Numbers Don't Lie

Here is a fact: more Americans have voted for Hillary Clinton in this presidential election cycle than any other candidate.

Now, before you frantically punch that comment button, let me clarify: I know that the votes in Florida and Michigan generally aren't counted in the popular vote total. So I know it's not a generally accepted measurement. But human beings went to those polling places and voted in the outlaw states. There's no denying that more Americans have voted for Clinton than for Senator Obama since the snows of Iowa - after last night, she holds a tiny .4% lead over Obama.

Last night changed this race. It doesn't mean Clinton has a clear path to the election, but a big victory in Pennsylvania - when she was massively outspent in media - may be the equivalent of a large undersea earthquake: the big waves may just hit the beach in North Carolina and Indiana.

And there's another metric from the last 24 hours that shows a bit of that tremor. Clinton raised $10 million since the networks called the Keystone race last night - that's an Obama-like haul, if I may compliment the Illinois senator's fabulous fundraising operation.

Two big numbers, and this thing goes on. I still find it fascinating, though that six-week gap was wearying indeed. And the longer Clinton hangs in, the more the superdelegates pause, and the better the chance for what I'd really like to see - yeah, one ticket.

UPDATE: For those who don't get it (my fault entirely), the headline to this post carries no small bit of irony in this season of the endless numbers game. That said, I'd recommend all the comment combatants go and read Jerome Armstrong's piece on the numbers and on the Michigan-Florida controversy.

Comments

[blue girl]

Great post, Tom. Happy to see it!

Last night changed this race.

I completely agree.

[tina oiticica harris]

I completely agree and add, facetiously, men after ladies, meaning, Hillary for oresident, Barack Obama for vice-president.

BTW, it would be nice to watch a game at Wrigley Stadium, which I have seen every single time I stayed in Chicago but never gone in.

[BlueStateGirl]

"And the longer Clinton hangs in, the more the superdelegates pause"

Then why do I keep reading about more super-d's endorsing Obama? OK Gov. Brad Henry endorsed today, along with three more congressmen and a chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party who is also a DNC member endorsed Obama just today. (I heard a rumor about a bunch of endorsements coming out of NC but that's still a rumor.) Only one congressman endorsed Hillary today by comparison.

Just when are the super-d's supposed to be pausing?

[Judith]

"But human beings went to those polling places and voted in the outlaw states"

or, as they are know in Obama-land - "those who must be punished (until we need them) states".

[Ralph]

Devil's in the details, huh Tom?

I know that the votes in Florida and Michigan generally aren't counted in the popular vote total. So I know it's not a generally accepted measurement.

Wow. I would say a whole army of demons in that one! I did some research and here's the uncomfortable truth:

In August 2007, Clinton, Edwards, Obama, all signed a pledge not to "campaign or participate" in Michigan or Florida. (Obama had much more to lose by not campaigning because his is less known by the voters.) Then, in December, Clinton told New Hampshire Public Radio that the votes of Michigan would not count. In January she refused to remove her name from the Michigan ballot, even though John Edwards and Barack Obama, honoring the pledge all three signed in August, removed their names. On January 15, she "won" the Michigan Democratic primary. On January 25, she released a statement urging that the delegates pledged by Michigan's primary be seated.

hmmmmm. nice try though.

[Richard]

Thank you Ralph. I used to love to come to this web site and read well thought, logical posts. Now I get absurd arguments about vote totals that include votes that Clinton agreed not to count. The dishonesty of this tack is sad coming from someone who I used to be able to count on for integrity.

[Judith]

I dont know what is funnier - Ralph claiming he did some "research" or the same old bulldoody about how the two guys took their names off a ballot and are pissed that Clinton didnt follow like a lemming.

Actually, they are both pretty funny. Thanks Ralph! When you catch up to GE voting realities let us know - my guess is you'll catch up on Nov 8, 2008 how important those states are to Democrats.

[Ralph]

Wow. Your cogent arguments have convinced me that whatever benefits Senator Clinton's campaign, is just and fair. How could I have been so confused? Obama and Edwards were saps to go along with the rules. Psshaw! Rules! How quaint. True leaders make the rules up as they go along. Damn. Come on, let's go with the dream team: Clinton/Obama 2008! Yes!

[bainbridge island flowers]

i just hope that she actually make a difference when the time comes that she's announced as the next president.

[Judith]

Ralph - all I can say is - about time and welcome aboard!

[Tyler]

As a Michigan voter let me say this -

It's stupid and absurd to ignore us. You want to punish the party leaders and the DNC, that's fine. But why ignore voters like me? It's just stupid.

It was dumb for the candidates to withdraw their names and it was dumb for the DNC/Obama camp to squelch any chance for re-vote. It's stupid for Obama supporters to make the Michigan delegation or the vote about Hillary and her political calculations.

It's about our vote.

And one more thing - it was quite simple to put "Other" on the ballot for someone other than Hillary. I put down "Other" because I still hope (beyond reason) for Al Gore.

But voters aren't stupid. They didn't vote for Hillary because Obama wasn't on the list. They voted for her because she was their choice.

Stop playing politics and count our fricking votes!

[rick]

Sigh. Tom, what did you do with the guy who did well thought out posts? Is he gone now? Because all I see now is a Hillary shill. It's sad.

The MI and FL vote totals can't be counted because they weren't real contested elections. Of course Clinton got more votes in MI than Obama - his name wasn't on the ballot. Of course, actual logic doesn't seem to belong here anymore and what we're left with is just the parroting of a candidate's talking points. You used to inspire me. Now you simply make me sad.

[ForeignObserver]

Not counting Michigan and Florida (when 3 other states got a pass for the same offense) is a grave political mistake which will bite back in November. You don't even need any vivid imagination to picture the same McCain ad running in both states, where he looks into the camera with a serious and earnest look and reminds the voters that Obama didn't care about their votes before.

Florida is even worse considering it was actually the republican legislature who orchestrated the whole thing and are now looking at the fallout with glee.

From the other side of the Atlantic and without any stakes in the race in any way (except hoping that a democrat president would have a more positive effect on the economy), both candidates appear to have been busy burning too many bridges that an unity ticket would work, moreso since both would probably not accept the veep spot on the ticket.

Find a way to count all votes. If none of the candidates reaches the required delegate threshold by the end of the primary season, pretending that the one who is ahead is still entitled to the nomination and any other decision by the SD is a stolen nomination will lead to an inevitable McCain win in the GE. Those, too, are the rules they all agreed to, however arcane they may be.

Oh, and please revise them for 2012. We stupid foreigners don't even get baseball, a combination of primaries, caucuses, primaries + caucuses and the super delegates is totally beyond our limited intellectual reach.

[Ralph]

Judith, I think you missed my sarcasm. I don't have a horse in this race. I don't care if Clinton or Obama become the nominee of the party. I don't care if it's Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama.

After seeing how ugly this race has become, I don't want to end up like Tom or you. I am free to criticize Obama for his poor choice of words, his arrogance stemming from his gift for oratory, his long-time association with Rev. Wright, and his lack of real national accomplishments other than raising lots of money and inspiring people to register and vote.

On the other hand, I also have no problem criticizing Hillary Clinton for her fear-factor negative ads, her previous defense of the war in Iraq, and her silly lie about sniper fire in Bosnia. And, if we can't trust Clinton to stick to her word on whether MI and FL votes will count, how can we trust her if she's elected President?

Nobody expected MI and FL to be so important in the election, because they usually aren't. But now that they are, you can't just turn around and say - well, those votes for me are legitimate when there was nothing fair about the elections.

Look, Judith, if the tables were turned and you switched the names, would you support Obama counting those votes? No, because you support Hillary Clinton. You see the double standard? Go ahead and get the claws out, I can take it.

[Slappy]

Come on Tom W., a flat out misleading post. At least mention how she received those votes in MI. I usually get your pro-Clinton posts. At least there is logic and honesty behind them. This is plain FOX-style spin.

Judith: Yaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn,

Ralph: Amen

[Tom W.]

Geez guys - it's right there in the second freakin' paragraph.

It's not spin at all - I'm struck by the fact that more Americans have pulled a lever, checked a box, or raised their hands for Hillary than for any other candidate this cycle.

I do not make a "count the Michigan raw vote" argument anywhere in this post. My goal is to point out how razor-thin this thing really is, and how much support Clinton has managed to draw despite the impressive Obama juggernaut.

And you all know I want the unity ticket, don't care that much about who's in the top slot.

Secondarily, I don think PA opened up with the slightest of windows for Clinton - I didn't see much daylight before for her candidacy. There is now a sliver. If she pulls it off, she will undoubtedly ask Obama to be the VP candidate - whether he accepts is a test of his commitment to party and country. (Hillary would accept a similar offer, I've come to believe, conventional wisdom notwithstanding).

[Tom K]

Ralph, Rick and Slappy:

Part of being deluded is that you don't realize you're deluded. I like to think that's where's Tom's at, because I prefer not to think of him as a hack. Also, there is something evidently principled about him hewing to the HRC line -- however insultingly demented his reasoning -- at a time when the conventional wisdom has largely written her off (mistakenly, in my view.)

BTW Tom, why would Obama be obliged to accept the VP slot as a "test of his commitment to party and country", when the operative function of that job is to serve as President in time of crisis? Wouldn't duty require him to refuse the post, due to his lack of readiness? Or can it be that he is *qualified* to serve as President in time of crisis? If so, I haven't noticed you saying so very prominently.

If I recall corrrectly, your candidate believes the Rep. nominee is qualified to be C-in-C, for example, but as to BHO, well, she daren't presume upon the voters' perogatives by offering an opinion. Humility forbids.

It's really all too funny.

[Ralph]

Tom, I think it's the way you worded you post that bothered some people and exited others. You do realize that those who wanted to vote for Edwards or Obama in MI could not even write them in? So, citing the votes in MI as telling of her support in that state is silly. The question is, do you want to be taken seriously as a political blogger, or just another spin-meister hack who happens to support Hillary Clinton? We are liberals and so we care about the details. If you want to employ Republican style rhetoric, than you must deal with the fall-out. That being said, you don't need to play games with language to support Hillary Clinton. The obvious answer to your post title is, yes, numbers often do lie when you don't know the context behind the numbers ('How to Lie with Statistics' is a book that many freshman are required to read).

[BEW]

Tom K,

I think this qualifies as projection

"Part of being deluded is that you don't realize you're deluded"

Perhaps there is hope for you yet.

[zuzu]

In August 2007, Clinton, Edwards, Obama, all signed a pledge not to "campaign or participate" in Michigan or Florida. (Obama had much more to lose by not campaigning because his is less known by the voters.) Then, in December, Clinton told New Hampshire Public Radio that the votes of Michigan would not count. In January she refused to remove her name from the Michigan ballot, even though John Edwards and Barack Obama, honoring the pledge all three signed in August, removed their names.

Sorry, Ralph. Not true.

I've been asking people for months now to come up with some support for the position you just articulated by citing to the DNC rules and the pledge the candidates signed, and nobody's taken me up on it.

But truth is important, so I will persist in trying to set the record straight.

First, the pledge. I don't know where everyone gets this idea that the candidates "agreed" that the Michigan and Florida primaries wouldn't count, but there's no such "agreement" contained in the text of the pledge, for a few reasons. First, the pledge was signed before the Rules Committee made a decision on either Florida or Michigan (indeed, before Michigan moved up its primary). So since the penalty wasn't known at the time, they couldn't have "agreed" that none of the delegates would be seated.

Second, the pledge is not binding on the DNC, nor do the candidates have any power to seat delegates, so any such agreement would be without effect.

Third, the only thing that the candidates agreed to do in the pledge was what they were obligated to do under Rule 20.C.1.b (please do look it up and compare to the text of the pledge), i.e., not campaign, as defined in the DNC rules. Sure, the pledge added "participate," but that term was left undefined and thus no one can say that any particular action was "clearly" participation.

Finally, nowhere in the pledge or the DNC rules is any candidate required to withdraw from any ballot anywhere. Obama and Edwards voluntarily withdrew from the Michigan ballot as an overture toward Iowa and New Hampshire, who were pissed off that Michigan was trying to muscle in on their turf. A friend of mine who worked on the Dodd campaign (and Dodd refused to withdraw when approached) said that the Iowa and NH people were PISSED at Dodd, so the move was certainly effective as a way to kiss up to early-primary states. Not so effective now that we find ourselves in a close race.

If you can find any rules that say differently, please provide them.

As for the statements that Michigan and Florida wouldnt' count, I keep seeing those cited, but I never see a link so that I can see them in context. Can you provide one? Thanks.

[zuzu]

Oh, shoot, my links didn't work.

Here's the text of the pledge (ignore the fact that it's from the Politico):

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0807/Dear_candidates_early_state_edition.html

And here's a pdf of the rules:

http://a9.g.akamai.net/7/9/8082/v001/democratic1.download.akamai.com/8082/pdfs/2008delegateselectionrules.pdf

[Mike P]

The unity ticket, while nice to think about, isn't going to happen. By all accounts, the Clinton and Obama staffers hate each other and I can't see Obama wanting to be 3rd fiddle (behind Bill) in a Hillary administration.

As to the popular vote argument, I think Charlie Cook addressed that rather well today.

[Tom K]

BEW:

Are you familiar with the logical fallacy known as "tu quoque"? If not, you might want to look it up (though continuing to wallow in ignorance, if applicable to your condition, is certainly an option as well).

One of the most debased ways of deploying this particular fallacy is to accuse someone of "projection" (a concept from a specialty usually outside the accuser's expertise), without identifying what, specifically, in the statements of the accused supports the charge.

So tell me -- assuming you meant something beyond "you're one two" playground patois -- what in my statements are you referring to?

[mrmobi]

Let's start with the title, shall we? "Numbers don't lie". Of course, numbers do lie. Haven't you been watching Republicans in congress at all? They explain how school vouchers will make it possible for the poor to send their children to better schools, while they plan the destruction of the public education system. You should know better than to say numbers don't lie, Tom.

This is a failed attempt to bolster the spin your candidates' campaign is running, unfortunately for her, it's just not true.

This primary election is about delegates, not about the number of people who have voted for either candidate. You can try to spin the primary as if it were the general, but it isn't. Obama is ahead by over a hundred delegates, and, the way things are going, he'll continue to be ahead when all the voting that everyone agreed would count has been finished. You can try to change the rules of the game after the fact, but you won't succeed.

But let me try, at least, to understand your reasoning. You're saying it is fair to count the votes Hillary Clinton got in Michigan, where Obama wasn't even on the ballot. So, when the general election comes, it doesn't matter if whomever has won the nomination has their name on the ballot? Because "undecided" or "write-in" is just a good as actually having your name on the ballot.

Good to know, but I don't think the word "fair" means what you think it means.

If Clinton wins, I look forward to seeing her continuing "interpretations" of common English words. Might "up" actually mean "down?"

[Slappy]

Tom W: You dont mention on the 2nd paragraph that the MI ballot did not include Obama's name. A minor point for some when counting votes. For myself, it skews the results to a point that it must be mentioned when proposing Clinton has a lead in the popular vote.

Should Obama have the lead in the popular vote (even with distorted accounting methods) in the end but Clinton somehow gain the lead in delegate votes I assume the popular vote will then become meaningless. This is a farce.