Friday, May 16, 2008
Clinton Vote Claims Under Scrutiny
WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton's assertions that she leads Barack Obama in the popular vote are a stretch, at best.
The New York senator is using such claims to shore up supporters and help justify why she's still in the Democratic presidential race despite trailing Obama in the number of convention delegates earned in primaries and caucuses.
The argument is supported only by using dubious math on two fronts: by excluding several caucus states won by Obama and by including Florida and Michigan primary results that the Democratic Party, to date, is rejecting.
THE SPIN:
"I'm very proud that as of today, I have received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else," she said after her narrow Indiana victory and before her big win in West Virginia on Tuesday. "It's a very close race, but if you count, as I count, the 2.3 million people who voted in Michigan and Florida, then we are going to build on that."
Since then, Clinton has tempered her claim of being ahead in votes, although her aides have not.
"I think I've now been privileged to receive the votes of 17 million Americans, and that's pretty much the same as Senator Obama," she said Wednesday on CNN.
Her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, went farther Wednesday: "We are ahead in the popular vote _ I cannot stress this enough."
THE FACTS:
Obama is ahead of Clinton by just over 618,000 votes out of 32.2 million cast in states and territories where both candidates competed and where the popular vote was counted in some way.
That total excludes Florida and Michigan, which held early primaries in violation of party rules. Democratic candidates agreed in advance not to campaign in those states. In addition, Obama did not have his name on the ballot in Michigan while Clinton did.
If primary voters from those two states are included in the totals, Clinton edges ahead in the recorded popular vote. She leads Obama by fewer than 5,000 votes out of 34 million cast. That's with no votes for Obama at all in Michigan.
She is correct that she and Obama have each received some 17 million votes.
But even if results of the two renegade primaries are accepted, she still has a problem demonstrating she is the vote leader.
That's because no results go into that equation from Iowa, Nevada or Maine. There is no way to count popular votes from those states because their caucuses did not tally them.
Obama won most of the delegates in both Maine and Iowa _ the leadoff state where Clinton came third.
Although there is no vote count, it is clear that more people came out to the caucuses for Obama than for Clinton in both states. In Nevada, more people came out for Clinton. Nevada's delegate allocation, currently favoring Obama by a slight margin, still has not been settled.
Several other states also did not tally votes in caucuses. But those states also held primaries and reported totals from that round of voting.
Clinton has been pushing for the party to count the results from Florida and Michigan to bring her delegate totals closer to Obama's as he gets closer to clinching the nomination.
The matter will be taken up at the end of the month. Obama, like Clinton, is worried about alienating those two battlegrounds in the fall if the primary voters are not accommodated in some way.
Given his expanding lead with superdelegates, he is on track to win the nomination even if Florida and Michigan delegates are seated.
WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton's assertions that she leads Barack Obama in the popular vote are a stretch, at best.
The New York senator is using such claims to shore up supporters and help justify why she's still in the Democratic presidential race despite trailing Obama in the number of convention delegates earned in primaries and caucuses.
The argument is supported only by using dubious math on two fronts: by excluding several caucus states won by Obama and by including Florida and Michigan primary results that the Democratic Party, to date, is rejecting.
THE SPIN:
"I'm very proud that as of today, I have received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else," she said after her narrow Indiana victory and before her big win in West Virginia on Tuesday. "It's a very close race, but if you count, as I count, the 2.3 million people who voted in Michigan and Florida, then we are going to build on that."
Since then, Clinton has tempered her claim of being ahead in votes, although her aides have not.
"I think I've now been privileged to receive the votes of 17 million Americans, and that's pretty much the same as Senator Obama," she said Wednesday on CNN.
Her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, went farther Wednesday: "We are ahead in the popular vote _ I cannot stress this enough."
THE FACTS:
Obama is ahead of Clinton by just over 618,000 votes out of 32.2 million cast in states and territories where both candidates competed and where the popular vote was counted in some way.
That total excludes Florida and Michigan, which held early primaries in violation of party rules. Democratic candidates agreed in advance not to campaign in those states. In addition, Obama did not have his name on the ballot in Michigan while Clinton did.
If primary voters from those two states are included in the totals, Clinton edges ahead in the recorded popular vote. She leads Obama by fewer than 5,000 votes out of 34 million cast. That's with no votes for Obama at all in Michigan.
She is correct that she and Obama have each received some 17 million votes.
But even if results of the two renegade primaries are accepted, she still has a problem demonstrating she is the vote leader.
That's because no results go into that equation from Iowa, Nevada or Maine. There is no way to count popular votes from those states because their caucuses did not tally them.
Obama won most of the delegates in both Maine and Iowa _ the leadoff state where Clinton came third.
Although there is no vote count, it is clear that more people came out to the caucuses for Obama than for Clinton in both states. In Nevada, more people came out for Clinton. Nevada's delegate allocation, currently favoring Obama by a slight margin, still has not been settled.
Several other states also did not tally votes in caucuses. But those states also held primaries and reported totals from that round of voting.
Clinton has been pushing for the party to count the results from Florida and Michigan to bring her delegate totals closer to Obama's as he gets closer to clinching the nomination.
The matter will be taken up at the end of the month. Obama, like Clinton, is worried about alienating those two battlegrounds in the fall if the primary voters are not accommodated in some way.
Given his expanding lead with superdelegates, he is on track to win the nomination even if Florida and Michigan delegates are seated.
