Posted by Damozel | I thought this was interesting, considered from the standpoint of "it might have been." It's not exactly news to me, since my co-blogger D Cupples has been saying it for weeks. I just haven't seen it squarely confronted in the media.
If the Democrats were to allot their current state delegate totals in a winner-take-all format, Clinton would actually have a significant delegate advantage. Despite having won only 14 recognized contests to Obama's 30, Clinton would currently have a 120 (1738 to 1618) total delegate lead and a remarkable 167 (1427 to 1260) pledged delegate lead. These numbers give Texas' "prima-caucus" delegates to Clinton and do not include Florida, Michigan or the 693 total delegates and 566 pledged delegates still to be won in the next few months. (Rasmussen Reports)
As the article points out, it's too late now for the Clintons to argue for a new system. Well, obviously. Still, it's food for reflection. And perhaps also argument:
The Clinton campaign could contend that it is the proportional allocation system's inherent "over-fairness" that is denying her the significant delegate gains that she justifiably deserves from winning states like Ohio, where Clinton's 10 percent margin of victory only garnered her 9 more delegates than Obama. This may be an effective argument for Sen. Clinton to justify going forward in the race, especially if she is able to pull closer to even in the popular vote after the contests in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina. (Rasmussen Reports)
Meanwhile, Obama's support may be softening. Could it be his lack of minimal bowling skillz, as this conservative contends? No, it's probably just "New Politics" fatigue. You can only play the "Change" tape so many times before people start wanting a change.
Satirist Jon Swift predicted it weeks ago:
After watching Obama's victory speech, respected political pundit Chris Matthews sounded like a schoolgirl at a Justin Timberlake concert who doesn't quite understand the strange sensations she is feeling, when he exclaimed, "I felt this thrill going up my leg."....[I]t's difficult to see how Obama can sustain the level of excitement he has stirred for the next nine months as we get to know him better. As the VH1 show Scott Baio Is 46, reminds us, there comes a time in the life of every adolescent girl, and even Chris Matthews, when they peel the yellowing photos of Scott Baio they cut out of Tiger Beat off their bedroom walls and toss them in the garbage bin. Barack Obama will be 46 in August. Will Chris Matthews and Obama's other devoted disciples still have his picture on their bedroom walls then? (Jon Swift)
Memeorandum has discussion here.
RELATED POSTS
Maya Angelou Urges Hillary to Persevere
Obama's Adventures Among the Working Classes
Howard Dean & the FL delegates: No nomination Without (Partial) Representation!
Obama Took Oil Money But Claimed Not to
Some Dem Super-Delegates Don't Get How They're Making McCain Ecstatic
And Obama's ahead in the popular vote. But Hillary's ahead by electoral college vote. They're currently at a 1-1 tie in the exciting "commonwealth" race, with Hillary polling ahead in the two remaining commonwealths. Obama, however, has a 6-5 lead in the all-important "original colonies" race, with the candidates expected to split the two remaining states of the original 13.
All of this, as you point out, is in the category of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Of course, Hillary can make the argument that she would be ahead by some other system, but by the system in place she is behind.
With that in mind, all that matters from this perspective is:
- The popular vote, since it does reflect the will of the people to some degree. (I'd personally include Florida but not Michigan in such a count; YMMV.)
- Who would do better in the general election. To that, I refer you to a website I discovered a few days back that immediately became one of my favorites:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
Without getting excessively nerdy, I'll just say that the statistical analysis of the polls that that site does is drastically better than anything else I've found on the web. I HIGHLY recommend the "best-of" posts there. In particular the "Six Types of Voters" post does an outstanding job summarizing how each candidate is likely to fare in the general election, and to what degree this is reflected in primary results.
Posted by: Adam | April 05, 2008 at 12:47 AM
Please, let's not use the clumsy phrase "over-fairness" anywhere, not even in this context. (I know you weren't using it, only referencing the original blog.)
As for the fairness of any voting system, there are thousands of researchers and hundreds of thousands of books and articles that flesh all of this out.
Fair is almost always the equivalent of proportional voting. Winner-take-all systems are almost universally delegitimated as unfair.
Remember, the national debate around the unfairness of the electoral college rests in large part on the winner-take-all format of each state's electoral votes.
If states were to use a proportional system in allocating their electoral college votes, many Americans would feel little need to abolish the college.
A number of well-meaning Republicans tried to bring about this change in California late last year, but their good intentions were thwarted by the anti-democratic factions within the California Democratic establishment.
Posted by: Devon Little | April 05, 2008 at 01:09 AM
Devon,
They weren't altruistic "well-meaning" Republicans. They were Republicans interested in getting Republicans elected president. Nothing wrong with that, but they presumably got laughed out of the room, just like a Democrat pushing for the same change would get laughed out of the Texas statehouse.
It would be ridiculously dumb for California, and only California, to allocate proportionally in the general election. This takes California from the most valuable state to a state that, effectively, has about as much impact on the race as, say, Mississippi. After all, the maximum percentage swing from one election to another is less than 20 points.
Now, if ALL the states allocated proportionally, or even better, if they all gave their electors to the winner of the overall popular vote, then that would certainly be more democratic. That takes cooperation, though. Otherwise, we're basically stuck in a prisoner's dilemma. It's in the interest of overall democratic fairness for every state to go proportional, but each individual state has an incentive to go winner-take-all to maximize their impact on the election.
There was actually a movement after the 2000 election for a set of states with 270+ votes to collectively agree to certify electors in favor of the nationwide popular vote winner. Once 270+ electoral votes are on board with that plan, all that matters is the nationwide popular vote and everyone falls in line. Unfortunately, this idea faced lots of legal challenges and never made it through enough statehouses to get to the 270 threshold.
Posted by: Adam | April 05, 2008 at 12:46 PM