by Jerome Armstrong, Sun May 25, 2008 at 05:47:03 AM EST
Is there any doubt that the nominating process needs a serious overhaul for 2012?
Tags: 2008 election (all tags)
That graph is totally deceptive - the scale doesn't go to zero.
Resize it so that the y-axis goes from 12,000 to 0, and we'll really see how much of a disparity there is.
That really is disgraceful - I wish I had my glasses on when I looked at it! Come on Jerome, that's unworthy of you.
Using the numbers from MyDD, it's either:
Obama - 1964 delegates x 10800 = 21.21M Clinton - 1780 x 11750 = 20.91M votes not including MI & FL, Obama up by 300K
OR
Obama - 2043 x 10800 = 22.06M Clinton - 1973 x 11750 = 23.18M with MI & FL, Clinton up by 1.12M
The first doesn't follow the "Hillary wins the popular vote" meme. The second just matches no estimates whatsoever.
It's must be great being a HRC supporter. HRC and her camp have selective concern. In one case, she is "concerned about" MI & FL not having their voices heard and counted. At the same time, she says that caucuses don't count and ignores them in her arguments.
So, even if accurate but deceptive - does this graph even include the caucus popular count for ALL states?
Jerome, I've said it several times - your are too smart to continue losing credibility like this.
Hope you recover, HRC sure isn't.
Jerome posts this, gets caught in a fudging of math, and another shameless distortion of the truth on behalf of his defeated heroine, and hasn't been by to defend his actions in the face of great dissent.
Too bad.
Jerome, stop.
for some areas of some states over others..
Popular vote is the way to go.
Since March 4:
Hillary votes: 6,519,685 Obama votes: 6,007,744 Margin: Hillary +511,941
Hillary pledged delegates: 510 Obama pledged delegates: 495 Margin: Hillary +15 delegates
Hillary contests: 7 (OH, RI, TX, PA, IN, WV, KY) Obama contests: 6 (VT, WY, MS, GU, NC, OR)
So none of the states before March 4th matter?
I also seem to remember Obama getting more delegates from Texas. But there's really no point in arguing this stuff anymore. Until Clinton leaves, her supporters will not budge either, and I can accept that. I just hope that when she supports Obama, then others will follow.
lies in the logical fallacy of a direct correspondence between the states that Hillary won AGAINST A DEMOCRAT, AMONG EXCLUSIVELY DEMOCRAT VOTERS and the states that Obama may or may not win, as the only Democrat on the ballot, in November.
Didn't you get the memo? All primaries and caucuses before March 4th were to be considered practice.
Yes, and his post thereby proves powerful in its evidence of something needing a serious overhaul.
What a crappy post to wake up to in the morning. Jerome should know that a good amount of us took some POSC in college.
Way to fire up the HillIs44 crowd!
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/arch ives/2008/05/some_new_data_from_the_clin ton.php
And....that cherry picking is supposed to tell us what? She's a tough candidate with name recognition, lots of support, a winning record, and a nose for political success? We knew that going into the campaign. What we now know is that over the course of the last 5 months Barack Obama has won more of everything. She's a great 2nd place finisher. Congratulations.
next vote wins!
Clinton should definitely be our second-half nominee!
Football - She can win the 2nd half by a field goal, but that doesn't help if he won the first half by a touchdown.
Baseball - We don't decide who plays in October by who lost September . . . unless you are the Mets :o)
The comparison between selecting a presidential nominee and a sporting event is just plain insulting.
This (for some people) is life and death.
Get over yourself.
That has never been more evident than through the words Hillary Clinton has used on the campaign trail... it's just that she's either made up the life and death situation, or just shouldn't have been so callous in the mention of another great leaders death. I mean, it does a great disservice to those who have died in the line of service. Don't you think?
You know, that was pretty callous. I was referring to the kids who will die if McCain gets elected. You chose to turn it into some bullshit swipe at Clinton.
That's a GREAT way to win people over to your side.
It's not even the "second half." There are 13 states represented in that anaysis. By June, post-March 4 will represent about the last 1/5.
Firstly, this calculation is done by realclearpolitics, which should be obvious for anybody paying attention (and clicking the link) Secondly, of course this is about the PLEDGED delegates only, not about superdelegates, as anybody who is able to read should notice . Nobody voted for the supers, so this makes sense. Thirdly, I haven't done the math, but since realclearpolitics doesn't count MI and FL in its delegate count, I guess they weren't used in establishing the numbers for this ggraph, either.
Well, imho it would be a good idea if someone at MyDD did the same calculation, using the all-inclusive (including MI and FL and estimates for the caucusses) popular vote numbers. Probabbly this will show that the disparity is even higher in Obama's favor. But pls use a proper scaling for the graph when you do this!
if the difference in voters is ~1000 (hard to tell with the graph lacking any supporting stats)... and the difference in delegates is ~170 (Jerome doesn't say whether he means pledged or all delegates) then to total voter differential would have Hillary ahead by roughly 170,000, I believe the nutjob count which excludes the caucus states but includes all of FL & the MI vote as 0 for Obama, 100% for Clinton has the differential at 180,000k. If you excluded the contest where Obama's name wasn't on the ballot and included estimates for the caucus states the graph would be even more stark... in the other direction.
"hard to tell with the graph lacking any supporting stats" Yes, that's the problem.
"Jerome doesn't say whether he means pledged or all delegates" The graph CLEARLY say it's PLEDGED delegates, and the text says it's not from Jerome, but from a guy called Jay Cost (and the link goes to realclearpolitics). Really, Tatan, did you lose your glasses? :-/
"If you excluded the contest where Obama's name wasn't on the ballot and included estimates for the caucus states the graph would be even more stark... in the other direction." Certainly not. Obama winning most of the caucus states NECESSARILY results in him needing less voters per delegate.
Yes, Jerome imported the graph from elsewhere. But it's a dishonest visual representation, aside from its black-box provenance (i.e., which popular vote count are we using?).
Over at the Great Orange Satan, Kos would admit his error, fix it, and apologize. Inquiring minds wait with baited breath.
. . . then you probably shouldn't opine. I've been a regular here and at Daily Kos since 2002. When Kos messes up, he fesses up.
Interesting. I haven't seen those examples and would like to. Can you provide a link.
I'm not trying to undercut you here, but in my experience, posters who malign Kos's integrity generally offer what I consider specious arguments, e.g., Kos says he's in favor of a fair nominating contest but wants to totally disenfranchise MI and FL voters.
bradblog.com has a search function. Why don't you just insert "kos" and check the results?
Sounds complicated. If I cede control of my laptop to you, will you do it for me?
Won't be the last time. I am an Obama supporter, but I did miss the "Pledged Delegate" headline. No excuses. I still think this graph is misleading, but clearly I'm too tired to figure the figures correctly. Still not quite sure which states are included and which aren't.
Anyhow - sorry!
No big deal. Even knowing that it's only about pledged delegates, we're still in the dark about the calculation that realclearpolitcs guy did. What delegate count is behind this, what popular vote number? Would be a good idea for MyDD to redo this graph, with proper scaling and explanations about the method.
It is, in fact, a dishonest representation. The graphs should at the least be broken at the bottom (i.e., jagged breaks showing they're discontinuous). This graph is a textbook example of how to lie with statistics.
"the Visual Display of Quantitative Information"
That book is the Bible of visualization masters
While I agree that the graph as it stands is seriously misleading, the underlying fact that it does accurately capture is without a doubt true: that Obama has well fewer voters per his delegates than does Hillary -- though the factor is only about 10%, not what would appear to be visually much more.
There's not much getting around that fact, given how much Obama's pledged delegate lead is predicated on his lead in caucus states. Last I read, take away his margin based on caucus states, and he was behind Clinton (according to an analysis of Joe Trippi). I think that's only gotten worse for him in the last couple of months.
Certainly, the fact that Obama wouldn't win without the non-democratic contributions of caucus wins is something the people at large should think about when they try to decide in their own minds how much legitimacy Obama really might own as a winner of the nomination.
Jerome, come on now, this is ridiculous.
yikes
Agreed. This is just pathetic now.
It's been pathetic for a while... need I remind you he compared Obama to Bush because he joked around with some reporters for about 25 seconds.
Ha ha ha! Oh, wow.
Thanks for doing that!
Would tip if I could.
I suggesting commenting with ::invisible 2:: until the Obama-supporter-shutdown is over.
I am an HRC supporter and have had my privileges pulled for a while now so would you passive-aggressive lying BHO surrogates stop your stupid baseless whining now?
as normal BHO'ers have a real 'issue' with reality
Obama supporters have lost privileges at a disproportionate rate, as evidenced by the growing "unable to rec or rate" signatures around here. I'm sure some Clinton supporters have too, but not in nearly as many numbers.
also, given that these comments: "your stupid baseless whining" "normal BHO'ers have a real 'issue' with reality"
are bordering on if not in direct violation of the site rules, it is not too surprising that you're privileges have been revoked. at the very least, it's evidence that the system isn't completely unbalanced.
support that ASSertion with hard numbers. otherwise you and your other whiners are just blowing more hot air.
I was going to photoshop my own version, but shrink it down to nearly infinitesimal for laughs.
I think we are seeing Jerome going through the necessary grieving process before he can give up on Hillary. What has prompted this, when the math has obviously been insufficient up till now? Perhaps it was assassination-gate?
Whatever. Now, rather than hearing how Hillary can or should burn down the party to achieve ultimate victory in Denver, we are going to get these threadbare attempts at proving that she wuz robbed by a corrupt/unfair system.
(Somebody needs to make a WE WUZ ROBBED! Lolkatz graphic for us! Please?)
I'm open to the idea of replacing caucuses with primaries. By the same token, I hope you're open to the idea of removing all superdelegates for 2012. The superdelegate system is FAR MORE UNFAIR than whatever disparities you perceive created by caucuses. A
t least, as it is now, both candidates have the opportunity to gear their campaigns for caucuses or primaries if they choose. Apparently Hillary didn't bother, and that bespeaks laziness and short-sightedness rather than unfairness. Perhaps that massive superdelegate lead she had before even one real vote was cast led her to play the role of hare to Obama's tortoise and to underestimate the danger.
Jerome can no longer point to momentary Gallup leads, the "as much bias as possible is better than any other kind of bias" myDD electoral counter, "preener" youtube low-blow attacks...this is what he has left.
Obama's support is soft in the crucial states as well..
We'll see...
You realize that for Clinton to get to the general at this point, she'd have to win the primary. Which, considering the pledged delegate count and her reliance on no-campaigning contests, would be regarded as theft by a ton of people who currently say they'd currently vote for Clinton in the general.
In other words, in order for Clinton to get the the point where the general election numbers matter, she'd have to decimate her own base. She'd tank everywhere.
Hillary most certainly does have inertia - truest thing you have ever said on MyDD. Now I suggest you look it up in a dictionary, because it does not mean what you think it means. Thanks for the giggle though.
You know what, I am for getting rid of the SDs and keeping things as they are now. For the first time in my voting life, my vote counted in the primary! Not only my vote, but look at all of the other states whose votes actually mattered this time.
Why is that a bad thing? I know you are not saying this, but it is what I hear all of the time from camp HRC, that it should all be decided early on and caucus states are undemocratic. Mine is a caucus state because the state cannot afford a primary (http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_%3Ca %20class='srNewsTitleLink'%20href='http: //www.denverpost.com/ci_8353626). Nah, let's not change how the 50 state strategy worked, as it did. I like that my vote counted. But the SDs, I can do without.
Why shouldn't Jerome skew the perception of this data? Isn't that the only way that Hillary Clinton has had a shot at the nomination for several months? It's almost like an infectious disease to distort on her behalf in order to avoid coming to terms with the obvious. What a shame.
THIS IS A REALITY DISTORTING GRAPH!
Thanks to my ability to get into the super-secret Clinton ratings bandwagon club, I am giving you mojo x kajillion. You should now be able to hover above your desk chair for a few seconds at a time.
Cheers.
Very much changes the perspective of it. Thanks. Take some phantom mojo.
You simply rescaled that realclearpolitcs graph, a good idea, but on what delegate count and what popular numbers is this based on??? Redoing the calculation, and posting the numbers behind it, would be a good idea, too.
I don't think it would be, because legitimizing the idea of combined vote count as a measure of the "true" winner is disingenuous, and I don;t want to encourage that.
As I've argued elsewhere, combining vote totals from 60 different contests, all with radically different times (over a five-month period), rules (times, candidates on ballot, etc.), eligibility requirements (open, semi-open, closed), and process (different implementations of primaries and caucuses) is not at all representative of the will of the electorate. Neither are pledged delegates, but at least they scale for lower-turnout events (like caucuses).
If you want to know the will of the democratic electorate, national polls are probably your best shot - despite their margins of error, they have consistent eligibility rules and they cover a small, recent slice of time. But Jerome has been curiously quiet about those since the Epic Clinton Four-Point Lead post.
"As I've argued elsewhere, combining vote totals from 60 different contests, all with radically different times (over a five-month period), rules (times, candidates on ballot, etc.), eligibility requirements (open, semi-open, closed), and process (different implementations of primaries and caucuses) is not at all representative of the will of the electorate."
Exactly. The whole process is totally f**ed up. Same rules for every vote, everwhere, this what a Democratic primary should look like. This crap right now isn't any better than the Supremes deciding on the presidency. If the Dems aren't even able to reform their own primaries, will they be able to reform the equally f**ed up general election system? Unlikely.
Hmm, I didn't know that using three * in a row switches to bold case. Sry!
it's cool.
that said, realize that a perfect system simply cannot be implemented, if only because state parties wield ultimate power over how they do their primaries. Iowa will never give up their caucuses, and neither they nor New Hampshire will give up their first-in-the-nation status without a huge fight. Nobody wants to pay for primaries in all the small states, so they'll stick with caucuses, which makes a true popular vote metric impossible. Good luck getting all the states to agree on an open/closed primary system while you're at it.
Our system could be improved - but only so much. It'll always have flaws.
"Our system could be improved - but only so much. It'll always have flaws."
After all this brouhaha about CHANGE, now this! However, it bolsters my view that it was nothing but an advertising slogan from the very start.
change and realism are compatible. there's a difference between optimism and utopianism.
"there's a difference between optimism and utopianism."
Exactly. And I'm missing that difference when I hear and watch the Obama crowd. I can't help but feeling that lots of people will be utterly disappointed soon after he becomes President.
Every candidate has a few supporters who think that their candidate will fix EVERYTHING. Clinton has them too, over at hillaryis44. I see no evidence to support the idea that most Obama supporters feel this way, other than the constant derogatory "messiah!" and "cult!" taunts from the less-classy of the Clinton supporters.
You don't think the hype about "Change" is way over the top? Now, come on...
no, I don't. It's the little things which have made this real for me - like Obama being the only candidate to address net neutrality in any meaningful way, or his pushing sensible diplomatic foreign policy instead of getting into pissing matches with Republicans. It's the fact that his books actually have substantive, thoughtful reflections on Americans politics and issues of the day. It's the fact that he counts Lawrence Lessig among his friends. It's the fact that he's built the best fundraising machine in the history of American politics mostly through the internet and small donations. It's the fact that he isn't obsessed with the Vietnam war. It's the fact that my twice-Bush-voting mom supports him.
Yes, I do believe that there is something new and important here. It won't fix everything. But it'll be a bunch of steps in the right direction.
I guess I'm too much of a cynic too see it this way. But I have to admit, those are the best pro-Obama arguments I've read so far.
You're making Jerome's point. Clinton has more votes per pledged delegate than Obama has.
The simplest explanation I can think of is that Clinton has seriously underperformed in caucus states. If that underperformance is the primary "culprit" for this difference in votes per delegate, then the rational response would be to decide whether or not states should be allowed to conduct caucuses. And I'd suggest that it's the registered Democrats in each state who ought to decide that. If the voters of Iowa, say, want to keep the caucuses, then I don't see how I can sit here in Virginia and complain.
I think our process is unduly complicated, but I prefer it to the Republicans' winner-take-all approach, which moves us much further away from the "all votes should be equal" ideal so often expressed here -- especially when MI and FL are broached. Yet Bill Clinton tried mightily to establish the metric that, if we had employed the Republican process, Clinton would be leading. We're all Democrats here; without descending into a pissing match about which things should and should not count, do you good Clinton supporters see why many of us Obama supporters feel that the Clinton camp, in its attempt to find a metric that shows her leading, has often contradicted itself?
"And I'd suggest that it's the registered Democrats in each state who ought to decide that."
I don't think this is a good idea at all. The DNC ought to decide on how NATIONAL primaries are executed, the state party can decide on state races. everything else will only lead to scewing the rules to the advantage of the state party's preferred candidate. That's not democratic, that's just filthy favoritism.
I understand your point but disagree with your conclusion. Yes, state parties do at times demonstrate filthy favoritism. Here in Virginia, the Republican Party is infamous for doing exactly that. This year, they decided to select their senatorial nominee (i.e., their sacrificial lamb) via a state nominating convention rather than an actual vote. I believe Jim Gilmore had sufficient pull to achieve his goal of trying to secure the nomination without having to face real voters. But I hardly think that the same can be said of Iowa's Democratic Party, which is extremely proud of its caucuses.
On the other hand, the Michigan primary illustrates your point well. There's that well known exchange between Terry McAuliffe and Carl Levin, in which Levin declares that the MI party is going to hold its primary whenever it wants--whatever the DNC says. During that heated exchange, McAuliffe makes clear to Levin that MI will be penalized for doing so. I believe McAuliffe has had a change of heart.
I have some pretty radical ideas about a new primary system. What do you think of this:
The primary season would stretch from February to July. Votes would be held every three days, one state at a time. States would vote from smallest population to largest population, one at a time. There are no delegates, the winner is determined by total number of votes. Results are not published for individual states. At the end of the primary process, a winner is announced, but the vote totals never are.
In order to run, you have to be put on the ballot by the DNC. This allows the party elders an important say in the process, but removes the chance that they would have to decide a hotly contested election.
Voting is done by internet. There would be a cost to vote - $50 on senatorial election years, and $100 for presidential election years. Paying these fees would make you a registered Democrat. When you pay your fee, you are snail-mailed you user name and password. Only voters registered by the party in the previous paid primary are eligible to vote in any other primary election.
By voting in the states one at a time, each state is given an equal amount of time for the candidate to campaign there. Making the vote smallest to largest means that the candidates will spend more time in the small states prior to the election campaigning, and having the large states vote last means the election is actually decided as late in the process as possible, giving the candidates more time to be vetted. Individuals will not be forced to withdraw so early, giving them more time to get their point of view expressed.
Doing the vote by internet dramatically reduces the cost, while removing the ability of Republican legislatures to affect Democratic primaries. The big negative associated with this is that you no longer have to be registered to vote to vote in the primary. This could result in lower voter turnout in the general, so would have to be countered by voter registration efforts. The extra money generated by the process would pay for it.
The main argument against having a fee associated with the vote is disenfranchisement. This is a spurious argument; the party could chose its candidates by dice roll if it wanted. There is nothing wrong with having the Democratic candidate be chosen by Democrats; the price you pay for being an independent is not having a say in the primary. By having a fee associated with the vote, you remove the ability of another party to act as a "spoiler" by any real margin; 10,000 votes would cost a million dollars. The kind of numbers that it would take to sway an election would be in the millions, directly into your opponent's coffers for use in the general.
Everyone's vote counts equally. You remove the ability of the media to treat it as a horse race. Each candidate has to run on their own strengths, and not the weaknesses of their opponents.
Anyone care to offer criticism?
So is that going to tell us....what?
That Hillary Clinton won more voted per pledged delegate and lost. You are aware that she's about to lose, right? Moral victory. Bitter, moral victory. Congratulations.
See, this is the part that is funny (in a sad way). You will be weeping bitterly over your moral victory but actual loss to McCain in the fall. You really should not gloat before it's all over, lest you find the thing you threw in someone else's face wind up on your face.
That was my very first thought as well. Statistics is part of my day job, though, so I'm on the lookout for the "damn lies" :)
The difference between the bars is probably reflective of how wronged Jerome feels by the primary contest more than anything else.
Not only that, but the bottom line is ALL THE CANDIDATES KNEW THE RULES. Obama was better at the game. I am one of many people who voted for Clinton but, unlike Jerome, I can admit she ran a poor campaign full of strategic blunders. This sour grapes stuff is really getting old.
I can't help but notice that he didn't start a thread about assassination-gate, but I am sure he would have if Obama made the same gaffe.
Is there an "HRC Math for Flunkies, 101" class being taught at the local uni or something? Everyone seems to always be on the same page in her camp.
Didn't you get the memo? Math is sexist.
This is beyond the pale. It is never honest to use a truncated scale for a bar graph. One only does so to try to deceive. I find it offensive that Jerome would even try that.
I'm willing to grant the possibility, however unlikely, that Jerome himself was deceived by the graph. The graph appears the same way in the article that Jerome is quoting. I think that whoever made that graph is extremely unprofessional, but that person was not Jerome.
That said, that graph needs to be modified to give a fair perspective. It should not be sitting on the front page as is.
What does it say about Jerome's thinking? Is he just grabbing anything he can to make his point without scrunity? What does this say about what he thinks of his readers? I personally think Jerome is behaving with the same kind of mindset that infects the entire Clinton Compaign. I had to smile at this sill diary to avoid being insulted by it.
Thank you, this is exactly what I thought the second I saw that chart.
Everyone should read this: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics -Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=pd_bbs_s r_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=12117336 62&sr=8-1
Far too many people try to pull this kind of crap with numbers and far too many people don't know enough to see it when it happens.
and it's probably the most common way to mislead people with numbers and graphs. It's so common, in fact, that it's in EVERY introductory statistics book, usually in the first chapter before you even get into any real calculations.
This graph is not only misleading, but it breaks the basic rules of statistics in such an obvious way that I am left with no choice but to believe that Jerome knows what he is doing is wrong. No one with a college education could believe otherwise.
yeah, this is a really deceptive graph. you also need error bars...
disregard that last comment. you wouldn't have error bars
on the Y axis. I agree that the visual of this graph is misleading but I assume that is Jay Cost's fault not Jerome's.
The Y axis shows that Clinton has 1,000 more voters per delegate won than Obama. That may be different than the impression given by the visual, but it is still nothing to sneeze at.
Also, many of the Obama supporters, in their reflexive defensiveness, seem to be ignoring the critical date of the question ----- 2012.
Jerome is not suggesting in this diary that this discrepancy renders the 2008 result invalid. He is simply asking whether this possibility should be avoided in the future.
And if the nomination process had been about voter per delegate, do you think Obama might have run a different campaign, and that chart might look a bit different?
Nothing on the link to say how it deals with caucuses either. Shoddy.
1,000 vote difference? Doesn't seem like that much to me.
Per delegate? Seems like a lot to me.
I may be mistaken, but I think it is about the same order of magnitude as the bonus for having a primary or caucus late in the season.
You did catch that that is 11,000 to 10,000, not 1,100 to 100, as the shoddy and dishonest top level graph might suggest, right?
It's still a 1000 vote difference per delegate, is it not?
It is, but that makes it a smaller difference than the difference in number of voters per delegate awarded than the difference between Michigan and Wisconsin if the Michigan delegates are seated. Even if Michigan is seated with half votes, the number of voters per delegate vote for Wisconsin will be about half again the number of voters per delegate vote for Michigan.
Delegates are awarded on a per district basis, independent of turn-out, so low turn out elections (like Michigan and Florida or the caucuses) mean a smaller number of voters per delegate. The difference between caucuses and primaries in general is smaller than the differences between particular primaries.
Unless we go to pure popular vote, or award delegates based on turn-out in the primary or caucus (which would require doing away with caucuses and either doing away with open primaries or requiring only open primaries, and still wouldn't reflect the fact that Democratic primary voters in some states are hugely unlikely to vote for a Democrat for president (the Dixiecrat problem), there are inherently going to be unequal numbers of voters behind each delegate.
