By Electoral College votes measure, Clinton leads Obama 219 - 202

[DemGa]

From an article in Today's NYT. Just another indicator that Hillary is by far the better candidate.

[Thepricebreaker]

1. but they dont.. so the point is moot...

[joshcryer]

3. But who don't?

Electoal Collage votes are far more important than anything else here, and superdelegates will make it their number one consideration.

[buff2]

6. There are going to be a lot of people

crying in their beer if Obama gets the nomination. We will know we have lost the GE.

[TheWraith]

13. Then you'll "know" something that just isn't true.

It always dazzles me that some people actually believe Clinton, who's got an automatic 48% opposition, actually has a better chance to win than a guy who's both inspiring and about as untainted as politicians come these days.

[Texas Hill Country]

28. he is inspiring... but if anything, Wright proves that there is baggage, and you can bet there is

more to come...

[TheWraith]

42. If you want to talk about "baggage," Hillary loses hugely.

Let's see. Obama: an overheated preacher and a donor who's now in trouble with the law.

Clinton: 16 years of continuous smearing from the Republicans, four months of self-destruction and scorched-earth politics, 48% "absolutely not" number, on-the-record lies, scandals, exaggeration, and assaults on the Democratic base.

[buff2]

2. That's right,she is.

She is the only one left who can beat McCain. I prefered Edwards,but now I support Hillary.

[DJ13]

4. When our primaries use the Electoral College then you have a point

:eyes:

[joshcryer]

7. Our primaries use superdelegates, which is the equivalent.

[Joe the Revelator]

9. No. They aren't.

[Orsino]

35. Not in the least.

The Dem nominee will be competing against a Republican in November. The current split in the Democratic Party won't be relevant then.

[ourbluenation]

51. You couldn't be more wrong. But you go.

:rofl:

[Bullet1987]

5. She won't win Texas in the General...so counting Electoral college

votes in idiotic at best.

[billbuckhead]

15. DIDN'T SHE WIN MORE VOTES IN TEXAS?

These caucuses are undemocratic, but then Hillary's soulless opponent has proven to care little for democracy.

[tammywammy]

45. You keep going with that

But Obama won Texas.

[PseudoIntellect]

48. They were democratic until Hillary started losing all of them.

[Ian_rd]

62. Thank you

What a dumb, dumb, dumb thing to say. Hillary leads in imaginary Electoral votes? WTH? What a completely pointless argument.

[Smelting Pot]

HaHaHaHA!

[Joe the Revelator]

8. Hillary also leads Obama in blond hairs, whats your point?

There are set rules here, and Electoral votes aren't what gets the job done.

[Cali_Democrat]

10. Obama won't lose states like California and New York. nt

[tyne]

16. Obama is trouncing

McCain in CA. Hillary beats McCain....barely.

[TheWraith]

11. So to find a measure by which she's winning, you have to make up irrelevant tests.

God forbid we should measure our candidates by popular votes, delegates, or even the less relevant measure of number of states won. But electoral votes? What BS. It's not like we're going to lose New York or California if we don't nominate the person who won them.

[flor de jasmim]

12. From a research point of view, you CANNOT...

compare results from the primary taken over several months under different conditions and extrapolate to what would happen in November, with everyone but the absentees voting on the same day. It is ludicrous to do so, and when someone posts something like that they are either willfully ignorant or, more likely, playing politics.

[powergirl]

14. By a leprechaun to unicorn measure,

Obama leads by 50 leprechauns. :wtf:

[stop the bleeding]

17. I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night.

:beer:

[Yes We Did]

And that would assume that Obama can't carry Hillary's states.

Your augment is seriously flawed.

[onenote]

18. of all of the stupid arguments that can be made about electability, this is the stupidest

Did any of the posters citing this article actually read it? It basically indicates that Clinton has won primaries in states with more electoral votes than Obama. Well, so what? John Kerry won primaries in 46 states. He obviously didn't carry a lot of those states in the GE. And a couple of places that he didn't carry in the primaries -- Vermont and DC -- he won handily in the GE.

Its been said here dozens of times, but apparently needs to be said again: winning a primary in a state doesn't tell you squat about winning the GE in that state.

[tekisui]

19. That is a ridiculous "indicator".

The Electoral College is for the GE, against McSame.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the Primary.

[K Gardner]

20. The graphic below illustrates your point better..

[SoCalDem]

40. I tried to send you a PM..

got a weird message saying you could not receive messages "yet".. you're not new..:shrug:

check & see if you got it ? k?

[The Night Owl]

21. Oh my freaking God! Let it sink! Let it sink!

:sarcasm:

[MercutioATC]

22. Is THIS level of logical disconnect what we've come to?

You're making a completely illogical argument.

Clinton (or Obama) winning a Dem primary in a particular state does NOT equate to a loss for the other Dem in the general.

The abysmal stupidity of this OP frightens me.

[Umbram]

47. Yes, it is an amazingly idiotic argument - but that is all Clinton has left to argue. (nt)

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

23. How convenient - from the same article...

“I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.”

Hillary Clinton

[democrattotheend]

24. I got a different count. Have a couple questions

Who did you give Texas to, and did you count Florida and Michigan?

[DemGa]

29. Florida and Michigan were not counted in the article

I've made no prediction about TX.

[slick8790]

25. Right. Because Obama will of course lose NY and CA in the GE.

You're ridiculous.

[Forkboy]

26. This is just getting embarrassing.

[BlueIdaho]

27. How much older than Obama would she be...

If we measured their ages in dog years - almost as important... as this post.

[thevoiceofreason]

30. Doofus

Give each of them the certain to win states: NY, Cal, Mass, Ill.

Now what?

[DemGa]

43. OH and PA for starters ---nt

[Adelante]

31. Stop yourself

You can do it.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

32. Wow. That's A Huge Tribute To Her Actually.

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

33. Here's what Hillary thinks about Electoral College votes

“I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.”

Hillary Clinton

[qazplm]

34. 17 is by far?

out of 535?

Really?

[SoCalDem]

36. far more likely to try and change the rules to suit her latest scheme

:evilgrin:

The poor dear needs a math tutor:)

[ProSense]

37. Reductio Ad Absurdum

Reductio Ad Absurdum

By Josh Marshall

I don't know where it was. It think it may have been a reader blog at TPMCafe. Wherever it was it was a post that ran down something like ten different ways of counting the popular vote, all to the end of showing that Barack's popular vote lead wasn't nearly so great and may not exist at all. There was the count with and without Michigan and Florida, with one but not the other, including caucuses and not including caucuses. There were other options that seemed to go even further down the rabbit hole. But it did lead me to have a kind of epiphany about just where the Clinton side is at this point -- gaming out different retroactive rule changes to see who would have won the popular vote if the nomination process were operating under a different set of rules. I imagine playing poker around a table with friends. Player A has a Straight Flush; Player B has four of a kind. Then B says well, sure, if you're counting straights, but if we were adding up the numbers rather than going by straights winning, I'd have won.

How well would that go over? I remember, when I was a little kid playing chess with my dad (who unlike some dads never saw the point of throwing games in my favor) and sometimes when I lost I'd toss out some version of ... well, but if my rook could move diagonally, then ... You get the idea.

Admittedly, there is a relative scale of ridiculousness. I can see the argument over the non-sanctioned Florida and Michigan primaries, though I don't agree with it. But ruling out caucuses? Or today's gambit from Evan Bayh arguing that we should be looking at who's winning by the electoral college vote, which yields a narrow win for Hillary? A few seconds of thought shows that this is just a back door way of getting rid of the proportional allocation of delegates the DNC system runs by and opting instead for the winner-take-all model followed by the Republicans.

Looking back over how this race has shaken out, I have serious questions whether the proportional system is the best way to go, at least if the other party is going the winner-take-all route. If you grant that there's an advantage in coming to a decision early, the proportional system really does make it terribly hard for either candidate in a close race to put it away.

But fundamentally, who cares? The system is based on pledged delegates and super-delegates. Period. There's a set of rules everyone agreed on. The wisdom of those rules is irrelevant at this point. The Clinton campaign is entitled to do whatever it wants to get superdelegates to come over to her side to even out the pledged delegate deficit. My take is that whatever the arguments, the superdelegates aren't going to go against a clear pledged delegate leader. And I think they'd be extremely ill-advised to do so. But the superdelegates do have this power under the rules. But these constant efforts to say the rules aren't fair are just silly, and truth be told I think they're more undermining of the Clinton campaign than they realize.

[bookman]

38. Pointless

The Democratic candidate is likely to win states like California and Illinois.

[housewolf]

39. Evan Bayh started floating this concept over the weekend

& some others have picked it up.

It's a totally specious argument, in my opinion. It's implying something like "Only Hillary can win California, Obama will lose California". It's nonsense.

The primary season isn't about winning electoral votes, it's about winning delegates.

[Liberal Veteran]

41. That has simply got to be the stupidest argument I've ever heard.

The logic only holds up if nobody but democrats are going to vote in the GE (and if Clinton is the only person on the ballot in Michigan).

[Umbram]

44. Welcome to the NEW goal post. (nt)

[tammywammy]

46. Since Clinton can't say she has the popular vote or the most pledged delegates

She has to use the electoral college, which has no bearing on the Primary. Just because she won Texas in the primary doesn't mean she's going to win it in the general and there's no way Obama's going to lose California or New York.

[TheZug]

49. And we all know that whoever wins a state in the primary automatically wins it in the general.

Right?

Oy.

[crankychatter]

50. Even Ford, DLC Chair LAUGHED OUT LOUD at this BS

what a crock... in a Dem on Dem vote, it means NOTHING

[Hawkeye-X]

52. Considering that California, MA and NY are deep blue states

Point is moot.

[yellowcanine]

53. Except that Electoral College is "winner take all" so it doesn't apply to the primaries.

Apples meet oranges.

[Yael]

54. Is his your first election?

Seriously.

You DO know the difference between a primary and a general, aye?

[girl gone mad]

55. So you think CA and NY are going to go red if Hill doesn't win..

the nomination?

That's pretty delusional.

[unblock]

56. by that logic, mccain would CLOBBER either of 'em.

:dunce:

[Pawel K]

57. Now it's pretty clear Clinton supporters don't even know how an election works

That explains everything. I say we stop kicking this bullshit.

[undeterred]

58. Grasping at straws.

[RamboLiberal]

59. Stupid argument cause you damn well know Obama

will win many of the same blue states as Hillary in the GE. And if blue collar voters in states like Ohio can't get over Rev. Wright and their racism when there is 10+% of them on food stamps then they deserve McCain!

[TheDonkey]

60. That settles it. GAME IS OVER GUYS! back you bags

:sarcasm:

[quakerboy]

61. Hillary wins states

that we would win if we submitted our presidential contender as _____(D). Woo hoo. Exciting.

Thats nice and all, but it might be a good idea to look past ones that we win no matter, and move on to the ones we need to win beyond that.

[Medusa]

63. We aren't in the General Election yet

and she won't win if she is the nominee but if you want us to lose again. . . . keep right on supporting her. She's positively unelectable.

[Alexander]

64. By that idiotic masure, John Kerry beat Bush in '04 by a 46-state landslide.

Let me know how President Kerry is doing.

[Sulawesi]

65. Argh - Cue the Colbert Big State Electoral College Analysis

http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=163288

[martymar64]

66. LET IT SINK

:crazy:

[anonymous171]

67. By that math, Bush obviously was the better candidate.