Hillary's tactical blunder re: Florida and Michigan revote

[Alhena]

A few days ago, when asked about potential revotes in Florida and Michigan, Hillary made a significant error, responding as follows:

"I would not accept a caucus," she told us. "I think that would be a great disservice to the 2 million people who turned out and voted. I think that they want their votes counted."

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/03/07/clinton-says-no-to-a-caucus-do-over.html

Why was this an error?

Because Howard Dean made it clear on the Meet The Press this Sunday that Michigan and Florida could submit re-vote plans to the DNC but that *both candidates* would have to feel that the plan was fair for the DNC to approve the plan. Basically, Dean said that either campaign could veto a proposed plan on fairness grounds. Thus, Obama has the *legal* right to veto any revote plan, but before Hillary's statement rejecting a caucus, he might not have had the *political* ability to reject any such plan. In light of Hillary's statement, however, she has set a precedent for unilaterally rejecting a particular re-vote option which she deems unfavorable to her, and Obama has an equal right to do so if he feels a plan is unfavorable to him.

There was no need for Hillary to *publically* reject a caucus- she has numerous political allies in both the Michigan and Florida democratic parties. She had no reason to fear that they would adopt any election method which was adverse to her interests. In fact, the so-called "caucuses" in Michigan are actually just primaries run by the parties- they bear no resemblence to the Western caucuses that Hillary has grown to hate.

That brings us back to the mail-in revote option which is being floated in Florida. As discussed below, it is not in Obama's interests to have any revote in the poisoned political environment which exists for him down there. So he needs arguable bases for opposing mail-in revotes, and fortunately he has them. There have been a number of articles written lately which cast doubt upon the feasibility and fairness of having a mail-in revote on such short notice:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080308/NEWS/803080384/1146

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-hasen/worries-about-a-florida-p_b_90583.html

I'm sure there are other arguments Obama could make, but those are a good start.

If I were Obama, I would also question the basic fairness of conducting a Florida re-vote in the current political climate. There is every reason to think that this election controversy has greatly harmed Obama's popularity in the state. Hillary has been able to cast herself as the heroine looking to have Floridians' votes count, while Obama has been cast as the villain wanting to disenfranchise them. Obama finds himself in this unfortunate political position for doing nothing more than following the DNC's rules. So the notion that we can just start over like nothing ever happened is ridiculous.

If I were Obama, I would commission a poll asking Florida voters whether they have a less favorable opinion of him as a result of this election controversy. No doubt a substantial number of them will answer "yes" and he can present that poll data before the DNC in arguing against the fairness of a re-vote. The simple truth of the matter is that the well has been poisoned for Obama in Florida.

So what should Obama offer to do with regard to the Florida election results in January? I would suggest that he agree to submit the January election results to the delegates at the convention so that they can use their own political judgment in deciding how much weight to assign to them. There clearly was an election in Florida, and Hillary got the most votes. But there was no campaigning, no get out the vote efforts by Obama, and it's thus a matter of political speculation as to how close the election would have been if Obama had campaigned there. Obama can present evidence showing how much ground he made up in the polls in states once he started campaigning there. For example, he almost won Texas after being around 20 points down there at one point.

In my view, the delegates at the convention can decide how much weight to give to the January election, and, as a practical matter, whoever has the support of a majority of the delegates at the convention is going to win, both on this issue and in general. But there's no point in trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again and conduct a revote in what is clearly a poisoned political environment for Obama.

Thanks to Hillary's blunder, Obama now has the political ability to reject any re-vote plan in Florida if one is submitted to the DNC. I think this is a significant fact which has gone largely unnoticed.