Florida had an even playing field.  No one campaigned there. Everyone was on the ballot.

Second, the legitimacy of the nominee and the Party is at stake.

I thought it was politically short-sighted for candidates to take their names off the ballot in Michigan; it might have said "we respect Iowa and New Hampshire," but if you lived in Michigan, I think what it really said was, "Michigan voters don't matter."  Having surrogates pushing for Obama and Edwards supporters to vote "uncommitted" didn't make it all better.

I thought the explanation for Obama's national ad buy that aired in Florida was specious, and came close to violating the pledge not to campaign there.

When 1.75 million people turned out in Florida, I thought that made a compelling case for reversing the decision to strip delegates, or at least going to a 50% strip rather than 100%.

Why am I not surprised that Obama co-sponsored a Vote-By-Mail bill and now wants to provide the arguments for why it will not work in this case?

Several days ago, I posted a comment wondering if all this stalling was really designed to get the Obama ground game up and running in Florida - at the time, it felt like paranoid thinking, but it appears my concerns were well-founded, if anecdotal reports are to be believed.

I was willing to accept the Florida and Michigan votes as is, and allow Michigan delegates allocable to the "uncommitted" vote to go into the convention that way.

If the goal is to have a vote that everyone agrees is legitimate, then all the talk about splitting anything 50-50 needs to stop.  Re-voting should be done only to legitimize the vote, not make matters worse; if either candidate goes into this already talking about illegitimate results, we are doomed no matter what the plan is.  Agree to a plan, and agree that neither the candidates nor their surrogates nor DNC-types like Brazile will campaign on the illegitimacy of the re-vote plan.

Of course, being neutral to Clinton in terms of delegate totals is damaging to what she needs, and certainly below what she could expect in an actual vote.

Would a mail-in vote work in Florida?  We spoke with Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent, who says a mail-in vote in Florida could be illegal.  "The law in Florida right now prohibits mail-in voting if there are any candidates on the ballot.  Which means, since there would be Obama and Hillary on the ballot, Florida law prohibits it, for the Supervisors of elections to actually conduct it."

Dent says the Democratic Party conducting its own mail-in election would be a different thing, but comes with its own set of hurdles.

They are not going to do that.

I wish people would stop building imaginary sand castles that do not exist.

First, the mailing date for the ballots is widely publicized so people can begin to expect them.

Second, if a person does not receive a ballot within a reasonable time after the announced mailing date, he or she can contact the local election office for what happens next - I would explain what that is but cannot remember all the details provided on this point by another commenter in a recent post on this subject.

The bottom line is that, if modeled after states which have already fine-tuned the process, there is no reason mail-in voting has to disenfranchise anyone.

Is it perfect?  Of course not - but I'm not aware of a method that is.