CNN gets around to doing the math:
Clinton has been arguing that she leads in the popular vote, but that’s only when both states are included and it is very slim — fewer than 5,000 votes out of 34 million cast.
Her accounting also doesn’t include some caucus states that favored Obama and where the popular vote wasn’t tallied. The measure of winning the nomination is not the popular vote but whoever can get the majority of delegates — currently 2,026 are needed for the nomination although adding Michigan and Florida back in would change the threshold.
Obama climbed to 1,904 on Friday, according to The Associated Press count. Clinton has 1,719 delegates and is trying to use the popular vote argument to win over more.
Clinton encouraged supporters in an e-mail Friday to sign a message to the DNC asking them to count Michigan and Florida in the May 31 meeting. “I need you to remind them that in the Democratic Party, we count every vote,” her e-mail said.
(…)
If their elections had been held according to party rules, Michigan and Florida would have allocated a total of 313 pledged delegates based on the outcome of the vote. Using the results of the January elections with no votes for Obama from Michigan, Clinton would get 178 to Obama’s 67, giving her a 111-vote advantage. As of Friday, she was behind 185 delegates, so that would not catch her up even under that unlikely scenario.
The plans before the committee will be more generous to Obama.
The Michigan Democratic Party has proposed giving 69 of its 128 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama, an advantage of 10 delegates for Clinton.
A proposal from Florida would halve its 185 delegates. From that, Clinton would get 52.5 and Obama 33.5, a 19-delegate advantage for Clinton.
And if those plans are adopted, Clinton’s goose is cooked.
I’ve made much the same argument several times over the past several weeks here, here, and here.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
[...] is also a completely harebrained result, since even Florida is only asking for half its delegates to be seated. But again, let’s go harebrained to give Clinton the benefit of the doubt here. And [...]