Obama Floats Florida Compromise

Now that Barack Obama is officially the pre-presumptive Democratic nominee, he’s going to have to decide what to do about “punishing” Florida and Michigan for moving their primaries too close to the sacred lead spots held by Iowa and New Hampshire.

In Florida yesterday, he floated this idea:

Delving deeper into Florida’s Democratic delegate debacle than he ever has to date, Sen. Barack Obama said Wednesday that “a very reasonable solution” would be to count Florida’s disputed primary votes and cut the state’s delegation to the convention in half.

That may be a bit too Solomonic. Cutting the baby in half risks making everybody involved half unhappy. Obama has misjudged the mood among “average Floridians” about this issue:

The Illinois senator, just shy of securing the nomination, stressed that he intends to win Florida and doubted the controversy over Florida’s primary would cause any serious damage to his prospects.

“I don’t think that the average Floridian is spending all their time thinking about this,” he said, as his campaign bus cruised from Tampa to Kissimmee.

“I think what they’re thinking about is $4-per-gallon gas. I think what they’re thinking about is ‘my health care premiums have gone up 25 percent and my deductibles have gone up and I’m trying to hang on to the health care that I’ve got.”’

We are going to need all the happy Democrats in Florida we can muster in November. Since Obama will win the delegate count even if Clinton gets her larger shares in Florida and Michigan, he should countermand mean Dr. Dean and seat both delegations.