What To Do About Michigan, Florida and the Superdelegates

Oh vey, what a mess.

Democrats continue down the path to deadlock and a contentious convention with floorfights over Michigan, Florida and probably a few other issues. Meanwhile, Hillary and Obama make each other look small while McCain issues grandiose (and moderate-sounding, compared to Dubya) foreign policy pronouncements.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an interesting take on the Michigan/Florida mess from a Republican, former Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, who did a good job analyzing some numbers. (See "Hillary's Last Hope.")

[We take issue with Lindsey on one point, his claim that "Only lawyers could have invented delegate selection rules as complicated and opaque as the ones the Democrats are struggling under." The Republican system is, in fact, more complicated and opaque, as every state sets it's own rules, ranging from Louisiana's bizarre caucus system to New York's pure winner-take-all closed primary. The GOP came very close this year to a meltdown similar to that on the Democratic side--if Rudy G.'s non-strategy had worked in Florida, Republicans, too, would still be at it right now.]

In any event, Lindsey correctly notes that there are significant differences between Florida and Michigan, and he makes a convincing case that the Florida primary pretty much mirrored what would've happened anyway, both in terms of turnout and result.

Although we've supported Obama, we don't see a good argument for not using the Florida results as-is. Both candidates were on the ballot, neither actively campaigned, but the turnout was about what would've been expected. Obama was not going to win Florida, and he wouldn't in a re-vote. If I was a neutral superdelegate at the convention in Denver, I'd vote to seat a Florida delegation that mirrored the primary results.

Michigan is a different story. In Michigan, only Hillary was on the ballot. While supporters of Obama (or any of the OTHER candidates) could've voted for "uncommitted,"--and many did--it is clear that many Michiganers stayed home from the polls in what obviously was a non-contest. Lindsey suggests, based on demographics of other similar states, that Hillary still would've won Michigan, and he may be right, but we can't really tell based on the turnout. (And Lindsey points out that Hillary's margin likely would have been smaller.)

As a neutral superdelegate at the convention, I could not support any seating of the Michigan delegation based on the clearly distorted primary results from that state. The DNC needs to find some way to get a Michigan re-vote done. By the way, it doesn't matter what the campaigns want--obviously, they want the deck stacked in their favor. What matters is how the uncommitted superdelegates would vote in a rules/credentials challenge at the convention. Perhaps the DNC should survey those delegates.

By the way, even if Hillary got the benefit of both Florida and Michigan as they voted, she'd still be pretty far behind, although after winning Pennsylvania she could make it quite close.

Speaking of superdelegates, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen has an interesting idea: bring all the superdelegates together by mid-June for a mini-convention at which they are required to commit to one candidate or the other, thereby deciding the race at that point. It's a good idea, but probably won't happen.

We were a bit surprised, however, that the Clinton campaign seems quite opposed to the idea. Apparently they want a war of attrition through August. Someone at the DNC needs to start really taking a leadership role on all this, or John McCain will waltz into the presidency come November.