Letters to the Editor
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John Edwards could save the day
If John Edwards came out right now and endorsed Obama, throwing all of his Florida support to him, the popular vote would come out to be something like 49-47 for Clinton. I'm a diehard Obama supporter, but I could live with that. I don't know if this falls within party guidelines - I'm not sure there are hard and fast rules for resolving any of this satisfactorily - but if the DNC could line up 50-100 uncommitted superdelegates to strongarm both candidates into accepting the solution with smile for the public, then this could all be over in a week. Hillary gets to declare "victory" in Florida and picks up a few delegates more than Obama, Obama gets to look gracious by putting the party ahead of himself, and Edwards dramatically improves his standing in the party by playing peacemaker, virtually guaranteeing a prominent role in the next administration if the Democrats win in November.
Alternatively, seat the Florida delegates as chosen, and make sure that enough uncommitted superdelegates declare their support for Obama on the same day to balance out whatever lead Clinton gets from the Florida tally.
This is exactly what superdelegates are supposed to be used for, to prevent the party from splitting and tearing itself apart. I think that the game that the Clinton campaign is trying to play in Florida is utterly shameless, and I think that they started playing it long before the election was held, but we've got to move past this immediately.
The Republican party was sharp enough to only strip Florida of half of its delegates, so despite the fact that Florida Republicans had diminished influence in picking their candidate, they at least had influence, and therefore a personal investment in the process and the candidate. If the Democrats don't seat any Florida delegates, they're leaving themselves wide open to charges that they didn't care about what Florida voters thought at the beginning of 2008, so why should Florida voters support the party at the end of 2008? We're already seeing this effect in polls that show McCain winning the state no matter which candidate he's running against.
PS: Plan C is to give a shovel to every Democrat from the 48 states who can actually play by the rules (sorry, Michigan) and have us dig a three-mile trench along the state's northern border so that Florida winds up in international waters and becomes someone else's problem. Losing a few theme parks is a small price to pay for getting rid of a state that seems to exist solely for the purpose of screwing up presidential elections.