Hillary's Latest Sleight-Of-Hand

Every time I think the Hillary Clinton cult can’t surprise me with their frantic number-crunching and mis-direction, they come up with a new spin that is just amazing. Each new explanation that they come up with to tell us why Hillary should be the Democratic nominee requires an even greater suspension of disbelief. Now Bill Clinton is out there talking about conspiracy theories and cover-ups. Geez. These people are unreal.
The latest bizarre spin comes from Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, a Clinton supporter and a drinker of the proverbial Kool-Aid. He’s come up with a new formula to make it seem like Hillary’s doing better than she is. He suggests that when you add up the states Clinton and Obama have won using the Electoral College votes, she’s actually ahead. So far, Clinton has won states with a total of 219 Electoral College votes (not counting Florida and Michigan), while Obama has won states with a total of 202 electoral votes.
Cue the gasps and righteous indignation. Cue breathless expressions of “she really is winning!”.
Sorry, kids. The Electoral College doesn’t mean a damned thing in the Democratic primary. The Electoral College doesn’t determine who gets the Democratic nomination. The Electoral College doesn’t come into play until the actual Presidential election. What Hillary’s camp is saying is that if you count the Electoral College votes of the states she’s won in the Democratic primaries and assume that she’d win those same states against a Republican opponent in the Presidential election, then she’s ahead of Barack Obama in Electoral College votes, and that this somehow translates into Hillary being ahead in the popular vote.
*cough cough* *bullshit* *cough cough*
Look, any reasonable person can simply add up the numbers. Obama is ahead of Clinton in most leading indicators: popular vote (by 700,000 votes out of 26 million cast, excluding caucuses and the disputed Florida and Michigan results); delegates (1,622.5 compared with 1,472.5 for her, according to The New York Times’s count); and number of states (27 compared with 14 for her, excluding Florida and Michigan). It takes some creative accounting to make it appear that Hillary is winning.
Her claim that she’s ahead in the popular vote is based upon including Florida (whose primary was unsanctioned by the Democratic Party, with the consent of all the candidates, and where no one campaigned) and Michigan (also unsanctioned, and where Obama’s name wasn’t even on the ballot) in that tally. Her claim to be “ahead” depends entirely on a tally for the Michigan primary that is distinctly North Korean: Clinton, 328,309; Obama, 0 (remember, Obama wasn’t even on the ballot). However, if the bulk of the 238,168 Michiganders who voted “uncommitted” are assumed to have been Obama supporters (a reasonable assumption) then Obama leads by every possible reckoning.
This Electoral College thing is something else entirely. It’s smoke and mirrors. A non-issue. They’re implying that it’s evidence of Hillary’s electability in the general election. It’s just another way that the Clinton campaign is trying to confuse the Kool-Aid drinkers into believing that she’s really winning this thing, when all reasonable numbers say that she’s not. It reminds me of Baghdad Bob, the Iraqi Information Minister under Saddam Hussein, coming out daily with some new spin to explain that U.S. forces were not really kicking Iraqi ass, but that it was all spin. One quote that seems to fit here, and could just as well come from the Clinton camp; “Their forces committed suicide by the hundreds. … The battle is very fierce and God made us victorious. The fighting continues.”
Her supporters are now pointing to phantom Electoral College votes to suggest that she, and not Obama, would win more Electoral College votes in the general election against John McCain. That’s bizarre logic, because it seems to assume that McCain would win only the states that Obama has won so far in the Democratic nomination process.
All I need to know about this comes from Hillary Clinton herself. Senator Bayh may be out there saying “But ultimately, you know, if you look at the aggregate popular vote, and as we all recall in 2000, to our, as Democrats, great sorrow, we do elect presidents based upon the Electoral College”, and Hillary’s camp may be out there saying “Presidential elections are decided on electoral votes”, but that’s a different tune from what Hillary was saying in 2000 after the Presidential election.
Hillary Clinton, Mr. Bayh and many other Democrats, have opposed the Electoral College in the past. Particularly after 2000, when Florida’s 25 electoral votes were awarded to George W. Bush (who became president, even though Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, had won the popular vote nationwide). At the time, Mrs. Clinton, who had just been elected to the Senate, said, “I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.”
In the end, I figure that if Hillary wanted to do away with the Electoral College, that’s good enough for me. This issue is over and done with. Can we move on to the next trick, please?