I open my virtual copy of the New York Times this afternoon to find an article mentioning that lawyers for the Democratic Party have determined that no more than half of the delegations from Michigan and Florida can be seated (or that the delegations can be seated, but with each delegate getting half a vote), according to the bylaws of the Party. If we use as a guideline Poblano's WWF-style takedown of Lanny Davis as a guideline regarding the delegate allocations of Florida and Michigan, it seems likely that Clinton will only net 23 extra delegates from a seating of Michigan and Florida according to these rules:
Florida: 105 Clinton, 69 Obama; 36/2 = 18 net
Michigan: 69 Clinton, 59 Obama; 10/2 = 5 net; 18 + 5 = 23
Nevertheless, The New York Times article continues to stress the silly idea that Clinton's "popular vote" rationale has any bearing whatsoever.
I've got news for the "popular vote" promulgators: it's all about who ran a smarter campaign.
The important goal for the Clinton campaign is to include the popular votes from those two disputed states in its overall vote tally. The Clinton campaign is already doing this, but because Michigan and Florida have been stripped of their delegates, an air of illegitimacy hangs over their votes and her opponents do not recognize their popular vote.
If the rules committee seats even half the delegates from those states, that could confer some legitimacy on the Clinton’s inclusion of those votes in their overall tally, although a Clinton aide said that the campaign does not feel it needs the seating of the delegates to legitimize the popular vote. Those votes have been counted and certified by the secretaries of state in both states, the aide said, and the rules committee cannot alter that.
Now, if people unfamiliar with the allocation of delegates in the Democratic Primary were to read these two paragraphs, they would immediately infer that the popular vote from Michigan and Florida had an immediate bearing on delegate allocations as something more than a tool to persuade the few remaining undeclared superdelegates that Clinton actually won the nomination process if you use a totally different set of rules other than the ones that actually govern the process.
But the problem is simply this:
The popular vote is irrelevant. The commonly accepted argument for its irrelevance is that no matter how it gets calculated (caucus states or no, Michigan + Florida or no, etc.), the metrics used to determine the popular vote will differ. Not only that, but the relevance of a popular vote "winner" that could theoretically be decided by Puerto Rico, a territory that doesn't even get a say in the general election, hardly counts as a legitimate metric for determining who is a stronger nominee.
But let's throw all that out. Let's assume that Hillary were able to make a completely uncontested argument that she had won the popular vote in the Democratic nomination process.
It still wouldn't matter. You know why? Because if a candidate who started out as a relative unknown has the foresight, the endurance and the campaign strategy to beat one of the most effective political machines in history in the only count that matters, that's the campaign that I want going up against the Republicans in November.
After all, let's remember: the winner of the Presidential election isn't decided by the popular vote. The reason Democrats were so angry in 2000 isn't because Al Gore won the popular vote but didn't get the Presidency. The reason we were so upset about 2000 and engaged in large-scale inauguration protests is because Bush's "win" in Florida was illegitimate. If Bush had won Florida cleanly, there would have been no protests and no dispute about his legitmacy. His mandate, certainly, but not his legitimacy.
For me, this election is not just about Clinton vs. Obama as candidates, though I obviously know whom I prefer in that regard. For me, this election is partially about finally moving beyond the Bob Shrum-style campaign tactics that have soiled Democratic Presidential campaigns in the past. In this election, you have a choice between two campaign teams: on one hand, you have a campaign team that has been reviled for its incompetence, even among its candidate's supporters, and derided for its intellectual inconsistency and situational ethics, and blew what should legitimately have been a cakewalk.
On the other, you have an innovative campaign that outsmarted and outplayed a political legend, despite being dealt an inferior hand.
Even if the two candidates were completely equal on the merits, I know which candidate I'd choose if I were a superdelegate:
I'd choose the candidate than ran a smarter campaign.