Why is the popular vote so unpopular?
Hillary Clinton wants you to know that she has won the popular vote. She has even gone as fas as to evoke Al Gore by saying that we Democrats should not allow an election to be snatched away from the candidate who has won the popular vote. This would be a provocative argument if it where not for one inconvenient truth. Her math just doesn’t make sense.
Hillary is asking that we accept a few stipulations in order for us to come up with her popular vote numbers:
- Accept the Florida votes as cast in a primary that she herself said wasn’t going to count, and that Harold Ickes (one of her lead advisers) helped craft the rules for.
- Accept that Michigan be counted as well and that none of the hundreds of thousands of voters who voted against her by pulling the lever for “uncommitted” get counted for Obama, whose name didn’t appear on the ballot but who was certainly the candidate of choice for many of those people.
- Finally take an even bigger leap and accept that voters in primary states should count more then voters in caucus states. This is not some sort of primary vs. caucus argument. We aren’t talking about which method is more procedurally valid. We are talking pure mathmatics. Let me explain…
The oft quoted popular vote totals give inordinate weight to primary states because the “votes” counted for caucus states like Iowa are the initial delegate numbers (local representatives), not actual voters. For example, the Iowa count has 1,677 “votes” even though something like 236,000 people voted. You encounter similar problems when looking at states like Nevada, Washington, Maine etc…
Gary Langer, the director of polling at ABC News, has an interesting rundown of the numbers if you include an estimate of the actual votes from the caucus states. His figures? As of May 16th, 17,607,152 for Obama and 17,504,742 for Clinton, or an Obama lead of about 102,410 votes.
Now, this does not include all those votes from Hillary’s landslide victory in Kentucky (or Obama’s landslide victory in Oregon) so when we factor those in, with 97% of Oregon reporting it’s more like 18,176,329 for Obama and 18,214,506 for Clinton, or a Clinton lead of about 38,177 votes. That’s with Michigan and Florida included. So Hillary is winning the popular vote, but only if you are being very charitable.
Look for that lead to all but disappear if Obama picks up any more states in early June. Also, if you give Obama even one fifth of the 238,168 uncommitted votes from Michigan…
Well, I’ll let you do the math.
About The Author - Stirling McLaughlin is an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator in New York City. Stirling enjoys vegan baking, expensive sportswear and mustard and relish sandwiches. Stirling lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter. - Visit Stirling's site.
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Just sayin…
If the situation between Obama and Clinton were reversed I would bet greenbacks (except for 5-dollar bills which I believe should be called “Pink Lincolns”) that the name of Al Gore and the 2000 election would have been invoked long ago in reference to the popular vote vs. delegate counts. I would encourage all Obamaniacs to look deep into their hearts and see if they believe otherwise. Not that it changes anything. It just might be the only argument from that power-starved psychopath that holds merit beyond the strict interpretation of the rules. Rules, by the way, that are changeable at any point by an arbitrary panel of elite but otherwise incompetent party officials.
And why on earth do Guam and Puerto Rico vote in the Democratic primary? They don’t have electoral votes in the general election. Stupid. Pandering. Creating a false sense of inclusiveness. Lies, really, when you think about it. Focus, people! Try winning the election before promising representation that you don’t intend to really pursue anyway.
Does anybody like Howard Dean any more?
Just sayin…
I think if the shoe was on the other foot Obama would have dropped out after Indiana (if not long before) and Hillary wouldn’t even entertain having him as her VP. All of the Obama supporters would be disappointed but most of us would show up to vote for her in the general election. She most likely would go on to win too.
But I completely reject the notion that she has secured any kind of popular vote. This is pure spin. It isn’t just the popular vote either. Its the popular vote, the delegates, the super delegates… Obama has won them ALL. If the shoe was on the other foot, we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on (wait, what?). People would be right to tell us to shut the fuck up and not screw with our chances in November.
I think Howard Dean’s 50-State Strategy is a BIG deal and will pay dividents, so for that reason I think he’s awesome.
[...] have been yelling and screaming (mostly to myself) about how ludicrous Hillary’s “popular vote” [...]