Re-voting in Florida

Florida's governor, Charlie Crist, is now suggesting that Florida may have a new Democratic primary, if the Democratic National Committee can be persuaded to seat the delegates from this second primary. Now, I personally think this would be a great idea. I never liked the idea of stripping states of delegates, particularly states as important in the general election as Michigan and Florida. But this announcement, coming the day before the extremely important primaries in Texas and Ohio, from a governor who endorsed McCain (and may have already been offered the VP slot) is highly suspicious.

On a purely innocent level, this works out well for Crist because he's doing a service for democracy, and it serves to put him in a positive light in the eyes of Democratic voters in his state. Everybody wins, right?

On the other hand, this would be a brilliant play from the McCain campaign. If Florida gets to vote again, a lot of the significance of the Texas and Ohio primaries wears off. Even if Clinton loses, she still has a good shot in Florida and could potentially make up a lot of ground there. If that happens, the Democratic primary, and all the intra-party bickering that comes with it, can be extended for months, making the party look disorganized and taking both Hillary and Obama down as they continue to tear into each other's records. McCain then gets to focus on making himself look good, while the Democrats do all the dirty work for him. Furthermore, if Clinton can manage to come back and take the nomination, McCain gets a more favorable match-up. Polls are showing (and I know it's really early) that Obama would run a lot stronger against McCain than Clinton would. It has frequently been said that Clinton would discourage a lot of Democrats from taking the time to vote, and would significantly mobilize Republicans just to vote against her. With Obama as a nominee, independents shift Democratic. With Clinton as the nominee, they go to McCain, which is pretty vital since his base doesn't like him much.

If Crist pulls this off, then he just earned his meal ticket as John McCain's running mate.