The 2008 Primaries Through an Electoral Vote Prism: Clinton 263, Obama 193

[Tom Rinaldo]

With 82 "electoral votes" still outstanding, Hillary Clinton is just 7 votes away from victory, if Presidential Electoral College voting rules were in use. Of course they are not, but this is a good way to put into perspective what to make of all those states Obama has won compared to Clinton's lesser number.

In 2004 George W. Bush won 31 States to John Kerry's 19 plus the District of Columbia. If Bush could have been held to winning 30 States instead, if Ohio had gone Democratic instead, John Kerry would be President today despite George W. Bush winning three states for every two won by John Kerry in the 2004 election.

Link to Map:
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/3/5/9312/67590#commenttop

[jensmygov]

1. Michigan

Obama wasn't on the Michigan ballot!!!!!

[Zynx]

2. Even take Michigan and Florida off she is still ahead.

[Tarc]

3. tough titty says the kitty

It isn't Clinton's fault that he blundered there.

[slick8790]

7. But it's her fault that she's going back on her word

and wants a delegates to be seated in a primary she agreed did not count. Maybe she should have been fighting this hard for Michigan before she won.

[goldcanyonaz]

60. !!!!!

:rofl:

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. I think that is a fair point. I agree with you.

Given Clinton's landslide win in Florida with 1.7 million Democrats voting there, I will keep Florida in her column and shift Michigan to undecided. Make it 246 to 193.

[Auntie Bush]

16. That was his fault! His choice! I guess his judgment was flawed.

He didn't see the big picture or think of all the possible outcome.
That's what it takes to be president. I'd say he failed! Course I'm a wee bit prejudice toward Clinton.

[Donna Zen]

52. Blame the victim?

Is that what prejudice does? Which should tell us that if the shoe were on the other foot, you would placing your exclamation points after statements making the point that changing the rules in the middle of the game is wrong!

Let me tell you a brief but true story: When the DNC sent our state committee the delegate rules, our executive and rules committee voted for a change in the 15% threshold. In 2004 because of that rule, and by a tiny margin, Edwards (not my candidate in 04) had lost a delegate. As the full state committee debated our vote for the rules, one thing was clear: we risked losing our credentials if we failed to comply with the DNC rules. Finally after 90 of your fellow citizens spent 3 hours debating this point, we chose to follow the rules that all state parties would abide by. The rules were posted on our state website for 2 months offering voters a chance to weigh in if they wanted us to buck the system. In the end, the rules were passed.

The rules of the Democrat party are not some arbitrary set of guidelines governed by individual prejudice. If they were, they would be no rules and we could do whatever made worked for one candidate and screwed another.

Is that what you want?

[slick8790]

4. You can't compare primary wins to GE electoral vote wins.

There is no way in hell a Dem is gonna win Texas, Oklahoma and Florida this year, and there's no way in hell a Dem is gonna lose NY, NJ and California.

[ProSense]

9. This is called

comfort spin or a crutch spin. It's like turning to booze or chocolate to ease disappointment.

[ctaylors6]

10. I don't think GE polls mean much now, but fwiw here's NJ from Sun 3/2

Rasmussen
McCain 39, Clinton 50, Und 11 Clinton +11
McCain 45, Obama 43, Und 12 McCain +2

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. Right. I saw that

In 2006 the G.O.P. thought they might pick up a Democratic Senate seat in New Jersey, and they put real last minute resourses into New Jersey trying to do so. I take that poll seriously. That is a very significant shift in numbers. Obama puts NJ in play for the Republicans.

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. GE polls mean nothing now

Ask John Kerry, or Mike Dukakis.

[Auntie Bush]

53. Thanks for posting. I like those results.

[alcibiades_mystery]

59. You "like" results showing McCain beating a potential Democratic nominee???!???

Huh????

[Auntie Bush]

62. I like this one.

Rasmussen
McCain 39, Clinton 50, Und 11 Clinton +11
Real eye candy.

[alcibiades_mystery]

63. Thanks for qualifying

Your initial post seemed to indicate that you liked both results, which would make you a pretty terrible Democrat. I'm glad you only liked the positive one. I expect you didn't like the other one.

Thanks!

[Zynx]

43. There's no way in hell we are going to win Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana,

Utah, Idaho, North Dakota, Nebraska, or Kansas either.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. This is a dumb argument

No Democratic nominee is going to lose Massachusetts, California, or New York. No Democratic nominee is going to win Texas or Kansas or South Carolina or Oklahoma.

Comparing the electoral vote in the general with a primary vote may be the very definition of comparing apples and oranges. It's deeply stupid and dishonest.

[9119495]

12. Nicely argued...

The Clinton camp used to say Barack was carrying states that would not go for a dem...but supposedly Texas matters now...Jeesh.

[Tom Rinaldo]

31. That wasn't the argument, although I have seen Obama supporters in the past

pushing the view point that Obama will do better than Clinton in flipping Red States to Blue because he has won more caucuses and primaries in Red States than has Clinton. Those were the apple into organge arguments that were made on DU, and not be Clinton supporters.

My OP is simply meant to provide an easy to understand perspective on the relative size and population of the states Clinton has won compared to those Obama has won. Too many Obama supporters brag about how many states Obama has won as if that was meaningful. Looking at the assigned electoral vote importance of all the contests decided to date helps put matters in a more real "short hand" perspective that all of us are used to using.

None of us think that 60% of the nation supported Bush over Kerry in 2004 just because 60% of the States did.

[alcibiades_mystery]

32. The size and "relative population"

If Obama was trailing in the popular vote, and his supporters were railing that he'd won more states, then maybe, maybe your argument would make a little bit of sense, although there is no reason whatsoever to index it to electoral votes. Since he is NOT trailing in the popular vote, your so-called "perspective" is pretty weak, at best, deliberately misleading at worst. Indeed, it is your argument that seeks to obscure a very simple fact: Obama has garnered more total votes in these primaries. "Relative population?" What's the fucking difference?

Equally meaningless, since Obama still has the higher popular vote total. What would "perspective" on individual state populations have to do with anything in that case? It doesn't provide any perspective; it is deliberately obfuscatory. Bush got more VOTES in 2004, nationally.

[Tom Rinaldo]

36. The "popular vote" is very much unsettled as of now

If one were to count Florida but NOT count Michigan (where Obama was not on the ballot) Obama has won 13,522,829 votes to Clinton's 13,234,883 votes. The gap, including last nights totals, is now less than 300,000 votes, and Clinton picked up more votes last night than the total now seperating her from Obama. She has the potential to win Pennsylvania alone by more than that.

More and more people are talking about the possibility of new primaries in Florida and Michigan.

P.S. Link to RealClearPolitics for numbers:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

[alcibiades_mystery]

57. That's a lot of words saying one thing: he has more votes, so your

point about "relative population" makes no sense. You're trying to downplay his wins, and you're doing it in a dumb and non-sensical way. Fluff that up as much as you want with "the potential to" and other assorted nonsenses, but your original post makes zero sense as either a direct comparison of the electoral numbers to the primary states (which I still believe was your original intent, that you've since abandoned for being unable to defend it), nor as a study of "relative population," also a meaningless argument since Obama has more votes total. What the fuck difference would it make that New York has more electoral votes than 10 primary states if Obama still had more votes in those states than in New York? None. It would make no difference, and both your point, original and (embarrassingly) amended, are both silly.

[Tom Rinaldo]

68. It's not over yet.

Did you realize that Hillary Clinton won more popular votes in her 3 victories on March 4th than Barack Obama won in all 12 of his victories that preceded them combined?

[AlertLurker]

47. I disagree. I did a study of Electoral Votes in Blue States:

and got HRC=88, and BHO=72.

It doesn't say much for the primaries, but you get a better idea of who has the potential to carry more of the traditional blue states. Obama would have to break through quite a lot of red states to come out even...

Not really informative, but interesting, I suppose.

[alcibiades_mystery]

58. No you don't

Because the "traditional blue states" don't operate the same way in the primaries as in the general. So the direct comparison gives you no indication whatsoever of how the nominee would perform in the general in those states. Does the fact that Obama blew Hillary out of the water in Illinois tell you anything about Hillary's "potential to carry" Illinois? Of course not. That's absurd. Illinois will go strongly Democratic either way. The information value of the primary wins is at best marginal in current and potential swing states (Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Iowa, New Mexico, Florida) and even that's being optimistic about the predictive value of any of this. In traditional blue states, it means next to nothing, which is why the OP has limped away from that comparison to invent some other rationale for his argument.

[BeyondGeography]

6. Sorry, but it's a dumb way to try to put things in perspective

For starters, Obama would win CA, NY, NJ, MA in the GE, and there's a good argument that he has a much better chance to win CO, IA, WA, MN, WI and VA than she does.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. It's not dumb at all

It gets a point across in a really clear way. I see many people point out how MANY states Obama has won IN THESE PRIMARIES. We all understand that Republicans run up the totals every 4 years by winning a slew of small states, but we also know that isn't what counts. This clearly illustrates the significance of the states Hillary has won this primary season.

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. There is no significance at all

The general election is a different animal altogether.

Your argument literally makes no sense, as is clearly demonstrated by your insistence on talking about what "Republicans constantly do" rather than responding to the real objections. So, do you think the Democratic nominee, whoever it might be, will win Texas in the fall? If not, how can you justifiably include Texas' "electoral" votes in your "head-to-head" analysis? It makes no sense. Do you think the Democratic nominee, whoever that might be, will really lose California in the fall? If not, then it makes no sense to award those "electoral" votes to one rather than the other. It's a meaningless argument, because you're comparing unlike things.

But, to get back to your other argument about Republicans. The real objection is that they present land mass rather than PEOPLE as some overwhelming victory. The people are densely located in urban areas, which look less impressive when you represent them spatially. That's the real objection, not that they run up "little states." It's about population, and where that population is located. At this point, Obama STILL has the lead in overall popular vote (although how we calculate caucuses is certainly an issue either way). So YOU are the one obscuring the issue with strange representations, like this meaningless comparison.

[Tom Rinaldo]

29. I did not make a "head to head" analysis, nor did I claim to

That wasn't my intent here. My intent was to showcase the relative size and importance of the states Clinton has won compared to those Obama has won so far using a very familiar yardstick; the number of electoral votes each state is assigned. I was not attempting to make predictions as to how those states will perform in November.

I guess I just saw one too many posters brag about THE SHEER NUMBER of states that Obama has won this primary season as if THAT mattered. States like North Dakota and Idaho have a tiny fraction of the residents of states like California and Texas and Massachusetts and Ohio (I left out New York and Illinois due to home state advantages). Looking at the electoral votes assigned to each state won so far puts that into a different and more realistic perspective.

[scheming daemons]

22. What states has Hillary won in the primaries that....

A) she would win against McCain in the fall

AND

B) Obama would NOT win against McCain in the fall


That's the relevant point.


I submit that Obama would win the following states in the fall against McCain.. and HILLARY WOULDN'T:

Virginia
Colorado
Louisiana


Can you name ANY state that Hillary would win in the fall that Obama WOULDN'T????

MAYBE Arkansas

That's it.

[Tom Rinaldo]

30. Since you asked

Try New Jersey on for size for starters if current polls are to be believed. That is a real wake up call. National polls also indicate that twice as many Democrats will defect to McCain if Obama is the nominee as would defect to McCain if Clinton were the nominee.

I think Arkansas is a stronger bet for Clinton than any of the states you listed are for Obama, and I don't think Obama has a real chance of taking Arkansas while I believe Clinton has a chance of taking any of the States you mention for Obama.

I think New Mexico and Nevada are States that Hillary can win that Obama is less likely to. West Virginia hasn't voted in the primaries yet but I think Clinton has a real chance of making that go Democratic again while Obama wouldn't. I think Clinton can win Ohio while Obama wouldn't. I think Clinton has a real chance in Florida while Obama doesn't. I think Clinton will hold Pennsylvania for Democrats while I fear Obama would not. There is even a chance Clinton could even win Oklahoma, it has reelected a Democratic Governor and Senators - but Obama would have no chance there.

[Auntie Bush]

54. Good analysis! I particularly like your last two paragraphs...& deserve repeating.

"I think Arkansas is a stronger bet for Clinton than any of the states you listed are for Obama, and I don't think Obama has a real chance of taking Arkansas while I believe Clinton has a chance of taking any of the States you mention for Obama.

I think New Mexico and Nevada are States that Hillary can win that Obama is less likely to. West Virginia hasn't voted in the primaries yet but I think Clinton has a real chance of making that go Democratic again while Obama wouldn't. I think Clinton can win Ohio while Obama wouldn't. I think Clinton has a real chance in Florida while Obama doesn't. I think Clinton will hold Pennsylvania for Democrats while I fear Obama would not. There is even a chance Clinton could even win Oklahoma, it has reelected a Democratic Governor and Senators - but Obama would have no chance there."

[blm]

27. Clearly illustrates that some Dems WANT BushInc protected into the next decade, too.

Loyalty to power and powerplayers over this the American citizens' right to open government accountable to the people.

That's the bottom line and some of you know it and DON'T CARE and the blowback that hits ALL of us is of no consequence to you.

[casus belli]

41. It's a logical fallacy...

like comparing apples and oranges. The fact is that the large states that Hillary has won will most certainly go blue no matter who the nominee is. Also, it doesn't take into consideration the fact that many of the currently red states could go blue depending on who the nominee is.

[Tom Rinaldo]

46. Self Delete. Duplicate of a post below. n/t

[anigbrowl]

50. No it doesn't it's pretty arbitrary

You might as well count counties or something.

[book_worm]

11. Tom, you're smarter than this.

Obama will win California, New York, Massachusetts and other Hillary states. These are blue states which will back the Democratic nominee. Obama, on the other hand, will have a better chance in the general election of winning independent voters who will decide the election. I have no doubt that either Obama or Hillary can win in November.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

23. Tom wasn't making any predictions in the OP

He simply put things in a framework we are all familiar with, in terms of relative state sizes and such.

It is a useful additional perspective. All data is welcome.

Had he argued that this one mode of analysis was superior to others, I'd agree with you, but I didn't get that from the OP.

[Tom Rinaldo]

25. You got it. Thanks n/t

[Tom Rinaldo]

24. That wasn't my point

Though there already is reason to be concerned that Obama would lose New Jersy to McCain. He also would not be competitive in Florida against McCain while Hillary would be. It's not just a matter of who can win Florida. Clinton might, and because she might the Republicans won't be able to take Florida for granted - they will have to sink major resourses into that State if Clinton is our nominee, not so if it is Obama. And then there is Ohio and Pennsylvania. Republicans almost took PA away from Kerry in 2004 even though his wife has major ties there. WE can't afford to lose PA, Obama would put it at risk. Clinton has greater appeal in Ohio than Obama does also, and that is a critical swing state.

You and others keep thinking the point of my OP was a claim that Clinton would win the states she won in the primaries in the General Election, but not Obama. That wasn't my point. My point was to remind people that Clinton has won some very impressive victories against Obama in the primaries, using an electoral college yardstick to measure how impressive her primary victories have been.

[DefenseLawyer]

13. I like apples

I also like oranges. But never in my life have I confused apples with oranges.

[Fire_brand]

26. LOL

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

15. you're fooling yourself if you think she can rack up that tally against McCain.

Only Barack can.


ed for typo

[scheming daemons]

20. Non-argument.... Obama would win CA and NY in the GE vs McCain ALSO....

...

Losing to Hillary in NY doesn't translate that Obama would ALSO lose to McCain in NY.


The OP is a red-herring.


The CORRECT comparison is.... which states would Obama win vs. McCain.... compared to which states would Hillary win vs. McCain.

[Fire_brand]

21. That's a valid point, however

that argument only goes so far. The fact is that we play by the rules that were set up in the beginning, i.e., the first candidate to 2025 wins.

At the outset of the race, the Obama team looked at the rules, the political landscape, their opponents, their own strengths and weaknesses, and crafted a strategy that would allow him to win. This strategy included winning the smaller states.

The Clinton team do doubt did the same thing, except the conclusion they came to was that the big states would carry her, and this thing would be over by Feb. 5.

Clinton got it wrong, Obama got it right.

Again, the way you get to the nomination is by winning delegates. Cinton can shout from the mountain tops all she wants about winning the states that "matter," but that fact is that Obama played the game better and now has an insurmountable delegate lead.

Cry about it, it'll make you feel better.

[Tom Rinaldo]

28. The nomination will be decided based on how all the rules play out

I wasn't complaining about how the race has gone down to date. Just pointing out, using a familiar frame of reference, how much strength Clinton has shown to date.

I hope I can count on you to explain to those unclear on the concept that the independent judgment of super delegates has been hard wired into those rules from the start also. If no one wins enough delegates in the primaries to win the nomination, those Super Delegates are not only within their rights, but the Democratic Party expects them to exercise their own judgment as to who will make a better Democratic Party candidate for President. If they want to take into account who has held up better throughout a long campaign, who is gaining rather than losing strength, it is proper for them to do so. If they want to factor in who they think has the support of millions of Democrats in Michigan and Florida, it is proper for them to do so. Those also are the rules.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

33. That's Why She's Earned Herself Some Great Leverage Goin Into Denver.

Some on his side though still have their minds locked down to tight to grasp this concept though. Great post.

[onenote]

40. There isn't much logic to the claim that HRC has shown she can "win" the big states

Indeed, if one wants to argue she is better situated to win California and New York than Obama because she won those primaries, then you also have to accept that Obama is better situated than Clinton to win a bunch of red states where he beat Clinton. And since any Democrat is fairly likely to win states like California and New York, then you can make the argument that Obama is the stronger candidate since he's more likely to win states not traditionally won by Democrats, such as Virginia.

Flawed logic? Of course, but its the inevitable result of the flawed logic of the OP.

[Tom Rinaldo]

45. I pointed out the flaw in boasting that Obama has won 26 contests

compared to Clinton only winning 16 so far. My logic in doing so is sound.

But if you want to talk about winning "big States", there are polls that show McCain beating Obama in New Jersey while losing to Clinton there. The same is true for Ohio. Obama gets slaughtered in Florida against McCain while the race between Clinton and McCain is very tight there. Democrats barely held onto Pennsylvania against Bush in 2004 and Clinton is our strongest candidate in Pennsylvania, Obama could very well cost us that State to against McCain compared to Clinton as our nominee.

[557188]

34. Ohio

Hillary would beat McCain in Ohio

Obama would lose to McCain in Ohio

Ohio controls the election in 2008. This is a simple fact and its amazing people continue to ignore obvious facts.

This map is proof that Hillary is the stronger candidate.

[TacticalPeek]

35. K&R

:kick:

[Vinca]

37. It is a foolish argument to assume that the people who voted

for Hillary in the so-called "states that count" would not vote for Obama, thereby giving the state to the Republicans. Unless they're complete and total morons, they would vote for the Democrat if they are Democrats in lieu of John McCain and a century of war. In addition, Obama would be apt to pick up purple states and might actually get a red state. This argument for why Hillary should get the nomination despite having fewer delegates doesn't make sense.

[onenote]

38. What exactly is your point? That you think the nominating procedure should be changed?

Are you suggesting that the Democratic nomination should be decided on a winner take all basis with the number of delegates based on the same calculus as the electoral college?

[Tom Rinaldo]

42. Please read my replies to other posts

I covered your question in them. Time and time again on DU I have read people post a list of arguments for why Obama should win the nomination, and the fact that he has won many more contests than Hillary is almost always on that list of reasons. Both Al Gore and John Kerry fell one just State short of winning the presidency in 2000 and 2004. Had Gore just won 21 states, or Kerry won 20 states, each of them would have won their respective elections. Bush always had a much longer list of States he won.

People see lists of the 26 or so States Obama has won compared to the 16 or so States Clinton has won, and comparing the length of those raw lists tends to give a knee jerk psychological leg up to Obama. This points out the illusion of that surface impression and the fallacy of promoting total victories to date as an argument in favor of Obama. The big states matter more than the small states and the Democratic Party has always known that to be true.

[onenote]

44. And is there something wrong with an approach based on number of delegates won?

I agree that the number of "states" won shouldn't matter. Is there something wrong with the party's approach -- not winner take all, but delegates apportioned by district victory.

[Tom Rinaldo]

48. There are plenty of odd rules, but they are the rules

Teas is screwy with having people vote and then also go to a caucus to award a third of a delegates based on a subset of the primary voters voting twice. Washington State is screwy having a caucus give out delegates with a small fraction of voters participating compared to those who vote in the actual primary a few weeks later. And some people think Super Delegates are screwy also, but there were arguments made in support of the Texas and Washington systems and in support of independent Super Delegates. Those are all in the rules.

Every state has it's own rules. Personally I don't like winner take all approaches but I am not sure I like the various ways in some states that individual votes get weighed differently - like in Nevada, which results in clear winners of the popular vote being clear losers of the delegate counts.

[adapa]

39. yes, yes, we NEED the big states to win in November!! link

Here's the 2004 break down- with % shaded in-
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

I've said it before & I'll say it again till I'm blue,
Clinton/Obama
we need a fighter & a uniter

[anigbrowl]

49. What a meaningless comparison

I'm not even sure why I'm replying to this nonsense. Hey, if it gives you pleasure to see Hillary winning using imaginary metrics based on a two-party contest instead of an intra-party contest, have fun.

[Lucinda]

51. K&R

Very interesting thread.

[Armstead]

55. You are comparing apples and oranges

If you look at Hillary's electoral votes according to your calculations, how many are in states that would likely go Democratic regardless of which is the nominee.

After subtracting that you can talk about swing states and red states that might tip in the other direction. I don;t know how that would shake out, but I think it is erroneous to discount a state like Massachusetts (my state) from Obama in the General just because it chose Hillary in the primary.

[On the Road]

56. Thank You for Digging This Up

It is an interesting way to appreciate the impact of how different ways of counting the vote result in different outcomes. If the DNC had chosen to count votes like the electoral college, the entire progress of the campaign would have been turned on its head even if every voter had cast his or her ballot exactly the same way.

It's funny, because all through the string of Obama victories, I kept thinking "he can't be gaining much of a lead, because there are so few delegates in a lot of those states." But I was thinking of electoral rather than primary math.

And most of the posters on this thread seem to have completely missed the point and how meaningful it is.

[Tom Rinaldo]

65. Yep. And I just saw another person post on a thread how significant it is

it is that Obama has won so many more contests than Hillary.

Meanwhile, we allow caucuses, like in Washington State, that went overwhelmingly to Obama giving him the lion's share of delegates while a Democratic primary vote held just a few weeks later with multiple times the voters participating gave Obama a much more narrow win but "didn't count". We have caucuses like in Nevada where Clinton had a solid lead over Obama in the popular vote but was awarded less delegates than Obama because of differing weight assigned to different kinds of voters. We have a caucus in a State like Texas where a small subset of the Democrats who all cast votes in the primary got to "vote" a second time if they could fit the caucus hours into their schedule, with the result that a minority of people double voting swung the results from the much larger primary vote pool back toward Obama after Clinton won the primary. We have caucus results from a state like Iowa where candidates who did not initially meet the viability threshold cooperated in trading caucus supporters in an effort to slow down the front runner in the race, who then was Hillary Clinton. Caucuses game the system, but they are in the rules.

1,734,456 Democrats voted in this year's Florida Democratic Primary on January 29th. So far this election season the Democratic Party has held delegate awarding caucuses in 12 States. 1,176,579 Democrats participated in all of those Democratic caucuses combined. Which means that a total of 557,877 MORE Democrats took part in the Florida Primary alone, than took part in all of the Democratic caucuses held in 2008.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4636542

[rodeodance]

67. thanks looks like a good thread--will have to visit it.

[amborin]

61. thanks for clarifying, Hillary is ahead!

[Sulawesi]

64. just wow. So, if HRC could trade positions with BO, you think she would refuse?

[rodeodance]

66. REC

[Lucinda]

69. ...

[Laelth]

70. Proof that Hillary can win!

:sarcasm:

:rofl:

Like California will go for McCain? No way.

Obama's strength is that he can win all the solidly Democratic states that Hillary won in the primary and the swing states too (plus some red states, possibly).

Obama's strength in the red states is a plus ... unless you believe Massachusetts would prefer McCain to Obama (and that's patently absurd).

:dem:

-Laelth

[Tom Rinaldo]

71. So who still believes in "One person, one vote"?

Today I have been reading a number of posts by Obama supporters being sarcastic about how Clinton and her supporters supposedly think the States that Obama has won "don't matter".

An interesting thing about the OP for this thread is that Electoral Votes start out biased toward smaller and less populous states at the expence of larger more populous states. The Electoral vote of every State factors in that all stetes, regardless of size, get two Senators in the U.S. Senate. North Dakota has 639,715 citizens and 3 electoral votes. Kansas has 2,775,997 citizens and 6 electoral votes. So Kansas gets less than half the electoral votes per person that North Dakota gets. Even with the special preference given small states under the electoral college rules, look at the totals in the OP of this thread again.

No one is saying that the small states that Obama won don't count. It simply is a fact that the states that Clinton has won tend to have more voters than the states that Obama has won so far.

[olkaz]

72. I've seen a lot of stupid posts today, but this one, woo-boy

Let's run it through the prism of college football!

Let's run it through the prism of school government!

Let's run it through the prism of Final Fantasy VII!

Let's run it through the prism of Iron Chef!

Let's run it through the prism of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"!

[Tom Rinaldo]

73. I think you haven't bothered to read any of the posts here, have you?

Just an informed guess.

[Raffi Ella]

74. Great post Tom,thanks.

The Party Leaders know this now that she's won Ohio and Texas.It's a matter of electability.Everyone can bitch and moan about their favorite Candidate but in the end the Dems are going to put forth the electable Candidate and that is Hillary.Especially after she wins PA.

ObamaCo. knows this too,that's why they're begging her to drop out now and why his fans are going insane.