Yesterday, Marc Ambinder reported "Another strategist, Harold Ickes, has told colleagues that he does not believe that she should think about dropping out until, at the very least, the questions of Florida and Michigan are resolved." It's worth pointing out that this makes no real sense. Nothing would do more to help resolve the Florida and Michigan issue than for Clinton to drop out and endorse Obama. If she did that, the only remaining issue would be to strike a balance between representing FL and MI at the convention and slapping FL and MI on the wrist hard enough that states don't pull this kind of stunt again. That's a needle you can thread any number of ways.
It's the fact that the campaign is continuing that makes the question difficult to resolve because it has both campaigns focused on maximizing their delegate counts rather than dealing with the aforementioned issue. Which, I suppose, is part of what makes it such an appealing pretext for staying in the race -- as a rationale it has a nice circular logic where the campaign can't end 'till MI and FL are resolved, but the issue can't be resolved until the campaign ends, so on and on we go.


"Which, I suppose, is part of what makes it such an appealing pretext for staying in the race -- as a rationale it has a nice circular logic where the campaign can't end 'till MI and FL are resolved, but the issue can't be resolved until the campaign ends, so on and on we go."
Well, of course, the Obama campaign could agree to some kind of compromise solution to MI & FL, just as they could've agreed to the DNC sanctioned MI & FL re-votes, but didn't.
Perhaps what Matthew meant to say is this:
I'm sure Matthew's confusion on this point only comes from speaking at the library of a person who enabled an obscene war and thought the working class of America were worthless chumps. Oh, it's not Matthew's library? It's Nixon's?
Huh. I would've thought Matthew's tireless Iraq war advocacy and ongoing war on the working class were what was being discussed. At least Matthew hasn't engaged in taping his associates, to the best of our knowledge.
Posted by Petey | May 7, 2008 7:40 PM