The Drudge Report is currently linking to a Sunday Times article that claims the following:
Clinton’s new tactics depend on clearing up a mess in Florida and Michigan, which are banned from seating delegates at the convention because they defied party rules by holding early primary contests.
Obama leads Clinton by nearly 600,000 in the number of votes cast to date, but trails her by 30,000 if the votes of the two “rogue” states are counted. These states are now likely to stage some form of rerun.
I suspect they base this on Real Clear Politics 2008 Democratic Popular Vote Count which – with an asterisk – makes the same claim:
Popular Vote (w/FL & MI)* - - 13,584,182 13,614,581
Why this is wrong after the jump...
Let's see what that asterisk leads to:
(*Obama Not on Michigan Ballot; Iowa, Nevada, Washington & Maine Have Not Released Popular Vote Totals)
Even if you ignore the fact Obama didn't campaign in Michigan or Florida and he wasn't on the Michigan ballot, the broad majority of uncommitteds in Michigan favored Obama, he definitely won the popular vote in 3/4 of those caucus states, and it was close in Nevada. With that taken into account, he clearly has a comfortable lead in the popular vote with Michigan and Florida.
This misinformation needs to be corrected – before the MSM starts repeating it.