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If My Grandmother Had Wheels, Clinton Would be Winning

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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:01 PM
Original message
If My Grandmother Had Wheels, Clinton Would be Winning
This is an answer to Sean Wilentz's latest madness.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/04/07/if-my-grandmother-had-wheels-clinton-would-be-winning.aspx

Sean Wilentz argues in Salon that if the Democratic primary operated on a winner-take-all basis -- "one of the central principles of American electoral politics" -- Hillary Clinton would be ahead. "In a popular-vote winner-take-all system, Clinton would now have 1,743 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,257," he concludes. Instead, Obama has a lead that is "reliant on certain eccentricities in the current Democratic nominating process."

This is a bizarre proposition. It's true that the Democratic delegate-apportioning process is eccentric. But since when is winner-take-all considered a more democratic process than proportional allotment? Indeed, in this case, winner-take-all would have made the Democratic primary less democratic. Obama is winning the popular vote. He's even winning if you count the vote in Florida, where neither candidate campaigned or organized their voters. (A restriction that benefitted Clinton enormously, as greater familiarity has boosted Obama's standing virtually everywhere -- witness the withering away of Clinton's once-massive lead in Pennsylvania.)

Why, then, would Clinton be leading under a winner-take-all system? Because a winner-take-all system renders a one-vote win in a state just as valuable as a blowout win. One flaw of a winner-take-all state-based process is that a candidate who has more votes can lose if he has lots of "wasted" votes in blowout wins and his opponent has many close victories. And indeed, this is precisely what's happened in the Democratic primary -- Obama has far more blowout wins. As Third Way's Jim Kessler has pointed out, "Twenty-four of his 29 wins have been by 16 points or more, while four of Clinton's 15 victories have been of the blowout variety." Clinton would win by the winner-take-all metric only because it's a system that can mask the popular will.

So Wilentz is arguing that if the Democrats used a different, less democratic process, Clinton would be winning despite Obama's greater appeal to the electorate. But even that claim is shaky. It's not just an accident that Obama won a lot of delegates from blowout wins in small states. It's a deliberate strategy. In the days leading up to Super Tuesday, he abandoned big states like California to hold rallies in places like Boise, Idaho and Wilmington, Delaware. Obama did this because there were lots of delegates to be gained by increasing his margin in small states. If the rules were different, he would have deployed his resources differently.

Clinton supporters are spending an inordinate amount of time devising scenarios where Clinton would be winning if the rules of the primary were changed retroactively. Yet all the rules were understood and agreed to by both candidates in advance. The rules are not perfect, but the hypothetical alternatives proposed by Clinton's side -- imposing a winner-take-all system, counting the votes in states with no campaigning or only one candidate on the ballot -- would make the race less fair, not more fair. So, yes, it's possible to imagine different, less-fair rules where the losing candidate would have prevailed. But so what?

--Jonathan Chait
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MannyGoldstein Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:04 PM
Response to Original message
1. The Rules Is The Rules
If the rules were different, then candidates might have a different strategy.

I'm glad that we have a system were the winner of the contest is extremely unlikely to be behind in votes.
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:07 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. I don't remember Clinton having any problems with the rules when she was
winning (before any votes had actually been cast).
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MannyGoldstein Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:11 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. You Are A Republican Who Fears Powerful Women
Bringing up that point.
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:12 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Obviously.
:rofl:
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PoliticalAmazon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-08-08 04:19 PM
Response to Reply #4
18. Thanks for getting that out of the way for us. n/t
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MannyGoldstein Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-08-08 05:46 PM
Response to Reply #18
21. Anytime
My pleasure.
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Double T Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:10 PM
Response to Original message
3. Manipulated caucuses and open primaries are right in line with............
the SCOTUS deciding WHO was to be President. Democrats eroding the democratic process; congratulations!
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:11 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. And how long have we had caucuses and open primaries? NT
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Dr Fate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:13 PM
Response to Original message
7. If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs-if we had some eggs. n/t
n/t
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PoliticalAmazon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-08-08 04:38 PM
Response to Reply #7
20. Yeah, but if we had some spam we could have a Monty Python tribute! n/t
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PlanetBev Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:15 PM
Response to Original message
8. NYC, the second I saw your post, I laughed fondly
That's one of my father's favorite sayings. Whenever I'd say, "I would have, should have, could have", he'd always say "If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a trolley car." :)
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:17 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. I certainly can't take credit for the title, but I sure laughed when I read it, too!
:hi:
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nichomachus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-08-08 04:17 PM
Response to Reply #8
17. My father used to say
If the dog hadn't stopped to shit, he'd have caught the rabbit
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BlueIdaho Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:18 PM
Response to Original message
10. Don't hold your breath
Regardless of which exotically clever, goal post moving, shape shifting reframe of reality the Clinton camp tries to put in front of the public - its over. For HRC to win the democratic party would have to essentially throw out the agreed upon primary process and literally hand her her lovely crown for no good reason what so ever and that dear friends - they are not going to do that since it would be suicide for the party.

Recalibrate all you want - its over - she lost - deal with it.
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:19 PM
Response to Original message
11. Obama's winning and hilary and her surrogates are whining..
Obama's donations speak for themselves. I just read that hilary's campaign did some creative accounting to come up with "$20 million" last month when it was closer to "$7 mil".

"Wonder why Clinton claimed to have raised nearly $35 million in February, but more than $20 million of that haul wasn't available for the primary race? Pretty simple and truly Clinton-like slick: Hillary didn't expand her fundraising base … her mega-rich donors have all maxed out their $2,300 primary limit, but they donated money to Clinton's campaign anyway. So what's the problem? Well, since the donors had already maxed out, the $20 million can only be used during the general election campaign. Slick, huh? It makes it appear as though Hillary Clinton has raised a bunch of money, but she hasn't.

But there is more … it appears Hilllary Clinton's claims of having raised $20 million in March, is really only $7 million. Slick … very slick! Indeed, it is Clinton slick.

When it comes to money and politics, looks can be deceiving. Take February's presidential fundraising receipts, for example. After losing 11 straight primary contests to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton rebounded–in the headlines, at least–with the Feb. 29 announcement that she had racked up $34.5 million in contributions for the month, her all-time record. The only problem? Candidates aren't actually required to disclose full fundraising information until the 20th of the following month. Fortunately for Clinton, not many folks took notice when she finally filed with the FEC on March 20. If they had, they would've discovered that only a third of Clinton's February cash-on-hand, $11.7 million, was designated for the primary campaign; the remaining $20-plus million was all general election funds, and would only be available if she won the Democratic nomination. What's more, they would've also learned that Clinton's campaign had closed the month with $8.7 million in outstanding debt–leaving her at the start of March with a measly $3 million in free dough for the battles ahead.

I bring this up because we've suddenly reached the end of another month (and the start of another money-maniacal news cycle)–and only by looking back at February can we see how bleak March looks for Clinton. As usual, her financial fate doesn't seem particularly dire on its face. According to the Politico's Ben Smith, a Clinton campaign source says the candidate raised about $20 million for the month–her second-best finish to date, which isn't shabby for period largely lacking in competitive primaries. But if February's tally revealed anything, it's that Clinton has been unable to expand her donor base far enough beyond the traditional networks of wealthy Democrats; the $23 million gap between primary and general election funds proved that many of these contributors had long given the $2,300 maximum donation for the primary, and were now providing an additional $2,300 for the general only to inflate Clinton's monthly total and spur positive coverage. Assuming the pattern holds, it's unlikely that Clinton raised more than $7 million that she can actually use against Obama–less, you'll notice, than last month's debt, which is probably still outstanding. (And that's not even counting the $5 million Clinton loaned her campaign at the end of January.) In any case, we won't know for sure until–you guessed it–April 20. On a conference call this morning, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson refused to confirm the $20 million figure and reminded reporters that the campaign would not release its numbers until required by law. "We will have the resources that we need to compete," said Wolfson. Not exactly a confidence booster". Newsweek
Read it all right HERE at Newsweek

http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/?p=629
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bhikkhu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:23 PM
Response to Original message
12. And if the rules were different, the campaigns would be different
and then the results would be different.

What if we changed the Indy 500 to the Indy 427, but didn't tell the drivers....
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BuyingThyme Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-07-08 10:37 PM
Response to Original message
13. Here's where Sean Wilentz really fell off the rail:
Primaries are generally not designed to interpret the intentions of the states; they're designed to interpret the intentions of Democratic Party.

Were Sean to have it his way, the big red states would have a tendency to determine the blue candidates.

Over time we'd all become Republicans.
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-08-08 06:33 AM
Response to Original message
14. kick
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Vinca Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-08-08 07:18 AM
Response to Original message
15. If you think about it, Hillary is running a very nonstrategic campaign
based on "winner take all." Kind of a Ghouliani offshoot and we know how well that went. Obama went for the 50 state strategy and has been amassing a few delegates here, a few delegates there - kind of like the tortoise and the hare. If the race was "winner take all," Obama would have had a campaign more similar to Hillary's, focusing on the states with the highest population.
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mohc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-08-08 07:35 AM
Response to Original message
16. The bias in the analysis weakens his argument to begin with
Never mind the fact that the campaign strategies would have been far different in a winner-take-all contest, even the way the guy comes up with his numbers is biased. For the count to be 1743-1257 he must be counting Florida, Michigan, and Texas in Clinton's column. Counting Florida and Michigan gives Clinton 313 more delegates in this scenario, so the count would be 1430-1257 without them. The counting of these states has nothing to do with a winner-take-all allocation, he just wanted to put the count in the most Clinton-positive light that he could. With regard to Texas, there are arguments that could be made either way to try and allocate the delegates in a winner-take-all system. In my opinion, trying to allocate all the Texas delegates one way does not really make sense, this hypothetical scenario would be better stated as every "contest" as winner-take-all instead of every state. In such a scenario, Clinton would take all the primary delegates and Obama all the caucus delegates, and the count would be 1363-1324 for Clinton. Clinton would still be leading, but by a very narrow margin. And at that point we can go back to reminding everyone that none of these contests are in fact winner-take-all and that a tiny hypothetical margin is really pretty meaningless.
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kwenu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-08-08 04:22 PM
Response to Original message
19. Great. If the national party wants to change the rules they can do that for the next election cycle.
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