Hillary Clinton is not ahead in the overall nationwide popular vote

[beachmom]

Apparently people too stupid to count are already spreading this lie. Please kick for the truth over the lie.

[tekisui]

1. .

[AZBlue]

2. Do you mean PA or overall?

Although I'm pretty sure she's not ahead in either one...

[beachmom]

8. I edited the title. Nationwide popular vote. nt

[AZBlue]

17. You're right, she's not, Obama is. And, that means bupkis!

(and I'm an Obama supporter)

There's no real "popular vote" in this contest - there can't be when whole states are decided by caucus where no vote tally is taken.

[NJmaverick]

3. More like they are as honest as the candidate they support

[Fearless]

4. Up by 19,000 in PA, NOT in the USA

[Austinitis]

5. Yes, she is.

She was only 100,000 behind going in and she'll pick that up with anything close to 6%.

[Fearless]

7. "HAS NOT" so stop rumormongering.

[Seen the light]

14. Stop lying

That's if you count both Florida and Michigan. Counting Michigan is absolutely ridiculous.

She's down by roughly 700,000 without Florida or Michigan and 400,000+ with Florida added.

[anigbrowl]

15. Where do you get this 100,000 number? That's nonsense

[Austinitis]

24. RCP

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

It's not nonsense. We're going to use the principle "every vote counted; every vote counted once." That means we include Fl and Mi, and we take away the excessive bias of caucuses.

[Seen the light]

28. Counting. Michigan. Is. Bullshit. n/t

[BalancedGoat]

37. LOL

"and we take away the excessive bias of caucuses" You mean completely ingore the votes of people like myself.

[anigbrowl]

39. Counting MI against a candidate who took his name off the ballot is nonsense

You now darn well those uncommitted delegates are going to be in Obama's corner. As for leaving out the caucus results...right. They are soooo biased. Well, if you think you get a win by using an accounting trick, feel free. Tells me all I need to know.

[Occam Bandage]

42. So you don't count the votes of people who vote in caucuses? WTF?

[earthlover]

46. Another point is caucuses are lower in turnout. Obama would have got more votes if primaries....

in these states. A built-in disadvantage for Obama in the "popular vote" theory....

What we see here is a system that the Democratic Party had devised. Everyone thought it was fine, each candidate. Then Hillary got behind in the pledged delegates. So the goal posts du jure started to happen.

Caucuses and primaries are apples and oranges. To count each "vote" equally is misleading at best.

If someone wants to suggest that you take the caucus votes plus primary vote as the sole measure of the delegate count....well that is an interesting arguement. The proper procedure is to argue to change the rules for the next election! But this is 08. not 12. We play by 08's rules. Unless you are Hillary, when you think you can make up the rules as you go.

[Hugabear]

50. "and we take away the excessive bias of caucuses" - ROTFLMAO

So you want to just ditch the way that things have been done for years simply because the caucuses didn't favor Hillary?

Every vote must count, MY ASS. Fucking hypocrite!

[quakerboy]

54. Be at least a little reasonable

If you are going to count beauty contests in Fl and MI, damned if you shouldn't be counting legitimate votes in the Caucuses. That is going a bit too far into never never land.

Or, better yet, do count it, and keep harping on it. It will make the SD's choices to go to Obama all the more mystical and magical to you. The rest of us will stick with our reality based world, though.

[Orangepeel]

19. You forgot 617,086 people n/t

[Austinitis]

26. No, I found them in Florida and Michigan

[PM7nj]

31. Those people in Florida did not come out for Hillary...

there was something about property taxes (I think) on the ballot. That is why they had such huge turnout down there.

[MonkeyFunk]

48. and they cast votes for Clinton

don't be daft.

[PM7nj]

51. that they knew wouldn't count.

[MonkeyFunk]

53. that has nothing to do with

measuring the popular vote.

[Occam Bandage]

35. Counting Michigan is bullshit. Obama wasn't on the ballot there.

[Oregone]

6. There is NO SUCH THING as the "popular vote"

nt

[GCP]

9. Not as long as it applies to HRC?

We've been hearing for months that Obama was ahead in the popular vote.
Sour grapes all over the place tonight.

[Mezzo]

11. of course there is, and she IS ahead in DEMOCRATIC VOTERS, more DEMOCRATS have voted for Clinton,

that matters to the supers, and you know it.

[AZBlue]

23. Really? You must be psychic to figure out the "popular vote" in states with caucuses.

Since no one tallies that, how do you know it?

[Oregone]

27. I disagree...

I think the SDs are better educated on the subject of delegates (and the reasons for them) and the false popular vote. I think this argument is falling on deaf ears, and only portraying (falsely) the Democratic party as undemocratic.

[beachmom]

32. Hello, what matters to supers is the most popular Dem with cross over appeal.

And who is leading the pledged delegate count. But I guess the Calvinball games will be played for those on the short end of the stick ....

[Oregone]

44. Or the one that promises you a position or favor...

Lets be honest. :)

[BzaDem]

12. Too bad the media and superdelegate and everyone else outside this board disagree.

[Oregone]

21. Logical Fallacy: Appeal to Popularity

"Everyone knew Iraq had WMDs"


Popular votes are not valid in primaries. This is a very complex subject, and by all means, delegate counts are the only way to go about this. Media and people are simply not well-versed enough to follow.

[AZBlue]

29. Got a quote or link on those superdelegates following the false "popular vote"?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

[beachmom]

13. Agreed. But even with the popular vote we know (we don't know with the caucuses),

Obama still leads in the popular vote, and it is mathematically impossible after tonight for Hillary to catch up.

[mikekohr]

10. Senator Clinton is down by 827,308 popular votes before PA

here is the link: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html


mike kohr

OBAMA '08

[MonkeyFunk]

22. If you ignore FL and MI

Democrats in those states cast votes. There's no reason to ignore them when looking at popular vote.

[Occam Bandage]

38. Except for the fact that they were non-contested, and that MI's ballot only listed Clinton.

[MonkeyFunk]

41. Dont lie

four candidates were on the ballot in MI.

If a candidate chose not to run there, he shouldn't be surprised not to get votes.

The Florida vote was perfectly fine.


This isn't a legal argument - it's an argument about who Democratic voters prefer. As of today, they prefer Clinton.

[Occam Bandage]

43. When I say "candidate," I pretty obviously mean legitimate candidate. DK doesn't count.

And no, MI does not count. She was the only major candidate on the ballot. All candidates agreed that MI would not count for anything. The same goes for FL. Neither vote was contested; neither vote is valid; neither vote counts.


(Interesting that in order to say "voters prefer Clinton," you have to not count caucus votes. Yeah, that seems fair.)

[MonkeyFunk]

49. Dodd and Gravel were on the ballot, too

For some reason, one of the accepted lies told by Obama fans all the time is "Clinton was the only one on the ballot in Michigan."

You know that's not true, yet you repeat it. It just boggles my mind.

[JasonHill]

45. Those votes are completely illegitimate

in the context of them being cast in defiance of the pre-established rules of the party process they were voting in and where all candidates agreed to beforehand. They have no basis in anything but propaganda spread by one candidate to try to boost their moral claim outside the confines of legal process.

[mikekohr]

47. RULES

Those votes do not count because the state parties in MI and FL violated the rules of the DNC. Neither contest was contested, which gives a disporportional advantage to the "machine or establishment," candidate, and Senator Obama did not place his name on MI's ballot because at that point the DNC had already black jacketed that primary.

You may not like these facts but they are facts.

mike kohr

[sandnsea]

16. I understand, but for chrissake we're electing delegates n/t

[babylonsister]

18. Today Obama was ahead 10% nationally, but who'd know that

listening to the m$m tonight. Oy.

[cliffordu]

20. I'll kick!!

:kick:

[Spazito]

25. Agree, it is times like this when I really wish the "hide threads"...

option carried a higher priority. The lie being told by at least one other poster is beyond the pale albeit not unexpected, unfortunately. Thanks for posting this, it is much appreciated.

[FlyingSquirrel]

30. Kick, with additional information:

Many of the caucuses did not tally actual votes. To make any kind of projection regarding who is ahead in nationwide popular vote, it would be necessary to figure out (with the best available information) what the actual vote was in caucus states.

Since that would be imprecise, you'd have to include a margin of error for this.

So, any statement that Hillary Clinton is ahead in the overall nationwide popular vote including MI and FL, which either

(1) does not by default give Obama the "Uncommitted" vote in MI since he was not on the ballot -- the only fair way to deal with this situation -- and

(2) does not project Obama and Clinton's actual votes in Caucus states that didn't keep totals, together with a margin of error,

IS MISLEADING AND PROBABLY FALSE.

[madfloridian]

33. And she is not going to get many delegates either.

From DCW...

"Note on DCW Projections: We've made some very conservative baseline delegate assignments even before the voting has started. These are a minimum level of delegates that each candidate will receive unless the polling is really, really bad. Statewide, the average of the current polls is Clinton +6 - we've converted that to a 53-47 Clinton lead, then subtracted 13% from each side, to find a vote level that each candidate will not miss. For Clinton it's 40%, and for Obama it's 34%, which gives Clinton an initial 22 state-wide delegates and Obama 19 state-wide delegates.

For the CDs, those with 5 or less delegates we've given each candidate 1 delegate each, and those with 6 or more we've given each candidate 2 delegates each. Except as follows: CD-1 (7 total delegates available): 3-2 for Obama. CD-2 (9 dels available): 4-2 for Obama. CD-11, 12 and 16 (5 dels available each): 2-1 for Clinton. Giving a total CD delegate count of 29-29. Which gives a complete delegate initial baseline estimate of 51-48 for Clinton. So 63% of the total delegates are essentially spoken for already. Which leaves 59 delegates left.

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/04/pennsylvania-primary-results.html

[jobycom]

34. Hard to say, since the caucuses don't represent the popular vote.

Clinton won by 4% in Texas, but lost the caucus by 20%. In Washington she lost the popular vote by 4%, but lost the caucus by 37%. Yes, that's 37%. In Washington, even though the legislature back in the 80s declared caucuses to be discriminatory, the Democratic Party still uses the caucus totals.

No one argues that the caucuses represent the popular vote. Including them in the total, or worse, doing like some web sites and extrapolating out how many votes might have voted for each candidate based on caucus numbers, is dishonest. On the other hand, claiming that you can just throw out the caucuses and include only the popular vote isn't quite right, either--though a lot less of a lie than including caucuses.

But, since Obama has been touting the bigger lie, what's it matter if Clinton supporters argue the lesser one? Hers is closer to the truth than his. If each caucus state had held a popular vote, Obama might be trailing in delegates and popular votes. He might not even be in the race still. He certainly wouldn't have as large a lead as he does.

We'll never know. Our party doesn't trust its voters enough.

[knixphan]

36. fool's gold...

[mikekohr]

40. Senator Obama Leads in Popular Vote by 827,308 before PA

here is the link:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

and in the real prize he is up by approx. 140 delegates, that won't change much after PA results are in either. After NC and IN, his lead will probably exceed 150 delegates.


OBAMA '08
mike kohr

[jackson_dem]

52. 500k including Florida and he will lose about 175k tonight

[mikekohr]

55. It was a popular vote lead of 827,308 for Senator Obama before PA

Florida's votes and MI's votes will not count because of the violation of DNC rules. She actually picked up closer to 208,000 votes in the popular vote totals last night.

Additionally it is delegates that will decide this race, not the popular vote. Senator Obama was up by approx 148 delegates on Monday. Senator Clinton picked up approx. 8 delegates last night yielding a net Obama lead of 140 delegates. After NC and IN in two weeks Senator Obama's lead in delegates will be near or above 150 delegates and he may well be up by approx. 800,000 popular votes again.

Senator Clinton is gut shot. She is still a force, she bought time last night, but short of quick medical intervention (rules committee machinations to seat MI and FL delegates) she will weaken and fade. She is strong, tough, tenacious, but she can only win this battle by assassinating the character of Barack Obama, and thus losing the war with Senator McSurge and the Republican Party in November.

mike kohr

[SunsetDreams]

56. kick!