This site would be even more useless than it already is if it's discussion was limited to only post-election analysis.

But they haven't held actual primaries in MI & Fl. Doesn't make any sense.  

Actually, what Hillary said is "Michigan counts for nothing."

That's the point.  Any analysis must stem from an honest assessment of the race as it stands.  Even if it is a comfortable victory for Hillary, it doesn't matter that much.  Not because Pennsylvania voters aren't important, its just that they aren't MORE important than the many who have already voted.

I realize its a small state, but I seriously doubt Hill takes MT, that's just not happening (literally her only chance is the fact that the primary falls post spring semester, that will keep her within 15 points).

Aren't there several hundred superdelegates?  How do they factor into "the math"?

Are you saying that Hillary blocked the re-vote. Weird.

Haha, I love how Clinton supporters think he blocked revotes.  

Remember that(1) No Republicans or Independents were allowed to vote in the revotes and (2) only the people that voted the first time were allowed to vote.

What about all the Obama supporters who stayed home?  What about those crossover votes?  Don't tell me...THEY don't count either, just like South Carolina and countless other states.

So you might as well rig the election in Hillary's favor with the rules and then when Obama opposes the rigging, call it "blocking" the revotes.

Awesome post.  Spot on about the smaller states.  The Clinton campaign thought they would breeze through the primary and be done with it by Super Tuesday, so when that didn't happen, they were totally unprepared to fight on every battleground.

The mighty Clinton campaign, with all of the party machinery in the traditional Democratic bellwethers in its arsenal, was completely outflanked by the nimbler, populist Obama campaign.

What a powerful man.

Grendel, she can fight all she wants.  They will be seated and probably with some proportionate representation.  They will not revote those elections.  Neither state has the money or the inclination.  

Even if you go ALL CAP!!!!! on me, it ain't gonna change the facts or the math.

Haha, I love how Clinton supporters think he blocked revotes.  

Remember that(1) No Republicans or Independents were allowed to vote in the revotes and (2) only the people that voted the first time were allowed to vote.

What about all the Obama supporters who stayed home?  What about those crossover votes?  Don't tell me...THEY don't count either, just like South Carolina and countless other states.

So you might as well rig the election in Hillary's favor with the rules and then when Obama opposes the rigging, call it "blocking" the revotes.

I notice that you took Michigan out of the equation.  Wonder why.

Oh, by the way.  Electoral-vote.com has a compendium of polling for each state, and polling shows both Obama and Clinton win PA comfortably, both Obama and Clinton lose OH by a significant margin, and Hillary does slightly better in Florida.

I love how a +10% win indicates a "blowout" when she was up 20% when campaigning began there.  I also like that states with extremely favorable demographics like Indiana, WEST VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY are supposed to be the bellweather state.

Watch what I can do using the same crappy reasoning:

If Obama blows out NC (win 15%+), SD, OR, MT...it will prove that Hillary can't expand the electoral map, or win in close blue states (Oregon)...and has a very weak standing among "red state" and "purple state" Democrats that will be crucial in swing states and expanding the map.  That would be a good indication to SD's that HRC is unelectable in a GE.  If they care about Democrats winning the GE, they should vote for HRC and preserve the WH for us...otherwise it's bye bye WH 2008 for Democrats

Oh, except for I'd add something about how Hillary has by far the highest negatives of anyone in the race, and how more people dislike her than like her, and about how she's done an absolutely piss-poor job of running a primary campaign so she shouldn't be given the chance to run a piss-poor general campaign.

Yay, fun!

It's only silly if you lose. There are plenty of good reasons for caucuses. You play by the rules. If the rules were diffrent Obama would have campaigned differently like spending more time in high population areas or more time in California

Wow. That doesn't sound at all like sour grapes from a head on collision with reality.

Your name speaks volumes.

problem with this comment is that both candidates are up in PA for the GE, they're both down in OH and the one that Hillary is winning (FL) will never go to her. why? because if she was the nominee, Crist becomes the VP candidate and helps take FL for mcCain.

you also fail to mention all the states that Obama is currently leading in or all the states that Obama makes competitive while Clinton gets blown away (key for down-ticket races).

In counting popular vote - you must also count people who showed up for the Caucuses - not simply their agents.

The popular vote doesn't exist... there's no way to count it without completely discounting caucus states and it ignores the huge procedural differences between even primary states (open vs closed, early voting vs no early voting, etc)

Those aren't the rules of the game.

Even in the general election, the popular vote doesn't win it, it's the electoral college.  And for good reason.

Let's say you have two candidates and 3 states (pop 100,000 each).  One candidate wins a majority in two of the 3 states (60,000 each) while the other candidate wins a blowout in the third state (75,000).  Let's say that 3rd state has a single agenda which favors only their state and only candidate 2 supports it.

Candidate two wins with 155,000
Candidate one loses with 145,000

So state 3 now has a president who is unfavorable to both states 1 and 2 even though there are the same number of people in each of the three states.

With representative democracy, candidate 1 would win the delegates from 2 of the 3 states and the election.

It is not about looking favorable.  It is about Latino voters being the only demographic she has cracked 62% in, in nearly every district, considering Ohio.  So the 4 delegate districts are going to split, they are rural, so it hurts her.

Yes, they are favorable to her, but that's why it's imperative for her to win the state by around 58%-42%, so she can break into the 60s and 70s in those rural districts and get the extra delegates.

If she's only winning statewide by like 53%-47%, she's probably only hitting the high 50s in those rural districts, and she splits more of those delegates with Obama.

It's not just enough to win a state.  You gotta win it big.  Obama took Alabama 56-42%, but split the delegates 27-25.  Both candidates have been hurt by the delegate math.

Best case Obama (5% Clinton win) = Obama wins 4 delegates.

This would make us all look like asses. If she wins the state by +5 and he takes a gain of 4 delegates, it just makes us look even more undemocratic than we already do.

I think we left our paddle in IA or NH.
focus on congress.

Where'd those estimates go of Clinton netting 40-50 delegates?  There were some laughable fantasies back during the Wright mess that some people actually took seriously.  Then again, that was back when Clinton was polling ahead by 20%.

I disagree with some of your estimates... If she wins by 15% that means she's going to be pulling some major numbers out in the rural areas so she'll end up picking up a few more delegates... If she wins by 15% plus I'll give her closer to 25 delegates.

All Obama has to do is keep the margins down in rural Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia will almost balance out the rest of the state by itself.

I don't think Clinton will win by 12%, maybe if the election was last week, but it's moved under 10% and it's staying there.  I'm guessing Clinton nets 8 delegates total.

I don't think it's possible to net 40 delegates from those states. Here's my logic below. Please feel free to present your own scenario for how tht would play out.

To net 40 delegates from those states, which have a combined number of delegates of 99,* she would have to win ~69 and Obama 30, which is 70% of the delegates.  And the vote is allocated to congressional districts with those more Democratic (in those states, districts would high black populations) get more delegates.

WV = 39 delegates
KY = 60 delegates

Obama will net one delegate in South Dakota and two delegates in Montana, unless he wins 60% of the votes in those states, unlikely as he won 57% in the only other plains state primary so far (Utah) and that was with Clinton completely ignoring the state.  She won't make that mistake again, I think.

Proportional allocation limits Obama's ability to rack up a significant number of delegates in those two states.  But it also limits the gains Clinton can get from West Virginia and Kentucky.  In the first state, she will only net 2 delegates unless she breaks 58% (she will net one delegate for each district she can do that in).  Kentucky will also be limited (about a 10 delegate gain) unless she really does win that state by 30% like the SUSA poll shows.  Even so she'd only net about 20 delegates in the case.

Unless Oregon turns into a rout for Obama, he probably gets like 5 delegates out of it.

What's the significance of that number?

Hi.  Your statement isn't based in fact.

A poll today from EPIC-MRA showed Obama winning Michigan 43% to 41% over McCain, with Clinton losing 37% to 46%.

Despite the hysterical cries of Hillary supporters, Obama still performs better there, and even is slated to win this far out.

Hey man -- don't forget, the BurningStrawMan festival is coming up REAL SOON. So get your rave glow sticks and lots and lots of bottled water, because it's gonna be awesome!

Hurray! Hurray!

We'll get some tents, some weed, head out to the Scranton desert, build us a giant head of Sean Connery for our ZARDOZ-themed camp. Then, when everyone comes in, trippin' balls, we'll TOTALLY BLOW THEIR MIND with this "lose-a-primary, lose-a-state" argument that's totally laughable on its face! Then we'll all laugh and laugh, because that's what happens on ecstacy before the hugs.

Later, you can bring out this Florida/Michigan "disenfranchisement" argument, but we'll likely be all burnt by then, it'll be strawman sensory-overload, and we'll all be constipated in the morning.

BurningStrawMan -- it's so worth the $111 million ticket price.

while not very constructive and possibly unfair to the original post, that was hilarious.

Precious rules teh YouTube.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_moia-oVI

The Evil One wants to REGAIN the Precious, not destroy it.  It's the elves, dwarves, hobbits, and men who want to destroy it.  I find your lack of nerd knowledge disturbing.

I hereby sentence you to forty lashes with a hardback copy of "Return of the King".

Doesn't that make Obama's lead even more impressive given the proportional delegate system?

By every metric he's ahead, and you still think that his lead is illegitimate.

Would you rather duplicate the ludicrous electoral system we have in place for the general election?

"Win a state by one vote, automatically get 100+ electoral votes...YAY!"

I haven't seen any delegate by district breakdowns recently. Knowing that Hillary could win the state by 5% and that Obama could still net 5 more delegates must be a bitter pill for you.