Posted on 05/21/2008 9:12:40 AM PDT by hecht
Hillary: The Al Gore of 2008 Winner of the popular vote, loser of the election.
By Byron York
There have been four quarters in the Democratic presidential nomination battle. We’re late in the fourth quarter now, and when it’s over, Hillary Clinton will likely have won three of the quarters — and won the most votes overall — but lost the game.
The first quarter was the shortest and most intense, beginning with Iowa and including New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida. When one includes Florida, where both candidates’ names were on the ballot, and excludes Michigan, where Obama’s was not, Clinton won the popular vote in that period, with 1,124,380 votes to Obama’s 975,927 — an edge of 148,453 votes. (The number seems precise, but it isn’t; it’s not possible to peg the exact number of votes Clinton and Barack Obama won, because some critical races — in this quarter, Iowa — didn’t result in official popular vote tallies. These numbers are from the RealClearPolitics totals from states with official vote totals.)
The second quarter consisted entirely of Super Tuesday primaries, and Clinton won that one, too, amassing 8,086,836 votes to Obama’s 8,000,574, a margin of 86,262 votes. At that point — halftime? — when one counts the first two quarters, Clinton’s popular vote lead was 234,715 votes out of more than 18 million votes cast for the two candidates.
It’s often been said that Clinton, who assumed she would wrap up the nomination on Super Tuesday, had no plan for what followed. And in the third quarter, which began in the Virgin Islands on February 9 and ended in Wisconsin on February 19, Obama blew her away. He won all nine contests in that period, collecting 2,192,813 votes to Clinton’s 1,313,256. The victories — by a margin of 879,557 votes — gave the Obama campaign a clear sense of momentum and the popular-vote lead. Whereas Clinton led by 234,715 votes at halftime, by the end of the third quarter, Obama’s lead was 644,842.
But Clinton has made a huge comeback in the fourth quarter. Beginning with her victories in Texas and Ohio and going through last night’s win in Kentucky, she has won 6,505,231 votes to Obama’s 5,983,422 — a margin of 521,809 votes. That number will likely grow after the remaining contests in Puerto Rico (where she has a significant lead), South Dakota, and Montana. At the moment, counting all four quarters, Obama has a popular-vote lead of 123,033 votes. By the end of the day on June 3, Clinton might well be ahead.
If that happens, she will be the Al Gore of the Democratic primaries: the winner of the popular vote who lost the election. But unlike Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential race because of the constitutional requirements of the Electoral College, Clinton will lose because of the Democratic party’s arcane — and changeable — rules of delegate allocation. For example, Clinton won Texas in the sense that most of us understand winning an election, but Obama ultimately walked away with more delegates, because of the party’s idiosyncratic allocation process.
In 2000, the fact that the Democratic candidate won the popular vote but lost the election caused great anger and bitterness among some Democrats. Those feelings lasted quite a while; there were a lot of “Re-Defeat Bush” stickers on cars in 2004. But in 2008, the prospect that a Democratic candidate might win the popular vote but lose the nomination does not seem as troubling. Party leaders and their allies in the press are not only not angry and bitter, they don’t even seem unhappy that the primary season might produce a nominee who lost the popular vote.
Why the change? It’s not clear. Certainly party elites view Obama as the fresher and more attractive candidate. But contests in which the winner of the most votes doesn’t get the prize produce lasting after-effects, and in the months ahead, Democrats may be in for more than they know.
Rush, yeshar coach!
If she wants to walk in Gore’s footsteps she will have to refuse to admit defeat, and demand recounts, and sue the winner.
She’s on his trail!
Rush, you magnificent bastard!
Wasn’t Al Gore the Hubert Humphrey of 2000?
But... what would THAT make Hillary?
Too scary to even consider it...
We cannot afford the Hildabeast OR Barry!......
Bush v. Gore.
Then you better do a write in cause one of them is gonna be there and in my book...I want Obama because I am sick and tired of seeing the faces of the clintins and their evil ways. They had their shot at the WH and remained there for 8 years. clintin said she was a co prez at that time so...she will have to settle for that instead. Always the bridesmaid never the bride.
Think Yogi Berra! Lets see what June brings.
Awesome video:
The same kind of terrorists who support Obama did this:
http://www.frugalsites.net/911/attack/
Never apologize for them.
Never appease them.
Never forget.
Good point!
That's coming. If you heard Bubba yesterday, he was comparing what's happening to Hillary with what happened to Gore and mentioned how he ended up having to go to court. I thought primaries were based on delegates, not popular vote and the general election is based on electoral votes, not popular vote. I don't see how she wins the argument in court.
You don't win in court. You lose and get a Nobel prize.
No, you got to make a movie to get the Nobel prize.
This wouldn't work for me, of course. You have to be a socialist.
Her guest says "facing possibly the same situation."
Tape of HRC mentioning "Recount" the flick about 2000. "Why would you punish voters...?" HRC mentions "clear intent of the voters."
Andrea's guest says the votes should be counted in Florida and Michigan.
Andrea brings up Katherine Harris.
Andrea Mitchell. Wouldn't hurt a fly.
I still don’t understand how Fl. would be counted. Fl. voters were told their primary didn’t count. How do they account for all the voters that didn’t bother to vote believing they wouldn’t count.
If Hillary gets away with this and becomes the nominee, it’s over for McCain. She should have been stopped a long time ago.
When will the press start asking why someone would spend $30 million of their own omney for a job that pays $400K/yr? When will they start asking if Hellary’s run is all ego driven?
Bill and Hillary live in an alternate universe where anything goes, apparently. This has been Hillary’s “dream” for a long time, to be “it” because now it’s her turn. I will be surprised if the Clinton’s don’t go to the convention, twist some arms, produce some files, make some offers various and sundry superdelegates and party officials can’t refuse and mysteriously secure the nomination for Hillary. - Either that or Hillary will end up in a fetal position under a chair in Chappaqua, unless, of course, Obama taps her for VP. I think Edwards may be more likely, but who knows?
How much did Mitt Romney spend?
People are very free with the word “disenfranchise” lately; but certainly if you tell a person the election won’t count, and he believes it and doesn’t vote, and then you change your mind...that’s disenfranchisement.
Of course, Clinton is talking about the poor disenfranchised people who DID vote. Count them, since we already know they went for her. Never mind the other folks.
So much like Gore’s selective counting where he thought he had the votes HE needed.
She’s trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the caucuses, too, because they don’t favor her.
In the end she will cast doubt on the legitimacy of the nominee, Obama. Unless she’s the running mate.
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