It seems the one big obstacle to getting new elections in MI and FL is money. Who is going to pay for them?
While new elections in FL and MI could very likely be advantageous to Clinton, Obama should get ahead of this issue and offer to pay half the cost for new caucuses, as long as Clinton offers to do the same.
I see this as a big plus for Obama, for several reasons:
- It looks classy for him to say something like "It's more important to let the people of FL and MI have their voices heard in fair and DNC sanctioned elections than it is for me to win or lose a few more delegates."
- The likely outcome of these elections would probably still not have a huge impact on his pledged delegate lead, and he could possibly even win MI (and, hey, maybe Florida when he's allowed to campaign there).
- Obama can probably spare the money more than Clinton can, so, assuming she agrees, he would probably be in an even better financial position.
- If Clinton refuses, it makes her look bad because she's simply refusing to have a fair fight in the two states, and would rather use the extremely unfair results from the January primaries. Obama will have effectively nullified her complaints about "MI and FL should have their voices heard" because he can just say "Hey, I offered to go in half for a fair election in both states where she would have a chance to defend her votes there. If she's not willing to pay half herself, I guess she'll have to deal with the status quo, which is that she will get no delegates from there."
- Assuming we get new elections, this will effectively remove all "doubt" about whether or not Obama has a pledged delegate or popular vote lead. She won't be able to point to some "mysterious" source of disenfranchised voters, and at that point, whoever then has the pledged delegate lead (and presumably the popular vote lead), can safely be declared the nominee.
The chances of Obama losing the pledged delegate lead or popular vote lead are extremely minimal. The only way for Clinton to win is to overturn the popular will with the super delegates, and if all 50 states are accounted for, she'll have no excuse to point to for why the super delegates should overturn the delegate and popular vote lead.
So what do you say Obama? Get out ahead of this issue and nullify Clinton's stance on it now. If she's not willing to go along, it'll just make her look even worse.