Screw it. I just can't stay gone.

I need answers. I keep hearing that Hillary is "leading Obama in the Popular Vote by some people's reckoning" or something like that. There's that insidious phrase (and not just being used by Fox News this time around), "Some People".

I went to Hillary Clinton's website for more info. Under "Fact Hub", her site provided a generic link to ABC News, not a specific link to where ABC supposedly said she was leading the popular vote. I was not able to find the actual story, nor any specific information as to where they were getting their numbers.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. I got the following numbers from The Green Papers



This shows Obama ahead in the popular vote by 605,888 as of May 19, without the following: MI primary, FL primary, TX caucuses, WA primary. He has been ahead in the popular vote since February 12.

TX caucuses, they stopped counting at 41% in. Apparently they weren't really required to provide a count, and were only doing so because of the intense interest at the time.

Including the above categories of "Popular votes that don't count at this time", we get the following:



I'm sure Hillary wouldn't want to disenfranchise those Washingtonians who voted in their primary, any more than she wants MI and FL disenfranchised.

:sarcasm:

So as of yesterday, with as many votes counted as could possibly be counted, Obama was leading the popular vote by 264,641.

Unless, of course, you decided to give Obama 0 votes in Michigan. But since we're not disenfranchising people, we certainly wouldn't want to disenfranchise those who couldn't vote for Obama in MI. (right?)

The above numbers don't take into account the obvious fact that people did vote in the caucus states, their votes were not officially tallied in many states, and if you were to estimate how many actual votes Obama got via the 5.5-1 ratio he would be leading by quite a bit more in the popular vote.

So today she won Kentucky by about 250,000 and will probably lose Oregon by about 100,000 - for a net gain of 150,000, which still puts her behind in the popular vote by about 114,000 votes by the most favorable "reckoning" for Hillary which does not directly disenfranchise anyone. (It still indirectly disenfranchises caucus voters in those states where they did not keep track of the popular vote, as well as those in Michigan who might have actually come out to vote if their candidate had been on the ballot and they hadn't been told it wouldn't count).

So please, someone, tell me which numbers in my spreadsheet are inaccurate; and which voters I should NOT be counting, which would then cause Obama to be losing the Popular Vote to Hillary.

(And yes, I'm completely aware that the overall Popular Vote doesn't make a bit of difference our nominating process, except that it does, because it helps Hillary sway public opinion to her side, giving her justification for continuing her campaign, and may also help sway Superdelegates to her side - and they are a part of our nominating process.)

The guy in the second picture - he hangs out in and around Union Square in San Francisco holding his crazy signs. I remember seeing him when I visited there last month!

But I'm not gonna spend as much time here. Really.

Just post something when it really irks me, and not use up all 3 posts every day just to use them.

Obama gets 0 votes in Michigan, because it's not THEIR fault he took his name off the ballot

AND you don't count caucus states (unless Hillary won it, then I'm not sure).

I don't think this would pass the smell test with your average superdelegate any more than it would pass the smell test with the average American.

But I guess if you just keep repeating a lie enough times........

is it?

I might need a 12-step program.

to his popular vote total, Hillary gets all of hers.

That's how they're doing their "math". They're also claiming today to be ahead in pledged delegates. I have no idea how they came up with that b/s.

That would give people in Texas 2 votes compared to every other state.

Same goes for Washington.

Clinton is "leading" the meaningless popular vote, but only if:

You count the unsanctioned contests in Florida and Michigan, where candidates were not allowed to campaign;
You give Obama zero votes in Michigan's Soviet-style election, where Clinton was essentially the only name on the ballot; and
You don't count the caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington.
In reality, Obama leads by over half a million votes, for whatever that's worth (not much). But don't worry, the Clinton argument is so asinine, it has gotten little traction among super delegates.

In fact, it's so insulting to people's intelligence, that it's hurting the credibility of anyone stupid enough to use it.

Including the TX caucuses, and still had Obama leading 17,033,439 to 17,024,184 on May 19. But I included the Washington Primary. Because after all, those people voted and their votes should count - right?

;)

I'd have to remove WA to make her be ahead on the 19th. Now of course she'd be ahead as of the 20th, since she picked up about 146,600 votes yesterday.

But if you leave all the numbers intact, Obama still leads today by 118,033.

If you remove MI from the equation, he leads today by 208,174.

Removing FL, the TX caucuses where the count was not fully reported, and the WA "beauty contest" primary, his lead is 459,280.

Now I could see people agreeing with FL being included since they were all on the ballot. I can see them agreeing to not include the TX caucuses since the numbers weren't fully disclosed.

So, putting FL back into the mix, excluding MI, TX caucuses, and including BOTH the WA Caucus and Primary, we'd get the following numbers:

May 19 - Obama 17,062,892; Clinton 16,713,408 -- Obama leading by 349,484
May 20 - Obama 17,619,279; Clinton 17,416,403 -- Obama leading by 202,876

Now, even assuming extremely high turnout in PR, and lower turnout in SD and MT: 900,000, 200,000 and 200,000 - with Clinton winning 56% of the vote in PR and 44% in SD and MT, she'd make up an extra 60,000 votes in the last three primaries.

She'd still be losing the popular vote by 140,876.

Adding MI back in but giving the Uncommitted to Obama (the only thing I think you could convince the average American as being fair), she'd still be losing by 90,141.

Take the WA primary out, she still loses by 51,773.

Leave the WA primary in, but deduct some votes from MI Uncommitted to reflect a possible 15% Edwards vote (even though he has since endorsed Obama) - Obama would still have a narrow lead of perhaps 5,000.

-----

So, the ONLY scenario under which Hillary Clinton will be able to claim she won the Popular Vote after June 3 will be to (1) include the Soviet-style Michigan election AND give Obama 0 votes there, or (2) deduct 86,500 from the Uncommitted in MI and give the rest to Obama, but discount the WA primary.

Somehow I don't think it's gonna go over well with the Supers OR the American Public.

Drinks are on me! :toast:

Welcome back.

sheeesh.

:crazy:

Did you want to help explain to me exactly which voters we should be disenfranchising?

1. Remove panties.

2. Shake the sand out.

3. Put panties back on.

Good luck!

:thumbsup:

;)

Because I'm too lazy to make a spreadsheet myself, and that I would ultimately fail at it by being distracted by squirrels.