I wonder why nobody has discovered the math of ‘Who’s ahead?”

It is algebraic, rather than arithmetic. Let perfect tie be zero. Let plus 5% be Clinton. Let minus 5% be Obama. When Obama gains one percentage point, Clinton falls one percentage point. That produces an algebraic result of a reduction of two percentage points in the difference, but causes Clinton to fall only one percentage point toward zero, which is 50/50. If Clinton falls 5%, she is even with Obama. Or, if you prefer, Obama rises 5%, he is even. So the goal is to exceed 50% of the total vote. When there is a ten percentage difference, the winner is only 5% above the even point. For two candidates a loss of a percentage by one is an equal gain by the other. Of course, a gain by one is a loss by the other.

Only when there is a third candidate who gets all the differential votes, does it take the full differential to produce a plurality.

Given that abstention does not count in Pennsylvania, Obama is only 5% from even and 5% plus one vote from winning the popular vote, not 9% or 10% as reported.

This is a variation of the classic turtle and hare race problem. The point of reference is not where the candidates are at any given time, but a single critical point where they would be even. Delegates should be awarded with that consideration, rather than the percentage point spread between the candidates. If the spread is 9%, Clinton should get 4.5% more delegates, not 9% more.

Leefeller:

“She still doesn’t bring anything new to the table, and has no vision of America.”

Cyrena:

“Hillary DOES have a vision, it’s just not for AMERICA, or any of us IN America.”

Approximately one-half of all Democratic voters thus far do not agree with you, since they voted for Hillary, and one can only assume they voted for her based on her positions and policies, just as one would assume that people voted for Obama for his.

Nice try.

Peace.

bert:

Uh…actually, it’s “pride GOETH before a fall.”  Just to be correct, you know…LOL.

Peace.

Pride cometh before the fall.

The primaries are the regular season and the general is the playoffs. Obama will do just fine once he matches up McCain. He will do better than Gore and Kerry who were not very good campaigners. Obama is holding his punches now because he unlike Clinton don’t want to provide McCain with any more ammo than necessary. He will come out fighting against McCain and will have the wind at this back. There is no way that McCain can win while trying to defend a disastrous foreign and domestic agenda for the last seven + years. No sitting party has even won when the economy has been bad. And it’s going to get worse. We haven’t even seen the summer spike in gasoline prices yet, and McCain has been getting a free ride on the trash talk schedule. He has a lot more skeletons in his closet than Obama has. Jeez, Clinton wins a state she was expected to win and all of a sudden Obama is in trouble - do the math - there is no way he can be beaten unless he gets caught in a Minnesota airport restroom stall equivalent.

Aegrus..

Hillary DOES have a vision, it’s just not for AMERICA, or any of us IN America. But, that’s not to say that she doesn’t have the same vision that has been HER vision, for HERSELF, probably since she came out.

She decided long ago that she was going to be the first female president of the US, and she has planned it all as carefully as anyone (if not most) plan their careers. That’s what you said when you said that she’s SUPPOSED to be president, and as far as Hillary’s concerned, that’s simply the way it is. It was supposed to happen now, (that’s the way she carefully planned it) and the very idea that some upstart, (not to mention the American people) could come along and decide something different, is totally beyond her comprehension, let alone her acceptance.

In other words, she’s not having any deviation to her plans, and that’s that. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the conditions or priorties of the country or US -we the people- because it ONLY has to do with what she decided she was going to ‘achieve’ and she is determined to reach HER ‘goal’. Damn anything or anybody else.

THAT is the ‘vision’.

Her argument to the super delegates is that she’s supposed to be president, and she’s banking on the Obama voters (mostly logical and sensible) will vote for her anyway against McCain. She still doesn’t bring anything new to the table, and has no vision of America.

Vision, regardless of what people might say, is more important than any experience or acclaim because nothing gets accomplished without a real clear idea of what you want. What is Hillary’s vision? Like I said, she doesn’t have one.

At this point in time neither candidate can win without the uncommitted delegates. (the term ‘super delegate’ is not in ‘the rules.’ Uncommitted delegate is the term in the ‘rule’ book.)

So the nomination will come down to the uncommitted delegates.  There is nothing in those rules that even suggests that they have to go with whoever has the most delegates from the primaries, or the most popular vote from the primaries.

The uncommitted role is to chose an electable candidate.

Clinton has received more votes than Obama. I am counting FL and MI in there. Those votes were cast and were certified by their respective state’s Secretary of State. So they are official votes whether or not the Dem party chooses to ignore them.

Gmonst writes:    “The willingness to disregard the majority of democrats wishes I think shows the true colors of the Clinton campaign.”

We can’t accurately determine which candidate has the greatest support amongst primary voters if we disregard the preference of 1.5 million voters in Florida while giving outsize weight to the 250,000 who caucused in Iowa, and even more outsize influence to the mere 20,000 people who participated in the Democrats Abroad contest.

Gmonst also writes:    “Why not just play by the rules and let the winner be the winner? We aren’t children and this isn’t some game where you can just change the rules to suit your needs.”

That’s right. Let’s play by the rules. Tell me specifically which rule or rules you are talking about. I wager you have not even read the rules. Let me know which one you are talking about and I will most likely be able to refute your understanding of said rules.

This is precisely why Hillary should stay in the race.

Her argument to the supers is very convincing and sound.

Gmonst,

You said this very kindly and diplomatically, because we’ve figured out oh so many months ago now, that Marie Cocco is a disgrace to journalism. If you picked up a tone of racism in this piece, you can rest assured it’s not the first time. I almost didn’t read this piece,  because the past several of her pieces are like this, and she’s now established a well known pattern for this tacky and transparently obvious race bias.

It’ more than just her obvious bias in favor of Hillary Clinton, which we could almost overlook or at least accept in terms of its proper perspective in the current political environment. But, it’s far more than that. It’s like she’s part of the Kitchen Sink slime that we’ve seen come from the Hillary camp the past several months, and it’s disgusting. It’s disgusting enough to read this from the posters who mimic this same thing in post after post on this site, creating the divisiveness and apparently believing that we’re too stupid to pick up on it. BUT, in the antonymous environment of the blogosphere, there’s little that can be done with that, and there may even be an advantage to it, since it allows all of us to gain a better perspective on how/what motivates public opinion, and to understand how Americans from various demographics view the politics of our collective nation.

STILL, it’s totally unacceptable that this type of journalism should be sanctioned by way of presentation from a “featured’ regular columnist with her own by-line, and I don’t know what Truthdig is thinking on this, because the comments from most posters over the past several months, have made it clear that overall, we reject this negative spin, no matter how carefully she might think she’s slipping it through. (and to be honest, she’s not even careful about it any longer).

I particularly resent the same thing that you’ve pointed out in the targeting of African-Americans and the so-called ‘affluent’ as those who are likely supporters of Barack Obama. Matter of fact, it PISSES ME OFF! “Affluent” MY ASS!

Barack Obama has done as extraordinarily well as he has, just BECAUSE he’s appealed to the populace, and NOT the ‘affluent’. In reality, the bulk of Obama’s supporters SHARE far more interests in common than the old corporate elite of the Hillary brand, and this is just the on-going attempt (by Marie and others) to falsely identify him otherwise, and to pander to those who may not otherwise know. That’s exactly how George Bush was sold to the American public in 2000, by creating an image of him that was hardly a real one, and by keeping quite the very real danger than was his self-assigned VP.

This of course is a failed attempt at smearing an untrue image of what Obama actually represents, to incite resentment among those who may be prone to such brainwashing, because whether we realize it or not, MOST Americans have neither the time or inclination, or even the means in some cases, to actually ‘question’ the validity of such claims, and semi-professional propagandists like Marie Cocco know that.

Unfortunately, she is NOT ashamed of herself any more than Hillary is ashamed of what she and her campaign have been doing these past 6 or so months. If she were ashamed, or if it was a one time sort of wandering off, she would have corrected it by now, and she hasn’t. She only gets worse.

It’s disgusting, and I’m just curious as to why the TD staff continues to feed it to us.

“Do they want to win back the White House? If they do, the persistent pattern of Obama’s failure to win swing voters in fall battleground states would clearly move them toward Clinton. Do they want to keep peace with the African-American voters who are Democrats’ most loyal supporters—but whose votes aren’t necessarily decisive in key states that will decide the November outcome? That calculus favors Obama.”

What I hate about this article is that it divides up all these demographics and they Marie tells us which demographics are important.  She is basically telling us that all the people who have voted for Obama don’t really count for much.  This paragraph here has a slight suggestion of racism to me.  Notice how in this paragraph she leaves out all the white Obama voters, which greatly outnumber the African-American voters.  Do the democrats not need them?  I think anyone who voted for Obama or is going to vote for Obama should be offended by this.  Why not just play by the rules and let the winner be the winner? We aren’t children and this isn’t some game where you can just change the rules to suit your needs.  The willingness to disregard the majority of democrats wishes I think shows the true colors of the Clinton campaign.  Marie Coco should be ashamed of herself for suggesting that superdelegates who honor the wishes of the people are acting in “Crude self-interest.”

Marie Cocco and Bill Kristol share notes.