Interesting stat: Clinton leads Obama 1672 - 1457

[FlyingSquirrel]

This is really a pretty meaningless stat, but it'll ignite a fun little flamefest so I thought I'd post it.

;)

Not even counting MI and FL, Clinton would have a pledged delegate lead of 1426 to 1243 over Obama, if we had a winner-take-all system like the Republicans. (Just about the exact opposite of the current situation).

Adding in the current superdelegate totals would give her a lead of 1672 to 1457 and people would probably be calling for Obama to drop out.

:hi:

[Bicoastal]

1. April Fools! There's no such thing as "superdelegates!"

Oh wait, there is? Uh-oh...

[Jane Austin]

2. And . . . If "Ifs" and "Buts" were Candy and Nuts,

What a Merry Feast we'd have!

[acrosstheuniverse]

3. You know now that I think of it

Had Florida held their primary on the right day and not fucked it up there is a good chance that the state + Pennsylvania + KY, WV, PR, IN would have pulled Hillary about even with Obama if not a bit over the top.

It certainly would have given her MUCH MORE momentum for her campaign and therefore gotten her more votes and maybe she wouldn't have to go to such desperate measures against Obama. But Florida fucked that up for her.

It's the state's fault. But good riddance to them. I am happy for Obama.

[FlyingSquirrel]

4. Me too. nt

[grantcart]

6. you are right except that the Obama team would have changed the campaign

strategy and still come out on top. But maybe it would have kept John Edwards in a little bit longer. Maybe Hillary would have gotten a couple more 3rd places . . . who knows what might have happened.

[FlyingSquirrel]

15. Ya. He definitely had a good group of strategists.

I personally believe that the reason he's winning is that he speaks more optimistically. There was a study done on this awhile back.

Selden 's psychohistory, on the other hand, dealt with large populations and statistical analyses. One of Dr. Seligman's graduate students, Harold Zullow, an avid political observer, applied the CAVE technique to the acceptance speeches of presidential candidates from 1948 through 1984. He learned that the more optimistic candidate won virtually every time. He then went back and analyzed the “stump” speeches of presidential candidates from 1900 through 1944. Again, the more optimistic candidates trounced those with a less optimistic explanatory style.

http://www.shearonforschools.com/learned_optimism.htm

I don't even have to go through Clinton's speeches or debate performances word-for-word to know that she's definitely been one with the the less optimistic speaking style. So if you buy the conclusions reached in this study (I do) Obama probably would be winning no matter how the system was set up.

[DerekJ]

5. Hmm, show me your calculations please.

[FlyingSquirrel]

13. ok

Obama:

AL 52, AK 13, CO 55, CT 48, DE 15, DA 7, DC 15, GA 87, HI 20, ID 18, IL 153, IA 39, KS 32, LA 56, ME 24, MD 70, MN 72, MS 33, MO 72, NE 24, ND 13, SC 37, UT 23, VT 15, VI 3, VA 83, WA 78, WI 74, WY 12

Clinton:

AS 3, AZ 56, AR 35, CA 370, MA 93, NV 25, NH 18, NJ 107, NM 26, NY 232, OH 141, OK 38, RI 21, TN 68, TX 193

----

As someone else pointed out, TX had both primaries and caucuses. If we had a winner-take-all system however TX would probably not have had caucuses as well. I can't find the numbers of actual votes in the TX caucuses to see whether or not Obama's lead in the caucuses would have overturned Clinton's lead of 99,629 votes so I gave TX to Clinton.

If we had a winner-take-all system, we'd probably be seeing an all-out court battle over TX right now.

[DerekJ]

14. The number is 1.1 million (over 1 million voters estimated at 1.1).

[FlyingSquirrel]

18. That still doesn't quite clear it up

Obama got 37 delegates vs 20 for Clinton. That would be 55% vs 45% of delegates. But the actual vote totals could have been a bit closer than that - If Clinton actually got 46% of the caucus votes but somehow ended up with only 45% of the delegates, she would have then gotten 506,000 of the 1,100,000 votes as opposed to Obama's 594,000. So her lead of 96,629 would have been reduced by 88,000 and she'd still have won the state narrowly by 8,629. So really without the actual individual vote totals from those caucuses, we don't know who got the most individual votes in TX.

As it is, Clinton's contesting the caucus results in TX - but again, if we had a winner-take-all system, and TX still used a primary/caucus hybrid, there would at this moment be an all-out battle after the fact for TX's 193 delegates because it was so close.

Thank God that's not the case. MI and FL are quite enough as it is.

[Swamp Rat]

7. Maybe in bowling.

:D

[Austinitis]

8. Thanks for posting that

I've been looking for a statistic along those lines for a while.

[TheDoorbellRang]

9. Au contraire, mon ami

I had to check that out, and with winner take all, I came up with Obama at 1450 vs. Clinton at 1237.

I bet you gave Texas to Clinton, didn't you. Nope, add in the caucus and he gets it all in winner-take-all. heh, heh, heh.

[FlyingSquirrel]

11. If you have total numbers of individual votes for Clinton and Obama in the TX caucuses

That would be interesting to see. She had a lead of 99,629 in the primary popular vote so it's conceivable that the caucus votes could have been enough to overturn that but I don't know where to find that info.

[TheDoorbellRang]

17. Not going by popular vote with Texas

Going strictly by their primary + caucus results. In real life Obama wins Texas 99-94; in alternate world of winner-take-all, he takes it all. :D

[FlyingSquirrel]

19. See post 18

It's unclear whether Obama won the caucuses with enough popular vote to overturn Clinton's 96,629 primary lead. They don't have exact numbers, and if the estimate of 1.1 million participants was correct, Clinton would have needed slightly less than 46% of those votes to maintain a slim majority in TX. We'd be looking at a major battle right now in TX to determine exactly how many votes each candidate got.

[TheDoorbellRang]

20. But that's adding a separate rule to the winner take all rule

If you're going strictly by winner-take-all, popular vote doesn't decide it in Texas because of their primary/caucus rule.

Hey. This is amazing that we're so into GD-P that now we're even debating the fine points in alternate world. How crazy are we? :rofl:

[FlyingSquirrel]

21. We are crazy.

And DU is an alternate world.

[woolldog]

10. If it were winner take-all then Obama would've used

a different strategy.

[FlyingSquirrel]

12. Probably true. Like I said it's a meaningless stat but fun anyway

[joshcryer]

24. Nope, he still would have went after early caucuses to change perceptions.

He'd still be winning.

[Cant trust em]

16. But we don't have a winner take all system.

But if that were the case I probably would be calling for Obama to drop out. But since this is just a hypothetical I still get to live in the real world where it's Clinton who should drop out.

[Bicoastal]

22. "Fun little flamefest..." isn't that a triple oxymoron? Anyhoo, my take.

I'm glad we do it this way, not the Republican way--if a (Presidential) candidate loses a primary state by only a thousand votes, the delegate tallies should reflect this closeness. It's the only way we can get a fair approximation of whom the party as a whole really wants. The Republican way really DOES mean that only a couple states matter.

[FlyingSquirrel]

23. Agreed, our system is more representational.

And the electoral college SUCKS!

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/index.php

[GoesTo11]

25. What if we had a system like this?

1. Weights each state approximately by number of likely GE voters.

2. In each state gives delegates in proportion to the level of demonstrated support for each candidate.

3. States determine exactly how that support is to be demonstrated.


According to RealClearPolitics, Obama would lead in pledged delegates in such a system by 1414 - 1248.

Oh wait, he does.

[Awsi Dooger]

26. Bill Clinton made this point the other night in Asheville

My sister attended his speech, first time she had seen a president.

He emphasized Hillary would be ahead -- if not a certainty -- via GOP primary rules, and McCain still struggling if the GOP field had played by the Democratic rules.

Obviously the strategies would have changed. But difficult to see how that favors Obama. What major state was he going to pull out to tip the balance? In Texas he had all the momentum yet still lost the popular vote by several points. Remember, the narrative would have been completely different if Hillary had racked up delegate advantage by dominating the large winner-take-all states.

Kudos to Obama for locating a path through the smaller states.

[bowens43]

28. bill has turned into a babbling idiot.

[bowens43]

27. you're right, it's meaningless so why bring it up?