« Rumor Patrol: Obama Doesn't Have 50 Secret Supers | Main | Power Off » Important Point About Florida And Michigan07 Mar 2008 10:23 am If Florida and Michigan re-vote, the magic number jumps from 2025ish to right around 2207...depending on a few things. In other words, Sen. Hillary Clinton might gain some pledged delegates, but not by orders of magnitude. (Thanks to the readers who realized this -- you would be amazed -- maybe scared -- by how many folks in both campaigns didn't know this.) Comments (28)
I find it really troubling that the people who run our political system and media do not grasp math at a 9th grade level. This is not algrebra or calculus, folks, it's simple arithmetic and percentages. Why are morons running our country? 
MI and FL don't get Hillary closer to the magic number whatever it is. They just get her more legitimate pledged delegates relative to Obama's legitimate pledged delegate count and thus she will have a more legitimate claim that she should be the legitimate nominee.
That's just really sad that people don't realize that. Really sad. And yes. If you seat the pledged delegates from the states the super delegates would be sat at the convention as well.
In other words, Sen. Hillary Clinton might gain some pledged delegates, but not by orders of magnitude. I'm thinking one of two things must be true: either you don't know what an order of magnitude is, or you're not very comfortable with the grammar and syntax of the English language. Whichever it is, please, just be open and honest with us, and help us help you. Also, I know one campaign has a team of "grown men crying" over state rules they weren't aware of, but I really see nothing to indicate that the other campaign is unprepared for an eventuality such as this. Or did you once talk to some dude who volunteered for Obama and he didn't know the magic number, and, voila, "soooo many folks who, like, don't know this." Because I refuse to believe you have any meaningful sources in the Obama campaign, given the fact that you're so much better -- an order of magnitude better, if you will -- at parroting the HRC talking points. Either you're letting your sources down, or they're s-ing you, big time.
"Important Point"? I have no idea what point is being made here: Something about a magic number Something about Hillary and delegates Something about campaigns not knowing anything ??? Marc badly needs an editor.
Um, it also gives Hillary the true Popular vote. Which is really a great bragging point and in my mind is more impressive than winning red states. Which may turn out to be a bigger issue than super-delegates.
What are Marc's articles for the Atlantic like? I wonder if the copyeditors get a hazardous-duty bonus when they're cleaning up his work.
The popular vote is indeed a great bragging point, but that's all it is. I'm glad that I get to jokingly refer to President Gore, but it would have been a mistake if he had thought that his victory in the nationwide popular vote gave him any kind of moral claim to the presidency. (His apparent victory in the Florida popular vote on the other hand ... ) The rules of the Democratic primary contest make it a race for delegates. When and if Hillary takes the lead in popular votes, I have no doubt she'll wheel out that talking point to her attempted advantage (where we will immediately read about it, somewhat garbled, courtesy of Marc), but about all it's good for is a point of persuasion. Now, will that point of persuasion work? Well, maybe, but that's a different issue altogether.
You've totally missed the point. Its no longer about pledged delegates because neither candidate can get enough to win. Its totally about winning the Super Delegates. So, how do Michigan and Florida fit in here? If Sen. Clinton wins both Florida and Michigan, after winning Pennsylvania, California, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, she has a compelling argument on electability. Especially with regard to Florida (where McCain is currently running well ahead of Obama) and Ohio (where Obama probably would lose to McCain on demographics--he lost 83 of 88 counties to Sen. Clinton). If she does well in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida, she'll also likely have a compelling democratic principles argument, because she'll likely overtake Sen. Obama in the popular vote. A twenty or so pledged delegate lead is not likely to carry much weight under these circumstances.
Hmmm. I can believe that some people in the campaigns hadn't thought about the magic number issue specifically. But I am not sure I believe that they didn't realize that their candidate would have to get more delegates out of these contests than the other candidate in order to gain any benefit. But if it is true that they somehow overlooked even that basic point--yes, that would be truly sad.
Actually, Jim, Obama is winning the popular vote even including Michigan and Florida, even with 0 in Michigan. Some counts don't count caucus states at all when doing popular vote tallies, since the vote count is never reported, just delegate totals (so if, say, Colorado has 35,000 county delegates, that is the only number reported, even if several hundred thousand people voted). If you take the delegate percentages and out of the caucus states and multiply by the total voter turnout in the state, Obama is clearly ahead. Regarding FL/MI, if you gave the Uncommitted vote in Michigan to Obama (equivalent to a 56-44 Clinton win in a redo, which is probably fair to slightly optimistic for her) she gets 193 delegates to his 127-- for a net pickup of 66 delegates. That's not in itself going to swing the election, but it does represent about half of Obama's pledged delegate lead, so I think it's a significant number. It basically is the difference between Clinton being in the game mathematically and not.
Joe B., First, can you explain how you think the pledged delegate lead could get down to 20? Second, are you aware that Obama has also won a number of states? And have you added up the electoral college votes? Third, don't you think it would be worth checking into whether narrowly winning a primary necessarily translates into doing better in the general election, seeing as how the electorates are different?
On a related note, the new Rasmussen polls out for Florida show Clinton up 16%, while the new Michigan polls have it tied at 41% apiece. Since Clinton has clearly indicated she refused to accept another vote in Florida this could be beneficial to Obama. If Michigan holds firehouse primaries and Obama wins it would detract from her "he can't win big states" argument.
David Krych-
Michael, presumably David is referring to Hillary's share of the vote in a revote. Seems logical to assume that most everyone desiring to vote for Hillary would have already done so when they had the option.
Especially with regard to Florida (where McCain is currently running well ahead of Obama) As soon as McCain picks Crist, Florida is off the table anyway.
Michael-- point taken, obviously in practice you can't just give the Uncommitted vote to Obama. But I think the numbers end up being reasonable-- if you look at exits, if all three were on the ballot, there would have been only a 44% vote for Clinton and 34% would have been Obama, with the rest Edwards, which is roughly the same proportion of Clinton to Obama. Some people who voted in MI may have preferred one of the other two candidates, but liked Clinton enough not to vote "none of the above." On cue, btw, CNN gets this wrong ON ITS FRONT PAGE:
The morons aren't running the country yet, but Clinton and Obama's people sure are making a run for it.
You know ... the tide has done anything but turn in the favor of Hillary Clinton. Hillary and her crew worked the State of Texas like banshees for decades, yet on the eve of March 4, 2008 had no clear expectation of a win. That's not good. Hillary barely squeaked the popular vote. Think about the unions in Ohio. Barack Obama did surprisingly, remarkably well considering. Plenty of candidates have won Ohio, but also lost the general election and, "as Ohio goes so goes the nation" ... well, I don't think so. I believe instead, Barack Obama's momentum may have hit a high watermark in Ohio, but the tide has decidedly ebbed for Hillary Clinton: http://theseedsof9-11.com
The only thing all the infighting that’s going on in the Democratic Party is doing is making it very clear John McCain is a sane and reasonable alternative… Thanks to Hillary “Ramrod” Clinton being so desperate to get the nomination. She has brought to light the rather unpleasant truths about how the “Democratic Party” selects its Presidential nominee into the Media spotlight. If anyone in the Democratic Party thinks the world isn’t watching that are sadly mistaken.
The popular vote is indeed a great bragging point, but that's all it is. Well, if it influences the decisions of superdelegagtes -- and it would be understandable if it did -- it'll end up being a lot more than just "a bragging point." You can just feeeeel this thing slipping away from Barry.
Uh, yeah, Marcus, that was pretty much the point of the second paragraph of my post. Thanks for reading the whole thing before responding ;) And who's Barry? Is that the cool, new insult these days?
On Clinton Working The State Of Texas For Decades,And On March,4 2008 She Had No Independant's,No Republican's Trying To Oust Her From The Race Decades Ago,But With Mr Obama's Superior Money,His Union Support,His Out Spending Hilliary 5 To 1,His AA Following Supporter's That,s Acting Like A Bunch Of Animal,s & Thug's At The Texas Caucaus,And It Happened At Other Caucauses Aswell,Mr Obama Is A Thug Just Like All You Moron's That Follow That Ignorant Empty Suit,And If It Does Come Down To Mr Obama Winning The Majority Of The SD's,Then Mr McCain Win's This Election's Hand Down,Now You Do The Math On That.
Uh, yeah, Marcus, that was pretty much the point of the second paragraph of my post. I was merely pointing out that you contradicted yourself. A strong basis for a moral argument -- which is what winning the popular vote will be should she manage it -- is hardly a mere "bragging point," but rather the plausible foundation upon which to construct a forceful argument to capture the nomination.
Wrong again, Marcus (but, my, what a bunch of fancy words strung together!) I specifically said that it may be a point of persuasion -- another way of saying "moral argument," I suspect -- but this is a delegate race. Them's the rules, and the popular vote has no direct relation to that. And you never answered my question -- who's Barry?
Well someone was half correct in this case. The Plain and simple facts are. It was Senator Clinton who by her totally selfish actions handed Senator McCain the oval office and most likely will give the republicans a filibuster proof majority in both the house and senate by mid term elections of the McCain Presidency. You see Senator Clinton has so discredited the Democratic Party what should have been a shoe in for the Democrats based on the issues. Has become a very close contest and could turn into a landslide for McCain no matter which of the Democratic possibles wins the nomination. The long and the short of it is this we’re living right now with the legacy of the last Clinton administration. Clinton supporters don’t bother to read this you’re to fixated just like Senator Clinton on getting the nomination at all cost to pay any attention to facts. However here they are the whole Monica and other scandals of the last two years of Bill Clinton’s Presidency that lead up to a full-blown impeachment that was blocked by nothing other than partisan politics. Has given us a decade of bitterly and deeply partisan politics. Make no mistake McCain is going to win in fall and Hillary Clinton and her Supporters will have no one to blame but themselves… PS…
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Would they reenfranchise the supers from those states?
Posted by Robert | March 7, 2008 10:39 AM