The delegate fight: No do-overs...
Posted: Friday, March 21, 2008 9:12 AM by Mark Murray
It's official: Florida and Michigan re-vote proposals are dead.
Politico's Smith notes that without the re-votes, the Clinton campaign's hope of catching Obama in the popular vote is diminishing. "In Pennsylvania, for instance, more than 1.2 million Democrats turned out for the last contested Democratic primary, the 2002 governor’s race. Given the higher interest, Democratic operatives there — who declined to be quoted speculating — said they could imagine the vote getting as high as 2 million. Under that, highly optimistic scenario, an unprecedented blowout for Clinton — a margin of 20 percent, for instance — would give her 400,000 more votes in the state, and still leave her with more than 300,000 to make up.”
“And few Pennsylvania Democrats actually expect such a result, despite Clinton’s lead in many state polls. Clinton’s convincing victory in Ohio, for instance — a whiter, more conservative state — was by a margin of 10 percent." More: For Clinton to pick up her lead in the popular vote with 6 million ballots cast, she’d need a 12 percent margin across the states — that’s a 56 percent to 44 percent average win. With 5 million ballots, she would need a 14 percent margin — that’s a 57 percent to 43 percent overall victory, including expected defeats in states counting for well over 1 million votes.”
The Washington Post comes out for re-votes: "There would be some unfairness either way, but the better solution would be to allow anyone who wants to vote in the open primary to cast a ballot. The assumption is that this discussion is moot because the state legislature adjourned yesterday for a two-week break. Maybe, but if Michigan lawmakers care about their state's voters, they will come back to fix the mess they helped create. Otherwise, the party should figure out a way to get a new round of voting done on its own."