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Sunday, June 8, 2008
Time for Everyone to Stop the "Popular Vote" Argument
Senator Dianne Feinstein, one of Sen. Clinton's closest supporters, kept pushing the false "Clinton won the popular vote" meme today on This Week with George Stephanopoulus:
"Hillary Clinton is well known, certainly she had the popular vote in this election."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein reiterated that Clinton had won the popular vote — an assertion that is not accepted by Illinois Democrat Sen. Barack Obama’s camp and one that, if repeated often, could harm Democratic attempts to unify behind him.
If this meme keeps getting repeated, it will metastasize the (largely justified) disappointment and hurt that Clinton supporters are feeling right now and will solidify for them the notion that Hillary was somehow robbed of the nomination.
Unlike in the general election where every state has their citizens cast a ballot for President, the democratic primaries involve both primaries (where each person casts their vote) and caucuses, where people gather in a room, express their support for their candidate and, from such internal voting, delegates for each caucus are apportioned to the state convention. As a result, the popular vote numbers that you see are not apples-to-apples comparisons.
Now add to the mix that Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan (from which state Clinton supporters continue to insist that Obama got zero votes, even though the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee reached a compromise and apportioned all of "uncommitted" delegates to Obama). In addition, none of the candidates were allowed to campaign for votes in Florida. Further stir into the Michigan and Florida equation the fact that hundreds of thousands of people did not vote because they were told that their vote would not count at the Convention (as reflected in the fact that both states' voter turnout was much lower than expectations) and you get a highly polluted set of data from which to draw "certain" or "unquestionable" conclusions.
Final data point. In Washington, Iowa, Maine and Nevada, these states did not release an official estimate of voter turnout. However, Clinton supporters like Sen. Feinstein are content to completely disregard any tabulation or estimate of the turnout in such states in order to make the damaging argument that Sen. Clinton somehow "won" the popular vote. Are voters' voices in Washington, Iowa, Maine and Nevada not supposed to be heard?
From the above analysis, I hope most of you will agree that the fairest assessment of the popular vote is to give the "uncommitted" Michigan votes to Obama and give both candidates the estimates of voter turnout in Washington, Iowa, Maine and Nevada.
There are only two conclusions to draw:
- If you tally up the popular vote in the fairest and even-handed way described above, you'll see from RealClearPolitics that Obama is ahead of Clinton by 61,703 votes.
- If you decide to tally up the popular vote in some other skewed and selective manner, the vote tally you come up with is too questionable to be asserted by our nation's respected leaders as unquestionable fact.
Obama is now the presumptive nominee.
Hillary Clinton has suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama with a ringing call for party unity.
In the interest of party unity, as so eloquently expressed by Senator Clinton yesterday, we all need let the whole popular vote argument go. It can only serve to make people angry, prolong the grieving process and hurt the Democrat's chances in the fall against John McCain.
Posted by Metavirus at 6/08/2008 11:40:00 AM
Tags: Barack Obama , Distortions , Election 2008 , General Election , Hillary Clinton , Primaries
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3 comments:
It just proves that if you say an untruth enough times, people will begin to believe it and it becomes a 'reality'. The Nazis knew this, as does the Bush Administration. And the Clintons knew exactly what they were doing when they decided to 'morph' reality.
But as you correctly say, it is time to move on and forget these political tricks. Clinton supporters need to realize which candidate will work in their best interests and they are all more than welcome to join us!
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Regardless of the arguments for Hillary due to 'popular vote', I know that the republicans have hoardes of information to use against her, whether she's the pres. or vp choice. She's currently involved in a lawsuit for campaign finance fraud. Obama's negatives are primarily due to supposed 'associations' with unseemly characters. Since Clinton herself is involved in this lawsuit, I believe it precludes her from being on the ticket, period. I'm all for women's rights, being a 54 year old white female, and in a rural town of Hillary's state of NY, but she hasn't represented the kind of 'person' I'd look up to as a president or vp, which is much more important than gender.
While there may be some Hillary supporters who will go against much of what they believe in, and vote for McCain, there are also many Obama supporters who have a high level of disregard for Hillary Clinton. Doing great things is a big plus for her, but as they call it, her 'baggage' is huge.
As many claim Obama supporters are cultish, Obamaniacal, or whatever, my decision for him is very informed, and I'm not 'blind', I clearly 'see' the differences that make him stand out as a truly great leader. He has lived his entire life following his core beliefs, not based on what it seems people want to hear, but rather by hearing them. He has integrity, grace, thoughtful judgment, and unrelenting inclusiveness of others, always finding common ground. He is desperately needed, not only in America, but across the globe.
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