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Democrats : popular vote may now be key

Superhands · 2008-03-10 03:53:43

I've written an article on my blog about where I think the race may be going now. I've done a projection of possible results from upcoming states and I see Obama winning the pledged delegates but possibly Hillary winning the overall popular vote which would have a huge impact on the dynamics of the race its a bit long so…

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10-03-2008 4:53am

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Superhands

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Join Date: August 2006

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I've written an article on my blog about where I think the race may be going now. I've done a projection of possible results from upcoming states and I see Obama winning the pledged delegates but possibly Hillary winning the overall popular vote which would have a huge impact on the dynamics of the race

its a bit long so I've just posted the first half, this is the start of the article, anyone interested can find the rest on my blog

byzantine330.blogspot.com

Hillary Clinton's victories in Ohio and Texas last Tuesday may have done little to reduce Barack Obama's lead in the pledged delegate count (she enjoyed a net gain of just 10 delegates on the night according to the latest figures from Realclearpolitics) but the margins of her victory in the popular vote, which she won by 330,000 votes across the two states , raises an intriguing possibility : that come the end of the primary season in June, Democrats could face a situation where Barack Obama has more pledged delegates yet Hillary Clinton has an overall lead in the popular vote.

According to the rules, the Democratic nomination is awarded to the candidate who amasses most delegates - that is, a sum of both pledged delegates (awarded according to the results of primaries and caucuses) and super delegates (senior party officials who are free to vote whichever way they choose). However so far this primary campaign, the Obama camp, aware from the start that Senator Clinton would likely hold an edge among super delegates, has been making the argument that the winner of the pledged delegate count should receive the nomination, the reasoning being that pledged delegates represent the will of Democrat voters across the country.

So far they seem to have been winning this debate : senior Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (both neutral in the Clinton-Obama race) have publicly stated that super delegates should not overturn the will of the people by voting against the winner of the most pledged delegates. One Democrat, former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder, even warned of riots at the party convention in August if Senator Clinton were to win the nomination by relying on support from super delegates after winning less pledged delegates than Obama.

The argument that the pledged delegate count represents the will of the voters would of course lose much of its validity if Mrs Clinton were to win the overall popular vote but win less pledged delegates than Mr Obama, creating a real quandary for the Democrats, a party still bitter about the manner of their loss in the 2000 presidential election when their candidate Al Gore won the popular vote but lost to George W. Bush because of an inferior number of electoral college votes.

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