Open Letter to Governor Dean

Dear Mr. Dean,
I completely agree with your position in holding Florida and Michigan accountable for breaking the rules. This was a clear attempt of Clinton cronies (Nelson and Granholm) moving up their dates to give their candidate a big advantage. There must be order otherwise many other states would have jumped over Super Tuesday and gave an advantage to the candidate with the best funding.

Now it is time to protect the voters from their inept leaders. Let's start with Michigan. Michigan has two choices as I see it. Re vote or have no delegates. The election they had was a sham without major candidates other than Clinton on the ballot. If they chose to revote they still should face a penalty. They should lose 1/2 their delegates (which was their punishment in the GOP primary) and all of their Super Delegates would lose their voting rights. The party leaders of Michigan should have acted like leaders and not gotten into this mess. The people get a voice, Super's do not.

Florida is more tricky. The cost of rerunning an election in Florida is too steep for a Florida economy that has been one of the hardest hit. Florida gets a choice too. They can revote an pay for it themselves which is unlikely or they can have their results stand but take the same punishment as Michigan. 1/2 their delegates would be stripped and the other half would be split between Obama and Clinton based on their proportion of the January vote. While this may be unfair to Obama (he would lose 63-42 in delegates) , if he were ultimately the nominee, it is in his interest to keep Florida happy. 21 delegates is a small price to pay. Florida like Michigan would also be stripped of their super delegates for failing to show leadership.

Ultimately this is the fairest solution as is evidenced by the fact that both campaigns would be upset over the solution.

Get it done Governor Dean. The longer you wait the harder it will be to get an equitable solution.