Last time I checked the United States has 50 states - why do only 35 count for Hillary

[LynneSin]

She fought to the end to get Michigan and Florida seated but she can't be bothered with 15 states because they have caucus and not primaries.

This is total bullshit for her or anyone to believe she has the popular vote unless your calendar happens to be like 1864 (when there were 35 states in the US, which would I guess include the confedrate ones)

[boobooday]

1. Ahem. We call those "the inconvenient states"

Edit to add: or the "States of Denial."

[K Gardner]

2. It's the Schmopular Vote circa Clintometrics 2008

[TexasObserver]

3. You're never going to pass Hillary Math 101 with that attitude!!

Carry the 35, drop the fifteen states, and add the territory that doesn't count!!

[LynneSin]

4. oh I forgot - congrats to Puerto Rico for statehood

:eyes:

BTW, I'm all for PR to be an official state but officially they are not.

[TexasObserver]

17. Yeah, they're counting their 140,000 extra votes there!!

But not counting all those caucus states!

[MethuenProgressive]

5. 57, according to BO

:rofl:

[LSK]

10. Why'd he make such a dumb joke?

[hokies4ever]

11. He meant 47

He was counting the number of states he had visited during the campaign trail. He didn't visit Alaska or Hawaii and still had an upcoming visit to South Dakota. So he said 'fifty' instead of 'forty', let's make a big deal about it. Just Hillary supporters trying to get you to look the other way from her Iraq War enabling.

[LSK]

13. I thought he was exaggerating the number of states

Like saying I have been to 10,000 states.

[hokies4ever]

15. No, it's pretty clear he meant to say 'forty' instead of 'fifty'

Also, there was a pause in between the 'fifty' and the 'seven'. For those hyping up this controversy, you should be happy to know that Hannity was happy to bring it up on his Hannity America show Sunday night.

[hokies4ever]

16. Does Hillary love stupidity as much as you do?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[NatBurner]

18. freakum deakum

[Ravy]

6. They count the caucus states. nt

[electron_blue]

7. If you're going to slam her for not counting all the votes, at least get it right.

She's not ignoring *all* the caucus states, just the few that didn't release popular vote counts.

I still think she's doing selective counting by flat out ignoring those caucus states. If you go by,for example, CNN's estimate of popular count in the caucus states, Obama leads the popular vote.

But it's not true she's ignoring 15 states, just four of them - Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington. Those have to be estimated. Apparently, she'd either rather ignore them altogether or estimate them using her own formula. Once you get into estimating popular vote totals, you're in danger of seeing what you want to see.

[LynneSin]

8. well I'll give you that one

Which goes back to my original rant that popular vote is not part of the primary.

[hfojvt]

19. she's still diminishing caucus states

For example, there are approximately 434,000 Democrats in Kansas based on the number that voted for Kerry. A record 37,000 showed up at the caucus. That's less than 10% for turnout. In states that had primaries, the turnout was more like 60%. Obama won Kansas by 27,000 to 10,000 (approximately) giving him a vote-edge over Hillary of 17,000. Suppose Kansas had had a primary and 60% had turned out and voted in the same proportion - then Obama would have an edge of 112,000 votes.

The delegate distribution takes that into account, but by CHANGING THE RULES and saying "vote count trumps delegates" she is disenfranchising the caucus states. Some 95,000 potential voters for Obama are not counted because they didn't vote because Kansas had a caucus because the rules specified that delegates matter.

Therefore as a precinct person I strongly protest any attempt to change the rules. I protest in the name of the voters in my precinct and the voters in my county, and I expect the KDP to make a strong protest in the name of all Kansas voters.

[electron_blue]

20. Yes.... but... had Kansas had a primary instead of caucus, Obama likely wouldn't have

won by the same margin that he did with the caucus. You can't safely assume that Obama/Clinton votes would have stayed in the same proportion with a full blown primary and in fact it's well known that caucuses result in skewed distribution of voters. Fwiw, I argued this point long before this problem came up - you can find some of my posts here complaining about the caucus system in my state excluding certain types of voters before Super Tuesday. We saw that in Minnesota. Obama got a higher percentage of the votes of the people who did show up for the 90 minute long (short!) caucus, but likely would have gotten a lower percentage had Minn held an all-day long primary instead. He still would have won, but by a lower percentage. So, I think slightly diminishing his winning percentage is warranted for caucus states. *If* one wants a hypothetical discussion of how many votes were *actually* cast vs. how many woudl have been cast with full primaries. But, I totally agree with you that changing rules now is uncalled for. Hillary knew delegates were delegates and she chose not to go after many caucus states, when in hindsight, it seems that was a big mistake for her, and good job for Obama for going after them.

[EmilyAnne]

9. Don't forget the all important Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa!

They shall NOT be disenfranchised!

[sfam]

12. Because they don't have the right kinds of white people there?

Are they filled with all those lazy white folk, perhaps?

[depakid]

14. In a responsible democracy, caucuses would be vanity contests

and have no bearing on delegate selection.

But- America is far from a responsible democracy- and the rules are what they are this go round, so neither side should be whinging about them.