"Why Hillary Clinton should be winning" by Sean Wilentz

[politicalcenter]

Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats in primary states choose their nominee on the basis of a convoluted system of proportional distribution of delegates that varies from state to state and that obtains in neither congressional nor presidential elections. It is this eccentric system that has given Obama his lead in the delegate count. If the Democrats heeded the "winner takes all" democracy that prevails in American politics, and that determines the president, Clinton would be comfortably in front. In a popular-vote winner-take-all system, Clinton would now have 1,743 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,257. If she splits the 10 remaining contests with Obama, as seems plausible, with Clinton taking Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Puerto Rico, and Obama winning North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, Oregon and Guam, she'd pick up another 364 pledged delegates. She'd have 2,107 before a single superdelegate was wooed. You'd need 2,208 to be the Democratic nominee. That would leave her barely a hundred votes shy, and well ahead of Obama. It is almost inconceivable that she would fail to gain the required number of superdelegates easily. No more blogospheric ranting about Clinton "stealing" the nomination by kidnapping superdelegates or cutting deals at a brokered convention.

[DJ13]

1. ....

:nopity:

[flor de jasmim]

2. If horses could fly...

[pocoloco]

3. Don't like the rules???

Tough shit!

They are there for a reason!

[babylonsister]

4. The glaring flaw in Sean Wilentz's argument

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/04/the-glaring-fla.html

The glaring flaw in Sean Wilentz's argument


Sean Wilentz has a pro-Hillary essay at salon.com that arguing that "if the system made sense," Hillary Clinton would win.

Wilentz favors a state-based winner-take-all system, and it is indeed true that if we retroactively instituted a winner-take-all delegate allocation method, Clinton would have a lock on the nomination.

But there's a glaring flaw with this argument: if the system were winner-take-all, Obama would have used a different strategy -- resulting in different outcome.

Under the current system, you don't want to just win, you want to win big. There's also tons of bizarre quirks. For example, if you can get 50.1% in a district with an odd number of delegates, you can get 60% of the delegates. It pays to get 62.5% as opposed to 62.4%. (In Mississippi, a blogger noticed an error in math that had inadvertently put Obama under the 62.5% mark; once corrected, Obama netted 2 delegates.)

Obama expertly exploited this system. It's Clinton's fault that she didn't understand the system, and frankly, it suggests that she wouldn't be as good a president as some people think.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure the correct strategy for winning more delegates, and Hillary Clinton's failure to comprehend that strategy speaks poorly of her analytical and/or management skills.


more...

[ladywnch]

8. excuse me, she had been through this "system" before. If she didn't

like it, understand it, approve of it, whatever, then she should have either spoken up long before this, not run, or figured out how to make it work. This should have been no surprise to her. As she is so fond of saying, she's been through all this before.

[stahbrett]

5. Synopsis: "If the existing rules were different, THEN Hillary would have won"

It's just too bad Hillary didn't know what the rules were! Why didn't anyone tell her the damn rules?!? I blame Howard Dean, who very likely only told Obama what the rules were.

[C_U_L8R]

6. A more insightful article might be..

"Why Hillary Clinton Lost"

[Prophet 451]

7. a "winner take all" system which is profoundly unfair and undemocratic

The problem with winner-take-all systems is that it means the person getting 51% of the votes takes everything while the person getting 49% gets nothing and it is undemocratic because it means the vast swathes who didn't vote for the winning candidate don't get represented. It also leaves the system open to the kind of abuses that were so visible in the winner-take-all general elections of 2000 and 2004.

Then again, as your journal says that you currently believe the Democratic party to be owned by the far-left and have only 15 posts to your name, I suspect you are either a sockpuppet, an idiot or a Freeper. The only geuinely leftist candidate running in this primary was Kucinich, Obama and Hillary are both moderates.

EDIT: Also, every entry in your journal was posted in the last two days and most of them are a hit-list of Obama smears.

[Igel]

9. It's still a winner-take-all system.

But instead of its being a winner-by-geography, it's a winner by a more complicated system.

Ultimately, though, the winner still takes all. When Kerry walked away with the nomination in '04, what did the other candidates that started the race get? Edwards got the nod for the VP slot, but that was Kerry's decision.

And the general election for president will always be winner-take-all. I mean, seriously: Would you like Obama being 54% president and McCain being 46% president? (And you'd have to make that "54% of the time" or "of the decisions, allotted at random" and "46% of the time" or "of the decisions, allotted at random".)

No, I don't think so. But, ultimately, that's democracy: 50% of the voters + 1 voter rules. Unless it's a more complicated system.

[Prophet 451]

10. Proportional representation works for many nations

Granted, it's difficult to see how it could be applied to the US system though.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. Excuses, excuses, excuses

Mrs. Clinton is losing because more primary voters have determined that Barack Obama is a better candidate and would be a better president. It's pretty tough to be ahead in delegates when one is behind in popular votes.

As for the winner take all system, I'm not so young to remember when that caused quite a squall among the party establishmentarians because Senator McGovern, not their man, won the California primary at a time when it was winner take all. So the Democrats did away with winner take all primaries.

What is so convoluted about apportioning delegates by popular vote? It sounds democratic to me. The reason Obama is ahead is that Mrs. Clinton has failed to beat him in a series of fair, democratic systems.

It is true that months ago, Senator Clinton was the undisputed front runner and on her way to winning the nomination. Then the voting started.

Now it looks like party establishmentarian Terry McAuliffe has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory once again.

[McCamy Taylor]

12. McGovern won in 1972 because California was "winner take all"

[johnnydrama]

13. 1972

Was it winner take all before the primary season started, or did they change it in April?

[Jack Rabbit]

14. The California primary had been winner take all for years

No one had talked seriously about changing it until right after McGovern won. Then the party establishment went into crisis mode.

As a matter of fact, it really should have been proportional all along, but it would be wrong to change the rules after the game is played. That is what the editorial in the OP wants to do.

There was reason to be concerned about a McGovern candidacy in 1972, as the election results showed. That was 1972 and this is 2008. What's the point now? Barack Obama is no George McGovern. He's going to kick ass and take names in November.

[johnnydrama]

16. just as I thought

My point is, whatever the rules are in a state, the candidate should do the best to strategize based on those rules.

This whining about, if only the states were winner take all, Hillary would be ahead is just as lame as any other stupid argument they've had.

[Jack Rabbit]

17. With that we agree. nt

[HooptieWagon]

15. Why Hillary Clinton isn't winning...

The rules were established, and all the campaigns signed off on them and had opportunity to challenge them before the primaries started. That Hillary and her campaign were ignorant of the rules (and now are whining about them) is entirely her fault and highlights the premise that she's not ready to lead the country.