Clinton's lead from 34.5 million voters in primaries, Obama's lead from 1.1 mil. voters in caucuses

Hot off the press and only available at TalkLeft: Peniel Cronin's Caucus v. Primary report with numbers updated to today, showing how the caucuses, compared to primaries, have unfairly disenfranchised voters. (Background and original report here.)


Some Findings:

35.6 million people have voted
The 37 primary states account for 97% of the vote.
The 13 caucus states account for 3% of the vote.
Bottom line: Clinton’s lead is from 34.5 million voters (97%) in Primaries. Obama’s lead is from 1.1 million voters (3%) in caucuses.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/6/2/12307/61275

The report itself:



http://www.talkleft.com/media/2008caucusreport.pdf

"Hmmm...if I add all Clinton's and Obama's votes together, I can ascribe that number to Clinton!'

"Clinton's lead is from 34.5 million voters (97%)" in Primaries." I didn't know she had a lead....:shrug:

Denver! Denver! Denver!

Too bad we don't keep score that way.

Cannot be denied.

And it begs the question: if he can't get a majority of votes among Dems, how can he win in the GE. He needs to get rid of the smugness, and start unifying, if such a thing can still be done.

I just don't see it happening. And I'll tell you this: if 17 million DEMOCRATS are left smarting from an Obama victory, imagine how Republicans will feel. It won't be pretty and it definitely won't be unifying. And Republicans are good at laying low and plotting revenge.

he is the one who won legitimately. What about his voters?

So perhaps they should lose the attitude.

We're smarting not because of our very narrow loss, but rather by the betrayal of so many Obama followers who cunningly used the internet to prove that the Clintons are neo-cons, responsible for NAFTA, the Iraq War, outsourcing, the death of Affirmative Action, Welfare Reform, etc., while Obama himself (playing 'good cop') took the high road by personally avoiding any negative comments. And ironically, Obama's shown no intention or desire to roll back or reinstate these programs his minions blame on the Clintons. He has the Clinton supporters pissed at him now; if he somehow manages to waltz into the presidency, the leftists among his base will be pissed at him when they discover he does not support the programs they just assumed he would.

The brushing off the shoulder move proved THAT. Not to mention if you look at his past history in campaigns, he is actually a pretty manipulative campaigner. But you can call it the high road if you want.

His tactics have been effective, but I don't know how well they'll work in a national campaign where he's alienated the Clinton supporters. He needs to broaden his base.

The Clinton campaign complaining about Obama's dirty tricks is the clearest case of the pot calling the kettle black I've ever heard of. If you think the Clinton campaign has been as pure as the driven snow this campaign, I have a bridge to sell you.

Not dirty tricks, just using his online apparatchiks to 'prove' that the Clintons were responsible for everything bad that happened during the last 15 years or so. Not that he's ever shown (or will ever show) even the slightest inclination of reversing these programs or rollbacks.

Not to mention his many digs at the Clinton administration (no ideas, didn't accomplish anything, etc.) The Clinton administration was not perfect. But it's a hell of a lot better than what would have happened if Poppy had been re-elected and he was fighting against a nasty, truly nasty Republican congress most of the time.

If Hillary really "was" the strongest candidate, they'd be flocking to her. They're not. The issue is Obama is playing nice so as to not antagonize the supporters. But her 'case' holds no water, as the Supes' voting pattern indicates.

Cannot be denied.

That she went from presumptive president to dog-eared, in debt joke of an also ran in the space of six months. Now please, given this sort of epic failure on her part, explain to me how she's the "strongest candidate". And please, no Hillary-math, I prefer to deal in the reality based world.

Cannot be denied.

And any lead Hill has is disputed because of Michigan and Florida. In Michigan Obama didn't have his name on ballot and in FL there was no campaign.

"Bottom line: Clinton’s lead is from 34.5 million voters"

The mere fact that anyone would be so breathtakingly dishonest and manipulative as to phrase it in that manner tells us everything we need to know now doesn't it. That was stated for all the world as if Clinton got 34.5 million votes, and kind of just ignores that about half THOSE voters... VOTED OBAMA.

Seriously? Do you look at yourself in the mirror after spreading crap like this and think "boy, I did good work today"?

When can we shift our focus to beating McSame?!

Obama is the Hindenburg of this election -- lofty and elegant as he approaches the mooring mast, only to spectacularly crash and burn.

Hillary hate is going to cost the Democrats the White House in 2008.

Which will GIVE her the White House in 2008, when everyone has forgotten Obama's name.

Many of us will be working very hard to elect Obama and are faithfully optimistic that he will totally kick ass this fall. Very soon, DU will take up the cause as our number 1 priority.

Your right to be a chicken little, but why post it here?

If so, doubt it.

It's over, my friend, it's over.

:shrug:

The candidates have to follow the rules of EACH state's elections..They don't get to choose how the state runs things..

It just is what it is..

Obama's team understood the rules and played by them
Clinton's team failed to understand the rules, or disregarded them and then set out to discredit the rules or change them after the fact..

Winners never cheat and cheaters never win..

not a popular vote.

Our system is a representational democracy, not a direct democracy. It's the states that elect presidential candidates at both the primary and general election levels. The purpose of holding popular elections is to give the populus "a voice" in elections, not to directly elect.

At the primary election, states political parties are each allocated a certain number of delegates who will represent the state at the party's National Convention. It's up to the state parties how those delegates get selected. Some states chose to do it by means of a popular election, other states choose to do it by means of a caucus. Some states choose to use a winner-take-all system and others choose a proportional system. Whichever methods a state chooses, their delegates all carry equal weight. The states delegates then go to the National Convention and cast their votes for the candidate who they were elected to represent.

At the general election level, states have been allocated a certain number of electors. Each state hold a populara election for the voters of the state to express their preference of candidate. These are all winner-take-all elections, so whichever candidate obtains a majority of the votes in the state will all of the statels electoral votes. In December, the electors all gather in Washington DC when the Electoral College is convened and they cast their votes for the state's choice of president. That's when the president is actually elected.

But it's happened before and may again, that whichever candidate won the most electoral votes did not win the popular vote.

But the point is, it's the STATES representatives (delegates or electors) who elect presidential candidates, not the popular vote.

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That's Hugh.

That is like saying Clinton wins with 34.5 million people and Obama with 1.1. But of those 34.5 million people almost exactly half have voted for Obama.

glad to know once again, only clinton's vote count
:rofl:

Note that no matter how you skew the numbers, we are talking about a near-tie in the popular vote.

But check this out:



Who determines what % of Michigan's "uncommitted" Obama "would" get since he didn't even run (by agreement with Clinton, which she then broke)?!

In plain English, Clinton is also behind on the popular vote in the 35 legitimate primary contests, which is reflected in her slight disadvantage in delegates.

The math can only be skewed to create a small Clinton advantage by counting the two illegitimate contests, in which she betrayed the agreement with the other candidates and ran unopposed, and by manipulating those numbers so as to get the desired pro-Clinton result.

By their nature caucuses have small turnout- that's why we work with delegates, not votes. The Clintonistas would have us throw the 13 caucus states out of the union, because the favor Obama.

outside of a bowling alley, where does she hold any "lead"?

garbage that doesn't make sense, will you? Are you just dense? Or what?

what will they have left in their lives when hillary is gone?

not that I give a rat's ass.

the strongest candidate, they would be paying attention to this sort of thing. They would also be paying attention to the fact that since March 4, Hillary has won the majority of votes - despite being massively outspent. Hillary is consistantly doing better in head to head matchups with McCain than Obama is. Obama gamed the system - all praise Obama!

But look at it another way - the Democratic leadership hasn't been willing to stand up to the Republican bullies, why should we assume they're willing to stand up to the Obama bullies?

"Show your work."

.

:eyes:

What a crock!

What happens when Clinton endorses Obama?

Will Jeralynn 'fall in line,' or claim that Obama stole the nomination?

What about MyDD?

Taylor Marsh, of course, will campaign for McCain. No big loss.

Should be interesting to see which direction these sites are going to go.

- as

that she will vote for Obama.

And who really gives a shit what the lead singer of REO Speedwagon thinks?