What's Wrong With a Floor Fight

In the last few weeks and months it seems that the general consensus has been for Hillary Clinton to remove herself from the democratic primary process and allow for the coronation of Barack Obama as the Democratic Party nominee for president. My question to you loyal readers is why? Why should Hillary Clinton bow out? What is wrong with a good old fashioned convention floor fight?

Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama are going to have the required amount of delegates to secure the nomination. Obama may reach the convention with more delegates than Clinton, but he won't have the necessary amount to win it out right. So how do you decide who wins in this scenario? Who decided that because Obama has more but not enough he should automatically win? Why shouldn't the candidates go to the convention and make their case to the base of the party and then see where the votes end up?

The simple fact of the matter is that this primary cycle has been a mess from the get go. From the debacle of what is happening with the Florida and Michigan voters and duel insistence by the Democratic National Committees and the Barack Obama campaign team that the votes in those states not count. With no candidate winning the necessary delegates and being so relatively close in vote totals if all states are counted what makes everyone so certain that Obama should be the nominee?

There is a historical context and it happened not so many years ago. In 1976, incumbent candidate Gerald Ford had won more primary delegates than his republican challenger Ronald Reagan. Ford had also won a plurality in popular vote, yet he did not have enough delegates to secure the parties nomination. As the convention began, the party was split down the middle on who was the winning candidate. Since neither had won outright and because both Ford and Reagan had an almost equally split amount of committed followers, both Ford and Reagan came to the convention in Kansas City ready to plead their case before the remaining uncommitted delegates in the hopes of becoming the parties nominee. This situation almost mirrors the current state of the democratic primary situation. So I ask you again what is wrong with a good old fashioned floor fight.

Clearly neither Clinton or Obama at this point can lay claim to the nomination as a victor through the primary system simply due to the fact that neither of them have actually won the needed amount of delegates. Therefore, I say let them go to the convention and make their case, put all the cards out on the table and make every argument, even the ones that are hard to swallow and aren't politically correct and then let the delegates decide who should represent their party. Only then will the process have actually worked. For Clinton to step down and cede the nomination would be a disservice to herself and a disservice to the party and the process.