Peniel Conin, President & CEO of Global Basic and eNameWiz.com, has written a detailed 13-page statistical report and analysis of caucus vs. primary results from the 2008 Democratic nominating campaign.  (This has been reported at Talkleft here and here and here.)

Conin suffers from a disability resulting from a car accident 40 years ago, which left her wheelchair bound at  a time when there were no curb cuts or ramps and many places were inaccessible.  That is what fueled her passion about caucus information.

Among the information available in the report:

I write here not to open wounds but to begin to find a way to move on. It is very difficult to accept a loss in a long and competitive campaign, but it is virtually impossible if one believes that his or her candidate was treated unfairly. Talk of Clinton having won the popular vote leaves this impression. People are led to believe that this may be Florida in 2000. It isn't.

The DNC reached a compromise yesterday (May 31st) on Florida and Michigan. It is fair and prudent. The Clinton camp appears satisfied with 50/50 split in Florida, but unhappy about the resolution in Michigan. From the Clinton camp:

"We strongly object to the Committee's decision to undercut its own rules in seating Michigan's delegates without reflecting the votes of the people of Michigan.

The Committee awarded to Senator Obama not only the delegates won by Uncommitted, but four of the delegates won by Senator Clinton. This decision violates the bedrock principles of our democracy and our Party.

We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the Credentials Committee and appeal for a fair allocation of Michigan's delegates that actually reflect the votes as they were cast." http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/

Are we really supposed to believe that Hillary Clinton, after stating publicly that the election in Michigan would not count--an election in which her opponent was not on the ballot--is now in a position to claim that the decision of the DNC has undermined democracy? Does she really believe this? Is she actually outraged?

I believe that there is outrage in Hillary's Camp. Just listen to some of the reports about what went on at the DNC meeting. And I also believe that Bill and Hillary may actually be outraged. The DNC's decision results in four more delegates for Obama than Hillary would have awarded him. In terms of the delegate count, four delegates can't be the source of the outrage. The practical consequences are nil and genuine outrage over principle is suspect. So if there is outrage, what is its source? Here is my hypothesis.

Hillary's Camp has been playing the metrics game for several months now. She has grown especially attached to is the so-called "popular vote" metric. However, any statistician or pollster worth his or her salt will tell you that you can't combine votes from caucus and primary states, for the former simply have many fewer "voters" involved. It is a classic case of apples and oranges. If you did combine them, the citizens of the caucus states could claim that they were being disenfranchised. Further, the primaries had different rules, some allowed independents to participate, some even allowed Republicans to cross over, while others were solely for Democrats.

The problem with the DNC's Michigan decision is that it undermines the plausibility of counting Michigan's votes in a popular vote total. According to the DNC, giving Obama the "uncommitted" votes is an inadequate solution to the Michigan problem. No one knows for sure how the vote would have gone. So it simply took the request of the Clinton Camp, and the request of the Obama Camp, and split the difference, awarding Obama four "additional" delegates. This is meant to make a statement. It shows that the state's popular vote is not to be construed as decisive or legitimate, for the delegate count does not match the "popular vote" (which in fact is non-existent since Obama wasn't on the ballot). The compromise was one over delegates, and the way that the delegates were handled signaled that Michigan's popular vote should not be counted.

The outrage from the Clinton Camp is real, but to be more exact, it is really fury at the DNC for undermining its case about the popular vote. It is not clear how she wants to use the latter at this point, but whether it is for posterity, for the VP slot, or for her next run for the presidency, the popular vote total remains very important to the Clintons. The problem, however, is obvious. By insisting on this false metric, they are undermining Obama. They are making it appear that she somehow won the election, as did Gore, and then had it taken away from her by an unfair system. But the analogy to Florida in 2000 is specious. Hillary and her Camp will have to take responsibility for any damage done to Obama's chances by continuing to "strongly object" to the DNC's reasonable compromise.

I hope that we can get past the "popular vote" and move on to the general election, asap.

To this end, I offer something to Obama and Clinton supporters who also happen to be BSG fans. I offer you the twelth cylon as a way to get going in the race against the Republicans.

"The Twelfth Cylon Revealed"
http://msa4.wordpress.com/

Here on MyDD I've read innumerable diaries about the meaning of the popular vote (or lack thereof), and there has been a lot of discussion about the value of the caucuses to the democratic nomination process (or the lack thereof).

Sadly, the discussions seem to play themselves out in the same way over and over again.  Clinton supporters talk about 'counting the votes', and Obama supporters point out that the Democratic nomination process is a race for delegates, not votes.  Occasionally someone comes in and claims that Obama won in caucus states because he cheated somehow.  If not, it is at least claimed that the caucus process has disenfranchised somebody's brother, sister, or grandparents and is not democratic or representative.

In defense of caususes, it has been stated on numerous occasions that while primaries are good measures of the breadth of a candidate's support, caucuses measure the depth of a candidate's support.  But this never fully crystalized with me until I thought about the value of MyDD's own Alegre to the Clinton campaign.  The passion, committment, and dedication that Alegre brings to the campaign of her candidate is the perfect example of why some states use caucuses.  Having an Alegre on your team is probably worth a hundred of almost anybody else.

Put simply, Alegre's vote for the democratic nominee should count for more than mine.  And if I understand correctly, she lives in Washington where they had a caucus, so her vote did count for more than mine.

No, this is not snark.
And no, I am not calling out Alegre.

(more below the fold...)

With yesterday's Idaho primary, won by Barack Obama, we now have four states which have conducted both a primary and a caucus in this election season - Washington, Texas, Nebraska and Idaho.  In all four cases, more people participated in the primary than in the caucus.  Also in each case, Hillary Clinton performed better and Barack Obama worse in the primary than in the caucus.  What is amazing is how regular the trend is:

The figure above plots Hillary's (blue) and Obama's (red) perfomance in the primary in each of those four states (y-axis) vs. their performance in the caucus in each of those four states (x-axis).  A linear fit for each of Hillary's and Obama's data is generated (whose equation is given), each of which have a very high R-squared value, indicating a clear correlation.

I have grown increasingly frustrated as the day has worn on. I keep seeing supporters, especially of Senator Clinton, referring to recent polls as evidence that she is more electable.  The fact is that we don't know who is more electable right now because there are simply too many variables, including what the months ahead have in store.  One thing is fairly certain, given the mixed and changing results in snapshot state and national polls, the Democrats would be foolish to select a candidate based on them.  

Further, in spite of what we hear from the Clinton people, there is no such thing as a national popular vote. http://msa4.wordpress.com/   Too many apples and oranges. There are caucus and non-caucus states.  There are states that have included independents and those that haven't. Some have allowed party cross-overs and some have not.  These election results can't be combined into one figure, and especially not into a figure that will satisfy everyone. Bottom Line: if the Democrats back off from using the delegate count in nominating their candidate, and try to substitute a bogus national popular vote, they will be courting calamity.  (Few believe that such a substitution will actually take place. But as long as people keep talking about a popular vote, it pushes closure off into the horizon.)

If you really must have some numbers at this time, the odds are that the results from Intrade are probably more accurate than any one set of polls.  Of course Intrade isn't always accurate and its traders change their minds.  But it has a pretty good record. Interestingly, in the face of all of the current polls, as of 12:00 AM, May 23rd, the traders think Obama is going to beat McCain. http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/contr actSearch/
Notice that there have been hundreds of thousands of trades, that is, "bets."  

The figures in order refer to:
Contract      Bid    Ask    Last     Vol       Chge

        2008.PRES.OBAMA
Barack Obama to win 2008 US Presidential Election    M     Trade        57.3    57.4    57.3    157381    +0.9
    2008.PRES.McCAIN
John McCain to win 2008 US Presidential Election    M     Trade        38.1    38.3    38.2    202761    -1.8
    2008.PRES.CLINTON(H)
Hillary Clinton to win 2008 US Presidential Election    M     Trade        5.8    6.7    6.8    294285    +1.0

If there is one thing I will carry away from this year's state primaries  to select a candidate for the general election, it is that the ideal of a democracy--one person, one secret vote---does not hold sway within the  Democratic Party.

. The caucus system has been gamed, and in many cases it cannot be deemed a fair representation of the will of a majority of the democratic party's voters in the state;

. the apportioning of delegates has been weighted  so that losers can carry away as many delegates as winners, and in some cases carry away more;

. the leadership of the national committee can behave in arbitrary and capricious ways with no apparent checks and balances;

. there is no means by which the will of the people who support the party can influence decisions;

. high level financial backers have a determining influence;

. functionaries will adjust decisions  so that some states are disproportionately punished compared to others when rules are "violated."

. And finally, like the cherry on top of the cake, a high level Democratic Party official who has great sway over the nomination process regularly appears on television as a Pundit.

Who could dream this up?

It is as if the Democratic Party never heard of a conflict of interest. Does not in fact care about democracy. And will be damned if it will be seen as caring about the will of the majority of its party members. One might also term this as a return of  Father [Dean] Knows Best, but I didn't believe the original so why should I take this remake at face value.

So how can we be surprised  when one of the candidates for the Party's Nomination ignores the results of two state primaries-- the last one in West Virginia where he was swamped by 40 points losing every single county in the state, and then last night in Kentucky where he was trounced by 35 points--to give a speech  in  Iowa ??? Yes, you read that right, Iowa.

The capitol is Des Moines,and since 1972 it has gone Republican 5 times, the last time being for George Bush in 2004. But hey, what's history.  So it is there in Republican Iowa that the Democratic nominee  proclaims himself the apparent victor of tfhe Democratic nominating process  by announcing he has a majority of delegates needed to nominate.

Only in our Brave New World can Losing be Winning.

George W. Bush set the playbook for how to game the electoral process and we now have a Democratic candidate running the same campaign with the active collusion of the Democratic Party leadership against the will of at least half the Democratic Party rank and file.

Reality check. 2029 delegates are needed to win the nomination.  [This excludes Michigan and Florida because the DNC is mad at them and so is pretending they are not there on the map, 2 million plus voters don't count and their delegates are like Casper's ghost or maybe invisible ink--which only becomes apparent  to those who know how to look.] By the way, anyone who may be reading this and who is from outside the country, I am not making this up. Everything I am saying can be documented. Please look elsewhere if you want help with instituting your own democratic process.

So now we are down to the wire; and  at this point, with only two weeks and three states left in the primary process, with 2026 delegates needed to win the nomination Obama has won 1653 pledged delegates. Clinton has won 1499 pledged delegates. That is a difference of 154 pledged delegates. DING DING DING    Super Delegate do not count  at this time. They only come into play unless  the magic number of delegates has not been reached.  And although many have declared their choice at this time,  they do not represent the will of the people, and are therefore not truly applicable to the pledged delegate state-by -state nominating process.

Conclusion. Help me out here. We have a deadlocked nomination.  Neither candidate has won a majority of the pledged delegates. It is that simple. Spin it anyway you want. Go to Iowa. Run a victory  banner up the flagpole.  Scream yourself hoarse, it doesn't effect the bottom line. Hillary Clinton is right. This fight is not over. We have a nomination that for all intents and purposes is virtually tied up. And now here is the kicker. Al Sharpton et al threatened riots in Denver if their guy is denied the nomination by Super Delegates. Yoohoo. Guys. Anything you can do, we can do better. So fasten your seat belt. This Thing is Still Up For Grabs.

Clinton argues that Obama's caucus state victories are somehow illegitimate and not reflective of the true will of those states' voters.  Those caucus victories reflect Obama's popularity among the democratic activists, those most likely to participate in caucuses.  The implication is that if those states held primaries, Clinton would have done much better and may have actually won some of them, as more of her voters, the elderly and working class, would have participated.  

If Clinton is right, then, you would expect that in general election polling against McCain, Clinton would be doing as equally well or even better than Obama against McCain.  That would be evidence that the caucuses didn't truly reflect the will of the state's voters.

So, what does the polling show?  Results below the fold.

Look, I'm working my ass off to try to brace for an Obama nomination.  I'm really trying.  I'm trying to figure out how to get my mind around voting for him.  I get in the right mind set and someone here writes a comment that gets me back into defensive mode again.  

I'm still hoping against hope that Hillary ties or wins in Oregon and wins in Kentucky.  I'm hoping that these voters see through the media death sentence.  I've been here before, though.  I was hoping the same thing for Edwards in South Carolina.  I was hoping the same thing for Edwards in New Hampshire.  So I'm bracing myself also for a let-down and how to deal with this.  I wish Obama would stop doing 'victory laps' before this is over.  It smacks of arrogance to me.  It DOES bring out memories of competive men who are only happy when they bring you down.  I am hoping that this attitude plays out in unfavorably in the remaining states.  We'll see.