Mathematical fallacy

Hillary Clinton's Fuzzy Delegate Math: Popular Vote Fallacy

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• published: 30 May 2008
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Look at Clinton's math. She leads only if you give her 328,000 votes for the Soviet-style Michigan election, while giving Obama zero for not being on the ballot. And if you then ignore the caucuses of Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and my own state of Washington -- where a record quarter million people turned out to participate. Our votes don't count under Clinton's math. She disappears them down the memory hole of history in an argument that invents reality as much as Bush's claims of Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction or Clinton's earlier story about running the gauntlet of Bosnian sniper fire. Clinton said, "No matter what happens, I will work as hard as I can to elect a Democratic president this fall." But then she insisted once again, that "we are winning the popular vote." This lie undermined every word she said about coming together...The superdelegates understand the real math, or they ought to. But given the "bitterness" of so many Clinton supporters toward reality that the woman they thought would be America's first female president will not be, the more they hear a story that suggests Obama's win is illegitimate, the more likely they are to bolt. If Clinton's voters embrace that story that "a man took it away from a woman," denied her a victory she rightly deserved, they're at risk of staying home come November, or holding back from the volunteering and the get out the vote efforts necessary for the Democrats to prevail...polls actually have Obama doing marginally better in Michigan than Clinton, nor have they explored the impact of roughly 60,000 Democratic voters who crossed over in Michigan to vote Republican...Clinton's argument also ignores that this isn't how the rules are set up, and that if they had been, Obama would have made more than three brief visits to California and one to New York State. Clinton's been praised of late for refraining from any truly outrageous comments, like her claim, following the Indiana and North Carolina primaries two weeks ago, that only she has the support of hard working white voters...every time she claims she has a popular majority, she's shattering whatever ceasefire exists and making it that much more likely that her supporters stay home come November. If she really wants a united party, she needs to stop, and the media and the superdelegates need to hold her accountable. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/the-bosnian-sniper-math-o_b_102979.html It is incomprehensible to me that Mrs. Clinton can seriously be touting the notion...that she is leading in the popular vote and should therefore be seriously considered as the most electable candidate in the November election. She's including those who voted for her in Florida and Michigan's name recognition ballot saying that to exclude them would be to disenfranchise them. What about the Democrats in Alaska, American Samoa, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Hawaii and Wyoming who did not cast ballots because they were playing by the pledged delegates playbook and voted by caucus. What about them? Certainly if the rules are going to be changed and judgment is based on the 'popular' vote those voters in the eleven caucus states and Samoa will be disenfranchised. What about them? And what about us? What about the American people? Haven't we had enough of Mrs. Clinton's mad antics in her pursuit of the realization of venal personal ambition; her 'say anything, do anything, no matter what' effort to manipulate our all too willing media to gull this country's populace into believing that her wretched illegitimacy is indeed legitimate. How much mendacity do we have to suffer, how much brazenness do we have to swallow before someone, anyone, has the decency, the common sense, to relieve us of this terrible trifle, this pathetic madness? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donald-sutherland/hillarys-popular-vote-not_b_104152.html What you'll see televised from the DNC's Rules and By-laws Committee meeting on Saturday, May 31, will be a swarm of irate Hillary Backers carrying signs and protesting any possible outcome of the Mich./Fl. debacle other than a no-fault decision with the votes going to HRC. She needs 'em. And she needs the rules changed, despite the fact that she agreed with the DNC's decision last fall. But that was when she was still "inevitable"...Whether he liked them or not, Senator Obama played by the DNC's rules in Michigan and Florida. Senator Clinton thought the rules were just fine so long as she was front runner and destined to win the nomination. The specter of losing compels Hillary to change the rules. Of course, she's not playing this bait and switch game only because she has to win this thing any way she can--she's the new, improved populist who cannot bear the thought of a single vote not counting for all it's worth. Not a one. Unless it's a caucus state vote. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-hansen/washington-rules-committe_b_104264.html