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...why waste time worrying about Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Florida poll results for the General Election? Why spend all this time talking about "the map," if the popular vote is REALLY the deciding factor for the nomination, and the nomination is really (as some have suggested) a warm-up for the GE?
The answer is, you can't have it both ways. By emphasizing the electoral map so heavily, Hillary and her campaign have implicitly accepted the old rules of the electoral college--which, as we all know, trumps the popular vote in electing our leaders. You can't just turn and around and say--but look at the total numbers! More people voted for me than him to win, so I should be the winner! Yeah, tell that to Al Gore--and tell it to the strawman version of Obama you have losing the election in your electoral map mock-ups.
Unlike the electoral college, which I admit is deeply flawed, I understand the reasoning behind our primary delegate system--somewhat. The General Election DOES NOT take place over the course of 5 months, but the primary system does. And If you want to take the popular vote in the primary seriously, you'll be counting the votes of many, many people who have since switched candidates in the three months since their state voted--or people who simply didn't get a chance to vote. According to recent polls, California is now solidly for Obama, as is New Jersey--but of course, this may all change in another week, or depending on which poll you read.
To avoid counting votes that have since changed, and to reconcile ourselves with the fact that our General Election all takes place over one 24-hour period, it seems to me that the only fair way to do it is what we've essentially done. Ours is a representational system in which a pledged delegate is assigned to represent a bloc of voters, with the understanding that if a few members of the bloc change their mind at a later date, the proportions will more or less stay the same. (I don't actually really get the Superdelegate system, but it doesn't matter because Obama has and will lead in pledged delegates even without them.)
If Hillary Clinton wishes to sell the Democratic party on her "of the people" victory, based on a nostalgic referendum of the Florida 2000 fiasco, she should immediately drop the Ohio-West Virgina--Pennsylvania arguing point about electability. Most polls show Obama with a solid national lead over Hillary, and while such polling remains faulty, you can't argue for a victory based on a representational matchup (electoral college states versus poll numbers) and at the same time insist on a populist victory (popular vote uber alles) It WAS a squeaker, Hillary, but even WITH Florida and Michigan, you lost OUR version of the map--you lost our race for delegates.
Unfair? Such is life.
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