a math problem for the geekie among us- caucus/popular vote conversion.

[mopinko]

somebody who likes math should take the caucus states and try to apportion the caucus percentage to the registered/likely/proportional voters and figure out how many "popular votes" those caucus victories would represent. cuz, afaik, barack is leading in the popular vote, even without those states. how much is he creaming her by if those states can be factored in?
i almost threw something through my teevee last night when msnbc's "number guy" was spouting about the popular vote with absolutely no mention of the fact that the number just does not exist.

[Bill McBlueState]

1. I'm pretty sure phrigndumass does this

I don't have a link handy to his latest thread, but you can do a search for his posts.

[Barack_America]

2. It's already been done.

Several studies here.

http://glennhurowitz.dailykos.com/

[Buzz Clik]

3. As suggested, phrigndumass has run these numbers:

Total weighted* popular vote as of April 23:
Barack Obama – 16,853,719 (+1,567,828)
Hilary Clinton – 15,285,891
*Weighted popular vote adds primary votes and 5.5:1 skew of caucus votes

Nearly 1.6 million votes if you include the caucus votes. (Or, if you generously round up like every media outlet did last night: 2 million votes).

[mopinko]

4. well. let's keep this kicked for a while here.

and ask ourselves- what the heck is the matter with the media. they have a guy whose job it is to explain "all the complicated numbers" and he sits there and talks about the popular vote as though there is such a thing.

[Bill McBlueState]

5. it's really frustrating!

On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow seems to be the only one who can understand even the most elementary statistical argument. It's true; she has the most education of all their regulars, but last I checked, statistics is something for high school students and undergrads. You don't have to have a PhD to know something about math.