THE PRIMARY NUMBERS WITH AND WITHOUT FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN by JMRII

THE PRIMARY NUMBERS WITH AND WITHOUT FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN by JMRII

A New York Times article dated March. 19, 2008 gives the numbers. Without Florida and Michigan Obama leads by 700,000 votes nationally. If Florida and Michigan are included then the Obama lead drops to 338,000. This is out of 26,000,000 votes already cast in the various states. The article states that about 12,000,000 are eligible to vote in the remaining 10 states.

The talking heads simply ignore the votes in Florida and Michigan when they talk about the numbers. There are three possible outcomes between now and June.

1. Remote possibility. Hillary overcomes the 700,000 deficit excluding Florida and Michigan. If this happened the super delegates would likely give the nomination to Hillary.

2. Also possible. Obama gets the lead even if you were to count Florida and Michigan. In this case the super delegates are likely to give the nomination to Obama.

3. Very likely possible. At the end of the primaries Hillary leads if Florida AND Michigan are counted but Obama leads if Florida and Michigan are excluded. In this case the super delegates should give the nomination to Hillary but this is not a sure thing.

Because of these three possibilities we should demand that the talking heads put both sets of figures on the screen for all to see. We must emphasize that Karen Thurman and the Florida Democratic Party did not want to change the dates but it was Republican Gov. Charlie Crisp and the Republican
legislature that changed the dates. Democrats should not be punished for something that they did not do. Now it is true that after the results in the Florida legislature were clear that some of the few Democrats in the Florida legislature went along with the Republican majority but this did not change the outcome.

If Obama is nominated by excluding these two states he would face the probability of losing these two states and losing the election in November. Voters in two of our largest states should not be excluded.

Gov. Dean has correctly instituted a 50 state strategy. It showed some signs of working in the 06 elections for the Congress and the Senate. Theoretically Barack could lose Florida and Michigan and make up the difference in the mountain and prairie west. This has not been tested yet and this is a very dangerous assumption.

The Gore and Kerry maps show that if you get the same states and include Ohio that you can win. Getting Ohio and losing Michigan puts us back where we were in the last 8 years and gives us 4 more years of the Bush policies. In the next 4 years one more Alito type appointment to the Supreme Court could change the balance up there with bad results. We cannot afford to take that chance.