Jay began writing politically themed commentary and founded his blog, Swimming Freestyle, in October 2007. Here he'll write about politics from a progressive perspective.

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Clinton's Popular Vote Myth

6 comments

May 22, 9:29 AM

by Jay McDonough, Progressive Politics Examiner

Throughout the long primary Democratic primary season, Hillary Clinton has used various metrics to assess her candidacy. Before the whole process began, delegate count awarded in accordance with Democratic Party rules was the agreed upon criteria for selecting the Party nominee. When it became clear Senator Clinton was not going to end up with the most pledged delegates, other metrics were proposed by the Clinton campaign as the measure the Party should use to pick the nominee. When all else fails, confuse the situation. After all, Hillary Clinton is supposed to be the Party's nominee, right?

There have been several proposals from the Clinton campaign. We should all forget about those states that have caucuses as the caucus process is fundamentally undemocratic. Don't like that one? Try this: Clinton wins the "big" states, the others are insignificant. No? OK. Clinton won Michigan and Florida and those results are being counted. Well, yeah, but all agreed (including Clinton) that would be the case. What about this: Obama can't win white working class voters. Well, that's been disproven in a number of states. OK, how about this: Clinton has won more states in the last month. But doesn't that overrule the votes of all those folks before the last month?

The Clinton campaign has now worked their way down the list to popular vote count as the criteria for selecting the Party nominee. Mrs. Clinton has gone around her campaign stops now claiming;

"I’m told that more people have voted for me than for anyone who has ever run for the Democratic nomination," Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, said last night after her impressive win in Kentucky.

The number of people voting for her is irrelevant here. What's at issue is her vote count relative to Barack Obama's. ABC News has done some analysis:

Total popular vote without Florida and Michigan -- Obama is up 570,785 popular votes. (Obama 17,571,847; Clinton 17,001,062.)

Total popular vote with Florida, but without Michigan -- Obama is up 276,013 popular votes. (Obama 18,148,061; Clinton 17,872,048.)

Total popular vote with both Florida and Michigan -- Clinton is up 52,296 popular votes. (Obama 18,148,061; Clinton 18,200,357.)

It should be noted Barack Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan. So, vote count is not going to work either. Time for the Clinton campaign to develop some new metrics to justify Hillary Clinton's hijacking of the Democratic Party nomination.

Cutest smile? Best laugh?
Topics: Democratic Primaries , Clinton , Obama

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