The MI/FL Excuse

Yesterday, Marc Ambinder reported "Another strategist, Harold Ickes, has told colleagues that he does not believe that she should think about dropping out until, at the very least, the questions of Florida and Michigan are resolved." It's worth pointing out that this makes no real sense. Nothing would do more to help resolve the Florida and Michigan issue than for Clinton to drop out and endorse Obama. If she did that, the only remaining issue would be to strike a balance between representing FL and MI at the convention and slapping FL and MI on the wrist hard enough that states don't pull this kind of stunt again. That's a needle you can thread any number of ways.

It's the fact that the campaign is continuing that makes the question difficult to resolve because it has both campaigns focused on maximizing their delegate counts rather than dealing with the aforementioned issue. Which, I suppose, is part of what makes it such an appealing pretext for staying in the race -- as a rationale it has a nice circular logic where the campaign can't end 'till MI and FL are resolved, but the issue can't be resolved until the campaign ends, so on and on we go.