FL has 185 pledged delegates
MI has 128 pledged delegates
What if about 150 to 160 of Hillary Clinton's superdelegates offered to give their convention voting rights/seats to the MI & FL delegates pledged to vote for Hillary?
Likewise, 40 to 50 of Barack Obama's superdelegates could give their seats to the FL delegates pledged to vote for him.
Uncommitted or John Edwards delegates from FL & MI could get seats from currently uncommitted supers or Edwards supers who really want to avoid getting into the middle of this piefight.
ADVANTAGES:
- Doesn't change delegate total for either candidate. For every pledged delegate Hillary gets, she loses a super.
- Avoids nastiness around FL and MI with very little effort (i.e. we won't need a second primary/caucus or big convention drama)
- Allows superdelegates the chance to bow out w/o losing face or "ducking their duty"
- Reduces superdelegates from 796 (out of 4,049, or 19.6%) to 483 (out of 4,049 or 11.9%)
--this assumes that the 4049 delegate total already excludes FL & MI
- SHOWS EVERYBODY THAT DEMS ARE UNITED!!
(Please find DISADVANTAGES in the comment section! ;-)
MATH:
FL has 185 pledged delegates
MI has 128 pledged delegates
(I'm assuming the 25 FL and 28 MI supers remain unseated. The current total of 796 Dem superdels already excludes them.)
Hillary won about 50% in both.
She would have about 93 FL pledged delegates from FL, and about 64 from MI, that's if they were seated.
Obama wasn't on the ticket in MI, but won about 1/3 in FL, IIRC so he would have about 42 pledged delegates from FL.
This would require a deal between both candidates and also with the DNC, but I think all three might go for it.
Hillary might go for it even though she would only be trading her supers for pledged dels. Superdel votes are soft (they can change their mind) and are perceived as less legitimate than pledged dels, so I think she would see an advantage in it.
Obama might go for it as it doesn't actually increase Hillary's delegate count, and it allows him the chance to escape playing the ogre who has to deny FL & MI voters their voice. That could really hurt him in the general if FL dems are pissed off and stay home.
Anyway, Obama actually stands to GAIN the most from this, as
uncommitted supers who would agree to give up their seats are probably well and truly uncommitted, but the ~64 uncommitted delegates from MI are probably more likely to vote for Obama than Clinton, as Obama wasn't on the ballot in MI.
The DNC would probably jump at the chance to literally solve (or at least reduce) the twin embarrassments of the superdelegates and the FL & MI rebellions.
Plus I think there would be plenty of supers who would LOVE to extricate themselves from this spotlight.