Philly.com: In most inclusive count, Clinton has the numbers

[Iceburg]

Lost in the excitement of Barack Obama's coronation this week was an inconvenient fact of Tuesday's results: Hillary Clinton netted approximately 150,000 votes and is now poised to finish the primary season as the popular-vote leader. In some quaint circles, presumably, these things still matter.
Real Clear Politics keeps track of six versions of the popular-vote total. They are, in ascending order of inclusivity: (1) the popular vote of sanctioned contests; (2) the total of sanctioned contests, plus estimated votes from the Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington caucuses; (3) the popular vote plus Florida; (4) popular vote plus Florida and the caucuses; (5) the popular vote plus Florida and Michigan; (6) popular vote plus Florida, Michigan, and the caucus estimates. After Tuesday, Clinton now leads in two of these six counts.

If you believe that the most important precept in democratic politics is to "count every vote," then the sixth category is the most inclusive, and here Clinton leads Obama by 71,301 votes. Of course, this includes the Michigan result, where Sen. Obama had removed his name from the ballot. So while it may be the most inclusive, it may not be the most fair.

The third and fourth counts - the ones which include Florida - seem more fair. Here, Obama is clinging to a slight lead of 146,786 votes (257,008, with the caucus estimates). However, with Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota remaining, he will almost certainly finish behind her in these counts, likely by a few hundred thousand votes.

But could Clinton take over the lead in all of the popular-vote tabulations? Quite possibly. In Puerto Rico's last major election, two million people voted. Let's assume that turnout for this historic vote - Puerto Rico has never had a presidential primary before - will be equal to or greater than that turnout.

If Clinton were to win Puerto Rico by 20 points she would pick up at least a 400,000-vote margin. This would allow her to swamp Obama in the popular-vote counts, which include Florida, making her the leader in four of the six permutations of the popular vote. At that point, Obama would be left clinging to the least-inclusive count, which he now leads by 441,558 votes (551,780, including caucuses).

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http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080523_In_most_inclusive_count__Clinton_has_the_numbers.html

[babylonsister]

1. Better title: while it may be the most inclusive, it ISN'T the most fair.

MI at the moment shouldn't count for either of them. The DNC will figure it out.

[Iceburg]

4. You do know that BO was polling at < 23% going into MI? /nt

[babylonsister]

8. He wasn't on the stinkin' ballot. Figure it out! It's OVER. nt

[anonymous171]

2. I stopped at "Coronation". lol

[AtomicKitten]

3. She cannot beat him in THE metric that determines the nominee -- DELEGATE COUNT.

Thanks for playing.

[Iceburg]

6. He does not have enough to win on delegate strength ...

the Supers Delegates will be the deciders or the popular vote.

[AtomicKitten]

7. He will have the delegates very, very soon to close the deal.

Popular vote is a pipe dream and rendered moot simply by virtue of the caucus states. The metric that chooses the nominee has already been written. It is the total delegate count. Period. Obama is about 50 delegates away from the 2,026 as determined by the DNC.

FL and MI will not be seated at full delegate count. Bank on it. The rules still matter and, in fact, supersede this effort by HRC to create chaos.

Hillary has lost. Just because she has not conceded does not make that any less true. It's been over for her since the end of February when Obama took 12 straight.

[Iceburg]

9. "Popular vote is a pipe dream" ... spoken like a true champion of democracy

I think we can agree that:
a) neither one of us can predict with certainty who will ultimately be the nominee.
b) in a true democracy, votes are the only metric that matter

[AtomicKitten]

10. This nomination will be decided on delegate count as per DNC rules.

You can twist that and try impose new metrics that favor the outcome you desire, but it is for naught. The Supreme Court has upheld that parties are entitled to run elections according to the rules they set forth. And regardless of how much you don't like that, regardless of your efforts to trying to spin the rules as undemocratic or other such nonsense, the rules are the rules and by the rules Obama has won. Hillary just hasn't conceded.

Thanks for playing.

[kid a]

5. give it up - its over

[RiverStone]

11. the "inclusive count" is actually an EXCLUSIVE count

It did not count all those who did not vote in FLA because they were told it did not count; it does not include all those in MI who would have voted for Obama if he was on the ballot.

It EXCLUDES, and the talk of counting MI/FLA as is = utter and complete bullshit.

Gawd, when will this fuzzy math end?

ANSWER: On or about the second week in June.