The Popular Vote

[robbersean]

After listening to Hillary Clinton's speech from Puerto Rico yesterday, I found it interesting that she claimed to have won the popular vote in the Democratic Primary thus far.

I checked online, and it appeared that Obama had won the popular vote, so I continued to look around to see where Hil-Rod's claim of popular vote victory had come from.

According to the Clinton campaign, if you count all of the votes cast in Florida and Michigan (whose primaries didn't count until the weekend due to rules violations) and don't count the caucus states, Hillary wins the popular vote.

Now, while I think it's a stretch for Hillary to claim Florida and Michigan as victories when Obama didn't campain in Florida, and when his name was not on the ballot in Florida, I was really taken aback by the idea of not counting caucus states.

I realize that this primary is just about over, but I was wondering what everyone thought of this. I guess basically, what do you think qualifies as the popular vote in this particular primary? Do caucus states not count towards the "popular vote" because individuals don't vote directly? Do you count votes from states where an individual candidate's name wasn't on the ballot?

I'm really not trying to be accusatory of the Clintonfolk on this one, I'm just curious what other people think of this.

[Chip]

I think if the caucus states had gone Clinton's way, she'd count them.

I think talking about the popular vote at all is misleading to the public in both the primaries and the general election. When the framers of the Constitution decided how we as a country would elect our President, they decided on the electoral system that slightly weights the votes in favor of states with smaller populations. It forces candidates to pay attention to smaller states instead of simply focusing only on the largest population states.

To say that the popular vote is the most important thing, as Clinton is saying, is to say that we shouldn't pay that attention to the states with smaller populations.

I think it sounds like a good thing to say "I have the popular vote even if I don't have the most delegates." However, the system we have in place was put there to decide who wins in the very case where popular vote and delegate count don't match up. In other words, the framers were saying "if we do ever get a discrepancy, we want the delegate count to be the deciding factor".

Now, that would be for the general election than the party primaries, but it still holds true for the primaries.

Taking that into account, this popular vote talk is Clinton spin in my opinion, designed to misdirect the superdelegates.

Now, if you want to talk about the effect of superdelegates, that's another question.

-Chip

[Schoolyj]

Yeah - I read a lot of these stories today, recapping the PR vote and the weekend compromise.

I think the popular vote anlge is kind of a stretch since it's not how the party chooses a candidate - it's analogous to saying the team with the most 3rd-down conversions wins the Super Bowl.

The Obama people have been saying it for a few weeks as a hint that H-Rod should drop out.

Now coming from Hilary's it sounds silly. "We're losing in the category that counts, but REALLY (if you look at it this one specific way) we're winning in the category that sounds like it SHOULD count."

If I can go a little William-Saffire here, there is a political connotation to the phrase "popular vote" since the 2000 election - that whoever wins it has more legitimacy, regardless of the election's outcome. I'm sure that's not lost on either candidates' surrogates.

I agree with Chip that the process doesn't really come down to popular votes, but particularly with this silly super-delegate thing we do, there's more grey area so they're going to spin it on both sides.

I really think this newest wrinkle from Hil's camp is more about going out looking like a winner than it is an effort to actually win. She spent two campaign trips on PR which doesn't even vote in the general election. That's not a move that says, I'm thinking about winning in November.

[stevescholz]

Here's the main flaw with "the popular vote" argument....

We're not in the general election season yet.

The popular votes so far don't translate into anything beyond the primaries/caucuses where they were counted.

To look at the primaries or caucuses and say "this fall, I could win here" fails to consider the general electorate. Most voters don't participate in primaries and caucuses. Sure, turnout this year has hit massive highs. But the election this fall could have Dems who vote for McCain, die-hard GOPers voting for Obama, and other people writing in Ralph Nader. And because of problems caused by Michigan and Florida, and with ballots in some states still offering candidates who pulled out (see John Edwards), the argument of a "popular vote" victory meaning something is riddled with fallacies.

The financial industry has a saying: Past Performance Is Not A Guarantee Of Future Results. Nobody knows for sure what will happen this November. To project otherwise is ridiculous.

But then, I've come to expect the ridiculous from Senator Clinton.