Obama: Full Seating For Florida, Michigan

Obama: Full Seating For Calendar Cheaters FL, MI

Remember that all-important Democratic Rules and Nominations committee meeting at the end of May, that finally, definitively punished Florida and Michigan for violating the primary calendar? Well, forget it. Barack Obama is, now that it doesn't matter to the nomination math, recommending seating the two states at full strength.

"Democrats in Florida and Michigan must know that they are full partners and colleagues in our historic mission to reshape Washington and lead our country in a new direction," Obama writes in a letter to the credentials chairs. "Accordingly, I ask that the Credentials Committee, when it meets on August 24 to approve the delegates for the National Convention, pass a resolution that would entitle each delegate from Florida and Michigan to cast a full vote."

Concurrence from the Clinton camp: "Today, Senator Obama has requested that the Credentials Committee give Florida and Michigan delegates their full votes," writes Hillary Clinton in her followup letter. "This is the right position for the Democratic Party and for the country and I urge the Credentials Committee to restore full votes to Florida and Michigan delegates."

Assuming this happens -- and what the nominee says generally goes -- Florida and Michigan will suffer no punishment at all for their open defiance of the DNC's official nomination calendar. Yet Iowa may still be in good shape for staying first in 2012. Republicans have a tentative calendar that keeps Iowa first, and on the Democratic side Obama clearly credits his Iowa win with setting him on the road to the nomination.