So, once again, Florida is holding our presidential election process hostage. I am not claiming that it is meant in a sinister way or even that it is intentional. Regardless, we are at a bit of an impasse because of Florida.

The biggest culprit in the Florida legislature who decided to move their primary date up against party rules and despite the threat of not having their delegates seated at the national convention. A second culprit is the Clinton campaign. They had agreed not to campaign in Florida although some fund raising events were allowed. And they did not violate the word of this agreement. That said, they did violate its spirit by holding those fund raising events just prior to the primary. As a further insult to the democratic process, they are now pushing to have those same delegates seated, although there was not protest from them when the decision was initially made to exclude them.

On the positive side of this situation, we have DNC chair Howard Dean who is insisting that the delegates not be seated unless a new selection process is concocted. Now, there is an almost identical situation in Michigan, but they are considering running a caucus to select a new slate of delegates. Florida has different ideas. They want to re-run their primary, but they want the DNC to pay for it. The cost is estimated to be between $18M and $25M, so it isn't chump change. Why the DNC should have to pay for Florida's violation of DNc rules is beyond my understanding, and beyond the DNC's as well. It simply makes no sense. In retaliation, Florida is now threatening to leave the eventually democratic nominee off the November ballots. Sigh.

Here is my proposal for solving the problem. The Obama campaign should offer to pay for the re-run of the primary. In February, the Obama campiagn outraised the Clinton campaign by $19M. That means they could cover the primary cost and still match Clinton dollar-for-dollar on campaigning. And this is not counting the fact that his strong grass roots organization would likely rally their fundraising to an even more fervent pace to help defray the cost further.

As an added bonus, for Clinton to be able to persist in her claims of caring for Florida's enfranchisement, she may well have to contribute to the costs as well. And while her fund raising efforts have been successful by any other election's standard, she is still being topped by Obama by impressive amounts.

The net result is that almost everyone wins. The DNC does not have to back down from their valid position that changing the rules would not be fair. The citizens of Florida get their voice heard in the national convention. Obama gets bragging rights both as a peacemaker/dealbroker and as showing who cares about Florida more. The only losers in the process are the Clinton campaign (who honestly don't have a winning strategy here) and the Republicans (who don't get an intrademocrat fight to make us look bad). I can live with that.