By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff

Florida Democrats’ proposed plan to conduct a statewide revote in order to seat their delegates at this summer’s convention was deemed dead in the water Monday when state party chairwoman Karen Thurman dropped the idea because of widespread opposition.

“The consensus is clear: Florida doesn’t want to vote again. So we won’t,” Thurman wrote in a letter distributed to Florida Democrats Monday evening.

Democrats are also struggling over what to do about Michigan which, like Florida, was stripped of its delegates for moving up the date of its votes. Leading Michigan Democrats last week proposed a do-over primary for June 3, which would require approval of the state legislature.

Recent polls have shown Democratic voters to be sharply divided over how the Michigan and Florida question should be resolved.

Thurman last week proposed the idea to the state’s congressional delegation, Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, the two Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, and others. In addition, Thurman asked Florida voters to offer their opinions.

She gave recipients until March 14 to express their opinion about a June 3 do-over primary in which participants would be encouraged to vote early by mail.

The results of the June 3 primary would supersede the Jan. 29 primary that violated national party scheduling rules and prompted DNC officials to strip the state of all 241 of its delegates to the late August Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Denver.

The nine Democrats in the state’s House delegation made their opposition to Thurman’s plan known Friday, issuing a joint statement against a revote or mail-in ballot of any kind, echoing earlier statements made by the delegation.

But Florida Sen. Bill Nelson early last week said that he would support a plan to vote by mail.

Nelson today warned that the party was headed for a “train wreck that could involve a national floor fight at the convention” over seating of the state’s delegates if national Democratic leaders failed to find a solution. “That runs the risk of alienating a key battleground state in the run-up to the November elections,” he said.

Clinton offered her support for the Florida plan this weekend, though her campaign maintains their first preference is to seat the delegates according to the Jan. 29 results. Clinton won that contest over Obama 50 percent to 33 percent. But Obama and others question the legitimacy of the results, given that the candidates did not campaign in the state fearing penalties threatened by the DNC.

Obama’s campaign questioned how the signatures on mail-in ballots would be verified.

By ruling out a revote and a caucus, Florida Democrats are left to appeal directly to the DNC’s Credentialing Committee and the candidates and implore them to seat their delegates.

Thurman in her letter Monday put the onus on the DNC to solve the problem.

“This doesn’t mean that Democrats are giving up on Florida voters. It means that a solution will have to come from the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee, which is scheduled to meet again in April,” Thurman said.

Thurman used her letter to also remind recipients that the Republican-controlled state legislature originally passed the legislation deeming Jan. 29 the primary date. Democrats did sign on to that bill, but Thurman noted that they did offer House bill 537 to hold the primary on Feb. 5, the first date deemed permissible by the DNC on which to hold a primary election.

Thurman noted that 537 is the number of votes by which Republican George W. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 presidential race. President Bush was declared the winner after a recount in the state due to ambiguous punch card ballots.

“We can’t let 537 - or the Republicans - determine our future again,” Thurman wrote.

A Rasmussen poll released Monday showed Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona leading both Obama and Clinton in a Florida general election match-up. The survey showed McCain with a 4 percent lead over Obama and a 7 percent lead over Clinton. Though he still ran behind in McCain in the survey, Obama gained ground since February when a Rasmussen survey had him 16 percentage points behind McCain.