The Popular Vote

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=3288

Hillary’s New Math Demonstrates Why She Should Not Be The Nominee

May 19th, 2008 by Ron Chusid

This report from The New York Times demonstrates one of many reasons why Hillary Clinton has probably lost the Democratic nomination as well as showing serious problems in her political skills.

Clinton is still claiming to be leading in the popular vote, despite this claim having been debunked multiple times. Clinton’s math here is as bad as Obama’s math in claiming to have been in fifty-seven states (although it must have felt like that). At least Obama isn’t repeating his mathematically preposterous claim as Clinton persists in doing with hers.

To claim a popular vote lead Clinton includes the votes in Michigan and Florida which were not sanctioned by the party. Not only wasn’t Obama on the ballot in Michigan, but write in votes for Obama were not counted. Without counting Michigan, Obama already has a lead in the popular vote.

Clinton’s math is also invalid as it discounts the caucus states where Obama won decisively. Turn out in such states is lower due to the structure of the vote, and some states don’t even report vote totals.

Besides being incorrect, Clinton’s argument is also irrelevant. The Democratic nomination is determined based upon delegate totals, not the popular vote. Back when they had a lead among delegates, the Clinton campaign insisted that the nomination was being determined by winning delegates. Obama played by the rules in effect and won based upon those rules. If the rules called for a nomination based upon the popular vote then Obama would have run his campaign differently to maximize the popular vote as opposed to delegate victories.

The problem for Clinton is that only her own supporters are fooled into believing that her argument makes any sense at all. The superdelegates continue to move towards Obama. Her argument on the popular vote certainly has not helped, and might be doing some harm. This argument highlights two major faults in Hillary Clinton, first that she is dishonest and secondly that she does not play by the rules. Clinton’s chances might be better if she managed to overcome such perceptions of her rather than providing more evidence that they are true.

She is agreeing with Karl ROVE and his "numbers."

How low can she go????

Obviously I don't agree with Karl Rove's assessments of electability and who the Democrats should nominate, but beyond that have some problems with this argument. One problem is that I'm looking at who would make the best president. Hopefully if you pick the person who would be the best president they are also electable on that basis. Secondly the nomination comes down to who wins the delegates, not some abstract argument made after the fact that you are more electable. In theory Clinton could win if she could convince the superdelegates of the validity of her argument but they are clearly ignoring her and moving towards Obama.