Math. It’s a science, not an art. You combine numbers to get another number that is the definite and only correct answer. Learning the basic principles of the subject begins in preschool, with counting and then addition. There, in the innocence of the classroom, the two processes produce objective answers. But that is, of course, before any of the children learn about politics.
This year, the Democratic Party has managed to turn math into a true art form. It seems every major news outlet has a different interpretation of the number of elected delegates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have, and even the number of pledged superdelegates can vary.
And now, thanks to the Pennsylvania primary, the math has become even more muddled. Since Tuesday, Clinton has been trumpeting an argument that is, to say the least, a bit stronger than, “I’ve won all the big states that Democrats need to win in November.”
She now says that adding up all the votes cast since the primary contests began shows that most of the people who went to the polls have cast their votes for her.
Clinton is winning the popular vote, if you include Michigan and Florida.
But even that claim comes with one important subtraction: all the uncommitted votes in Michigan must be taken away from Obama. They must be considered exactly what they were labeled – uncommitted, and not symbols of votes for Clinton’s competitor. If x=Obama, he’s winning both in delegates and in the popular vote.
Nonetheless, Pennsylvania was a step forward for the Clinton campaign. Mathematically, she made the contest closer, edging herself away from the evidence for her to drop out.
And that’s why Pennsylvania was bad for the Democratic Party. It produced ugly and frivolous sides of both the candidates, and of two debate moderators, and caused a lot of fatigue for those of us looking toward November. But it just gave Clinton more reason to keep the exhausting process going.
She’s still hopeful that she’ll be able to make an argument, mathematical or otherwise, to woo enough superdelegates to override the elected delegates from a man who may or may not have won the popular vote.
Of course we won’t know until May 31 how the artistic Democratic Party is going to count the popular votes in Michigan and Florida. The Rules Committee on that day must choose one of a number of solutions while not appearing to pull the rug out from under one of the two candidates or to be discounting the will of people who went to the polls. But we won’t know if any compromise will make a difference until the superdelegates make up their minds.
And Clinton has pledged to keep fighting until the last primary vote is counted, a scenario that could be the last vendetta for her but the first step toward a Democratic defeat.
It’s hard to ignore all the talk since Pennsylvania of Obama’s magical transformational appeal starting to wear away. He was supposed to be able to bring all types of people together under his umbrella of change, but places like Pennsylvania remind everyone of another hard-and-fast mathematical principle: division.
The lines along which Obama and Clinton voters break have been evident for a while, but Pennsylvania just solidified the divide. It proved that, even with plenty of time to spend with voters, Obama cannot quite “close the deal,” as Clinton has been saying, with those white, working-class voters, a constituency that McCain is planning to contest if he’s up against Obama in the fall.
According to exit polls, 15 percent of Pennsylvania Democrats who voted in the primaries would choose McCain for president in November if Obama was the alternative. Against Clinton, McCain pulls in 11 percent of those votes.
That’s a pretty strong statement in this time of trauma for Democrats. And don’t forget those voters who might just stay home to express their dissatisfaction.
So after Pennsylvania, the Democrats are in a nasty place, where it’s becoming all too evident that neither candidate carries with him or her a full package of voters that can be counted on the win the presidency. I don’t blame it on either candidate or any of the voters.
I blame it on math.
This year is really showing how the Democratic National Committee’s formula for producing a nominee is just inefficient. It may have worked just fine in the past, but that was before anyone studied it this closely. It’s putting too much emphasis and pressure on the last variables, the superdelegates, and it’s dragging the process out too long for the party’s own good.
Notice that no one seems to be questioning the maverick McCain’s appeal to voters.
But for all the negatives Pennsylvania and this extended contest as a whole have brought, I can see a possible positive. Now, the eventual Democratic nominee has indications stronger than just polling of the blocs of voters he or she will need to win over come September. Each campaign knows exactly which variables in the equation they have to study for the final exam in the fall, and this could give Democrats a slight edge over the GOP.
Of course, though, there’s always the chance that the divisions we saw in Pennsylvania will just stay that way, and the Democrat will end up without votes from a huge bloc that just couldn’t be convinced.
Through the matrix of all the political math this election season has seen, there is an answer to one problem that most people can agree with.
A Democratic candidate minus the support of the party’s entire base equals a McCain presidency.
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