Good News: Obama likely will hold his popular vote lead over Clinton (incl. FL)

[mckeown1128]

As ridiculous as it is to include the voter suppressed, fraudulent primary in FL.. the news media seems to have bought the Clinton line that it should count in Clinton's "hypothetical" measurement. Obama is currently ahead including FL and even with a decent Clinton win in PR Obama will still maintain his lead.

As proof I offer the master calculator in his own words..Poblano:

And as such, taking the high and low end of the range, we'd estimate that somewhere between 34.7 percent and 64.0 percent of Puerto Rico's 1.27 million "likely voters" will actually turn out to vote. That would represent a turnout of between 441,000 and 813,000.

Intuitively, this seems like a pretty reasonable range. Puerto Rican officials expect a turnout of about 500,000. Joe Sestak, who might be echoing the expectations of the Clinton camp, says 450,000 to 500,000. Puerto Rican elections expert Manuel Alvarez-Rivera guesses 600,000. The record for turnout in a Democratic primary is 870,000, when Ted Kennedy made a visit to the island in his challenge to Jimmy Carter. So there are a lot of numbers coming up in that mid-to-high six figures range.

Unfortunately for Clinton, this is probably not the margin she would need to win the +Florida version of the popular vote count. Presently, Obama holds a lead of 273,877 votes if Florida (but not Michigan) is counted for Senator Clinton. Obama is likely to net about 25 or 30 thousand votes between Montana and South Dakota, so we'll round that number up to 300,000. That's how many votes Clinton will need to win in Puerto Rico to lay a claim on this version of the popular vote.

The problem is that if turnout is only 500,000, Clinton would need to win by 60 points (e.g. 80-20) in order to secure that margin. And that just ain't going to happen. 20 points? 25 points? Possible, considering how little anyone knows about this primary. 30 points? Who knows. But 60 points isn't going to happen.


http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/05/turnout-in-puerto-rico.html

[book_worm]

1. I think it will be 58-42 for Hillary in PR

[gateley]

2. Oops. nt

[dchill]

3. The news media ALSO seems to have bought ...

the Clinton line that she will win BIG in Puerto Rico. There is really no empirical evidence of that. Like the Clinton cadre, they seem to just take it on faith...

[mckeown1128]

4. From my journal for your enjoyment.

Ex-Puerto Rico governor on why Hillary will LOSE PR.

Rafael Hernandez Colon, who addressed a largely Hispanic gathering of 80 people at The Warehouse, said before his speech that Clinton could lose the primary because she endorsed a bill that supports statehood. Ninety percent of Puerto Ricans want a permanent union with the United States, not statehood, he said.

"We are Obama people," he said.

The crowd cheered when he asked how many supported Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Hernandez Colon, who has written extensively about the island's relationship to the United States, served as governor from 1973 to 1977 and 1985 to 1993.

http://www.syracuse.com/articles/news/inde...


And before the Clinton supporters rush in here giddy to point out that the governor of PR has been indicted.... NO, this is NOT the same governor... This is a respected leader in PR... so don't bother trying to trash him. That being said... I hope this guy is right. Here is a direct quote as to why he thinks it she will lose PR....(posted so that people can't parse the second hand account above)


"That report will probably cost Hillary Clinton the primary in Puerto Rico," Colón said.

http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/sto...

[Laura PourMeADrink]

11. great post. thanks !

[dchill]

14. Thanks for your excellent post.

:)

[MH1]

5. The one thing that will save Hillary from being VILLIFIED for years

(like nothing she has seen before)

will be if Obama retains a sound so-called "popular vote" lead so that she can graciously acknowledge that he has won on ALL measures and that her supporters should get behind him.

Anything else will leave the nominee -whether it's Obama or ends up being Hillary somehow - delegitimized among a large swath of the party, and probably with no hope of recovery in time for the general election in November.

If McCain wins in November and it is perceived as Hillary's fault for the way she's handled this, she is DONE.

And that would not make me happy. I want a Democrat inaugurated next January, period.

[barack the house]

6. Randi Rhodes did the Hillary math and she only is ahead if you don't count his votes in MI. Unreal..

really. Her popular vote is defined on saying no-one was for Obama in MI you couldn't make it up. Fair enough he would of shared uncommitted with Edwards but some reports say they voted HRC as second choice to Obama not on the ballot.

[SoCalDem]

17. They should have had the ballot say.. Hillary - NOT HIllary

with the caveat, that if the race ran "long", the NOT HIllary votes would be awarded to whomever was still in the race against her :evilgrin:

[Tarheel_Dem]

7. I don't think the media has gone SO out of it's way to legitimize a

candidate since Bush II. This is great for the media, their ratings are up, they've got three candidates buying airtime. If it were up to them, this primary battle would never be over. The M$M sucks, Scotty McClellan just confirmed what we've all known since Telecom deregulation.

[mckeown1128]

8. kick.nt

[TexasObserver]

9. it's a false metric, but even the popular vote (as defined) will go Obama's way

Hillary is doing what she often does ... simply LIE to create a FACT that isn't a fact at all.

Obama has beaten her under every metric.

[mckeown1128]

10. kickity kick.nt

[sfam]

12. Wow...now if Obama was only leading in the DELEGATE total, as that's all that matters...

Oh wait, he IS leading in the delegate total. Bottom line, the Supes have voted with their feet - they don't buy Hillary's trumped up popular vote charge. The MSM only buys it because it gives them something to talk about.

[Yotun]

13. The response is wrong. The response is not that she is leading the popular vote only with very

special checks in place. The response should be, even if she were winning the popular vote, so what? The popular vote is a meaningless, undemocratic measure that does not measure support. As long as it the argument is that she is actually losing the popular vote, that supports that metric as a legitimate metric of support, which it is not, and gives Hillary something to grasp onto.

[joshcryer]

16. The popular vote is undemocratic. OK, so, you weren't here for 2000.

Wow.

[SoCalDem]

18. Primaries are different from general election, but then you already KNEW that, didn't you?

Enjoy the cheetos & Mt Dew

[joshcryer]

15. "Voter suppressed primary" in FL. The record primary in FL?

Please stop the bullshit.

[dems_rightnow]

19. Makes no difference

She just keeps repeating that she's ahead in the popular vote, without regard to the number of votes she has.