Further evidence if you twist numbers like a mobius strip you can come up with anything.
Apparently, if you only count votes up to Super Tuesday, discount every state that had a caucus, only go by the exit polling, and eliminate any voters who weren’t registered Democrats, then Hillary Clinton*actually has the popular vote lead. In other news, based on exit polling and early voting from 2004 President Kerry will be running for reelection.
I’m fine with the superdelegates reflecting the will of the voters in the Democratic Primary — whoever they may choose in the coming weeks. I am, however, more than a little sick of the meme that Democrats in certain states don’t matter. Clinton’s disastrous decision to ignore her party’s representation in half the country is not the fault of committed Democrats in Georgia or South Carolina, nor can one say a person moved to vote for either candidate should have their vote discounted because they didn’t register for the right party beforehand.
CORRECTION: In the original draft, I only referred to Hillary Clinton by her first name. To preempt the inevitable sexism accusations, I’ve added the Clinton surname above.
COMPLETELY UNRELATED UPDATE: After posting, I stumbled across Kristol’s latest opus in the NYT. It closes with the funniest line I’ve read in days:
To govern is to choose, a Democrat of an earlier generation, John F. Kennedy, famously remarked. Is this generation of Democrats capable of governing?
This is no longer a question when it comes to Republicans. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt what they are capable of.
Jon H
Texas may be the next state Clinton decides “doesn’t count”.
Tom in Texas
Obama announced he’s coming to Houston’s 20,000 seat Toyota Center on Tuesday. I got my invitation Saturday night and forwarded it to several family members. They tried to register midday Sunday, but it was already sold out.
And Texas will DEFINITELY not count (unless Hillary wins it). Not only do we hold a caucus, we also have a few million Republicans here, so we are irrelevant no doubt.
Jon H
I find it amazing that Clinton declared Texas a ‘firewall’ without knowing the details of the Texas system.
Wilfred
Cosmic irony alert:
DrDave
Hillary Clinton’s inability to foresee a primary process where she might face a serious challenge–i.e. her lack of contingency planning–raises serious questions about both her judgment and her executive ability.
Conservatively Liberal
I was reading about the Texas system at Kos, and that the Clinton team basically figured out last week that things were not what they seemed. I believe that story may be true. To this outsider, it looked like Hillary and her crew put all of their eggs in one basket (called Super Tuesday) and thought they had it in the bag. Obama and his crew had a plan, unlike the Clinton crew, and he fought her to a draw when the conventional wisdom was that Hillary had it in the bag.
Tom, I don’t know what you are complaining about. Texas counts! Ok, two-thirds of Texas counts since one-third of Texas is by caucus. So at least most of Texas counts! Well, unless Hillary wins the caucus vote too. Then all of Texas counts! But if Hillary does not win the most delegates in the primary or caucus but wins the popular vote, then Texas might still count but we would have to wait for the Clinton campaign narrative (spin) to find out. But all bets are off if Obama wins the popular vote, the primary delegate count and the caucus. At this point, you may have a valid complaint!
Why Texas is a must-win state and is called a part of her firewall is beyond me. Because Hillary likes the big ones, and the small ones are just not satisfying enough for her? Hmmm, sounds like a personal problem. ;)
Obama and his crew have a ground game that has been on top of things since day one, and it shows. He is running a top notch operation, and he is doing the impossible (to me, anyway) by bringing all kinds of people in to the system and giving them something to hope for. In one regard, I see the Obama ‘phenomena’ as a response to the mess our country is in. People are desperate for change, they have had enough of being abused by the pols on both sides. Obama is not seen as the enemy by Republican voters who are genuine in their support, crossing over and voting for him. He is not a positive with a negative that is slightly smaller than his positive, he is all positive.
I sure hope Obama delivers, yet I also hope people do not set their expectations too high. He still has to work within the system we do not like all that much, and I expect that a lot of people are going to be doing everything they can to frustrate him.
I think he can deliver, because he will know that we delivered for him when we both needed it. If he wins the GE, I believe that he will have a mandate behind him that just might help him get stuff done.
On another topic, check out the ‘cult’ story at Kos. It is a riot!
Raka
I also feel uncomfortable refering to the candidates as “Obama”, “McCain”, and “Hillary”; but she and her campaign encourage it. Ignoring her own preference strikes me as more disrespectful than skipping the surname.
Scotty
If we go along those lines of thinking, I’m afraid not. That would be impossible being that Al Gore would be finishing up his 8th year of the presidency. Although the fact that Man-Bear-Pig was not captured will mean it is up to historians in the future to decide whether or not his administration was successful.
TheFountainHead
Is it March 4th yet?
jake
This “It doesn’t count” shit reminds me of that one annoying little twerp in every neighborhood and school yard. You tag him out “No fair! I wasn’t ready, it doesn’t count!” You find him while playing hide and seek. “You counted too fast! No fair!” He strikes out or loses the race or misses the goal or otherwise F.A.I.L.S. but “It doesn’t count!”
Finally it’s “How come no one wantsta play with meeee?”
It also reminds me of Republicans. Camp Clinton needs to shut up. I was going to say suck it up but …
Early on some people accused her of riding on her husband’s name. I suppose she could have used to her birth name but that would have sent the bobbleheads into a frenzy of speculation about her married life.
Pug
Whew. That Taylor Marsh has really gone off the deep end, hasn’t she?
Maybe the Clinton campaign would like to change the way all the votes are counted, not just Michigan and Florida.
Blue Jean
Actually, she used to use Rodham instead of Clinton, but after Bill lost his reelection as Gov, she switched to Clinton, because pols don’t like a woman to be too independent. Kinda like now.
I’m in Kansas myself. In my caucaus Obama won nine delegates to Hillary’s two, but never in my wildest dreams do I think Kansas will go blue. I’ll vote for him in the GE if he’s the nominee, but Kansas is so red that one might as well vote for Micky Mouse for President as the Democratic candidate.
The fact is, Obama’s victories mostly come from states that are pure red, and won’t go blue in the GE, thus won’t count for the Democratic column. If vote totals mattered more than the EC, then Al Gore would be finishing his second term.
Rudi
On the Kristol piece, conservative Dan Larison rips apart the Billy Kristol BS in this piece: lest-we-forget
The final paragraph is spot on:
For those unfamilar with Larison, he’s a younger version of Sullivan without the tea baggage.
The Grand Panjandrum
True. Are you implying the Blue States Clinton won, will not go Blue in the Fall if Obama is the candidate? I sincerely doubt MA, NY, CA would go Red in the Fall. If you look at the turnout for the primaries and caucuses it appears the Democrats are motivated and the Republicans will have to play major defense in a few states they normally would not have to worry about. What this looks like is that Deans 50 state strategy, coupled with Democratic enthusiasm, could turn this election election quite nicely for the Blue team.
The ground game and GOTV machine Obama has put together so far is impressive. Clinton is just now figuring out how effective his campaign has been at organizing.
I highly recommend this article as a way to understand a portion of the Obama campaign’s effectiveness. MUP indeed. A MUP with an organization that has, thus far, played to a slight advantage the vaunted Clinton machine. The Obama campaign is a game changer, not solely because of the candidates great rhetorical style and oratory skills. He’s kicking ass because he has a great thematic campaign, and a ground game that organizes large events, gets people to the polls, and is raising a million dollars a day, 90% of which comes from the internet. Win or lose, the Obama campaign is now a case study for the integration of technology and grassroots activism.
And, as I wrote before, here is my new motto:
Rarely Posts
Is it me, or is making an issue that isn’t sexist, well, sexist? Hillary campaigns using only her first name. Why exactly are you pretending she’d be offended by you calling her Hillary?
On another topic, is there a way to find the last post read on a thread quickly? Even if I leave the page open and hit refresh I get sent to another part of the thread.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Conservatively Liberal: Thanks for the link to the dKos diary. It was a hoot!
O-men. Now that’s funny.
Zifnab
Wasn’t the race between Whitey McGee and The Scary Black Man from the DLC down to a nail bitter? I know it was about the only swing Senate race we didn’t win in ’06, but I thought it was still fairly close.
Of course, its worth noting that Kansas doesn’t count so you really would be better off staying home.
Zifnab
Every time I turn on the Chris Matthews Aqua Velva Sniff-off Show, I always hear it pronounced as Hitlery. Maybe people are just offended because John didn’t spell her name right?
Dennis - SGMM
Just put your cursor at the spot to which you want to return and double click before you refresh. You’ll come right back to the same place after the page refreshes. Works if Firefox and IE.
Rarely Posts
Perfect. Thanks
Don
Couldn’t disagree more. Personally I like the open primaries, being an independent, so I get to vote for the person I most want to win out of all the parties. But I see no reason the parties shouldn’t be free to run their inner workings however they see fit.
The Repubs in Iowa handle their caucus votes differently than the Dems do. Who’s right and who’s wrong? I’d say neither – the parties are their own beast and if anything I think it’s unfortunate that we involve the government proper in their workings by running their primary election vote collection.
In a fair world the system would either be completely open to any party, new or old, or we’d bill the parties for providing their infrastructure. The fact that we now expend a significant amount of public funds to enable their candidate selection while shutting other options out in part or full is grating.
The Other Steve
I’m concerned about the Clinton supporters. They’ve become utterly deranged. You read that stuff, and if you were to swap out Clinton with Bush, it sounds about the same as Hugh Hewitt.
When did these people just decide it was a good idea to throw reason and logic to the wind, and go off the deep end like lemmings?
ThymeZone
Watched an Obama speech and a Clinton speech from Wisconsin yesterday.
let me sum up: Obama looks and sounds like a winner. Clinton looks and sounds like a loser.
It’s quite shocking, really.
And until you have heard and seen Hillary doing her “Yes we will” chant, you haven’t seen how bad she can look. It’s worse than the Dean Scream. Honestly, embarrassing.
I think this contest is just about over.
Conservatively Liberal
@TGP: O-men indeed! That diary at Kos is a riot to read! I have not laughed this good in a long time (reading all of the political stuff I have). If you want to defuse something, they have the right idea over there. Have fun with it, and screw what everyone else thinks.
Damn good snark though, damn good. :)
O-men!
The Other Steve
Details on the Cult of Obama
Be Hopeful to one another!
ThymeZone
Works in Vista/Opera, too.
John S.
Jesus, and I called paul lukasiak a hack the other day for his “automatic delegates” BS.
I had no idea he was that hacktacular (the post over at Taylor Marsh is by him).
John S.
Quite.
Between
BushClinton Derangement Syndrome,ClintonObama did it too! and using right-wing attacks against Obama (literally) not to mention the endless spinning, it has gotten pretty creepy.I guess it’s the mindset of people who really like monarchies. Bushies flocked to coronate their boy king, and now Clintonites flock to coronate the virgin queen Hillary. G-d help anyone that tries to stand in their way.
mac
It’s not sexist if she uses the moniker in her own campaign.
Hillary’s campaign calls her ‘Hillary’ on the political signs. Barack Obama’s sign’s say ‘Barack Obama’, or ‘Obama’. Hillary Clinton’s signs say ‘Hillary’.
dslak
Shorter p.lukasiak: How can we change the rules so that Hillary will win?
John S.
Apparently the GOP has realized that Hillary and her fans are running a campaign just like they would.
Since they have spent the last year preparing to stop the coronation of the virgin queen, the prospect of facing Obama caught them entirely off guard. So rather than come up with their own ways to attack Obama, they just cribbed the Hillary Handbook.
Thanks for getting Obama ready for the election, Hillary.
ThymeZone
He’s just saving Face.
Andrew
I periodically use “Hillary” instead of “Clinton.”
Unpack that sexism, bitches!
John S.
Hillary is now a concern troll:
Z
You know, this whole democratic-votes-in-red-states shouldn’t really count thing is yet another thing that REALLY annoys me about Hillary supporters. The primary is the time that ALL democratic votes get to count; when ALL democratic voters get to choose a candidate that represents ALL of them, regardless of the state they live in. For goodness sake, you want a president who represents the ENTIRE country, not a narrow collection of blue state democrats.
Note to Hillary supporters: I fully intend to vote for Hillary in the GE if she wins, but the crap you people keep shoveling is making that harder and harder for me to do.
Cyrus
Argharghargh. I think I’ve seen this discussion an average of twice a week since 2006. To summarize: unlike any other candidate, calling her by her last name would be confusing because in many cases it could just as easily refer to her husband. And more importantly, for whatever reason, her first name is often used in her own campaign literature.
Conclusion: as long as it’s not a formal usage like a situation where for another candidate you’d say “Sen. Obama” or “Vermont Gov. Howard Dean,” and as long as you use her actual name rather than “Hitlery” or something stupid, calling Hillary Clinton by her first name is perfectly legitimate.
(In other words, I agree with Raka, jake, Rarely Posts, and mac.)
vrk
Not to mention the fact that I heard lots and lots of the talking heads refer to Guiliani as Rudy
zzyzx
I had a problem with the whole Hillary/Clinton name thing for a while, but it’s pretty obvious these days that Clinton means her and not her husband, so I’m using that.
tBone
If those people were real Democrats, they’d move to a state where their vote for Hillary could be properly counted. Like, say, Texas. Or Ohio.
tas
I had a problem with Paul’s numbers, too — I thought it was lying. So I found the actual numbers and found out he was lying, and — surprise surprise — Obama is leading Hillary in the vote count. That’s true even when Michigan, a state where Obama received zero vottes because he wasn’t on the ballot, is taken into account.
Paul dropped my blog and complained about the caucuses some more. It looks like he has a problem with those pesky little facts.
Pb
Hey now, be nice, people. If you only count the votes for Hillary, she’s got a huge lead!
P.S. For her, those are the only votes that count. QED.
Pb
tas,
And I think those caucus numbers are low, you’d really have to adjust them for the (uncounted) popular vote tally. See also, this analysis.
Conservatively Liberal
Now it all makes sense! She said the super delegates would declare her the winner at the convention, but she forgot to mention that only her delegates are from the states that matter. That is why she mentioned that fact later, so we would not put 2+7 together and come up with 27 like she did! Crafty lady!
Wow, she is on top of things! ;)
zftcg
I also love how New Jersey has been transformed into a “swing state” and California into “a competitive/must-win state”. What does that even mean? Lukasiak clearly new that calling CA a swing state was a bridge too far, even for a hack like him, so he invented the term “competitive/must-win” to obscure the fact that, even if we accept the (dubious) proposition that performance in a primary accurately predicts GE performance, California is about as likely to be competitive as is Idaho.
Personally, I would have gone with “swing-state related program activities”.
A Different JC
To echo what people have been saying about the “Hillary” vs. “Hillary Clinton” thing:
1. On her freakin’ website (hillaryclinton.com), on bumper stickers, on buttons and lawn signs, it says “Hillary” for President. No “Clinton.” So her supporters have no basis to complain (won’t stop ’em, yeah, but it’s hypocrisy)
2. Rudy Giuliani also went by his first name (see joinrudy2008.com) on the same paraphernalia. So it’s not a sexist thing to call someone by their first name. Rudy is not a woman, despite his frequent cross-dressing.
3. Even though we called her “Hillary” in order to differentiate her from her more famous husband, I think, as zzyzx suggests, she’s been in the limelight for a long enough time that people have now switched ‘clinton’ denotations. E.g. when I say “Clinton” my family knows I’m talking about her (I use “Bill” now for #42).
4. About the Red State don’t count concept. While it is crazy to say that Obama would lose NY or CA in November, I wouldn’t be surprised if some more purpley states (like NJ?) would be lost by Hillary vs. McCain. McCain is Hillary kryptonite.
But the whole “don’t count” stuff is just from Hillary’s team’s desperation. They’re stuck, really, because the whole campaign was dependent on the idea that she was inevitable, electable, and a fighter. Yet, day after day of losing to someone *they describe as a lightweight,* her ‘brand’ is shown to be false. And, note, to all those who feel sorry for her – it was a false story from the beginning. She was a poor candidate, a John Kerry with teeth. Big deal. The reason why Kerry lost was not because he didn’t stop the swift-boats; he lost because he sucked.
Blue Jean
I have no problem with her being called Hillary, because that’s what she wants to be called. Why do you seem to think this is a problem for her supporters?
This idiosynchratic habit of capitalizing things that Don’t Have To Be Capitalized, on the other hand, is majorly annoying. ;-)
Yeah, those states will go blue in the fall, regardless of who’s on top of the ticket. But Kansas won’t be one of them, therefore my vote for President won’t count. However, I do happen to have a Dem representative, so my vote will count for him.
Believe me, if I’d known about the traffic jams, the blizzard, the freezing rain, the long lines, and the cars getting stuck in the mud, I might have. ;-)
But I guess that’s just us Hillary voters; we tough it out even though it’s hard and it’s no fun and our candidate might not win; we do it because it’s our job. And that’s why we will vote for Obama in the fall, though the glee over “taking down the uppity woman” around here is making it harder and harder to do so. If I really expected “the queen” to be chosen without a fight, I would have stayed home and kept warm.
But I did learn something interesting while I was there; a nice couple told me that they were Republicans, but they switched to Obama because of his support for “faith based initiatives”. I’m afraid that when they find out he’s supposed to be a Dem, and not just an empty vessel for the “HATE HILLARY” venom, they’re going to switch right back to McCain. And that’s going to be true for a lot of Republican supporters who are showing up in red state caucauses.
Z
Blue Jean,
Now, see, as a woman who has had to deal with REAL sexism, I am pretty sensitive to honest-to-God sexism. I am not seeing too much of it, here. There is the occasional nasty comment, but it is very rare and doesn’t come from the most gleeful among us.
The glee you are hearing relates to a) taking down a person engaging in sleazy campaign tactics and b) seeing the light at the end of the very dark tunnel of ideological and divisive baby-boomer rule. It is difficult to express just how much the younger folks are tired of the way their elders conduct business. I don’t just mean just twenty-somethings. Many, many of us are WELL into our 30’s–40’s and are soooo sick and tired of listening to endless tirades and lectures from both the left and right about the 60’s and the 70’s. Iraq is NOT Vietnam, for instance.
However, if you are going to see ALL opposition to Hillary, as based on her being an ‘uppity woman’ (your words, not mine), then I’m going say you have issues.
Blue Jean
Z,
Because everything a Clinton does is ipso facto sleazy, right? Nice to know the GOP notes are leading the Obama campaign.
?????? Last time I checked, Obama himself was a baby boomer. I hate hearing endlessly about the 50s’ and 60s’ too, but I’m afraid that however many benefits there may be to an Obama presidency, ending the ’60s battles isn’t one of them. Besides, if he does win the nomination, and he does win the Presidency (which I hope he does if Hillary doesn’t), the GOP isn’t just going to smile and do whatever he wants just because he’s not a Clinton, so let’s not kid ourselves.
Afraid I’ve been busy with this story which just happened near my hometown, but perhaps that isn’t REAL sexism in your book. As a woman, I myself have never been tossed out of a game because “women should not have authority over boys”, but that’s because I haven’t been a referee. Lucky me, I’ve just had to deal with obscene phone calls, threats, insults, attempted rape, beatings, sexual harrassment, and other things I won’t bore you with. Good thing I never had to deal with REAL sexism, eh?
Whereas those who see ALL opposition to Obama as “racist” or “stuck in the past” have no issues at all. Got it.
Blue Jean
$5^#@! This story.
BTW, I recall the same kind of glee when she was running her bid for Vice President, along with the same meme; she was too emotional, she was too cold, she was a warmonger, she wouldn’t release her financial records, her husband was a mafioso who had people killed, etc.
So nice to see those 24 year old memes are still getting lots of use.
(/snark)
Blue Jean
Yeah, I know it’s been 24 years since Geraldine Ferraro ran for VP, but some things never change.
p.lukasiak
geez, I didn’t even realize that John was talking about me, I thought it was just another Hillary bashing post so I ignored it.
I guess why I didn’t know it was about me was how it began… “Apparently, if you only count votes up to Super Tuesday…”
See, I included all the primaries right up through the Potomac Primaries in my data. I did discuss (and provide three separate totals related to) Super Tuesday, but only in the context of how the Obama campaign (and the media) suddenly became interested in total votes AFTER he took the lead in them.
As to “discounting” the caucus states, I did so for good reason (I’ve explained my methods elsewhere, below is a copy.) As for using exit polls…. do you have access to data that shows how Democrats voted that I don’t know about. Because if so, I’d be happy to use it. But keep in mind that all of Obama’s supporters are talking about how well he does among “Independents” using the results from the EXACT SAME POLL QUESTION that I used for my data about who Democrats supported — I mean, can we have a little consistency here?
below is my defense used elsewhere…
*******
1. As to tas’ accusation that I “fudged the numbers”, I would first note that my Obama popular vote lead is actually greater than that being used eleswhere — I’m saying 128,000, other sources say 85,000. That’s because I assigned all the “uncommitted” in Michigan voters to Obama. And because of a lack of exit polling data from DC, I assigned 100% of the DC vote to “Democrats” — even though the highest percentage anywhere else was 87%.
The reason that I did not include caucus state results are three-fold. First, there does not appear to be any exit polling data from caucus states other than Nevada and Iowa. (Obama got 32% of Dems in Iowa to Clinton’s 31%, in Nevada it was Clinton 51%, Obama 39%). The purpose of the study was to determine who Democrats supported– without exit polling data, that’s not possible.
Secondly, the numbers reported in caucus states don’t mean the same things — in some states (like Iowa, Nevada, and Washington state) the number reported are delegates elected to county/district caucuses, in other states (like Idaho and Minnesota) the number of participants was reported. You simply can’t compare the approximate 10,000 delegates that were reported by Nevada with the approximately 20,000 people who participated in Idaho’s caucuses.
Finally, I don’t think that caucus results reflect the same thing that primary result do in terms of voter sentiment. Rather, they are a reflection of intensity of support for a particular candidate, the amount of effort put into the caucus ‘ground game’ and the effectiveness of that ‘ground game’, and factors that affect the willingness of people to spend three hours in a caucus (e.g. do you go to the caucus on a Saturday, or go to your kid’s basketball game?)
The idea that I somehow “fudged’ the numbers is really offensive to me, because the numbers I did use were actually more favorable toward Obama than the methodology that tas suggests I should have used. Analysing data requires that you have a consistent set of relevant numbers to use — and that is what I did. My tables reflect totals where the data set is entirely consistent (excluding DC, Florida, and Michigan)…then I add in the DC numbers after assigning all the votes to Democrats and get a new total, then I add in Florida’s vote and get a new total, and then I add in Michigan, again ‘playing with’ the data to assign all uncommitted to Obama, and get another total. That’s called intellectual honesty.
Feel free to argue that the choice of Democrats in a Democratic nominee selection process should be ignored, and that “Independents” and “Republicans” should be making the decisions for the party.
(I would note, however, that when I looked at the “Independent” vs the “Moderate” vote after Super Tuesday, while Obama did much, much better among “independents’, Hillary did better among moderates. For every 100 “Indepedent” voters for Hillary, there were 150 ‘Independent’ voters for Obama, but for every 100 “Moderate” votes for Hillary, there were 89 “moderate” votes for Obama. At some point, I’ll probably finish that analysis, adding in the primaries from last week. And while, given the results of those elections, I’m sure that Obama’s ‘moderate’ numbers will go up, I doubt that the disparity between “Independents” and “Moderates” will change — and IMHO, “moderates” are a far more crucial demographic than “independents” when looking at who is the best candidate to win the battleground states.)
Tom in Texas
Yea you may want to take that up with all the states that let those darned Independents vote.