Senator Obama's campaign illustrated the unconventional and possibly innovative thinking of the campaign. They laid out a path to the presidency that would include Virginia, Georgia and several Rocky Mountain states, but not necessarily the pair of battleground states that decided the last two elections -- Florida and Ohio. In a session with HRC's supporters David Plouffe outlined "several alternatives to reaching the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House that runs counter to the conventional wisdom of recent elections."

At a fundraiser held at a Washington brewery Friday, Plouffe told a largely young crowd that the electoral map would be fundamentally different from the one in 2004. Wins in Ohio and Florida would guarantee Obama the presidency if he holds onto the states won by Democrat John Kerry, Plouffe said, but those two battlegrounds aren't required for victory.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/200 8/06/16/obama-camp-we-can-win-without-oh io-florida/

I think Obama campaign realizes that their action during primary process had significantly compromised their ability to compete in FL in the general election (which many of us had warned before). I'm not sure why Ohio is in the same category now that Obama has the able support of Gov. Ted Strickland and his state campaign machine. But does stating this aloud mean they are falling back to 48 state campaign strategy (or maybe less) from the earlier goal of competing in all 50 states?Anyway the campaign is definitely doing some innovative thinking to reach their goal of winning the WH in November.
 

Trapped by a reporter, Florida congressman Allen Boyd (FL-02) struggled to explain his position on the 2008 presidential race.

U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, a leader of the conservative Blue Dog caucus in Congress, said Wednesday he will vote for Sen. Barack Obama but shied away from endorsing his party's candidate for president.

Boyd said he can't support Sen. John McCain because he considers his GOP platform a continuation of President Bush's economic policies. Boyd, a Monticello Democrat elected to Congress in 1996, called Obama "a great candidate" with a good chance of winning nationally and carrying Florida's 27 electoral votes.

"I have never endorsed a candidate in a presidential race and I won't now," Boyd said. "I've got a race of my own and I'll stay focused on that. That's my job, to represent the interests of my folks."

Looks like he managed to contain his enthusiasm.

In other news, another Florida congressman, Tim Mahoney, attempted to avoid being tied to Obama by voicing his intention to skip the convention in Denver. A Georgia congressman, asked if Obama was better qualified for the presidency than McCain, said....

...nothing.

Since clinching the nomination last week, Obama has run into reluctance among congressional Democrats.

Rep. David Boren, the only Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, said Tuesday the Illinois senator does not have a record of bipartisan work in Congress. Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fla., a first-term member targeted by Republicans in a GOP-leaning district, said he will remain an uncommitted superdelegate but might not attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Georgia Rep. Jim Marshall refused to say whether he considers Obama better qualified than McCain.

I'm passing this along from dailykos since many of you don't visit there.  Delaware Dem (YAY!!) has the scoop

Seat the delegations AS ALREADY ELECTED in MI and FL.

100%. The uncommitteds already elected as delegates remain. They vote for whoever they want.

Disqualify all superdelegates from MI and FL.

All primary voters are 100% "enfranchised".

Superdelegates are politicians, politicians are the ones who screwed up, let them take the punishment.

(Obama still wins easily.)

I've come across this talking point so many times it makes my head spin,"Obama doesn't want to count every vote!" and "He's the one disenfranchising MI and FL voters."

Well, not so.  Wanna know who punished those states?  The majority was Team Clinton, that's who.

From an article at Slate

How do we fix this?  There is an obvious divide between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters.  This divide is growing worse by the day, especially between the extreme supporters of each side.  First, let me state that while an Obama supporter myself, I do not think that Clinton should drop out unless it is her choice.  If she chooses, she has every right to run the whole way to the convention.  Were she to obtain the nomination, I would vote for her.

I want to focus on the chasm between the supporters.  It is not just a problem for the Obama campaign...  were Clinton to become the nominee, it would likely be an issue for her campaign as well.  So, how do WE fix this?

Honest question.  (And try to keep the sniping back and forth to a minimum)

After reading the pdf provided in this link by portia9 in another diary:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/apache.3cdn.net/ de68e7b6dfa0743217_hwm6bhyc4.pdf

According to Simon Rosenberg, the Clintons disingenuous efforts to count the ridiculous FL/MI results (rather than simply find a compromise that makes sure FL/MI are represented at the convention) has really pissed off some superdelegates:

In addition to sounding like she has been trying to rewrite the rules in the middle of the game, I think the strident rhetoric by the Clinton campaign on the sanctioning of FL and MI has done grave damage to their campaign. Most of the superdelegates, who at this point have the power to decide the outcome of the race, are from the other 48 states and 6 territories. They played by the rules. They are not interested in rewarding FL and MI for bad behavior and have resented the approach taken by the Clintons.