PLEDGED delegates NOT popular vote.  Thus the popular vote SHOULD be irrelevant.  

The rules SHOULD NOT be changed in the middle of the game where a candidate wins by the popular vote and not by pledged delegates.  If that is the case, why even count pledged delegates at all.  

The reality is that Obama's pledged delegate count is insurmountable.

This must be some kind of new math...oh, wait..it is Clinton math.  All candidates and their representatives agreed on Michigan and Florida...the only liar of all the original 8 or 9 candidates was Clinton.  Everyone else honored their agreement.  Do we want a president who lies and backs out of agreements?  NOt for me.

Thanks Jerome. Rec'd ;-)

The concept of the "popular vote" is a fairy tale...Minnesota had a caucus and Obama is credited with getting about 100,000 votes, a number "extrapolated from his delegates count. missouri had a primary where Obama received about 400,000 votes. DO Missouri votes count 4 times as much as Minnesotas? Wouldn't that be disenfranchisement?

Not mine!

Fact is, Markos is the King of Intellectual Dishonesty, if he cannot admit that Florida's vote totals should count.  Sure, Michigan is somewhat disputable, but Florida?

And as for Michigan, perhaps he's still sore because his campaign to bleed votes over to Romney was a bust.  Who knows...the guy stopped acting like a Democrat months ago.

you know good and well that no candidate behind in pledged delegates is going to become the nominee (the pledged delegates that count).  This popular vote stuff is BS. Nothing more than moving the goal posts and finding metrics that support your candidate.

...if you count the results of undemocratic elections we wouldn't recognize if they happened in a foreign country.

To be legitimate, elections have to give every contender ballot access and an opportunity to campaign. Michigan fails on both measures, Florida on one.

Furthermore, the Hillaryist talking point that Obama ran ads in Florida is an elegant lie, but a lie nonetheless; you can't cut out parts of a national cable ad buy. That's not technologically feasible.

In short, Hillary is ahead only if you count the results of two elections in which her opponent didn't compete, she had the advantages of machine backing and name recognition, and voters operated under the assumption that their votes wouldn't count.

If she wants the nomination based on Soviet-style shenanigans like this, it won't be legitimate.

Obama leads by 600,000 in legal and recognized elections. He also leads in delegates. If the election were called today, he'd be the only possible legitimate and democratic choice.

It helps when you all (Armstrong, Bowers, Moulitsas etc.) read each other and address each others points. It can serve as an example for the rest of us.

Sigh.  Your popular vote count punishes caucus states and closed primary states that followed the rules, while honoring states that broke the rules.  You're changing the rules mid-game because the current ones don't favor your candidate, and you know it.  No one was even counting the "popular vote" until last month.  Most news companies don't even have it on their websites (they do have delegate totals though, isn't that funny?)

It's sad to see how fast Hillary talking points spread across the blogs and the media.  Soon they'll be telling us delegates don't even matter, it was actually a popular vote contest the whole time.  And you will all lap it up.

I like you and all, but why don't you stick with counting the delegates that have been apportioned according to the rules.  If and when Florida and Michigan get seated with any myriad number of potential solutions, count those delegates then.  Until then, stop trying to count unsanctioned contests in the delegate count when all campaigns agreed that those contests would not count toward the totals.

Count the delegates that count.

And regarding the popular vote hackery here, it would behoove you to only count the states in which there were campaigns and field operations to...you know...actually turn out voters.  Otherwise, the votes tallied in Florida (and don't get me started on Michigan) will reflect a bias toward the candidate who happens to have superior name recognition without any campaign appearances or advertising--and we both know who that is.

The fact that Obama still has a lead when you count contests that shouldn't count anyway that happened in January when there was no campaign and count the fact that Hillary has a lead in superdelegates which she earned mainly because she racked them up in the early going when she was perceived as inevitable, many of which she wouldn't have gotten immediately had the race been perceived as closer (I know a couple personally) should be worrisome to Clinton partisans.

As far as I know, the candidates weren't running ads in Shanghai, London, and Dubai.  They didn't campaign in these cities, yet those votes count.  Why not Michigan and Florida?  If the Democrats Abroad had to rely on the internet to learn about candidates why can't that be sufficient for FL & MI.  If the opportunity to campaign is soooooooo critical, then why do we allow absentee voting during the primaries?

So how much did the Billary campaign pay you for this "very sound" analysis?

This is the exactly the same bullshit kind of justifications that were used to get us into Iraq.  Using any miniscule shred of fact and twisting it completely until it meets whatever bona fides you need it too.  This is an incredibly disturbing trend here on DD being perpetrated by the founder and head cult leader.  She leads in the popular vote??? By counting Michigan and not counting Caucases?  WTF? Are you insane?  Why don't you simply not count African Americans?  Or not count people in Illinois?  How bout not counting people with blue eyes or people that rent instead of own?  This is a capricious and ridiculously pathetic last ditch effort at legitimizing GOP-like coup of the nominating process by smokey-room democrats.  With the small d.  You are pathetic, Jerome.

This entire process is muddy and gummed up and it's still pretty damn close.  Popular vote -- one has to guess on the four caucus states and bicker over what to do with Michigan.  Pledged delegates are clear cut at least, but if rules are rules then NEITHER, repeat NEITHER can win the pledged delegates needed before September without doing something about Florida and Michigan.  (which only speaks to their size and importance)
Super delegates, even those who have declared, can vote any damn way they want in September.  They are only held to their "pledges" as much as their constituants will hold them.  Without changing the rules it can and will come down to them.

My point -- in an UNTESTED process as compromised and convoluted as this one, neither camp has a  solid leg to stand on as far as who's "won" the nomination or what the "will of the people" is.   How would Michigan and/or Florida have changed where we are today had they not moved their primaries?  Should a state's caucuses ever override a popular vote as happened in Texas?  

So it goes to the super delegates to decide not who should get the nomination but who would win the general election and/OR do the greatest good for the party.  In that scenario trending matters, voting blocs matter, electoral college outcome matters, the potential to disenfranchise, bring in new states and voters, give up chunks of the electorate to the Republicans matter.  

The "will" of a fraction of the general electorate, stretched accross months of campaigning, littered with asterisks and impossible to determine with any real accuracy in a race this close DOESN'T matter.    

The problem with Pledged Delegates is that they are awarded in an arbitrary manner. Each state has it's own rules, by-laws, and system.

The cacauses allow an individual cacaus goer in Alaska to be weighted more than a voter in California or New York. Texas African-Americans, who make up 20% of the population, are worth more than Texas Mexican-Americans, who are 40% of the population.

To argue that "This is the system, you can't change the rules, etc" is completely obliterated by the fact that the Super Delegate system is designed to allow party elites to vote whichever way they want. Any criteria they want to use is acceptable (electability, popular vote, delegate count, height).

More people have voted for Hillary in this primary process.  More Democrats have voted for Hillary in this primary process.  Nobody forced BO to take his name off the MI ballot.  He ran commercials in FL.  Caucuses are inherently unfair to Hillary's base who are act work or taking care of children and don't have two hours to spare being pushed around by a bunched of hopped up A & F college kids and richie riches who don't have the same economic concerns as the rest of us and find BO's thin gruel of hope satisfying.  Facts are stubborn things even in Obama world.

Zero voters for Obama in Michigan = will of the people?

Popular vote is not how we decide our primaries. If you want it to be then I suggest that you work toward that goal in between elections.

Want to blame the situation in MI and FL on someone? How about the Clintons. Their surrogate Harold Ickes was a proponent of stripping the two states of their delegates on the committee that did so.

Want to blame the stupid schedule that puts the convention 8 weeks before the general election and will absolutely insure that this is settled outside of the convention? Blame Terry McCauliffe. He wanted the convention late to be a big PR event for Sen. Clinton.

Sen. Obama is going to be our nominee. The sooner we all get behind his candidacy the better our odds of defeating John McCain are.

It is the Republicans who join with Hillary supporters and are hell bent on helping us to extend this primary season as long as possible. Why is Sen. Clinton the choice of Fox News and Richard Melon Scaife? Why are is the Republican party running anti-Obama ads only in North Carolina? Why is Rush Limbaugh working feverishly to make Hillary the nominee? Why is every Republican talking head rooting for Hillary?

The answer is twofold. First, the longer this goes on the more damage is done to our chances in November. Second, they see Hillary as easier to beat.

Jerome, every time you beat the nonsensical popular vote drum, John McCain smiles.

You simply cannot count the votes in FL and MI.  Even Hillary herself knew they would not be counted.

The world would go round faster if you would label your graphs and correct your grammar.

oh hell's bells, I get the part where Obama supporters had no one to vote for on the Michigan ballot.  And for all I know had they both campaigned and both been on the ballot Obama would have won.  (I doubt it only because with Edwards still in the race he might have pasted both of them in Michigan but we will never know)

Here's what utterly scalds me -- 328,000 Michiganders bundled up and went out in the frigid cold to show their support for Hillary Clinton in a primary election we believed would be meaningless.  (granted, another 200,000 went out to vote against her)

There was nothing else on the ballot, no other reason to risk frost bite than to have one's voice heard.  Now?  Screw us.  Even in the meaningless fairy tale world of this year's "popular vote" total it's like screaming in a nightmare -- no one hears us.  

I've been saying it for months but who should give a damn -- you know that big blue mitten you all are so accustomed to seeing on election night?  Don't be too surprised if you get slapped upside the head with 17 electoral votes worth of red one.  

I'll take Chuck Todd's numbers over Kos or myDD who both are biased. He said this morning that according to his calculations, now that PA is behind us that Hillary will not be able to catch Obama in the popular vote even counting FL.

Of course changing the metric to popular vote now because it is convenient for Hillary would disenfranchise all the caucus states which have been holding caucuses for decades with no one challenging their fairness including the Clintons when they expected to win. But since Obama will be ahead on that metric as well they will have to invent some other contorted bit of spin.

It looks like Obama will need less then 20% of the super delegates to win at this point. NC which is now a top 10 state population wise will undo the modest advances Clinton made in PA. PA was the last chance for Clinton to collapse the Obama campaign. If she could have maintained or built on her 20 point lead in a state that was practically tailor made for her it might have been a game changer. But Obama managed to cut her lead in half and prevent PA from having any impact on the direction of the contest.

Obama looks like he will continue to pick up more Super delegate endorsements then Hillary going forward. As he does not need more then 20% of the remaining supers it would seem only a miracle could deny Obama the nomination at this point.

this is why MI won't count and you said it yourself

I get the idea that Markos is talking about with the uncommitted votes, and believe that they will represent themselves in delegates.

exactly! Delegates!, the idea that you say eh, we don't have to worry about the votes, thats what the delegates are for.

goes to show that we all still understand the delegates ARE the metric in this primaries.

Personally, the caucus counts should not even be included in the "popular vote" totals. They are neither popular or votes. You should count the Washington primary (Obama won it) not the caucus count.

Caucuses are for selecting delegates, not determining the "will of the people". Just look at TX and WA for prima facie evidence to tha fact.

So go ahead and screw the voters of MI and FL. WY, ID and AK caucus goers will bail us out of the Electoral College hole in which you leave us.

Jerome, this post is just silly. You look so small minded and you are doing total damage to your web site's brand image with this utter nonsense you are peddling.

Which candidate and their surrogates have to change the metric for winning with each passing primary and caucus result?

The problem you have is that Obama's argument to the supers is vastly more logical than any Rube Goldberg contraption you can come up with to sway them on Hillary's behalf.

Any argument you come up with involves hypotheticals that cannot be proven. Obama's argument is clean and simple. I have won the primary season with the voters, ergo I should be the nominee.  We do not elect popular votes to the convention, we elect delegates.  

Your argument is foolish.

I'm not calling Clinton supporters perpetual liars because they are not.  But you know how liars lie so much that they actually start believing their lies.  The same goes for this nonsensical argument.

Think about what we thought back in January.  Clinton was still the inevitable candidate and there wasn't one peep out of anyone arguing for Michigan and Florida to count.  ALL of the candidates agreed that votes in Michigan and Florida wouldn't count.  Unfortunately, the people in the states of Florida and Michigan either didn't vote or went into the voting booth knowing that MI/FL delegates would would not count.

Fast forward to April.  Clinton's talking points have gone out and her army is rallying behind her.  They actually use arguments supporting Clinton such as "its undemocratic" even though they damn well know that if rolls were reversed, they would not argue in a million years that MI and FL delegates should be seated.

Last year Clinton stated that MI would not count.  What has changed since then. Well, she's losing now, thats it.  So save me your "is this the democracy we live in?" bulls*&^ when we all know    that the only purpose for the argument is to move Clinton closer to the nomination.  If Clinton supporters can point me to the comments they made before February on how they argued that MI and FL should count no matter what, then you are the better person and I will personally apologize to that supporter.  Until then, save your sanctimonious argument for someone that can't see right through it.                

I think Jerome runs these posts regarding Michigan's "popular vote" for shock value. Really. Nobody who isn't a total and complete Clinton shill would accept the Michigan votes as legitimate. Florida is less obviously ridiculous because both names were on the ballot at least. But with no campaigning, the Florida election cannot be seen as legitimate. We wouldn't think so for a Third World country at least.

Hey Jerome, I am a fan too!

http://www.oliverwillis.com/wp-content/u ploads/2008/04/calvinball.jpg

Why use popular vote as a metric when that disenfranchises 13 states? That's a lot of people.

"It's a shame that her campaign has sullied her reputation among many Democrats."

here's the real shame.  BO has no reputaion to speak of with many hardcore, lifelong Dems and that is why he can't close the deal.  He has run a reprehensible campaign against the Dem party and the Clinton years.  He has deliberately corrupted the Dem nominating contest with Rethugs.  He has used right wing framing particularly on healthcare, capitulated on Social Security, thrown gays under the bus when it was convenient for him, and worst of all, will be obliterated in November due to his personal affiliations.  He can't even answer a simple question of whether it was right for Jimmy Carter to meet with Hamas (he wanted to finish his waffle).  I saw a Rethug ad running against him in NC about how he voted against giving the death penalty to gang members who indiscriminately murder.  The kind of ad that is going to destroy him in a GE.  BO supporters don't seem to understand that many Hillary supporters loathe his campaign, his policies and particularly his rabid supporters who don't share our economic concerns or Democratic values.

on the ballot). That only gives a 65K edge in popular vote had everyone been on the ballot.

The reason others weren't on the ballot was because Clinton supporters in MI  such as Stabenow (and Geller etal in FL) that played games with the primary process by trying to jump ahead of other states.

Using the exit polls:

MI Exit Poll
If these had been the candidates on the ballot today, for whom would you have voted in the Democratic presidential primary?

Category    % Total    Clinton    Dodd    Gravel    Kucinich Unc.

Hillary Clinton    46    97    -    0    0     3

John Edwards    12    30    2    -    11     57

Dennis Kucinich    2    -    -    -    -     -

Barack Obama    35    18    0    1    2     79

Bill Richardson    1    -    -    -    -     -

MI (non-contest) turn out: 594,398

Vote breakdown based on the exit poll:
HRC: 46% x 594,398 = 273 423
Obama: 35% x 594,398 = 208 039

HRC-Obama = 65,383 according to the exit poll.

Therefore, it's not 328K edge for HRC (as in the uncontested result), but it's 65K (according to the exit poll), if we're going count MI pop. vote at all.

Using the exit poll approach in MI, Obama is ahead in the popular vote by 250K votes even if you count the beauty contest in FL and the non-contest in MI (using the exit poll, which improves the result from a non-contest to a beauty contest level; the latter is a bit better in actually telling us what the voter intent would've been had proper contests been held; again, proper contests were no held because of Clinton supporters playing in FL and MI playing games) as estimated by Booman here.

In summary:

1. excluding Michigan and Florida, Obama has a popular vote lead of 610,000 votes.
   
2. including FL and the exit poll based estimate in MI, Obama currently has a 251,000 lead in the popular vote.
   

Oh yeah. McCain is an idiot.

Jerome, you miss the point.  The whole point of talking about the popular vote as a metric is the potential it has to sway superdelegates.  The argument goes "The popular vote is the more accurate measure of candidate support, vis-a-vis the pledged delegate count, so superdelegates should pay attention."  But if the popular vote numbers don't reflect a candidate's actual support, then what ground do you have for believing a superdelegate will be swayed by them?  Do you really think superdelegates are so dumb as to think that Obama has no support in Michigan?  And if not, then what value will your version of the popular vote cout have to superdelegates?

If superdelegates are more interested in supporting the candidate with the most popular support, as opposed to the candidate with the most pledged delegates, your numbers are simply unhelpful.

If superdelegates are suppose to rely in the popular vote than why would any Democratic candidate campaign in such states as Iowa, New Hampshire, Maine, etc instead just campaign in the high population states of New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, etc.

Plus the caucus states' popular vote are under counted because if there was a primary in those states the popular vote would be a lot higher.  For example, Obama won both the caucuses of Washington state and the popular vote there and yet only the vote count from the caucuses counted towards this mythical popular vote.

Obama has prevented re-votes in MI in FL.  how's that for double disenfranchisement...

Another poster said that your post is intellectually dishonest and democratically inept at best. I could not agree more.

Btw, if we want to go to a system where the popular vote determines the nominee, candidates will never set foot in IA, or NH, and most of the rest of our states. It's ridiculous.

This entire thing is absurd --- the rules are the rules and HRC agreed to them.  To change them now is to destroy the Democratic Party.  It seems HRC would  gladly do that if she could run -- why doesn't she simply become McCin's VP (she may anyway) and let the party get on with its nominating process.  The Clinton hubris that they are the party is a bit misguided.

No one but Obama is to blame for his having no votes in Michigan.

Jerome, do I have to jump through this monitor and smack you?

If you're trying to accurately measure which candidate has more support among Democrats (which is the only reason for looking at the popular vote in the primaries and caucuses), then the fact that "no one but Obama is to blame for his having no votes in Michigan" just plain doesn't matter.

Hillary was on the ballot in MI, Obama wasn't, and we don't have a good measure of who has how much support there in a head-to-head race.  

The only reason to use the popular vote totals from the MI beauty-contest primary is if you're simply coming up with a new, abstruse scoring system that would vaguely approximate popular support, rather than discern some sort of truth.

But we've already GOT an abstruse scoring system that vaguely approximates popular support: it's called the delegate count.

The only reason to sell people on another such system is to mess with their heads to show people that your candidate really, by gosh, ought to be ahead.  You want to find out truth, then do so in a way that gets you truth.  If you want to invent BS reasons for people to believe that Hillary should be ahead, then you continue to lose the respect of anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty.

"democracy" too.

that's right.  keep slandering Hillary.  calling her a repug and every nasty name in the book.  denigrate her character and her commitment to Democratic values (a commitment that far exceeds your guy's).  keep it up Obama supporters then just try and get our votes come november.  do you people understand you're alienating half the party?  actions have consequences...  

Tom Hayden?  perhaps somebody from this century who hasn't always hated the Clintons might hold more sway...

Jerome-
Why do you do this?  You make the same posts over and over again.
Obama supporters critique the post and then you essentially repost the same thing.

How is that news?  How is that blogging? How is that improving the public discourse?  It just adds to the collective frustration.

Frankly, it seems like you and Markos are just engaging in spin.  If we say something enough times, then it must be true.

Arg!

of explaining this than you, Jerome.

http://www.redlasso.com/ClipPlayer.aspx? id=abc238bd-7e27-4ee7-ac64-b54b86b9ace3

I fail to see how the Markos and Jerome squabble helps through any light on who will win, who should win the nomination.

(unless the World Wrestling Entertainment audience really is the last great untapped demographic)

Given that delegates will decide the nomination, I guess the only reason I can find for making this argument is to attempt to convince super delegates. However, the argument is so strained that I can't possibly see it having much of any effect.

If it makes you feel better, by all means keep it up. But a tortured popular vote argument isn't going to sway enough of the approximately 85% of the the remaining super delegates that HRC will likely need to secure the nomination, and it certainly isn't going to 'flip' any significant number, if any, of the Obama endorsements.

So what is the point of diary after diary on this topic?

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_opp oses_equal_pay_bill_in_0423.html

McCain opposes equal pay for women.

The defense rests.

Jerome,

You seem to think the chart is good news for Clinton. And to the extent that it shows her actually getting some superdelegates to endorse her, I guess that it is. Unfortunately, she's in a position that keeping up with Obama doesn't do her any good.

Here's why. Without MI and FL, you need 2024 delegates to win.

Current pledged totals: O - 1491, C - 1336 (DCW numbers)
Current superdelegates: O - 233, C - 256 (DCW numbers)

Est. remaining pledged: O - 208, C - 200 (Obama spreadsheet)
Split of remaining SDs: O - 152, C - 153

Total: O - 2084, C - 1945

As you can see, if Obama and Clinton split the remaining superdelegates as your chart trend shows, Obama wins easily. Because Clinton is behind, she has to do much better than that. In fact, to get to 2024, she'd have to have them go 232-73 towards her.

But what about MI and FL, you ask? If the above scenario comes to past and Obama ends up with 2084 delegates, MI and FL will be seated in a way that doesn't change the outcome. The most likely scenario is that they'll be docked 1/2 of their delegates (the original penalty specified in the DNC rules) and the uncommitted delegates from MI will be allocated based on the selections made last week in MI.

I understand you loyalties. I understand your desire to be seen as a real team member. But sadly, your begining to appear more a repiglican spinmeister than a progressive who introduced us to that wonderful work called "Crashing the gate". Are you so blinded by your argument that you don't see the repiglicant twisting logicless nature of it?

The comments on Michigan are a perfect microcosm of the lack of integrity that has characterized the Clinton campaign...a channeling of Machiavelli and Quixote.

She signed an agreement not to enter the Michigan primary, along with all other candidates. The party made the rules clear. Michigan broke the rules. Clinton violated her own contract. To now even suggest counting the votes is either sheer stupidity or, more likely, a case of twisting the truth to achieve personal gain.

She is a liar (Bosnia..."I misspoke" ---people misspeak and commit perjury!)
The campaign is filled with totally amoral Machiavellian politics or should we call it Rovian politics.

And the election is lost, at least through any legitimate means,
So they are tilting windmills.

Unfortunately the windmill is also the Democratic party.

If she wins through arm twisting superdelegates millions of young voters and African Americans will not vote democratic in the fall and Obama will just wait for 2012.

She cannot win. Period.

And Jerome, if you really believe what you wrote, you're delusional.

MP

Jerome continues to use "cooked" numbers. He continues to use "tainted" numbers from Florida and Michigan. They are discredited because all the major candidates pledged not to campaign or sanction the results at the beginning of the contest. Yes that includes HILLARY. Changing your mind when your losing is a sign of poor character. I am disappointed that Jerome continues to use these numbers with no qualifiers.  

Again hiding or minimizing important facts are usually an indicator that your argument is weak and unsupportable

swarty said:

"Caucuses are unfair!!!  They're sooo undemocratic!  

Your candidate lost because they didn't do their homework.  All that money and they didn't bother to organize properly. It really must bum you guys out how she screwed up so badly that you have to transfer your vitriol on the other democrat. She and her buddy Penn were too busy reading polls to get the job done.  Blame yourselves."

I work three jobs to make ends meet.  I am a rabid hillary supporter and I could not have gone to a caucus (thank goodness my state doesn't have 'em).  do you understand that not everybody has a white collar job they can skip out on and hours to spare?  not everybody is rich and not everybody can cut class?  not everyone is comfortable facing down a crowd and not casting their vote in the privacy of a voting booth?  have you ever thought about why people hold the secret ballot sacred?  have you thought about women who wanted to vote for Hillary but couldn't because of their husbands.  please do not imagine everyone has your economic circumstances and social situation.

I don't want children or rich people choosing my Democratic nominee.

Imagine you are a party activist or a leader in a state that traditionally holds caucuses.  2008 comes along and your caucuses have huge, huge turnouts. You feel good that you've helped build excitement and party membership. You know that your party followed the rules set by the DNC.

Next you hear that your delegates don't matter because now what matters is the popular vote.  When some argue for the popular vote, they don't include your state's votes at all.  Others approximate them.  But in every case, the amount your state counts has been reduced.  

If only you had known in advance that the popular vote was what was important -- then you would have tried to get the state government to fund a primary.  But your state followed the rules which mandates that delegates pick the nominees.

Oh, and the states that didn't follow the rules, in which candidates couldn't freely campaign, with one that didn't even have a number of major candidates on the ballot -- they should count?

This is the situation this diary calls for.

"The real popular vote"= the popular vote when the states in which Hillary Clinton cheated get taken into account.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTY_bp1dT A4

Just so I understand this argument, let me try and sketch it out.  Clinton has a legitimate claim to the nomination if we accept the following:

1.  The popular vote should be the deciding metric, even though her own staff consistently referred to this as a delegate race earlier in the campaign and the party's rules don't mention the popular vote at all, such that it isn't what any of the candidates focused on in creating strategies'

2.  Florida and Michigan's votes should be included in that total, even though neither candidate campaigned in either state and the DNC -- as well as Hillary Clinton -- said that their primary's "wouldn't count."

3.  AND, Michigan's votes should count even though Hillary was the only candidate on the ballot and Obama therefore got 0 votes out of the state.  Why?  Because it was "Obama's fault" that he -- and all the candidates other than Clinton -- took there names off the ballot.  How that has anything to do with counting the "will of the people," given that more than 4 in 10 voteres thought uncommitted was better than Hillary, I'm not sure, but I guess it does.  

Is that about it, because I would just like to finally lock down precisely what the goal posts now are.  It's really hard to do, since the Clinton campaign keeps changing the metrics that matter.    

of course it's not true that all the candidates except Hillary took their names off.  

"Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware - joined by John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, and Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio - declared yesterday that they would not be candidates in the state's primary. Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Chris Dodd of Connecticut - who, like all of the Democratic candidates, have pledged not to actively campaign in the state - chose to remain on the ballot."

"The decisions serve political purposes for many of the candidates. Clinton, who has been well ahead in the polls in Michigan, may end up with a strong showing that gives momentum to her campaign, even if the DNC follows through on its threat to refuse to seat convention delegates.

The other candidates, meanwhile, can avoid the potential embarrassment of a poor showing in Michigan, while appeasing officials from New Hampshire and Iowa who are angry about Michigan's move to mid-January."

This diary has a very Stalinist/1984 flavor to it.  Declaring things to be facts when they are not does not make them true.  It didnt make them true in Stalinst Russia when they were told the economy was booming in the latest five year plan, and it didnt make in true in the Jim Crow South, when politicians there said African Americans really loved the way things were.  

The facts are:

Obama leads in the vote in contested primaries by 500,000 votes.  If the Clinton campaign is really concerned with electibility (as they keep saying) then using this metric Florida and Michigan should not count.  No one was allowed to campaign and only on person had there name on the ballot.  Therefore these contests are worthless in deciding who is more electible, so by Clinton's own metric should not be counted.

Obama leads in pledged delegates by 150+.  Now the Clinton campaign has said that Hillary will be ready on day one as CIC.  Then there should be no complaining about the caucuses as being unfair.  By their nature they are a test of the campaign's organization.  The fact that she did so horifically in them show deficiences in the campaign rather than the process.  A political machine should have done much better.

Consider seriously what you want the party to do.  You wish to have the party deny the nomination to the first African American candidate,someone with the most primary votes and elected delegates, mainly on the grounds of the nebulous claims on "electibility".  Well if Hillary is more electible, the question becomes, why is she losing.

More importantly, how is this going to appear different than denying an African American student admission to a college if he has completed all the requirements because some white school official decided that he really wouldn't do well when he actually started classes.

You may think these are two different situation, but it will still look that same to a lot of people come the GE.  And in more ways than you would like to admit it is the same.  I am hoping the Democratic Party is better than this.  

Another example of intellectual dishonesty here is that it doesn't mention the role of add-on superdelegates. Clinton HAS gotten some of those lately because she won those states. But since Obama won more states he'll be getting more of them.

If you exclude add-ons, Clinton has lost superdelegates overall since Super Tuesday while Obama had gained quite a lot.  

And the graph shown is updated once a week and is no longer current.

more on add-ons: http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/03/ add-on-superdelegate-selection-schedule. html

can't even cite to polls without shilling for Obama and engaging in propaganda.

Look at his most recent front page opus.  He separately lists a number of polls regarding Indiana and North Carolina.

So, does he cite them in alphabetical order?  No.

Does he cite them randomly?  No.

Does he cite them in order of the most reliable?  No.

Does he only cite to reputable polls?  No.  

He cites them in Indiana in the order that shows the Obama wins on top, and Clinton wins at the bottom, and then rearranges them for North Carolina to show the Obama wins on top, and the Clinton wins at the bottom, presumably "in last place" in terms of accuracy or something.  

And when he changes from Indiana to North Carolina, he switches both the order and source of the polls.  

For example, when it comes to Indiana, the first poll cited is Downs Center, which I have never heard of, but which has Obama winning 50/45.  He then cites Bloomberg, which has Obama up 40/35.  He then cites SUSA (statistically proven the most reliable in 2008 but listed third by Markos) showing a BLOWOUT for Clinton, and then ARG and R2K, showing wins for Clinton as well, at the bottom of the list.

So, if he were not engaging in Obama propaganda, one would expect his North Carolina list to look the same as the Indiana list.  But wait.  Downs Center, which was #1 in his Indiana list because it showed the biggest Obama victory, is not even mentioned.  No, the first on the list is SUSA, which he had 3rd on his Indiana list.  Why?  Because in North Carolina, SUSA has Obama beating Clinton, while in Indiana SUSA had Clinton beating Obama.  Second on his list in North Carolina was PPP, which he did not even mention in Indiana, but which conveniently has an absolute blowout for Obama in North Carolina.  

People tend to look at his list, and come away thinking Obama is beating Clinton in the most important polls, while Clinton won a few untrustworthy and unimportant polls.  

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/24/ 9836/57946/619/501789

And here's the list of the most reliable polls, with SUSA at #1, and with Downs Center, which tops Markos' list because Obama won, not even on the list of the 14 most reliable polls, showing that the only possible explanation for Markos' choice and arrangement of polls was to show Obama wins at the top, and Clinton wins at the bottom, i.e. "Clinton is last and certainly also least".

http://www.surveyusa.com/index.php/2008/ 02/06/2008-pollster-report-card-through- super-tuesday-active-pollsters-only/

I refuse to believe that even the poster of the diary believes this. Certainly it is not going to convince anyone who takes half a moment to think about it. Presumably the super-delegates, who are the only plausible audience, will take more than half a moment to think about it.

The only likely outcome is to make a prominent progressive blogger look completely foolish and/or cynically manipulative. This doesn't help any of us.

Obama should not get any popular votes from Michigan because, as you rightly point  out, he voluntarily removed his name from the ballot to pander to people in some other state.  Clinton was smarter and more realistic about Michigan.

He has no credibility left after the bogus "Hillary doctored the ad to make him look blacker" fiasco. Why people still look to him for guidance or even as a reference point is beyond me.

Markos was a Republican and for all intents and purposes still is a Republican -- he shares their ultimate goal of discrediting our lifetime's only really successful Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and by extension his wife.

He knows Hillary lost ground in PA when it comes to catching up in this contest, and with making an electability argument with the SD's.  That's really the only reason for posting something as dishonest as this.  

As Chris Bowers pointed out, if the intent is to figure out the will of the voters you have to try to include totals from caucus states and Obama voters in MI. Otherwise, you end up doing what Jerome is doing here; coming up with some bullshit metric by which his favored candidate is ahead (temporarily).

Please, keep pushing the "Hillary is ahead in the popular vote" bullshit.  I'm sure the SD's love it when people talk to them like they are morons.

Obama supporters get an inkling of how close this contest actually is and they scream like infants who have had a toy taken away. Ad hominem attacks on our host appear to be their usual response, demonstrating once again how difficult it is to have a real discussion. There are a number of sharp Obama supporters here, but it is hard to hear them.

Obama knew he would be in real danger with superdelegates after PA, that is why his campaign went into overdrive trying to push Clinton out before the primary and why he spent such massive amounts of money in the state. He failed, again. Clinton is keeping this race close and she has a solid chance of building an advantage in KY, WV and PR.

She has a solid, progressive platform that appeals to working people. Obama has yet to articulate his plans in a way that makes sense to most Democrats.

This reminds me of a never-ending game of rock-paper-scissors.

It starts at best 2 outta 3, then it's 3 outta 5, then best 4 outta 7, and so on and so on.

Wow... so basically what Jerome is trying to say is that anyone who bothers to play by the rules is a chump... Congratulations, you've officially jumped the shark.

Noone is going to hand Hillary an unearned win because she won a couple contests where the candidates weren't allowed to compaign, one of which where her two major competitors weren't even on the ballot, and based on criteria that ignores all the caucus states.

Keep in mind that many of the SD's that would need to swing this thing are from those caucus states. And none of them are going to be convinced by a carefully worded disinformation campaign.

It's just flatly impossible. Elections have winners and losers and she has lost this one. She's going to lose based on pledged delegates, total delegates, and any honest accounting of popular vote.

Welcome to MySS, where it's always Silly Season in politics.

You can argue about whether Obama was scoring points or whatever, but the basic fact remains: counting Clinton's votes in MI and giving Obama none is not reflective of the will of the people.  It's a meaningless number chosen simply because it's the single metric by which Clinton is leading.

If you want to be honest, give Obama the uncommitteds, or 95% of the uncommitteds to reflect that some people are still holding out for Kucinich.

Gore won the popular cote.. guess who became president...

Oh, BTW, the Michigan delegates will be seated... Obama currently has 25 of them... I don't know the total out of Michigan, but I think that's about 40% of them... you should use that number to calculate the estimated popular vote there if you are even trying to be intellectually honest.

It's rather pointless... by the end of the race, barring some unforseen circumstance, Obama should have a lead in the popular vote even by your metric... just forecasting the states ahead....

W00t! Finally Jerome and Markos go at it!