The SDs were designed as a safety valve--not as a mechanism to make up for a deficient campaign....Maybe she could convince Democrats that there is a true emergency at hand.

As to a re-vote, if Obama is not imploding, he should do relatively well in Michigan.....and have a greater claim to the nomination....In some ways, his refusal to do a re-vote plays into Hillary's hands--it strengthens her claims that the SDs can step in because it has not been a democratic process......

Still, I think he will still win even with MI and FL being seated as is...

Primary Totals:  

Clinton   13244023

Obama   13334829

Caucus Totals:

Clinton  188054

Obama  390238

Overall Totals:

Clinton  13432077

Obama  13725067

Obama should have allowed them to be seated without a fuss and he (and the Dems) could have avoided this mess.

Does anyone thing Obama will be ahead in the next SUSA Virginia poll?

sen. obama, not surprisingly, will probably maintain his grip on the AA vote, everywhere. can you blame them? if it was ok for irish-catholics to vote reflexively for john kennedy, i have no problem with the AA community doing the same for sen. obama.

however, and this is still a HUGE however, that community is only 12-13% of the total electorate, probably 85% of which is concentrated in the former confederate states. those states will, more likely than not, vote republican come nov., regardless of who the dem. nominee is.

unless that other 15% of the 12-13% AA vote can swing states outside the south, sen. obama is inherently unelectable in the GE. his demos in the open primaries prove it.

the wright situation, rezko, and who knows what all else pops up between now and nov. will make him completely untenable as the dem. nominee.

the best thing sen. obama could do, for the party and the country, is declare moral victory, and concede the nomination to the more electable candidate, sen. clinton.

As you've said elsewhere, there's no absolute right to vote in a primary.

Also, AND, 1 week ago things were going great for BHO and overnight things changed. Why should we give up now when more can be discovered that might save us from later.

You are laying the entire mess at Obama's feet because he hasn't yet endorsed the plan.  

You concede freely that both candidates are operating based on their own self-interest but seem to be willing to only chastise Obama for doing so.  

If you chose not to vote at all, you may be willing to live with having no say.  I voted, and I want my vote to count.  I am unbending in my resolve to vote for a Democratic candidate in November only if that persons actual name appeared on the primary ballot.  If this is not the case, I will NOT vote for the Republican candidate, but will either skip that race and vote downticket, or vote third party.  I think a revote is a bad idea, because there is no way to come up with credible results.

Wharton Study: FL/MI Results Highly Distorted

Wharton professor Gregory P. Nini (the statistical whiz behind much of the number crunching in Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party) and I just authored this new paper showing that more than two million additional people would have voted in those primaries had they thought the results would be counted.

Basically they are saying that if you take A (Dem turnout) compared to B (Repub Turnout) in a state and compare it to other states you can prove that A is out of line. I say that it doesn't prove that at all because if B is out of line any comparison that uses it would show the same.

So I did math (not my fav activity) and took each of the closed primaries (Florida is a closed primary) and calculated turnout.

Democratic Turnout
Connecticut    51.09%
Maryland    50.71%
Arizona         50.47%
District of Columbia    44.48%
Florida            42.30%
Oklahoma    41.20%
Deleware    37.59%
New York    35.44%
New Mexico    28.42%
Louisiana    25.66%

Republican Turnout
Arizona    51.98%
Florida    50.96%
Oklahoma    42.37%
Connecticut    36.74%
Maryland    36.08%
Deleware    28.01%
Louisiana    22.96%
New York    22.35%
District of Columbia    22.08%
New Mexico    June 3rd

I then calculated the average and median of each group.

Dem Turnout Avg 40.74%
Dem Turnout Median 41.75%
Florida Dem Turnout 42.30%

Repub Turnout Avg 34.84%
Repub Turnout Median 36.08%
Florida Repub Turnout 50.96%

Now just looking at those numbers one can see that the Florida Repub turnout is very high compared to other states. The only state state to have a higher Repub turnout was McCain's home state. While the Florida Dem turnout is just over the average and median of the other closed primary states.

The authors of the study then take the Dem/Repub ratios numbers and compare them to how people voted in the 2004 elections. And come to the conclusion (pdf link):

...Democratic voters should have numbered 2.85 million and 1.305 million in Florida and Michigan, respectively. Given actual numbers of 1.7 million and 590,000, an estimated 1.15 million Floridians and 715,000 Michiganders stayed home on primary day, who otherwise would have voted had they behaved like voters in other states.

If 2.85 million Dem voters had turned out in Florida the FL Dem voter turnout would have been 68.89%. Yes I'm saying it again

68.89%

Does anyone really look at that number and think it falls in line with other states? Or that it is a reasonable expectation for ANY state?