You've heard Hillary Clinton say "We have won the popular vote". That will be her campaign's arguement for why she deserves the nomination in Denver this August.
But there is a lot Clinton is not telling you with that statement.
In one sense, yes, Clinton has the popular vote. If you add up all the votes in the primary states - including Florida and Michigan - and all the caucus states that release their popular vote numbers, Hillary has a slight lead - about 164 thousand votes.
But there are three problems here: 1. Barack Obama was not on the Michigan ballot because according to the DNC rules, any state that moved it's primary ahead of Super Tuesday would be striped of it's delegates - rendering it's vote meaningless. So, Hillary technically won Michigan - but Obama wasn't on the ballot due to the rules. So counting Michigan in the popular vote is a bit of a stretch.
2. Both Florida and Michigan are not supposed to count. Like we stated above - these two states moved their primaries ahead of Super Tuesday, and therefore - according to the rules- neither votes should count. In fact all the candidates pledged not to campaign in Florida, and all but Hillary took their name off the Michigan ballot.
3. The Clinton ocunt of hte Popular Vote does not include the popular vote for caucus states that don't release official popular vote totals. For instance, Obama had more voters in Iowa - but all Iowa counts is the number of delegates the candidate gets at the end of the day (which is essentially a percentage of the number of votes that candidate got).
So, if you include Michiagn and Florida, and NOT include states like Iowa and Washington (another caucus state) - Clinton has the 164,000 vote lead.
However, if you take away Michigan, and include the Caucus state estimates, Obama leads by 274,000 votes.
If you simply give Obama the 'Unidecided' vote from the Michigan election - according to Clinton's Math - Obama still wins by 174,000 votes.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
State of the Race: May 31st
It all comes down to May 31st.
Okay - so I think there have been about 18 "It all comes down to ... [insert date here]" moments in the 2008 Democratic campaign for the presidential nomination, but ultimately, May 31st will hold some very important answers.
On this particular Saturday, the Democratic Rules and Bylaws committee will meet to decide what they will do with the votes in Michigan and Florida. Why not just count the votes? The problem is these two states broke the Democratic primary rules and moved their primaries ahead of super tuesday without permission from the DNC.
All the candidates pledged not to campaign in Florida, and all but Hillary took their name off the Michigan ballot. The states still held their votes, but the results arguably don't represent the will of the people.
In Michigan, Hillary got about 60% of the vote as the only democrat on the ticket - and "uncommitted" came in at about 40%. The argument Hillary is making is that those votes should be counted - and she should get 60% of the delegates in Michgan. The Obama people say "Wait a minute, we didn't even have our name on the ballot because the rules stated that if Michigan moved their primary - their delegates wouldn't count." So if Obama didn't run in Michigan, and the delegates are counted - it would be an unfair advantage to Hillary. So that's headache number 1.
In Florida, Hillary won as well. There seems to be less concern over what to do with these delegates - as both Hillary and Obama had their names on the ballot. Hillary won by about half a million votes, and would likely get a large portion of the Florida Delegates.
Either way - how the rules and by-law committee handles these two states and their delegates could be crucial in how the 2008 Deomcratic nomination ends up.
Okay - so I think there have been about 18 "It all comes down to ... [insert date here]" moments in the 2008 Democratic campaign for the presidential nomination, but ultimately, May 31st will hold some very important answers.
On this particular Saturday, the Democratic Rules and Bylaws committee will meet to decide what they will do with the votes in Michigan and Florida. Why not just count the votes? The problem is these two states broke the Democratic primary rules and moved their primaries ahead of super tuesday without permission from the DNC.
All the candidates pledged not to campaign in Florida, and all but Hillary took their name off the Michigan ballot. The states still held their votes, but the results arguably don't represent the will of the people.
In Michigan, Hillary got about 60% of the vote as the only democrat on the ticket - and "uncommitted" came in at about 40%. The argument Hillary is making is that those votes should be counted - and she should get 60% of the delegates in Michgan. The Obama people say "Wait a minute, we didn't even have our name on the ballot because the rules stated that if Michigan moved their primary - their delegates wouldn't count." So if Obama didn't run in Michigan, and the delegates are counted - it would be an unfair advantage to Hillary. So that's headache number 1.
In Florida, Hillary won as well. There seems to be less concern over what to do with these delegates - as both Hillary and Obama had their names on the ballot. Hillary won by about half a million votes, and would likely get a large portion of the Florida Delegates.
Either way - how the rules and by-law committee handles these two states and their delegates could be crucial in how the 2008 Deomcratic nomination ends up.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
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