The backlash against the Clinton Florida and Michigan strategy

In addition to sounding like she has been trying to rewrite the rules in the middle of the game, I think the strident rhetoric by the Clinton campaign on the sanctioning of FL and MI has done grave damage to their campaign. Most of the superdelegates, who at this point have the power to decide the outcome of the race, are from the other 48 states and 6 territories. They played by the rules. They are not interested in rewarding FL and MI for bad behavior and have resented the approach taken by the Clintons.

In addition, Senator Clinton's campaign agreed to the sanctioning of Florida and Michigan. If the voters of those states were disinfranchised then she was instrumental in bringing that about. The superdelegates in these other places understand all this better than anyone, and I think her wild approach to resolving the unfortunate problem of FL and MI has ended up being a major cause of her terrible showing with superdelegates these last 2 months. Like many of us who understood the system, and her role in creating it, the campaign's consistent whining and strident rhetoric has spoken very badly of her character. To many this episode has reinforced the notion that she and her husband were her willing to say and do anything to get elected, including what appears to be, let us say, lying and cheating.

Given that no one campaigned in either place, or that Barack was not even on the ballot in MI, these states did not have legitimate elections. Counting the outcome towards the eventual delegate count is simply not an option. The idea of somehow splitting each of them 50/50 to each of the 2 candidates, and reducing their total number by some percentage, now seems the most fair way to proceed.

For the Clinton campaign it is time to let go of the FL and MI fantasy. It has done a great deal of damage already to her standing with far too many.

Update: For more on the state of the Democratic primary race visit here.

Update Thur pm - Amazingly, Senator Clinton sent a letter today to Senator Obama about this very issue. Read it here. I first weighed in, strongly, on this issue the night of the Florida primary, and have felt very strongly since then that this was a terrible decision by the Clinton campaign.