The risk of not holding re-votes in Michigan and Florida

Two days after Florida nixed its plans to hold a do-over primary, Michigan appears close to doing the same, as even some of the state's Clinton supporters are admitting. It appeared just a few days ago that a June 3rd contest was probable, but there have been too many objections raised since then -- whether the vote can be organized, whether people who have voted in January 15th GOP primary [that saw a third of cross-over Democrats] could vote on June 3rd, who would pay -- for the Michigan legislature to have much hope of resolving them by their recess on Friday.

Obama never explicitly rejected the primary but most of these objections were raised by his campaign and by its Michigan co-manager Hunter; seeking to delay the decision and keep up a crowd of uncertainty, Obama appears close to his goal to avoid potentially dangerous revotes in the beginning of June. With Clinton on the upswing in Pennsylvania and hoping to ride momentum throughout May, it would have been very difficult for Obama to convince superdelegates if he had lost a string of contests including the final two in Florida and Michigan.

Now, Clinton is trying to force the hand of both the Michigan legislature and of the Obama campaign by ... holding today's first meeting in Detroit! This is meant to simultaneously pressure the Michigan legislature into taking action and to force the Obama campaign to openly oppose a revote plan rather than retreat in the objection-raising position they are in now. For remember that, whether or not we think that the FL and MI votes were unfair and should not count at the convention, Clinton had nothing to do with pushing those votes forward and she is justifiably frustrated that two states in which the demographics favor her will have no role to play in the nomination process.

If the Michigan revote is indeed nixed, the question will be whether any plan can be agreed to that would still allow for some delegates to be seated. There was a plan circulating last week that would seat Michigan 50-50 and Florida based on the January vote but giving delegates only half a vote -- though this does not give Michigan any voice in the process. And Barack Obama better find a way to make Florida and Michigan count in some way, for the more-than-ever probable nominee could pay dearly come the general election if the two states' Democrats are left angry by the process.

A new poll shows that a plurality of Florida Democrats want the January 29th to count and, more importantly, a full quarter of respondents (and these are Democrats) said they would be less likely to support the Democratic nominee in the fall if the Sunshine State is not included in the nomination process. And whether there is a direct linkage or not, PPP's new general election survey of Florida looks quite terrible for Democrats and the confusion in which the state's party is in right now can't be improving things:

• McCain leads Hillary Clinton 47% to 44% but he crushes Obama 50% to 39%.

The difference is due to Obama significantly underperforming among his party's base: He trails by 9% among women (Clinton leads by 8%), and he only gets 60% of Democrats (Clinton gets 74%), the latter number a truly weak number. And those Democrats are saying they are McCain supporters (25% in a match-up against Obama) rather than going in the undecided camp. Among Hispanics, Clinton is tied with McCain at 47% while Obama trails by 11%. Clinton has her own problems as 51% of African-American are supporting her, though the rest is pronouncing itself "undecided" (35%) rather than McCain (13%).