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What constitutes a victory for someone other than Hillary?
This is eluding me. Can any Clinton supporters please enlighten the rest of us and give us a scenario in which they will concede that Obama has won the Democratic primary.
If he reaches the number of delegates required to win, as put forth by the DNC, will you acknowledge that he won fair and square?
Or is there no scenario in your minds in which Obama can win the nomination fair and square?
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Comments (73)
Maybe I shouldn't respond to this, given all the other remarkably balanced and fair posts you wrote.
This has been talked about a million times here, as I recall. To win the nomination you need to reach the specific amount of total delegates, not a majority. In order to convince the remaining delegates one way or the other, Obama and you are using "the match" and Clinton and I are using electability and popular vote.
So he will win once he gets to that number, his tomorrow's declaration notwithstanding.
You and him obviously want to exclude FL and MI results. Clinton and I don't. But for this fanbase called Democratic Party, that doesn't seem to matter anymore.
Let's go back to tried-and-true Clinton-hate now.
May 19, 2008 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about we go back to being tried-and-true Democrats now, instead?
May 19, 2008 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why now?
May 19, 2008 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why not?
May 19, 2008 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about American Idol Votes? We are only trying to get you to realize that if the roles were reversed, Clinton supporters would not tolerate the constantly changing goal posts. Based on the rules at the start of the game, rules that ALL agreed to, she doesn't have a chance. However, based on past experience, that Age and Treachery often overcome Youth and Skill, some of us in the Obama camp feel the need to keep up our defenses.
May 20, 2008 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton supporters have been using this "popular vote" metric a lot. But in order for this argument to be valid, when you include Michigan and Florida, you have to discount any votes Obama would have received from "uncommitted." That's not very fair. Also, you'd have to ignore caucus states. Why should caucus states be disenfranchised? So, you're definitely using dubious math in order to make that "popular vote" argument.
May 19, 2008 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
As for the popular vote in MI, there was no rule that forced Obama to remove his name from the ballot. He made a political choice to remove his name. Hillary didn't. Hillary got 328,309. Obama got 0. That was the result.
Most caucus states do not measure popular votes. RCP has only estimates for caucus states.
Without estimates, Hillary leads in the popular vote.
May 19, 2008 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
For Hillary to agree that the vote in Michigan didn't count was her choice. She could have chosen not to agree to that, but she didn't.
May 19, 2008 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
regardless, the votes were taken.
May 19, 2008 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
But what's your argument here? Granted, if you leave out the four caucus states for which the popular vote isn't known exactly (but can be estimated or lower-bounded with high confidence), and count FL and MI (but in MI counting no votes for Obama, i.e., not trying to gauge voter preference for Obama over Hlllary in any way in spite of the fact that this is clearly non-zero) Hillary is ahead by 0.08% in the popular vote.
And ... so what? Is this argument, with all of the qualifiers, supposed to sway the superdelegates? You've adopted the rule of "no estimates" but in doing so you've adopted a rule that has nothing to do with estimating the percentage of voters who preferred Obama and the percentage that preferred Hillary.
There's no rule saying you can't do it this way, but the key question is, why should anyone be impressed by an 0.08% advantage that requires a way of counting that ignores the wishes of voters in four states and ignores the wishes of voters who preferred Obama over Hillary in one (large) state?
May 19, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
And should count? Regardless of her choosing to agree they wouldn't?
May 19, 2008 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The point is that the delegate count from Clinton's point of view has not determined the winner yet. Both are still trying to convince SDs, at least for now. If an SD wants to vote for Obama because he is ahead in pledged delegates, Clinton is just saying that I am ahead in the popular vote count with FL. and MI. It has nothing to do with how the delegates in FL and MI will be seated. It has more to do with giving the SDs a rationale. As technical an argument as it may be, it is an argument.
May 20, 2008 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
And should count? Regardless of her choosing to agree they wouldn't?
She only agreed that the states wouldn't count in the delegate totals. And even then there's a valid mechanism for changing that agreement, within the rules.
That's not just playing devil's advocate here. At some point the delegates will be seated in some fashion, and it will be in some fashion entirely within the rules. But it will either be with some compromise (such as a 50% penalty) that says to other states in future years that they can't break the rules with impugnity, or else the delegates will be seated at some later time at which adding those delegates makes no difference in the outcome, effectively making the same point.
There are, however, no agreements, no rules, no definitions, no official standards, no de facto standards, no guidelines, no "best practices," no conventions, no traditions, no statutes, no ordinances, no laws, no controlling legal authorities, and no traditions whatsoever that require the "popular vote" from primaries and caucuses to be counted in any particular way in normal years, much less in a year in which two states violated the rules and (unless the rules are changed) will have no delegates. Hillary can count them any way she wants. The problem is convincing the superdelegates that the way she's counting them has some meaning they should care about. That's the part of the argument that is usually omitted.
May 20, 2008 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
definitely not a yes man!
May 20, 2008 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please archive your last paragraph to be replicated every time this argument is resurrected.
Thanks!:)
May 20, 2008 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, but at the time, she claimed "it's clear, this election the're having is not going to count for anything" and was only leaving her name on because mumble mumbl mumble something about November.
Except, of course, now that she needs it, she's insisting that the election that she said didn't count, must count.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101100859_pf.html
May 20, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I live in a caucus state (MN), and I *voted* for Obama.
Your own definition, which says that the vote is a metric which (by way of how caucus states report their totals) excludes more voters than in MI and FL, acknowledges that actual vote totals are not a good judge of actual public support.
It's not "popular vote," by the way, it's something else entirely. And guess what? Even with MI and FL added and all the caucus states removed, and the votes of countless Obama supporters, myself included, not in fact, counted, Hillary *still* only barely comes out ahead in that metric, by less than one tenth of one percent, 0.08%.
That's no mandate, let me tell you. In all five of the other permutations of the popular vote, Obama comes out ahead by at least 0.25%, and as much as 2.1%. Still not that impressive, I'd say, but at least three times as impressive as Clinton's so-called lead.
Sure, Obama wasn't on the ballot in MI, and yes, that was perhaps a tactical blunder, but I don't think you can use that as an argument when chanting "power to the people!" You can't honestly tell me that there are less than 26,000 Obama supporters in Michigan, can you??
So the only way to actually determine how many warm bodies actually supported one candidate or the other, you need to use estimates. These are solid estimates, by the way, since the caucus states do report voter turnout in hard numbers.
It's ridiculous. On one hand, Clinton supporters when trying to get MI counted, are chanting "the rules are unfair," while on the other hand, while trying to exclude any conservative estimate of potential Obama supporters in MI, they say "well, rules are rules."
Since when??
May 20, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
You and him obviously want to exclude FL and MI results. Clinton and I don't.
FL and MI will be included. No need to worry about that. They won't make any difference, but they'll be included.
May 19, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"remarkably fair and balanced posts you wrote"
sarcasm?
Also, I'm just asking what the total number of delegates is for someone to win.
I'm not saying anyone wins before this number is reached.
But what is the number?
If the DNC sticks to 2025, will that be honored by both sides?
What is the total number of delegates the Clinton campaign thinks one needs to win this?
May 19, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
And as for the popular vote, there are zero rules about how the popular vote should be calculated. None. So Hillary and you are entirely free to calculate it any way you choose.
You can add in Florida, for example, whether or not the delegates are seated. There's absolutely no rule saying otherwise, one way or the other. It's an entirely separate issue from the question of whether the delegates will be seated. No connection whatsoever because there are absolutely no rules that say anything at all about how the popular vote should be calculated.
You can add in Michigan, and you can do so giving zero to Obama since his name wasn't on the ticket -- no need to even explain why, because there's no rule that requires any particular way of counting it or any particular sort of explanation.
You can exclude the caucus state votes, or include them, as you wish, because there's no rule defining a "right" or "wrong" way to calculate the popular vote. None whatsoever. You can make up any rule you want.
You could count white working-class votes double, if you wanted. Again, there's no rule at all saying whether that would be the right way to do it or the wrong way to do it.
There are ways to calculate the popular vote that give Hillary a small lead, including some states and leaving out others. That seems to be the preferred way of counting for Hillary fans. I can't say it's wrong, because there's official definition of the popular vote.
And because there's no definition of it, the superdelegates already know what the various sums look like. Seating the FL and MI delegates won't change the sums. It's just math, not magic. What's missing is a coherent explanation for why the superdelegates should care that if you include a certain subset of the states and exclude others, Hillary ends up with a slight lead. Seating the FL and MI delegates won't magically produce a coherent argument for that, either.
May 19, 2008 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its not just the math. Its the SDs.
May 19, 2008 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its not just the math. Its the SDs.
What about them? Counting the SDs from FL and MI, even with none from MI for Obama and none of Edwards' SDs going to Obama, doesn't nullify Obama's lead.
The superdelegates can all count. They can all do math. If they think that the fairest thing to do is to count all the delegates and/or all the votes from FL and MI, they can count it that way on their own calculators, or look at any of the web sites that show the hypothetical totals, and they've no doubt already done so. If they think that an 0.08% lead in the popular vote, counting FL and MI in the most pro-Hillary way possible and omitting four caucus states, shows that Hillary is more electable, they already know that. They've seen that argument, and it carries as much or as little weight with them as it will ever carry, because there's nothing that can be done that makes that calculation more official or less official.
May 19, 2008 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
BTW, this shows various ways of counting the popular vote:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html
Counting all the votes from all the states (but zero from Michigan for Obama) puts Obama ahead by 0.24%.
The one way of counting that puts Hillary ahead includes FL and MI (with zero for Obama) and excludes four caucus states, and puts Hillary ahead by 0.08%, or about 27,000 votes.
That's what Hillary supporters are referring to lately when they proudly point out that Hillary is ahead in the popular vote. By including two more states and excluding four, Hillary has a lead of less than one tenth of one percent.
Seriously.
May 19, 2008 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a link to the same page further up in the thread.
May 19, 2008 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I applaud your honesty in posting a link that makes a pro-Hillary argument look weak. Not everyone would do that. In fact, as far as I can recall you're the first Hillary supporter making the "more popular votes" argument who even acknowledged the kind of counting required to get to that tiny sliver of a lead. The only one.
Most just assert "Hillary is ahead in the popular vote" and ignore the fact that even though some data has to be estimated, the differences are so large that it's absolutely clear that more votes were cast for Obama than for Hillary so far. And that's without trying to make any adjustment for the voters in MI who preferred Obama over Hillary and voted for "uncommitted."
I'd still like to hear where you think that special way of counting that gives Hillary a lead of less than one tenth of one percent leads to any argument that anyone ought to care about, once they understand how small the lead is and exactly how it has to be counted in order to get that result.
May 19, 2008 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its not a special way of counting. Its excluding the estimates and using the accurate counts.
I think that you would agree that the margins in most of the caucus states would be much different it was a primary. Texas and Washington as an example.
May 20, 2008 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
hillary knew ahead of time that these were caucus states. if she'd planned for it, she could have campaigned in these states with a specific eye to the electorate that votes in caucuses.
she didn't.
she could have crafted a campaign strategy from the beginning that kept an eye on the prize: the ultimate delegate total. everyone agreed ahead of time on the sole metric for victory. she could have worked to win delegates in every state, even the small ones, the caucus ones, the republican ones, and/or the otherwise unimportant ones.
she didn't.
i won't rehash mr. hussein smorgasbord's comments on the popular vote, except to say that he's got the spirit of this argument won, airwon.
more
people
voted
for
obama
unless you want to throw away the votes of the people from 5 states, you're going to have to acknowledge that, in the true spirit of the meaning of the phrase, "popular vote," more people support Obama.
May 20, 2008 5:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Almost certianly, but not necessarily different in a way Hillary would have liked.
But, for that matter, if those had been states where they selected delegates by cutting cards or casting an I Ching fortune, the outcome would have been different too.
May 20, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
We had a presidential preference primary in Washington State, wherein the popular vote was counted. It was just a "beauty contest", as our state's delegate counts were based on our extremely well-attended caucuses. Still, 700,000 voters turned out to vote in it, and Obama won it, by about 56,000 votes.
If you counted those votes, Obama would again lead the national popular vote. Why don't you count them? Because they had no effect on the delegates who will be attending the convention? But that describes the situation in MI and FL as well.
This is asinine. I can't believe I'm still arguing this:
* "If the Democrats used the Republican delegate allocation rules, she'd have won already."
* "If we take the total electoral votes of the states each candidates won, she'd have won."
* "If we spot her a 300,000-to-zero head start for her glorious win in Michigan, and make no allowance for the fact that turnout is always smaller in caucus states, the total national popular vote is very close."
* "If we throw out the votes from caucus states altogether, on the grounds that the secret ballot is sacrosanct, she wins by a fair margin."
Yes, and if we follow the "Reverse oyster" rules, and don't count any votes cast in any month that has an 'R' in it, she wins handily.
The rules are the rules. Obama's people certainly didn't make them up: Terry McAuliffe did, and Harold Ickes, and Ann Lewis. Clinton's people.
May 20, 2008 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
funny how we can point to the same set of popular vote counts to each make our opposite cases.
the excluded caucus states are estimates, the other states are not.
May 19, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think we're out of synch in replies, but I don't get your point in saying (correctly) that some of the numbers are estimates.
Can we agree that it's clear that more votes have been cast for Obama than for Hillary? The data show that very clearly. Taking the lowest estimates from those four states, Obama has a lead of around 60k. No way to know exactly how many, but that's enough of a margin that we can see that more votes were cast for Obama than for Hillary.
And that's doing nothing with the 238k "uncommitted" votes in MI. Clearly a lot of those preferred Obama over Hillary. So if we care about the question of whether more voters preferred Obama or Hillary, the answer is very clearly Obama.
The "no estimates" total has nothing at all to do with trying to determine which candidate was preferred by more voters, obviously. It's just conveniently true that in four states that Obama won we only have estimated vote totals, and in one state that Hillary won, many Obama supporters had to vote for "uncommitted."
So again, why should the superdelegates care about that 0.8% edge, calculated in the one way that gives Hillary that small lead?
May 19, 2008 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think if you are to use the logic that Obama is the winner because he is ahead on pledged delegates, you can equally go with the popular vote count where popular votes are most accurately measured.
May 19, 2008 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think if you are to use the logic that Obama is the winner because he is ahead on pledged delegates, you can equally go with the popular vote count where popular votes are most accurately measured.
I don't follow that.
First of all, the logic isn't that "Obama is the winner" at the point he gets a majority of the pledged delegates. The logic is that there's no path to the nomination for Hillary that makes any sense. So Obama is the presumptive nominee at this point.
The path to the nomination for Hillary is that the SDs conclude that she's electable and he isn't. Those arguments have been made for weeks and weeks now, and the SDs are going to Obama at better than five for every one that Hillary gets, plus some defections from Hillary to Obama. Those arguments aren't working. The other path to the nomination for Hillary would be for some major Obama scandal to break before the convention.
McCain is the presumptive nominee in the same sense. A major scandal before the convention could mean that someone other than McCain gets the nomination. So it's possible. Just not likely. (And less likely with Obama than McCain, in my estimation.)
So then it doesn't make sense to say that you can "equally go with the popular vote" (no matter how you count it). The reason Obama is the presumptive nominee is all about the delegate totals, because that's how the nominee is chosen. Hillary can't win a majority of the pledged delegates. The way the add-ons are calculated is also in Obama's favor because he won more states.
He's ahead in superdelegates, too. Hillary needed 80% of the remaining superdelegates a while back, but a lot of SDs have gone to Obama since then. She needs to win them at better than 5-to-1 over Obama, but Obama has been winning them at better than 5-to-1 over Hillary. That's a lot of ground to try to reverse. Even if she could get MI and FL seated as is (which won't happen, for reasons Terry McAulliffe explained quite well i 2004) she'd still be very unlikely to be able to pull off a win, although she'd certainly have a better shot at it than she has now.
The popular vote, on the other hand, has no role in the nomination. The term isn't even well-defined. And an 0.08% lead, in a count that omits four states, just seems to me to be such a weak argument that it's hard to believe it's even being made.
May 20, 2008 1:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow! A big round of applause, my friends, for our Robot Colleague here. Your clarity, logic, and persisitence in calmly seeing the argument through are greatly admired and appreciated.
May 20, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
And there you touch on the point I keep making to the point of becoming a bore. Hillary's best case scenario is that she gets to Denver behind in the delegate count but with a plausible argument that she's ahead in the popular vote if you count votes they way she says they should be counted. Obama will be there with an equally plausible argument that he's ahead in the popular vote if you count it his way and he's ahead in the delegate count, which was actually the point of this exercise.
Under those circumstances, Hillary cannot win the nomination under circumstances that confer sufficient legitimacy to get enough of Obama's supporters to the polls in November for her to win.
In short, since Wisconsin, it has been clear that there was no path to the nomination for Hillary that ended in the White House. Instead, from that point on, all she could really do was try to put Obama in the same situation.
May 20, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
And did she try! Quite shamefully indeed.
May 20, 2008 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Define "electability" for someone other than Hillary Clinton? Please show the rest of us where the "popular vote" is a metric that either candidate should be using to determine "winning." I'm not asking for your stock "count FL and MI" horse hockey pucks, I'm asking where in the rules does it say, the winner of the popular vote wins the nomination contest. What page does it say that on? Which edition of the rules are you looking at? Cause I don't see it.
What is the "margin" of winning that is acceptable to you Clinton supporters? If being behind by 180 delegates is "tied" then what is "ahead" for someone other than Clinton. If the final margin is 1 delegate for him, does that constitute a "win" or is there some new "margin" we are unaware of?
If Sen. Clinton argument of "electability" is so compelling why are not the super delegates flocking to her in droves? Why has she lost her lead? After all those are the people she is counting on saving her? Why shouldn't they be showing their support right now when she needs them most?
Show us how a fictional "electoral map" comes into play, when there is zero corollation between the winner of the primary compared to the winner of the general election. After all, both candidates in the general election won some combination of states in the primary. Do tell? 'Splain to us how that works.
We're all ears... do tell....
May 19, 2008 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where in the rules does it say being up 180 delegates wins the nomination?
The popular vote argument goes to the will of the people argument. The delegate count does not represent on person one vote. A state like Idaho is given 1 delegate for every 4,000 to 5,000 people. Florida is given 1 delegate for every 15,000 people.
As for an accurate count of the popular vote, you go with the accurate count. Not with estimates as in caucus states.
I don't know. I don't pretend to know what compels SDs. I imagine that there are a lot of reasons. One being that they are attracted like many with newness. And don't mean that in a negative way. But whatever the reasons are, Obama seems to have won the narrative about what the proper metrics are.
As for the electoral map. I can't seem to set up the link to the site right now but the state by state polls have consistently had Hillary beating McCain comfortably. While Obama loses or barely wins.
May 19, 2008 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
We're all just asking the Clintonites -- from Hillary on down -- to come up with a metric WHICH DOES FOLLOW the rules.
I didn't say 180 wins -- I said if you all consider being down by 180 is "tied" -- that is even steven 0-0 -- what constitutes being ahead... your new math is confusing us.
Reaching 2025 is one metric that appear to be within the rules of the Democratic Party. We would have the same discussion if this was about more than two candidates. At some point the candidate with no shot at reaching that number has to make a tough decision: maintain a futile fight, or give up and pass his or her support on to someone with a chance at winning.
Regarding the popular vote, the Obama side isn't using the popular vote as the metric, just Clinton and her math is faulty. she is counting something that ...well, doesn't count. And there is an objective, scientific, fair, mathematical means of determining what counts from caucus states, if you must propose the popular vote. But don't be disingenuous about it.
The Rules and Bylaws committee -- of which Clinton had 13 loyalists as members -- came up with these rules and this calendar. But she has lost. MI and FL were unimportant to her until she was behind the DELEGATE count.
She is claiming she is more electable. I'm asking if you believe that argument, tell us why. She is claiming that the super delegates should consider that as a reason to support her. I'm saying the evidence -- more super dels going his way than hers -- poking a giant-ass hole in that arugment. What is her case?
What we're asking is when are you all going stop the moving goalposts and the measurement of things that don't count towards winning. When is Hillary going to come to her senses -- as should the rest of you -- and say "We lost. He won fair and square." You continue to come up with reasons to keep the game going and the reasons are getting flimsier and flimsier. With just three contests left, you are not in the "middle" of this election as Clinton insists. You are at the end. This is not "close" nor is it "tied."
What is the end game?
May 20, 2008 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Having just looked up the rules on securing the nomination from DNC's website, you only need a majority, not some "specific amount of total delegates," which you didn't specify.
May 20, 2008 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, the majority number will I think be 2210 as opposed to 2025 if all the delegates from FL and MI are seated. probably somewhere in between.
Obama is talking about having the majority of pledged delegates if the number stays at 2025, after May 20. I forget what that number is.
I'm not sure what you are accusing me of??
May 20, 2008 12:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
The 2025 magic number is the majority of ALL delegates, pledged + super, assuming FL and MI are not seated. The number of pledged delegates needed for a majority is considerably less -- around 1620 (again excluding FL and MI). Obama will get to more than that number of pledged delegates today.
May 20, 2008 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, my bad. I don't think you were talking to me.
May 20, 2008 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
LOL!
No, I wasn't replying to you. But, all is well.
May 20, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know if I should waste my time with this reply, and I know "the readin'" isn't your strong suit, Lalo, but you've sort of misread the original post:
How in the world could you read that and then reply with, "win the nomination you need to reach the specific amount of total delegates, not a majority"???
Further, and for the millionth time: THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY PROCESS DOES NOT USE THE POPULAR VOTE AS A MEASURING STICK!!! This is purely a delegate counting process. This is the system Hillary signed onto when she put her name on ballots in every state, and she might not like it now, but here in the real world this is how it works.
From now on NO ONE should reply to this idiotic claim about the popular vote, and if they do it should be to say THE POPULAR VOTE DOESN'T DECIDE THE NOMINATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. The end.
Which isn't to say that Sen. Clinton couldn't take on primary election reform as a pet project once she has some down time during the GE...I'm sure she'd be a compelling voice on the subject.
For more on the rules of the nomination process, the timetable and delegate assignment, you should check out the
Democratic Party's website
where it's explained clearly enough for you (fingers crossed).
And, as has been voiced over and over since Sen. Clinton started losing back in January, the frustrating issue in all of this is that she agreed to the rules - ALL OF THEM - back in August. I didn't hear any thing but an absolute defense of the DNC's proposed sanctions against FL and MI...there were still important swing states back then, but she didn't bring that up until AFTER she'd "won" them.
The best I can figure is that, like you Lalo, Sen. Clinton just didn't read the rules before she agreed to them...kind of like she didn't read the authorization for war bill that she voted for.
May 20, 2008 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lalo35adm, you're bitter and hopelessly in love with a loser...get over it and move on.
from my "ChonoSpark" post:
Money headline from the Hillary Deathwatch on Slate: "OBAMA WON'T DECLARE VICTORY ON TUESDAY, BUT THE MEDIA WILL."
I've been sick the last couple of days seeing stories on TPM and elsewhere about Hillary's campaign putting out their silly empty threats that Obama better not claim victory in Oregon or that by claiming victory in Oregon, Obama will "insult" Hillary supporters. She lost! That's how it feels when the person you're rooting for loses. Now shut up and get on board or show that Hillary really does want to take the party down with her by giving McCain and the Republicans 4 more years of Bush policies.
If Hillary were in Obama's shoes, her campaign or supporters would not show the class that Senator Obama has. She, Bill, Terri McCollough, Howard Wolfson, Lanny Davis and James Carville would have been telling him to get out of the race full-voiced without any hesitation. They practically did that when they absurdly suggested that Obama be her VP!
Uninformed dreamers like pmSanFran need to "get the f*ck over it" too.
TPMer 1question had it right too:
“...the way the loser loses will determine whether the winner wins in November...”
-- Rahm Emanuel
--------------------
The Clintons: No game...No shame...No class...!!!"
Hillary Deathwatch on Slate.com has Hillary at an all time low of 1.6% chance of getting the nomination. Maybe the Clinton Camp can ask the Washington Post Company to write an apology or retraction for the Hillary Deathwatch? Fat chance they'll have the success they did w/ the NYT.
"Obama won't declare victory after Tuesday, but only because the media will do it for him. Clinton's chances sag another 0.1 point to 1.6 percent."
http://www.slate.com/id/2191697/
May 20, 2008 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
i think that you mean Terry MacAuliffe
May 20, 2008 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am a Clinton supporter who has previously made it clear that I think it is time to end this race, at least in terms of any active advocacy for Sen. Clinton's continued participation.
I said this because I believe (after Indiana and North Carolina) that we tipped-over a point where (from Sen. Clinton's point-of-view) her chances of a winning outcome became too small for the risk of continued erosion of party unity. In other words, the prospect of a Pyrrhic victory for EITHER candidate was increasing. As Sen. Obama had the slight lead at that point by most accepted norms, and as Sen. Clinton had shown insufficient "momentum" (in my judgement) in turning that early lead, my advice to her was to drop out.
I NEVER said (and never believed, and don't now believe) that she had NO chance, or that the race had been formally and absolutely decided. That is self-evidently not the case. It seems to me that if she chooses to continue in these unclear circumstances, she has every right to do so. I'm not sure I would in her place, but I'm not her.
It further seems to me that given the open-ended dynamics of the "Super-Delegate" concept, the narrowness of the race, the lack of a defined winning margin, and the crazy-quilt form of the overall result metrics, almost ANY outcome remains theoretically possible if this continues into the rodeo of an open Convention.
I'm not saying that's a GOOD place for Democrats, but that seems to be where our rules and the overall national response of our voters have left us. We're headed for a bothersome disunity in the best of cases, with a potentially disastrous, decisive split as the lesser alternative.
If we really DO have an overwhelming Democratic tidal wave coming (some evidence suggests as much), it won't matter. If that overstates the case (that's ALWAYS possible), this Primary dissension may be setting us up for Patriots/Giants II on a global scale.
May 19, 2008 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
It further seems to me that given the open-ended dynamics of the "Super-Delegate" concept, the narrowness of the race, the lack of a defined winning margin, and the crazy-quilt form of the overall result metrics, almost ANY outcome remains theoretically possible if this continues into the rodeo of an open Convention.
If we're only talking about theoretical possibilities, then there's a theoretical possibility that Gore will get the nomination. Or Edwards.
And "crazy-quilt form of the overall result metrics"? Obama is ahead by virtually every metric you can come up with. That's why Hillary has to use this business of counting FL and MI (with zero for Obama in MI), and omitting four caucus states, just to eke out an advantage of less than one tenth of one percent (27k votes total!) in the "popular vote."
May 20, 2008 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gore? Edwards? Yes. (...almost ANY outcome...).
I'm not headed into the weeds on results. Anyone can find a dozen versions of any of these tallys within 6 posts either way of this one. I don't dispute the general idea that Obama has an overall lead. I'm simply saying he doesn't have the exclusively DECISIVE lead he needs (say, 2240 PD, or whatever - I don't know, this is just an illustrative example) to say, "It's over." We're just not there.
Don't misunderstand my intent: I personally think (sadly, but truly) that it probably should be over. That doesn't change the fact that the technical scorekeeping doesn't agree at this point, and is not likely to agree prior to the Convention.
I think it is highly likely that this will resolve itself relatively peacefully in due course. However, a STUBBORN contender with independent resources and established strong support could effectively defy all conventional wisdom and push this a very long way. I don't completely rule that out.
May 20, 2008 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
It does not matter one damn bit what the "popular vote" is. Our election primaries are done by delegate count. When someone runs for President, they know that. Somehow, the fact that the first candidate to get 2016 delegates will win has been circumnavigated by Clintons inability to realize the truth or common third grade addition. First to 2016 wins. All these other fake figures Clinton is throwing around are meaningless. Either you hit 2016, or you lose. IF Barack decides to add a limited MI and FL vote, he will still win, because under even those circumstances, she cannot win. Michigan has sent a proposal to seat 69 Clinton and 59 Barack and by the time the race is over, he won't care. Florida will probably halve theirs and each of them get something like 55 clinton 45 Obama. Even with an extra 139 to his 104, she only gains 34 delegates on him. She's down by almost 200. If she wins every state from here on in by 80 points and EVERY SINGLE super delegate went her way, he would still be close, but they won't. Obama will have a wide margin of victory on June 3 and she is going to have to call off the dogs.
May 19, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget Minnesota. Hillary lost by 2.5 TIMES the votes to Barack Obama. She was CREAMED here and our votes are not in that total votes total. Neither are any other caucus state, so that seems a little disinfranchising to me, isn't it?
Barack will wait until June 3 but it will be pretty much sewn up tomorow.
May 19, 2008 11:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only four caucus states are omitted. See the links above for the rationale, FWIW.
May 19, 2008 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rules are rules. Rules are set out at the beginning of the race, and they are adhered to throughout. They don't change on any given whim or hope.
The rules are that it's the delegate count in a primary, not the popular vote.
Them's the rules.
May 19, 2008 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both are still trying to convince SDs, at least for now. If an SD wants to vote for Obama because he is ahead in pledged delegates, Clinton is just saying that I am ahead in the popular vote count with FL. and MI.
and without four of the caucus states.
It has nothing to do with how the delegates in FL and MI will be seated. It has more to do with giving the SDs a rationale. As technical an argument as it may be, it is an argument.
Yes, it's an argument, I can't deny that. But from an SD's point of view, I can't see why it would be at all convincing. If they want to know whether more voters supported Obama than Hillary, the answer is clearly yes.
May 20, 2008 12:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think the answer is all that clear. With accurate counts, Hillary is ahead. Caucus estimates, are still only caucuses. Not only are they estimates they are not measures for a popular vote count. I don't think that you can accurately say that Obama has more votes.
May 20, 2008 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you're just excluding a chunk of votes large enough to flip the total from being in favor of Obama to being in favor of Clinton, you can't accurately say that more people voted for Clinton than Obama either. You've just made your error bars much bigger than the difference you're trying to measure.
May 20, 2008 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
You keep putting something you call "accuracy" out there as an inescapable standard. Apparently you define "accuracy" as "counting what is available as discrete units to be counted." But in this case that standard sacrifices meaning. To leave out the four caucus states or support for Obama in the state of Michigan might provide an "accurate" count by your definition, but it doesn't provide a meaningful one in the context of an argument to superdelegates.
May 20, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
How can you insist on counting the votes for Sentor Clinton in MI and FL (but give Obama nothing in those states) but not count any of the 4 caucus states? You must correct me if I am wrong but I thought Sentor Clintons consistant argument has been to "count all the votes". But then again I am beginning to wonder why I keep trying to make sense of what the Clinton campaign says. I'm calling my doctor for more meds.
May 20, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its not a special way of counting. Its excluding the estimates and using the accurate counts.
It's one way of counting. The only rationale for it is the one you've given, namely that to include the results from the four missing caucus states would require using estimates, as would attempting to count in some fashion the voters in Michigan who preferred Obama.
One key point is that it's not hard to come up with estimates in those cases that are reliable lower bounds on the number of people who cast votes with a preference for Obama.
And then with that in mind, we can ask the question of whether more voters preferred Obama, or more voters preferred Hillary. And the answer is that more people who cast votes in the primaries and caucuses voted for Obama. The margins are large enough in the states that require estimates for that to be a clear result, even without trying to account for voters who preferred Obama in MI but didn't have the option of voting for him.
If you were a superdelegate, isn't that the definition of "popular vote" that you'd care about? The candidate more voters preferred?
I think that you would agree that the margins in most of the caucus states would be much different it was a primary. Texas and Washington as an example
Of course! Not so much in Texas, with that screwy primary+caucus system they had. That one already had a big primary turnout included (favoring Hillary) already included in the totals.
Washington? Absolutely. I caucused for Obama in Washington. The turnout was huge for a caucus, but small compared to what it would have been with a primary. If Washington had been a primary rather than a caucus, with vote totals reported, Obama would be way ahead in the popular vote and there wouldn't be any way to count it to come up with even the less-than-one-tenth-of-one-percent lead Hillary claims by omitting four caucus states and counting FL and MI.
I'm not sure why you're bringing this up, since it's an argument against Hillary's current "popular vote" claim as far as I can see.
May 20, 2008 12:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course! Not so much in Texas, with that screwy primary+caucus system they had. That one already had a big primary turnout included (favoring Hillary) already included in the totals.
Washington? Absolutely. I caucused for Obama in Washington. The turnout was huge for a caucus, but small compared to what it would have been with a primary. If Washington had been a primary rather than a caucus, with vote totals reported, Obama would be way ahead in the popular vote and there wouldn't be any way to count it to come up with even the less-than-one-tenth-of-one-percent lead Hillary claims by omitting four caucus states and counting FL and MI.
I'm not sure why you're bringing this up, since it's an argument against Hillary's current "popular vote" claim as far as I can see.
I'm bringing that up because in the Washington caucus, Obama 68% to Hillary's 31%. In Washington's non binding primary, CNN does not have it posted, but I believe it was something like 50% 48% Obama. In the Texas caucus 56 to 44 Obama. In the Texas primary, 51 to 47 Clinton. Caucuses which are not good measures of the popular vote have almost the opposite results of the primaries.
I suspect the non-binding primary in Washington had lower turnouts than if it was binding.
May 20, 2008 1:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
sorry the top section needs to be in quotes. need to go to bed...
May 20, 2008 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
In WA's non-binding primary, Obama's margin was actually 54%-46%. You're right that it would have drawn more voters if it was a "real" contest affecting delegates -- then I would have turned out to vote in it. There is every reason to think that Obama would have "won the popular vote" here by even more than the 56,000-vote margin he received.
Count every vote! Count every vote!
May 20, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
In Washington's non binding primary, CNN does not have it posted, but I believe it was something like 50% 48% Obama.
I'm not sure what that primary was about in WA. There were no delegates at stake, so what was the point in voting? All of Washington's delegates were awarded based on the caucus.I don't know anyone who went to the primary, but we saw lots and lots of our neighbors at the caucus. So the results from that primary aren't at all predictive of what a real WA caucus, with all of the delegates depending on it, would look like.
Time for bed for me, too. You're a credit to your candidate, airwon. Thanks for the discussion!
May 20, 2008 1:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
In Washington's non binding primary, CNN does not have it posted, but I believe it was something like 50% 48% Obama.
I'm not sure what that primary was about in WA. There were no delegates at stake, so what was the point in voting? All of Washington's delegates were awarded based on the caucus.I don't know anyone who went to the primary, but we saw lots and lots of our neighbors at the caucus. So the results from that primary aren't at all predictive of what a real WA caucus, with all of the delegates depending on it, would look like.
Time for bed for me, too. You're a credit to your candidate, airwon. Thanks for the discussion!
Hmmm, a server error the first time I tried this. Here goes a possible duplicate.
May 20, 2008 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
goodnight.
May 20, 2008 1:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excluding the caucus States bothers me more than the FL/MI argument. The entire argument Clinton presents concerning the caucuses and Fl/MI is essentially cheating, but the caucus States are a unique part of our democratic process. It evens the playing field for lesser known candidates.
Bill Clinton was an unknown and never would have won the presidential nomination without the benefit of caucuses, so it is a blatant disregard to our democratic process when Clinton discounts those States. It is also disingenuous. She is misleading her supporters and insulting the voters.
The bottom line is that Clinton is not going to win the nomination. She knows she is not going to win the nomination. And even if she did win this nomination, she has completely alienated herself from the Democratic base. Clinton's nomination would result in low voter turn out that would likely cost her the election. The Clintons are political masters. They know the reality, so I now view her as a spoiler. She is not in it to win it. She is in it to spin it. Where is the Democratic leadership? This primary has gone on too long.
May 20, 2008 4:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
airwon,
I'm not sure there's any way to put this that will make sense to you, but to clear my head I have to try. Rabbit's point about the popular vote is that if, as you say, it's for the superdelegates, then the implication is that the superdelegates should feel as if a Clinton lead in the popular vote is some indication of her viability in the general.
So if I'm a superdelegate, I'd basically be thinking of the popular vote count as a national poll. To assess the national vote, you probably should include Florida and Michigan. Not because they matter in the primary (they don't), but if I'm trying to get a sense of people's preferences for the general in those states, it's the only data I have, even if it's skewed toward Clinton because of her greater familiarity at that point in the race. By the same token, I'd want to assign Obama the "uncommitted" vote in MI, not for any principled reason but because that's the best estimate of his support that MI's primary offers me. Sure, there are probably a few Edwards voters in there who won't vote for him, but polls show that most will, and that number's going to be a lot closer to his true support than zero is. Finally, I'd certainly want to count the estimates in the four caucus states that don't release totals. I'd realize they may be off a bit, but after all, I'm trying to get a sense of each candidate's national support; it wouldn't make any sense to reject data just because it's a good guess and not a definite number.
There's a kind of empirical consistency to the argument that every single actual vote we have should count and no estimate should, but in the end, empirical consistency is not what the superdelegates are interested in. There's just no logic that I can see to the idea that the superdelegates would be swayed by a count that they're fully aware leaves out a lot of information they'd be interested in when looking forward to the general. Trying to size up Obama as a candidate in the general, you'd certainly want to think about his strength in Michigan. You'd certainly want to know both candidates' strength in the four estimated caucus states. And I just don't know how an estimate that pretends that four states have disappeared and that no one voted for Obama in Michigan is supposed to convince them of anything in real life.
May 20, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's pretty sad to look at so many people in denial of impending events whose certainty is virtually assured. Obama will be the nominee. So for Clinton supporters, there is a choice: (1) vote for Obama, or (2) make buddies with the party of Hoover, Nixon, Mike Foley, Larry Craig and David Duke and vote for the dark side. As Democrats, which do you prefer?
May 20, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
What professordarkheart said. The "popular vote" argument is so self-defeating and lame that I'm surprised anyone can make it with a straight face. There is no doubt that Hillary has been making this argument to the superdelegates, and as a result they've been breaking for Obama at about five to one ratio.
Imagine you're a superdelegate. A Hillary surrogate comes to you and starts explaining how the Dem primary has its rules, but those needs to be disregarded. To get a true picture of voter preferences, we need to look at the popular vote. To this end, we need to pretend that four states do not exist. Yes, this sounds counterintuitive, but disregarding four states will give us more accurate results! We also need to disregard the "uncommitted" voters in Michigan. That is clearly the only possible way to get a clear picture. Surely no one Michigan would dare to vote for Obama if he was actually on the ballot... To sum up, the only way to get "accurate" popular vote count is to knowingly disregard a few hundred thousand votes for Obama. Doesn't that make perfect sense?
If you were a SD and had to listen to this pathetic tripe, you'd endorse Obama too!
May 20, 2008 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
To all you Hillary die-hards... Do you honestly believe that if the tables were turned, and Hillary currently held an overwhelming advantage over Obama, that she and her camp would be whining about Michigan and Florida? And do you think Obama would stay in a hopelessly lost race like she has since Feb 5th? Unlike Hillary, Obama has turned the other cheek to plenty of cheap shots, and he has shown the desire and will to run an honest, straightforward campaign focused only on the issues. Based on what I've seen, he would by now have heeded to the will of the people and respected the established rules of the game he chose to play by exiting gracefully. Integrity is the key qualification that won Obama the Democratic nomination and it's that same trait that sets him apart from all the politics-as-usual "also-rans" who have already dropped out of the race.
May 20, 2008 7:44 PM |