This morning one of John McCain's campaign spokespeople touted McCain as being the man responsible for the Blackberry because of his time as Commerce Committee chairman.

This would seem to fall in line with the Al Gore claim of inventing the internet since both men claim that their chairmanships were the key factor.

In Gore's case his stewardship can be directly connected to the mainstream evolution of the net, since its invention was actually part of government scientific work. However, in the case of Blackberry the problem is the device was actually created in Canada.

Furthermore, the moves that opened the door for the explosion of wireless devices was actually the purview of the Clinton run FCC which auctioned off the spectrum and licenses which allowed the cell phone and data age to take off.

Over the years there have always been stories about how people running for office and lost saw their finances in ruin and their debts run to the ceiling.  It is because of these horror stories that many very well qualified candidates have stepped off the stage when they saw the numbers just didn't add up.

Now there are loud rumors and reporting that the Obama campaign will cut a deal with the Clinton campaign that would include paying off her campaign's debts.   This raises a number of intellectual and emotional questions.

1.  What financial incentive does Hillary have to get out if Obama will just bail her out?

2.  Why should Obama supporters be saddled with paying for the losing campaign that did nothing but call them irrelevant latte drinker's and blacks from small states?

3.  Even if Obama agreed to pay for her true expenses to the little guy, should Obama have to pay off her campaign's lingering debt to Mark Penn?

4.  Hillary lent herself money, that would seem to be her own at risk capital, in light of that fact, shouldn't this debt be treated as her own "buyer beware"?

Clearly, this is only a few of the issues that this can boil in my mind but make no mistake about it, this is not about the money to pay the delivery service bill or the pizza guy. 

The real issue is that if the Obama campaign does write Hillary Clinton an 11.5 million dollar check to pay her back for what she lent her campaign.  Should this happen the right will spin this and MSM will pick it up as being nothing more than a political pay off to get her out of the race.

Besides, did John McCain pay Mitt Romney back for the money he invested out of his pocket in his campaign?

For the last couple of months I have been working with a group of voters in Florida to raise the money for a new election by mail in Florida and if possible Michigan.  Now I know that there are a lot of you who snicker at this notion and say it is dead but I hope that you might take a minute to consider the Benefits (for the record I am a committed Obama supporter and donor):
1.  Obama is still largely an unkown in large parts of the state of Florida and so he needs to be in the state a lot since it is winnable in the fall.
2.  The rather spacious schedule between now and June 10 has literally weeks available for campaigning and whatever he can do in April and May will save him much more valuable time in September and October. 
3. Campaigning in Florida will make the states Democratic congressional challengers stronger since they will have the chance to get out their with the candidates and generate excitement and name recognition.
4. All of the proposed compromises to allocate the delegates are poor substitutes to an actual result and come across as typical DC math.
5. Florida (and Michigan) cannot be ignored as this will be spun by the media pundits as a huge insult that will suck the air out of everything. 
6. HRC will not drop out until there is some resolution to Florida and Michigan and so even if it is a game of chicken, are we really up for that either?

Finally a few words about my congress woman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  As head of HRC's campaign in the state you would think that she would be for a revote, however if you check around you will see that she is in fact the leader of the call to block such an effort.  This along with her loyalty to South Florida's republicans is why I for one will hope that she gives up her seat to take a losing run at the democratic senate nomination in 2010 so I can have a representative who understands the importance of expanding the delegation.