Hillary Clinton proves her contempt for democracy once and for all

Or, if you prefer a lengthier, more complete headline: "Clinton falsely claims popular vote lead, disenfranchising all voters in Iowa, Nevada, Maine, Washington, and all Michigan voters who preferred her opponent."

This "spin" is, of course, entirely predictable -- indeed, they've made a related argument before -- but it's still absolutely infuriating. Hillary claims:

After last night's decisive victory in Pennsylvania, more people have voted for Hillary than any other candidate, including Sen. Obama.

Estimates vary slightly, but according to Real Clear Politics, Hillary has received 15,095,663 votes to Sen. Obama's 14,973,720, a margin of more than 120,000 votes. ... This count includes certified vote totals in Florida and Michigan.

Kos responds:

[T]he Clinton campaign ... [has] taken the roughly 215,000 net votes Clinton gained in Pennsylvania, and added them to the popular vote count that includes the unsanctioned contests in Michigan and Florida, and excludes caucuses in four states [Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington, whose caucuses do not report popular-vote totals, and Clinton is choosing not to estimate them]. How's that for inclusiveness?

It gets worse. That Michigan vote [tally]? Obama wasn't on the ballot. If you count the "uncommitted" votes for Obama -- all of them anti-Hillary votes, remember -- that would add 237,762 votes to Obama's total.

Which means that in Clinton and Jerome [Armstrong]'s world, Clinton is ahead in the popular vote only IF you exclude four caucus states, IF you include two unsanctioned states, and IF you "disenfranchise" every voter in Michigan who voted against Hillary Clinton.

That takes a new and particularly audacious level of chutzpah.

(Hat tip: yea.)

Kos is missing an additional aspect of the audaciousness, though. As I pointed out previously, "after signing a pledge to the voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada not to campaign in Florida and Michigan, she is now arguing that Iowa and Nevada don't matter, while Florida and Michigan do."

Say what you will about the more arcane procedural debates, re: what is the proper metric for "victory," what should happen with Michigan & Florida, what is the intended role of superdelegates, what it means to be a "pledged" delegate, etc. I firmly believe Hillary is wrong on those issues, too, but I concede that, at least to some extent, they are debatable.

However, there is no debate about this. There is no possible counterargument. It is completely and utterly indefensible for Hillary Clinton to make a blanket claim that "more people have voted for Hillary than any other candidate" while literally ignoring duly held elections in four whole states!! And, similarly, it is totally dishonest for her to advance a "popular vote" legitimacy argument that depends on her Soviet-style "victory" of 328,309 to zero in Michigan.

Granted, it's not Hillary's fault that Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington didn't report raw vote totals, or that Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan. But it's perfectly possible to come up with fair estimates of the preferences of the voters in those states, as Real Clear Politics and others have done. The estimates aren't perfect, but they're far, far closer to accurately reflecting reality that Hillary's fraudulent "count."

But if Hillary doesn't want to do estimates, fine. She has another intellectually honest option: put out this "count," but with prominent caveats. Don't present it as a complete picture of "the popular vote," as she has done. Call it the "recorded popular vote," and mention which states are not included in it, and why. Mention the problem with the Michigan tally, but assert that it's Obama's fault he wasn't on the ballot there. That would be fine. That would be honest.

But that's not what she's done. Instead, she is trying to pass off this transparently incomplete "count" as the actual, complete national popular vote count. There is no defense for that! It is not even arguably quasi-accurate! It is simply a lie!

Again, read her headline: "More People Have Voted For Hillary Than Any Other Candidate." And then look at the count she uses: she says she's ahead by "more than 120,000 votes," which is, as Kos says, the estimate that includes Michigan and Florida while excluding the four caucus states. (See for yourself here.)

Now, technically, even using the caucus-state estimates, you could argue that "more people have voted for Hillary" -- if you include Michigan, of course -- but it's only a margin of roughly 12,000 (or 0.04%), not "more than 120,000." If she had used that number, then her claim would be slightly closer to the realm of defensibility, since Obama and Uncommitted aren't the same "candidate."

However, to claim that 120,000 "More People Have Voted For Hillary Than Any Other Candidate" is a bald-faced lie, unless caucus voters in Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington have been stripped of their status as "people."

If she wants to cite the 120,000-vote "lead," the most Hillary can say -- that wouldn't be a bald-faced lie -- is "More Votes Have Been Counted For Hillary Than For Any Other Candidate." Although deceitful by omission, that statement would be technically true, since the caucus states' votes weren't "counted" and Uncommitted isn't the same "candidate" as Obama. But her actual statement isn't even technically, arguably, Clintonianally true. It's simply false, any way you look at it.

SHE MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO GET AWAY WITH THIS. Everyone, whether you are for Clinton or Obama (or McCain, for that matter), should absolutely and utterly reject (and denounce!) this shameful and antidemocratic tactic. It is utterly beneath contempt, and any blogger or member of the media who "reports" uncritically on this putrid lie is morally complicit in advancing a bogus argument that ignores reality, subverts democracy, and spits on the will of the people, all in the name of a raw power grab by a shameless, deceitful woman.

In fact... this is, for me, the final straw. If Hillary Clinton persists in using this argument, I hereby pledge never to vote for her, under any circumstances. I've said before that I'd be "undecided" in either general-election scenario, though I might lean Obama vs. McCain and I'd definitely lean McCain vs. Clinton. But, f*** that. Forget "lean." I don't know whether I would vote for McCain, but my only options would be McCain, a protest vote, or abstention. Under no circumstances will I vote for Hillary Clinton for President of the United States if she wins the nomination through this sort of vile, abhorrent, antidemocratic lie.

Comments

[David K.]

I join you in that pledge.

[yea]

im glad you picked up on this. i enjoy watching you (rightly) get riled up over ridiculous clinton spin.

[Query]

Did Clinton make her pledge to the voters of Iowa, etc. or is that hyperbole ?

[Query 2]

Will the elctors of Iowa, etc. be chosen by traditional vote in November or by Caucus ? I would imagine if the former than HRC is going to have some wiggle room on her statement.

[Query 3]

I just wanted to thank the Democratic party for the "dream ticket" that has already been Clinton-Obama. Conservative's dream, that is.

[Patrick]

Brendan,

What if Clinton is the veep on an Obama ticket? What then?

[Fairness Monitor]

This thread title is not fair to Hillary Clinton. All liberals have contempt for democracy.

[Brendan Loy]

Patrick, my pledge was that "Under no circumstances will I vote for Hillary Clinton for President of the United States." So it wouldn't apply to an Obama-Clinton ticket. :)

Additionally, a Obama-Clinton ticket would mean, by definition, that Clinton didn't win the nomination. Above all, what I absolutely cannot stomach is the idea of Clinton using this sort of bogus argument and winning on the basis of it. If she's in the veep spot, that means the argument failed, thank God.

That said, if Obama were to pick a dishonest, power-hungry slimebag like Clinton as his #2, it would definitely decrease my opinion of him. Moreover, obviously, voting for Obama-Clinton would mean voting for Hillary to be a heartbeat away from the White House. So, for both of these reasons, such a pick would decrease the chances that I'd vote for Obama. But I won't pledge outright that I wouldn't.

[Brendan Loy]

Er, "a heartbeat away from the White House" should read "a heartbeat away from the presidency." She'd already be in the White House (as would Bill)... bleh.

[Alasdair]

Brendan - welcome to the recognition of who and what Hillary Clinton really *IS* !

She is someone for whom the word ruthless just as meaningfully can start with a t ...

Some of us have been trying to point this out to you for quite a while now ...

Plus, an Obama-Clinton ticket puts Senator Clinton an Operation Vince Foster away from the Presidency, not just a heart-beat away ... or perhaps it might be an insulin overdose - even though Obama isn't diabetic as far as we know ... or perhaps some unfortunately-prepared fugu at a State Dinner ...

[Joel Kleven]

Hmmm . . . could an Operation Vince Foster already be in the works ?

Is it true Al Gore is starring in The Day After Tomorrow 2 or are they just going to use footage from An Inconvenient Truth ?

[copndor]

That there is a clint ton of bullsh*t.

[Sandy Underpants]

Operation Fugu-- Coming to a Kim Jong Il visit this Christmas.

[BK]

LOL! Alasdair nailed it with the "Operation Vince Foster away from the Presidency" comment. As I read the comments re HRC for VP, I immediately thought "Yeah, she gets that close and Obama is a goner."

[Ryan]

So Hillary's lies about the popular votes are reason enough to never vote for her, but Obama's lies about "not knowing" about hate speech coming from his own pastor of 20 years are no big deal? That doesn't make any sense at all.

[Bill Clinton]

^ Definition of a partisan hack.

[John McCain]

My lies about having an affair with a lobbyist certainly don't matter. I have a hard time telling the truth. I'm just not intelligent enough to know the difference. Thats why I finished in the bottom of my class at military school.

[Conservative Voice]

If only we had known how the democratic party would ultimately tear itself to shreds in the quest for exclusive power by two of its leading elite, we might have shed far fewer tears over third-string QB John McCain coming out of Super Tuesday with a Claussen-esque unexplained supremacy.

John McCain - the Screen Saver for the Republican Party because, by all appearances, it looks like we're going to phone this one in.

[Abramoff]

I find this election season to be mildly ironic compared to the last.

[David K.]

She is someone for whom the word ruthless just as meaningfully can start with a t ...

Pretty much, which means she could go far in the Republican Party, just ask Karl Rove...

[Mad Max, Esquire]

I don't even care anymore. She is going to go on like this until somebody in the Democratic leadership mans up and tells her to STFU. Until then, I am ignoring every ridiculous statement that dribbles from her fangs.

[Andrew]

Alright, far be it from me to shy away from calling the Clintons a power-hungry couple for whom the truth is always subservient to spin, but jeez Brendan, can you calm down a tad? On the scale of egregious, blantant non-truths uttered by the Clintons (or even just HRC), this episode hardly registers on the evil Richter scale! Sure it is self-serving to ignore the caucuses and count Michigan and Florida (but especially Michigan, since Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot) in her popular vote tab, but it's not that evil. Heck, I'd argue her Bosnia sniper fire line was worse and more indicative of her soulless hunger for power, whereas this is just a pathetic, transparent attempt to spin numbers for PR purposes.

In any case, I am curious: If the Democrats had exactly the same primary rules as the Republicans, what would the current delegate count be (best estimate is fine)? What would the popular vote count be (again, best estimate is fine)? I'm interested to see the numbers to see how this kind of a two-candidate deadlock might look through a GOP lens, and how that might reflect on the absurdities of the Dem process.

[Andrew]

By the way, I'm amused by the fact that, no matter who wins the rest of the primaries, at the end of the day, the Democratic nominee will be selected by these so-called "superdelegates" -- not the Democratic voters. The thought brings a lilt to my gait.

"On the scale of egregious, blantant non-truths uttered by the Clintons (or even just HRC), this episode hardly registers on the evil Richter scale! Sure it is self-serving to ignore the caucuses and count Michigan and Florida (but especially Michigan, since Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot) in her popular vote tab, but it's not that evil. Heck, I'd argue her Bosnia sniper fire line was worse and more indicative of her soulless hunger for power, whereas this is just a pathetic, transparent attempt to spin numbers for PR purposes."

That was pretty much my point too, but I guess you said it in a less "partisan hack-y" way than I did.

[JD]

That takes a new and particularly audacious level of chutzpah.

Is Kos criticizing Hillary's audacity of hope?

[Brendan]

If the Democrats had exactly the same primary rules as the Republicans...

Andrew, the Republicans don't have a uniform system of "primary rules." Unlike the Dems, who require all the states to use proportional representation with a 15% cutoff, the GOP leaves it entirely up to the state parties. Thus, some GOP primaries/caucuses are winner-take-all, some are WTA by congressional district, some are proportional, and there are probably other systems I've forgotten. So, I'd have to look at the GOP rules state-by-state to answer your question, and I don't have the inclination to do that. :)

It has been noted elsewhere that, if the Dems had a uniformly winner-take-all system (which is not what the Republicans have), Hillary would be way ahead. Of course, that assumes the results would have been the same under such a system, which is a highly questionable assumption, because both candidates would have run completely different campaigns if the rules had been different. Obama might have won Texas, Hillary might have won Missouri, Obama might have won California, Hillary might have won Connecticut... who knows? The strategies are intimately tied to the process they are designed for, so it's foolish to extrapolate the actual results as a perfect reflection of the hypothetical results under another system.

As for your amusement over the Democrats' silly rules causing this mess, you do realize, don't you, that the Republicans' even sillier patchwork of inconsistent rules is the whole reason you ended up with a nominee reviled by a large portion of your base? Josiah Lee Auspitz does a good job making this point (before turning his fire on the Dems). John McCain is the GOP nominee presumptive for the simple reason that the McCain-friendly GOP states were almost all winner-take-all, while the Romney-friendly and Huckabee-friendly states were almost all proportional. The deck was severely stacked in McCain's favor.

[Maggie]

Great post. This is exactly where Hillary permanently lost my vote. Though I'd say for me the issue is even more upsetting than it is for you: since it was her clear intention to take this road (if necessary) back in early February that moved me into the "I will not vote for this woman under any circumstances" camp. Her general contempt for truth or genuine reason was always a big problem for me. But using it to essentially attack our democratic process was what finally slammed the door on her for me.

I fail to understand why this move hasn't brought her the universal contempt I think she deserves.

[Andrew]

As for your amusement over the Democrats' silly rules causing this mess, you do realize, don't you, that the Republicans' even sillier patchwork of inconsistent rules is the whole reason you ended up with a nominee reviled by a large portion of your base?

On what basis are the GOP rules "sillier"?

As for McCain and the base, the "patchwork of inconsistent rules" is only part of the reason the GOP "ended up with a nominee reviled by a large portion" of Republicans. The stronger reason has to do with the field of candidates: The Giuliani threat to McCain never materialized, and Romney, Huckabee, and Thompson all split the conservative vote. Even after Thompson dropped out, Huckabee took too many votes from Romney in proportional states and prevented him from winning winner-take-all states. In both scenarios, Romney was hurt by a candidate who had a limited ceiling, allowing McCain to win with a hodgepodge of moderates, libertarians, and conservatives.

[Andrew]

The strategies are intimately tied to the process they are designed for, so it's foolish to extrapolate the actual results as a perfect reflection of the hypothetical results under another system.

That's not necessarily totally true. Especially once you get down to just two candidates, it's totally realistic to extrapolate actual results to my hypothetical scenario, so I highly doubt the hypothetical results in California, Texas, Ohio, Missouri, and Connecticut would have been much different than what happened in reality.

[Joe Loy]

" The thought brings a lilt to my gait."

You wanna Watch that stuff, Andrew, people will say you Walk like an Irishman :). But see, we're not that different. Brendan's thought that "... you ended up with a nominee reviled by a large portion of your base" puts a Spring in my Voice. :>

Brendan, I agree with you about Hillary's mendacity on this matter, adding only that it is decidedly Worse than Our candidate's :} FredAstairelike footwork in contriving to deepsix such small chance as there Might Have Been to pull off workable rulescompliant Revotes in FL and MI, all the while suavely Assuring everybody that of course he supports a Two State Solution which is Fair (i.e., which seats Delegations which provide Herself a net gain of Zero :).

However, let it not pass Unmentioned here that this whole Popularvote brouhaha is, as I believe you have previously noted yourself, a bigfat Load of Crap.

Under the present Democratic presidential nomination process (and the same is true of the Republicans), there is no such thing as a Rationally Compilable ~ let Alone an offically Compiled ~ "cumulative total popular vote for presidential nomination candidates."

Instead what there Is, is: a mishmosh of ~ how many? 58? something like that ~ separate & distinct state-or-Other-unit delegate selection mechanisms, utilizing a wide variety of disparate voter eligibility rules, voting methods, selection "levels", ballot contents (e.g., "President of the United States", "Delegates To County Convention", etc.), vote-reporting requirements (or Lack thereof), voter Access & Turnout potentialities (primary v. caucus) ~ and so on & so forth. / Not even to Mention :> that large popularvote Units can be entirely Disfranchised for Unauthorized Gunjumping; nor that the whole sillyarse business Does Not Apply to selection or allocation of a Large Minority of the total Offices to be Filled, namely nationalconvention Delegates.

Now if we Dip our Mitt down into this Melange, we may come up with Succotash (and So forth :) but we will Not extract even a comprehensible Facsimile of a Cumulative Popular Vote: because, there Isn't one amongst the Ingredients. :>

In a certain Narrow sense, this current Mania to find the Mutton in the Dimmycrats' vegetable stew reminds me of the National Popular Vote people's plan to Defeat the Electoral College via an Interstate Compact. It's a lovely project but what it (inevitably) Lacks is any functional Mechanism for conclusively & authoritatively Determining that which it seeks to enshrine: namely the National Popular Vote. // However, if only they would surrender to the Necessity of a Constitutional amendment (and of course a massive National Elections Bureau headed by Me :), the NPV people would be in much better shape that these Dem CPV folks: because currently each of the 51 EC units Do employ true Popular-vote Elector-selection methods which Are, in Principle, sufficiently Uniform to be transferred over to a true (i.e. Constitutionally imposed) NPV election system, with a few troublesome interstate Wrinkles (e.g., inconsistent Ballot Access provisions) to be Ironed out by Decree from Me up at the NEB ;].

But unlike the US of A, the Democratic Party Rules don't lack Merely an authoritative central mechanism for Compiling a comprehensive Popular Vote tally. They lack a complete & plausibly-consistent set of non-chaotic constituent parts ~ iow, Subtotals ~ from which a rational CPV can be straight-facedly compiled.

Therefore the introduction of the CPV Metric into the Dem system requires something much more difficult to attain than a simple Constitutional Amendment. It requires the Agreement of the DNC and the Democratic National Convention. ;>

More specifically, it calls for the Democratic National Convention to vote to Abolish itself. :) Because, you see, just as Ultimately we can't guarantee that the same President will be "elected" by BOTH a National Popular Vote AND also by a bunch of living breathing State Presidential Electors, so the Dems can't ensure that the same Candidate will get "nominated" by Both a (reformed & rationalized) Cumulative Popular Vote and also by a Convention of warmbodied (hotblooded? :) Delegates. In principle, it Can't be done.

I.e., if you Really want the nominee to be nommynated :} by a National Primary, by all means go thou & Create one. / But for the love of God quit trying to Graft one onto the present Delegate Selection system. The two are utterly incompatible. Rejection sets in quickly. / Or, as Bob Dole might alternatively portray the problem: Never try to teach a pig to sing. It won't work, and it will Annoy the Pig. :)

[Brendan]

They're "sillier" because they're non-uniform in a completely arbitrary way. How on earth does it make sense, if you're trying to construct a rational delegate-selection system for a national nominating contest, for some states to be winner-take-all and others to be proportional?

[Andrew]

But see, we're not that different. Brendan's thought that "... you ended up with a nominee reviled by a large portion of your base" puts a Spring in my Voice. :>

Your newfound joy is misapplied. McCain and Giuliani were always recognized as having the best chance of winning the general election (I voted for Romney but I knew he'd have a tougher road come November than would McCain), the question was whether they could survive the conservative vote in the primaries. Now that one of them has, the Democratic nominee must face a stronger GOP challenge in November than might have otherwise been the case.

[Andrew]

How on earth does it make sense, if you're trying to construct a rational delegate-selection system for a national nominating contest, for some states to be winner-take-all and others to be proportional?

How on earth does it make sense, if you're trying to construct a rational delegate-selection system for a national nominating contest, for some states to be proportional primaries, some states to be open primaries, and some states to be caucuses, and others to have their votes be completely disallowed because they disobeyed DNC rules? I'm not saying the GOP couldn't benefit from a bit more uniformity of process, but shit Brendan, the Democratic process is far more convoluted and complicated and irrational!

[Brendan]

Andrew, the Republican process has all the features you just mentioned, with the exception of the Michigan/Florida delegate ban (the GOP just halved their delegations), PLUS the lack of uniformity!

"Pretty much, which means she could go far in the Republican Party, just ask Karl Rove..."

Good Christ, how many times can Karl Rove be brought up on a tangent. Get over your obsession, loser.

[Andrew]

Did the GOP have states that conducted both a caucus and a primary?

[Andrew]

Plus the GOP doesn't have this whole "superdelegates" nonsense.

[Alasdair]

Elder Loy - how in the Name of Whatever-the-#^%#% you Hold Holy can there be a rational National Popular Vote when this country cannot even control *who* votes in its elections ?

Sorta like patching a hole in a gas-cap while watching someone else siphoning the gas-tank empty ...

Anyway, I thought the US used Irish logic in its electoral set-ups ?

(innocent grin)

[Mike's brother Matt]

To paraphrase Churchill: If Hillary Clinton was running for office, and The Devil was running for office, I'd plant Devil signs in my lawn.

[Marc]

I think you've actually missed an even more important reason why why Clinton is doing is nonsense.

There are decades-long traditions of electing delegates with caucuses in some states. Turnout is always lower in caucuses than in primaries. Therefore, with this artificial metric the voters in those states are, in effect, being disenfrachised. Compare Minnesote (where Clinton was trounced in the caucus and would have been trounced in a primary) and Missouri: a factor of four difference in turnout and comparable populations.

So this argument from Clinton isn't even about counting beauty contests. It's adopting a counting scheme where the votes of 13 states are either completely ignored or drastically downweighted, and of including not two but three (Washington) beauty contests.

[Brendan Loy]

You're right, of course, Marc. So's my dad, about the overall invalidity of the popular vote as a metric. I'm aware of both of those points. Hillary's argument is bogus for many, many reasons. :) I'm just trying to focus on the ones that I think are the most irrefutable.

In response to your argument, Hillary would say, first of all, we're talking about votes that were actually cast, not hypothetical votes in other circumstances; and secondly, I (Hillary) would have done better in those caucus states if there had been primaries. Which is probably true, percentage-wise, but Obama still probably would have won most or all of them, and by larger raw-vote margins, as you say. However, my point is, there is at least some kind of halfway-plausible, not-totally-disprovable counterargument that Hillary can make against your argument. I chose to focus on the two points for which there is no valid, plausible counterargument, namely: 1) that the total exclusion of four states that held valid elections cannot be squared with the concept of a complete, national "popular vote" count; and 2) that it is blatantly unfair to have your margin of "victory" be provided by a Soviet-style 328,309 to zero victory in a state where your opponent's supporters were denied the opportunity to vote for him.

As to your last point: Are her numbers including the Washington beauty contest primary? I don't think they are, but I could be wrong.

[Joe Loy]

"Your newfound joy is misapplied."

Andrew, I'll Stipulate to your point about McCain's general-election strength. To be honest (!! :), all I was really doing was Casting about for some rhetorical Hook with which to Bait you re your enchanting imagery of the Lilt in your Gait, presumably not to be confused with the Spring in your Step (nor the Song in your Heart for that matter :). So be not Bitter over this Liltgait affair; for after all, everyone knows that when your sweet lilting laughter's like some fairy song, and your eyes twinkle bright as can be, you should laugh all the while and all other times smile ~ and now smile a smile for me.

;}

[Joe Loy]

"Anyway, I thought the US used Irish logic in its electoral set-ups ?"

No no Alasdair, it's not so much the Logic, you're probably thinking of the Lilt. :> But actually some folks Are lobbying for American importation of the highly-logical Single Transferable Vote system. (That's where you Transfer your Vote from O'Houlihan to McGillicuddy in exchange for a wee drop o' th' Single malt, possibly accounting for the Yank term for the system: Instant Runoff. / nonono :)

"...I'd plant Devil signs in my lawn."

Ah, HA! Mike's brother Matt, I always KNEW there had to be a point of Confluence between Theology and Advanced Mathematics. My fellow citizens, Science & Religion have at long last merged into the Theory of Everything: Hillary Clinton IS the Grand Unification ;).

But I gotcha beat all to Hell, M'sbro'M. I DID plant a sign for yer man the Fiend in my lawn. Not only that, I VOTED for the nasty ol' Dybbuk. TWICE. Once in the Dem primary and again in the General Election. (The latter of which, I'm pleased to say, Lieberman WON. :)

[Mike's brother Matt]

Well then, at least I'll have good company down there Joe.

[Joe Loy]

M's bro' M: Hee hee :)

[Radha]

Isn't there any way for the party to intervene and call her on blatant lies like this? Not necessarily publicly like this, but at least behind closed doors.

I am really worried that she is not just undermining Sen. Obama, the presumptive nominee of the party, but the Democratic party itself by so mendacious: the Republicans can just throw her back at our faces if we lay claim to wanting an honest dialog...