Florida/Michigan: An Update

There are reports that the Clinton campaign will "try to win seating of the disputed Michigan and Florida delegations to the Democratic Nation Convention at a meeting of the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee on May 31." Another chapter in this crazy saga.

But most voters are confused by this whole Florida/Michigan mess. My friend Chris and I had an email back-and-forth on the subject, and I thought it might be useful to post that here.

Chris: "Hey there. I figured you would know the answer to this one.The candidates need 2025 delegates to receive the nomination. Hillary is hoping to get MI/FL delegates back in play to get closer to that amount. My question is... wasn't the removal of MI/FL delegates already factored into that total? If they get reinstated, wouldn't the 2025 number go higher by that many more, basically negating the increase and pushing the goalposts back farther? If so, I can see why she wants a disproportionate allocation of delegates in her favor, as a 50/50 split is just as bad for her as no delegates at all.

Did I miss something here? Is she missing something here?"

Me: "My understanding is that the 2025 number is the original number... meaning it DOES factor in the total number that Michigan and Florida have. When those two states had their delegates stripped, that's part of what made it take longer then to get to that big 2025 number. Because you'd have to win even more states to make up for that loss in getting to 2025.

So Hillary believes that getting those delegates proportioned to her via the BS votes in each state would help her close the gap with Obama.

But here's the thing... I've seen a few blogs that have crunched the numbers under the possible scenario that she gets her way there (I don't think she will; Dean seems to be sticking to his guns)... and the math still would not get her the nomination. And she knows this. As I wrote on my blog a month or ago, the REAL purpose of this Michigan/Florida game she's playing is to sow uncertainty in the race, giving her an excuse to take the fight to the convention while she works over the superdelegates."

And then we went back and forth a bit ranting about the Clinton campaign. At this point, I almost want to just throw her the delegates and get it over with (though I don't see her getting her way on this... though I do see the delegates being seated in some way) just to take this ball taken away from her. She still can't overtake Obama's delegate lead, even with this. Of course, like I said, that's never been what this fight was about.