The Clintons latest desperate ploy: Forget pledged delegates, it's the popular vote that matters!

[milkyway]

Clinton knows she cannot win more pledged delegates than Obama, but the popular vote is a possibility. She trails 13 million to 12.4 million, but large margins in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan might put her ahead. She will try to convince superdelegates that if she "wins" the popular vote the will of the people must not be overthrown by the process, as it was in 2000. I can imagine Hillary in a full-throated righteous rage defending the people from the delegates that want to overrule them.

There are a couple of problems with this. First--the nomination is not decided by the popular vote. It is decided by delegates voting at the convention. That has always been understood by all. Take a look at the Democratic Convention Watch website:

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/

It has a lot of statistics and information about the contest on its front page. But try finding the total popular vote thus far. It's not there for a reason. It's delegates that decide. McCain is seen as having won the nomination on Tuesday because he won the 1191 delegates needed to get the republican nomination (which will be affirmed by actual voting at their convention).

Second, Clinton herself has unwittingly presented a strong case for not just adding up the popular vote totals in each state to determine the overall popular vote "winner." She says caucuses make it difficult for people to attend, so there is a far lower turnout. This is, of course, true. So a vote in a caucus state counts for several votes if the state had run a primary instead. I would guess that the factor is between 3 and 10.

Despite the excuses of the Clinton campaign, the main reason Obama has done so well in caucus states is that he has more supporters in those states. You can take a look at Survey USA's polling of all fifty states that came out a few days ago, or any other polls of caucus states, to see that Obama does far better than Clinton. Yet because these states use caucuses, Obama's overall popular vote total is substantially reduced. If all states had used primaries, Obama's popular vote lead would undoubtedly be far greater than the 600,000 it is right now.

[earthlover]

1. There is a more compelling reason not to nominate Hillary....

...Hillary is the only Democratic presidential candidate in history to say the Republican nominee is better commander in chief and more experienced than a Democratic presidential nominee.

For this reason, and others, Hillary is the worst candidate for the Democratic nomination in history!

[hisownpetard]

2. And should not be rewarded for her disloyalty by being given the nod as the one candidate

to represent our party in the GE.

[spag68]

10. you are mistaken

she said nothing of the sort, get it right or don'd say it.

[earthlover]

11. You are mistaken. Hillary indeed said just that!

She said McCain and her had a lifetime of experience whereas Obama only had one speech. She later said McCain and her had passed the threshold of being a Commander in Chief whereas Obama only had one speech. There is only one way to interpret this, she is saying McCain is more experienced than Obama and better commander in chief.

If you can defend what Hillary said, go for it. But don't try to pretend she didn't say it. That just makes you look like others in the Hillary Herd Denial Brigade.

[amborin]

3. the popular vote is only fair

pledged delegates are sometimes awarded in an only quasi proportional manner

[Alhena]

4. But there's a flip side to that. If the mountain west states had primaries ...

instead of caucuses then Obama's delegate lead would be smaller but his popular vote lead would be much bigger.

It's not true that he only did well in caucuses in the west- he won the Utah primary by something like 30 points.

So Obama's caucus wins imply that he would have had a lot more votes if they had been primaries.

[madfloridian]

5. Why don't we just change all the effing rules so Hillary can win?

Right in the middle of the primary? Let's do it right now.

Make a list. If Hillary does not like the rule...change it.

[paperbag_ princess]

12. it is not changing the rules

the goal is to convince the superdelegates that the popular vote is a stronger argument for the nomination than a lead in pledged delegates. Superdelegates have always been able to vote for their own personal reasons....

no change there....this has always been about superdelegates for both of them

[BzaDem]

6. Only in Obamaland is the popular vote a "desperate ploy."

I love how Obama supporters keep ignoring the inherent undemocratic nature of caucuses. When Clinton supporters complain that the elderly/disabled/soldiers/etc. can't go to a caucus, Obama supporters bitch about the waaaaaaaambulance.

But then when a rational system is used that gives equal weight to each voter, they are like "NO! WE NEED TO MULTIPLY CAUCUS VOTES BY SOMEWHERE BETWEEN 3 AND 10! BECAUSE ITS TOO HARD FOR PEOPLE TO GO TO CAUCUSES!"

It's laughable.

[milkyway]

7. First, can you provide evidence that caucuses are a bigger disadvantage to Hillary voters?

I haven't seen any, although she continually makes that claim. "My supporters work!" Actually, her support weighs heavily toward the elderly. It seems to me that caucuses affects them less--many of them are retired. They would still have to go out to vote in a primary.

And you are willfully ignoring the point of my post. I don't think the popular vote matters much because nominations are decided by delegate totals.

And my point about the lower percentage of voters in a caucus was to highlight how meaningless it is to simply add up the total votes in all states to arrive at a popular vote total.

And btw, the Clintons have had a stranglehold on the party for sixteen years. If they were so concerned about the unfairness of the nomination process, why didn't they have the rules changed? They didn't seem to mind in 1992 or 1996. It's only when Hillary McCain is losing that they start whining.

It's ok. If I were a Dem supporting a candidate that has all but endorsed the republican nominee, I guess I would be a bit hysterical also.

[istopforcookies]

8. Senator Clinton endorsed McCain!?

...

Nope.

Didn't Happen.

Oh ya...

S*** Fl and MI voters.

Yay! :cheer:

[BzaDem]

9. How about TX? WA?

In TX, Hillary got 100,000 more voters than Obama.
But Obama wins the caucus. You can only vote in the caucus if you voted in the primary. Thus, Obama's win can CLEARLY be linked to caucus bias, since of superset of voters who voted, the small subset that caucused got a completely different result.

In WA, Obama won the caucus by 36 points. About 200,000 people caucused (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23087464/). Thats approximately 72000 votes more for Obama than Clinton.
But then 10 days later, there was a primary. Obama only won by 5.5 points, about 38,000 votes more than Clinton. So even though fewer people turned out at the caucus, Obama still got double his lead than in the primary.

I don't particularly care who caucuses advantage. They are completely undemocratic, and they should be abolished. A democracy is supposed to make voting easy, and make it possible all day long.

One could argue that caucuses shouldn't be looked at AT ALL in the popular vote total. Another could argue that you should only look at pledged delegates, since a caucus is a representative sample of a larger turnout. (hahaha.) But when someone compromises and says let's have each caucusgoer have the same amount of voting power as a primarygoer, you balk. That was what I was getting at.

And nominations are decided by delegate totals, including superdelegates. The superdelegates are going to decide who wins, and they are certainly going to look at the popular vote. So it definately does matter.

[Karmadillo]

13. The pledged delegates canard is, of course, the desperate ploy, but one can understand why Obama

supporters try to pretend otherwise.

[HooptieWagon]

14. Well sure... who couldn't see this coming?

And I guess after it fails, she'll come up with some other cockamamie argument for being the nominee despite being the loser. Divine Right, anyone?