Obama's popular vote in context
By TigerHawk at 3/24/2008 09:26:00 PM
This is very interesting:
In the race for the most popular votes in the Democratic Party's presidential primary contests, Sen. Barack Obama's lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton is about 711,000 votes -- not including Florida or Michigan -- according to Real Clear Politics.
Of Sen. Obama's 711,000 popular-vote lead, 650,000 -- or more than 90% of the total margin -- comes from Sen. Obama's home state of Illinois, with 429,000 of that lead coming from his home base of Cook County.
That margin in Cook County represents almost 60% of Obama's total lead nationwide.
Now, the "popular vote" in an aggregation of Democratic primaries and caucuses spread over -- dare we say "many" -- months is not technically or legally relevant. I am not even sure that it reflects the popular will within the Democratic party, given all its inherent limitations. The aggregated popular vote, though, has taken on some significance in the argument over whether the Democratic "super delegates" ought to vote in accordance with their individual preferences, those of their own constituents, or the popular vote across time and space. In other words, the aggregate popular vote is largely fodder for spin, and that is why this deconstruction is so interesting.
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