Obama Requests Full Seating of Florida and Michigan

Barack Obama sent a letter to the DNC Credentials Committee requesting that the Michigan and Florida delegations be seated in full in Denver.  While I agree with Obama that they should be seated with full delegations, I think he made a mistake here.  He should have let the full delegations be seated when they had the original meeting.  He had the nomination wrapped up at that point (for all practical purposes) and should have used the opportunity to bring the party back together.

The argument from many in the Obama camp was that if they gave in, it would look like they are beholden the the Clintons; it would have made him look weak.  I don’t think it would have though.  He still would have won the nomination, and would have lessened the tensions between the two campaigns.  Furthermore, by requesting full seating at this point, Obama is essentially acknowledging that his motivation previously was simply political.  This type of thing goes against the image that Obama has built of himself, and could hurt him a bit.