The popular vote is ambiguous, at best, depending on which measure you use but a few comments:
1) Why should MI even be tallied? Neither Obama nor Edwards, who was still in the race back then, were on the ballot. What's to be done to redress that? Allocate all the uncommitted votes to Obama; now that Edwards has endorsed him?
2) Clinton won FL handidly no doubt assisted by familiarity. I don't think for one moment, given its demographics, she was ever going to lose FL but had Obama been able to campaign and run ads in FL he might have performed better. As for MI, it's a state he may have had a fair shot at winning
3) Given that the Republican primaries in MI and FL attracted a higher turnout, it's clear to me that the DNC decision to strip MI and FL of their delegates, more likely than not, suppressed the turnout. Many Democrats in FL and MI may well have thought why bother if my vote isn't going to count for anything? [I see this given that Democratic primaries tended to attract more participation even when the GOP race was wide-open]
I can see it now. Hillary Clinton wins the popular vote ... and its courtesy of Puerto Rico! And there you have it? The nightmare scenario of one Democrat ahead in pledged delegates and the other ahead in the popular vote
Right now, inc. FL, MI along with estimates for the IA, NV, ME and WA caucuses, RCP gives Clinton a lead of 54,432 votes. Throw in MI's uncommitteds, all 238,168 of them, for Obama and he leads by 183,736. PR is likely to change that - despite the fact that PR has no say in November
What a mess
!
Dave
