Good article that explains the real reason why Edwards and Obama pulled out of the

[kikiek]

MI primary.
http://2008central.net/2007/10/09/obama-edwards-richardson-and-biden-pull-out-of-michigan-primary/

Indeed, Michigan has created a frustrating mess. As we noted in this week’s podcast, Florida has already lost their delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Accordingly, Michigan could very well face the same sanction from the DNC.

Now you may be wondering why the candidates have decided to do this…D’oh

Simple. They’re hoping for short term political gain. This is actually a big issue in Iowa and New Hampshire; voters there care about preserving their early primaries. Going above and beyond their pledge not to campaign in Michigan, backing out of the primary is a good way for a candidate to score some points in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Given that the candidates had already pledged not to campaign in Michigan, today’s move serves no real purpose. Rather, it’s a foolish decision that could hurt Democrats in the general election. Democrats are already dealing with negative sentiment surrounding this issue in Florida (a key swing state) and now they’ll have to deal with the repercussions of frustrated voters in Michigan (a leaning Democratic state, but certainly not one that a presidential candidate running in a general election should take for granted). Sure, these candidates may have helped themselves in the primary (although I don’t really think it’ll be that much help) but their decision today will hurt them in the general election should they get that far.

[judaspriestess]

1. Here is more on that

Michigan held its primary on January 15th. Since Obama and Edwards voluntarily pulled their names from the ballot beforehand, the votes for Clinton cannot be said to represent a mandate. However, there's more to this story than the mainstream press has reported. According to an October 11th article by Lynda Waddington of the Iowa Independent, "The campaign for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, arguably fearing a poor showing in Michigan, reached out to the others with a desire of leaving New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as the only candidate on the ballot. The hope was that such a move would provide one more political obstacle for the Clinton campaign to overcome in Iowa." In other words, the candidates' pledge to the DNC not to campaign never actually required them to remove their names. Along with Clinton, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich appeared on the ballot

http://www.thecityedition.com/Pages/Archive/Winter08/20...

[kikiek]

2. They're total idiots out there about this. It is Obamavision. Like having cataracts in both eyes.