Sorry that I'm posting so much about Barack Obama lately. There's just not very much else that has captured my attention.
About that popular vote margin which Obama's campaign is claiming as somehow nearly binding on Democratic superdelegates:
In the race for the most popular votes in the Democratic Party's presidential primary contests, Sen. Barack Obama's lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton is about 711,000 votes -- not including Florida or Michigan -- according to Real Clear Politics.
Of Sen. Obama's 711,000 popular-vote lead, 650,000 -- or more than 90% of the total margin -- comes from Sen. Obama's home state of Illinois, with 429,000 of that lead coming from his home base of Cook County.
That margin in Cook County represents almost 60% of Obama's total lead nationwide.
Interestingly, Sen. Obama's 429,000-vote margin in Cook County alone is larger than the winning margin of either candidate in any state.
Interesting stuff. First, congratulations to the Cook County Democrats. They should be proud of carrying their hometown candidate to such an overwhelming margin, and their political operation may just be the best in America.
Second, some other interesting figures (Figures from Real Clear Politics as well.): Clinton's margin in New York state was 317,000. Her margin in California was 421,000.
Using vote totals that include Florida and Michigan (giving Obama credit for Michigan's "uncommitted"), Obama's margin is about 87,000 out of some 27 million votes cast.
Mandate?
I'm hoping Hillary stays in the race and triumphs over Obama, offering him the VP job.
Not because I care which one wins the nomination, because there's scant difference between them and each would claim a progressive mandate.
Not because I want to see the Democratic Party in disarray. Or rather, not because I want that per se.
I want her to stay in for the same reason I like tornados and blizzards: my sense of awe is triggered by watching big systems at work, and that's what the electoral process is.
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See the Academy, where we start at pretension and never look back.
this argument seems silly to me. you can say the entire margin comes from cook county, or you can find two different states (or maybe just one) elsewhere and say it all came from there. the fact is obama has won a majority of the popular vote in something like 2/3rds of the states.
this looks like clinton campaign spin if you ask me.
"this looks like clinton campaign spin if you ask me."
Oh, it certainly is.
I had no idea, though, that the total popular vote margin in favor of Obama was so small, especially as a percentage of total votes cast.
Compared to the popular vote margin in the 2000 Presidential election, where Bush's margin was so small it was negative?
"Compared to the popular vote margin in the 2000 Presidential election, where Bush's margin was so small it was negative?"
I don't remember anyone arguing that Bush's margin in 2000 was so large as be any sort of mandate, as people seem to be arguing that Obama's roughly one percent margin here is somehow a mandate that should govern the actions of superdelegates.
maybe not a mandate, but certainly proof that lots of Dems are NOT eager to repeat the 90's.
Could all of this talk about how Bill Clinton was such a great president also be considered Clinton campaign spin?
"their political operation may just be the best in America."
or worst, we ain't doing so good Statewise.
To that end, I am, and shall always remain;
Rex Bradfield
Yes, this is true in a sense. The idea is that Obama got a 639,109 lead in Illinois which is 89% of his 717,086 total lead (which is beside the fact that if you count every state including FL, MI, IA, NV, ME, and WA, places that either are not counted or haven't released totals, Obama only has a 204,227 lead). But that isn't the correct way to do the math, and so it is unfortunate that has been spread around the media. This is all research on my own, and I haven't read it elsewhere, but here's why it is wrong, assuming we stick with the 717,086 lead number:
In Maryland he has a 218,454 lead. That's 30% of 717,086! But 89 +30 > 100, so that's why the math is wrong.
To properly determine Illinois's influence, here is what you do.
Illinois = 1,318,234 Obama votes
Total Obama Votes = 13,355,209 votes
So Illinois is 9.87% responsible for his total votes, and thus, 9.87% responsible for his lead.
Stat source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html