff: Work like hell to get re-votes in Michigan and, why not to for Florida too? But do this if, and only if, HRC publicly, and conspicuously agrees to abide by the pledged delegate count, and to withdraw when it becomes clear that she cannot win on this metric. Let’s at least get her to admit that, as much as she wants Michigan and Florida to count, she’s not so interested the votes of we Obama-state dwellers.