Because I believe that who leads in the "popular vote" is relevant (neither dispositive nor irrelevant). In fact, it is obviously so. Because it's all about delegates. According to a recent diary, though, the consideration of the popular vote (I'll leave off the quotes the rest of the way, because I don't feel like typing them, but I do know that we are a bit like the 7 blind men trying to figure out the elephant, if there is an elephant, when trying to discern the popular vote) is so asinine, so insulting to people's intelligence, that it hurts the credibility of anyone stupid enough to use it.
Even more, so says kos,
One of the wonders of this primary season has been the ability of the Clinton campaign -- including Hillary herself -- and their supporters to engage in some of the most patently ridiculous and bald faced lies, knowing that everyone else knows they are engaging in patently ridiculous and bald faced lies.
Chief among those lies is the fiction that Clinton leads in the popular vote.
So, not only I am stupid to use it, the fiction is among Clinton's (my own) most blatant lies. (Apparently, it is never enough these days simply to be wrong, or unwise, or ill-informed, or stereotypically political (in Iraq for 100 years!), it's all evil, vicious LIES. What a cunt.)
I do seriously wonder whether many of these writers understand what a lie is. Using ingenuous estimates (like RCP), IN FACT, Clinton does lead in 2 of the generally accepted 6 measures of the popular vote to date (each of the 6 making different, arguable, assumptions, about what to include in the tally). One might not think that either of those two measures, which include Michigan's vote, is valid, but that she leads in those measures is a statement of fact. And, qu'elle surprise, that is the measure she uses. That isn't a lie. Like it or not, use them in determining the delegate total or not, but Michigan, and Florida, held legal elections where, among other things, voters chose among various Democratic candidates for President. Sure, Obama's name wasn't on the ballot in Michigan (almost certainly a calculated political choice to provide the very argument Obama supporters now make to dismiss the Michigan result: "Obama wasn't even on the ballot!" they sputter; "Just like the Soviet Union (but not like Florida 2000, or the civil rights movement, or, definitely, Zimbabwe) -- the whine of it all makes my head spin). Wickedly clever, really, but a bit too convenient for my taste. And no one campaigned in Florida? Well, OK (actually, Obama did, via a "national" commercial). Clinton didn't, either (of course, only Obama's magical presence is a vote mover). Surrogates were certainly active. And if actual campaigning were the sine qua non of validating elections, that would leave out many states in many general elections, where voters see nary a candidate, and yet somehow manage to cast ballots for President (we must assume completely uninformed).
And then I wonder what does that make the equally calculated Obama narrative that the dispositive metric for the nomination is who has the majority of the pledged delegates (since, by the sacrosanct rules, it definitely is not). The most blatant lie of all?
Anyway, back to the popular vote. If I dare to advance this idiotic argument further, kos is right, and as Clinton apparently has said all along, this race is about the delegates. The problem is that Obama supporters (the lackey chorus) only seem to count pledged delegates, leaving off about 20% of the total number (those pesky unpledged delegates). Again, the race for the democratic nomination is most definitely not simply a race for pledged delegates, no matter how many times one conflates the two. And this just in: the unpledged delegates can consider whatever they want in making up their minds. Why who has the greater popular vote in this calculation is irrelevant is baffling. Here's something I think is indisputable:
It's clear this mess of a nomination process the Democrats devised is in desperate need of a top-bottom overhaul.
But I know!! Let's use the result of that process (the pledged delegates) as outcome determinative. Hmmm, that makes sense to me. Just admit it, you want to because it favors Obama. (Likewise for your rigid adherence to the rules in disenfranchising the voters of Florida or Michigan. Really. Rules are broken all of the time, sometimes even for the sake of fairness, and often by progressive folk just like most of us. The simple and obvious answer, precisely because this is such a close election, however we got there, whatever the need to punish the evil-doers, was to have a re-vote. Obama said "No." All of the rest is just bullshit.) That's OK. But if I were an unpledged delegate, I would be trying to figure out, among other things (down-ballot issues are also relevant as a party matter, but not to the individual candidates), who is most likely to win the general election. Looking at who got the most votes between these two candidates obviously says something relevant about that. Unless those votes are from white racists in Appalachia. Just like, I bet, most of us think that the popular vote says something relevant about who should be President, despite what the result might be in the Electoral College.
Admittedly, this is a complicated equation, given that this race is essentially a tie, with each candidate propelled by distinct and, it seems, emotionally committed, constituencies. But why wouldn't you look at the popular vote, especially where the system for choosing pledged delegates is so screwed up, and very often non-democratic or exclusionary? What else would you look at? And why would you only look at the pledged delegate total (especially if you appreciate rules so much)? If that was the only (or even a) reference point, having unpledged delegates would be redundant. One might ultimately conclude not to rely on the popular vote, because it's so close. Or that it is so close might, in fact, suggest that Clinton is the stronger candidate (still winning primaries, despite Obama's virtual coronation by the media and the chattering class (after losing Indiana, which he expected to win by 7%, and winning NC, with a significant black population, voting monolithically for Obama and which he was expected to win handily all along)). Whatever. How people vote matters. That's why the popular vote argument is giving the Obama supporters such conniptions. (Puerto Rico? That's not even a state!!)