Yes, I am an Obama fan. But that's not the reason. The race was pretty much decided when Obama won NC big and lost IN small, but I have no problem with her staying in until SD, MT and PR have voted (by the way, isn't it weird that US administrative holdings like Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. vote in the primaries but not in the general? I think it's weird). She might as well, at this point.
What's pissing me off is the Michigan and Florida thing. This used to be a non-issue, until Hillary got behind. Then she suddenly changed her mind about the great injustice that the DNC had perpetrated on the poor states. Here's where I stand on that.
Fine, I get it. FL and MI are two big states come November that the Dems could really use. They don't want to piss them off too much. But for Hillary to seriously suggest that the delegations should be seated according to the voting results is idiotic to the Nth degree. It's dumber than a bag of lombotomized emus. It's dumber than playing golf in a thunderstorm. It's dumber than the movie It's Pat. It's offensively stupid.
Let's look at the facts: the DNC pulled the delegates after MI and FL moved up their primaries to get more national media attention. All the candidates knew it, and no one protested. Neither Hillary nor Obama campaigned in either state before their primaries. The only names on the Michigan ballot were Clinton, Kucinich and Gravel, as Obama and Edwards pulled theirs at the request of the party. This meant Hillary, with one of the biggest brand names in politics, had a massive advantage over Obama, especially among older and lower-income voters who would have limited (or no) access to the internet to research the candidates themselves.
Both races would have been much closer had the candidates actually campaigned and had Obama's name been on the ballot in MI. Hillary would have stood a good chance of winning both states, but since the delegates are proportionally allocated the margin of victory is all-important. Hillary's assertion that the results should stand as they are is lunacy. Declaring victory over an opponent whose name wasn't even on the ballot is about as un-democratic as you can get.
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Just to let you know, there are some added facts relating to MI. Yes, Clinton, Kucinich, and Gravel appeared on the ballot, but Obama, Edwards, and Richardson did not. Obama, Edwards, and Richardson teamed up to remove their names from the ballot.
They did so at the last possible second in a game of political chicken to leave Clinton on the ballot. The timing of the submission of papers stranded Kucinich on the MI ballot, too, though his campaign scrambled to try to remove his name.
Why did Obama, Richardson, and Edwards do this? They did it to try to garner votes in NH and other early primary states whose voters didn't like MI stepping on their toes.
Me, I think the DNC should seat MI and FL at the convention. We'll need their support in the general. A line will need to be walked between honoring the voters of those states and rebuking the state DNCs, who are the ones who got the states into trouble in the first place.
The calculus involved in seating the MI and FL delegates is complicated, as you note. FL is not as bad, since Obama was on the ballot, though not campaigning explicitly in FL (blanket area Obama ads for that market did reach FL).
Still, Clinton is challenging the DNC using the DNC's own rulebook, which allows any candidate to challenge a ruling. Is she doing it in a way to favor her? Of course. She's a politician. I expect it. I would expect it of Obama, too.
(As a quick aside: when Obama was first running for state legislature in IL, he awesomely got his opponents removed from the ballot by showing that they had some forget signatures on their petitions. He ran unopposed. Frickin' brilliant.)
As someone who voted for Obama, I, too, hope he wins out in the end. But I have no problem with Clinton being in the race. Why should I? 1) I'll vote for her if she's the nominee. 2) She and Obama and essentially tied in delegates and popular votes. 3) Neither she nor Obama has the required votes to win at this moment. Why drop out when she can still win?
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