Assuming there will be no new primaries, how would you solve the problem with FL and MI?

The raw vote numbers:

• Florida Primary Results (Jan. 29, 2008)(from the Secretary of State's Office)

Clinton 870,986 49.8%
Obama 576,214 32.9%
Edwards 248,604 14.4%

• Michigan Primary Results (Jan. 15, 2008)(from MI Secretary of State's office)

Clinton 328,309
Chris Dodd 3,845
Dennis Kucinich 21,715
Mike Gravel 2,361
Uncommitted 238,168

A few weeks ago I wrote a long post on why Barack Obama's suggestion that he and Hillary split the Michigan delegates 50/50 was tanatamount to vote-stealing:

On January 15, 2008, 594,398 Democrats went to their polling places and voted in their state's primary. The official Michigan election results are here.

328,309 Democrats in Michigan voted for Hillary Clinton. She won all but two counties, Washtenaw and Emmet. 238,168 voted uncommitted. 21,715 voted for Dennis Kucinich. 3,845 voted for Chris Dodd. 2,361 voted for Mike Gravel.

Hillary got 55% of the vote. The uncommitted, who either were truly uncommitted or for Obama, Edwards or Biden, all three of whom voluntarily withdrew their names from the ballot, got 40%. Kucinich, Dodd and Gravel won 5% of the vote.

Barack Obama now proposes he get 50% of the state's delegates. That would be vote-stealing. It would be disenfranchising 5% of Hillary's voters. It would be assuming that every uncommitted voter and every voter for Kucinich, Dodd and Gravel now want their vote to go to Obama.

That's called stealing an election.

Obama prevails in this crazy theory at his peril. There will be hundreds of thousands of Democrats across the country who will refuse to vote for him in November, thinking better a Republican than a cheat.

Obama is still pushing this unfair solution. My DD has a copy of the e-mail his campaign sent out today: [More...]

Has Barack Obama peaked? That's one reading of the NY Times/ CBS poll of registered voters of both parties released today:

Senator Barack Obama’s support among Democrats nationally has softened over the last month, particularly among men and upper-income voters, as voters have taken a slightly less positive view of him than they did after his burst of victories in February, according to the latest New York Times/CBS The survey suggests that Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, may have been at something of a peak in February, propelled by a string of primary and caucus victories over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and that perceptions of him are settling down.

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Both candidates agree the popular vote count will be an important factor for superdelegates to consider in deciding how to cast their vote. It's one of several, others being their view of the candidate's electability in November and the pledged delegate totals.

So, how many human beings have gone to the polls so far and cast votes for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?

The popular vote total is the votes cast by individuals in state primaries. Caucus votes don't count in the popular vote total because they are counted in terms of delegates, not votes, and many states don't count the number of people attending caucuses. More on this below.

Sources and Methodology below:

Hillary and Bill Clinton released their tax returns today for the years 2000 to 2007. Previous years had already been released.

The Clintons have now made public thirty years of tax returns, a record matched by few people in public service. None of Hillary Clinton's presidential opponents have revealed anything close to this amount of personal financial information.

What the Clintons' tax returns show is that they paid more than $33,000,000 in federal taxes and donated more than $10,000,000 to charities over the past eight years. They paid taxes and made charitable contributions at a higher rate than taxpayers at their income level.

The individual tax returns are available at the above link. Now, let's talk about John McCain:

Following Clinton's tax return release, DNC Communications Director Karen Finney released a statement "on John McCain's 26 year history of refusing to release his tax returns":

"While both Democratic candidates for president have released several years worth of full federal tax returns, John McCain has not. As a self-professed champion of disclosure and ethics, John McCain should explain why for the past 26 years he has not seen fit to provide this important financial information to voters. Presidential candidates have disclosed several years worth of returns for decades, John McCain stands as a disturbing exception."

Update: Comments at 200, thread now closed.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

The magic number. That is not a phrase you hear much in reference to the Democratic nomination. We hear about pledged delegate counts and how sacrosanct they are of course. But never is that tied to the concept of a magic number. But the magic number exists. Two are possible - one with FL/MI (2214) and one without (2025). And this Chris Bowers post truly illustrates why not revoting Florida and Michigan makes getting a legitimate nominee extremely difficult:

Add this in to the above numbers, and it comes to a grand total of Obama 1,948--1,824 Clinton, with only the 255 remaining superdelegates to go. Obama would need 74.5, or just 29.3%, of the remaining superdelegates to reach the 2,022.5 magic number. At that point, he would be able to dictate what happens in Florida and Michigan.

(Emphasis supplied.) Chris assumes the non-MI/FL magic number will be considered legitimate by all. I am confident it will not be so. A solution to Florida and Michigan must, at the very least, be provided and agreed to PRIOR to the nominee being chosen. It can not be done after the fact. You can not truly claim legitimacy unless the nominee achieves the MI/FL magic number - 2214, through an agreed upon process. After the fact will not cut it. The legitimacy of the nominee depends upon it.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Via Todd Beeton, I think the Clinton camp is getting it on the popular vote issue:

Both Rob Reiner in his intro and Hillary Clinton in her remarks framed the issue as the disenfranchisement of millions of voters, which really got the crowd exercised I have to say, especially when Clinton phrased it in these terms:

I thought it was Democrats who wanted to count every vote. If we had counted every vote in 2000 Al Gore would be finishing his second term

. . . Rob Reiner hinted at what's really going on here in his introductory remarks[:]

We're Democrats, we let everyone vote. If at the end of the process, there's a candidate who has more votes...When all the dust settles and Puerto Rico has voted, you're going to see that more people voted for Hillary Clinton.

This is the smart political play AND the right thing to do for the Clinton campaign. Kudos to them.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

It always amazed me how well Barack Obama was able to sell his "new politics" schtick. It is not like it is actually a new schtick. Heck some pol or other uses it every cycle. Well, via Taylor Marsh, we've found a reporter that noticed that the Obama campaign has used negative tactics:

A new PA poll by Muhlenberg College and the Morning Call show Hillary ahead by 11 points. Full poll results are here.

Key findings:

1. With the Pennsylvania Presidential Primary under three weeks away, Senator Hillary Clinton maintains a double digit lead over Senator Obama in the Democratic race.

2. Democratic voters in the Keystone State were most likely to rank the economy as the key issue in terms of their vote in the Democratic Primary, with the Iraq War and health care also prominently mentioned.

3. Pennsylvania Democrats have generally favorable views of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. However, Obama receives a larger percentage of unfavorable ratings than Clinton among likely voters in the state.

4. Keystone State Democrats are evenly divided on which of their candidates is more likely to beat John McCain in the general election.

5. Democratic voters in the Commonwealth are more likely to want Hillary Clinton to choose Barack Obama as her running mate than they are to support Obama choosing Clinton as his Vice President.

6. A majority of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania do not believe Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race if she loses the Pennsylvania Primary.

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

As a supporter of NAFTA and free trade, I hope it is clear that my call for the firing of Mark Penn is not based on objections to a free trade agreement with Colombia, but because Penn (who I believe is an incompetent political operative) can not serve both Burson Marsteller and Hillary Clinton's campaign for President. He needs to go. Immediately.

Via the Washington Post: What does $40 million buy Obama? In addition to blanketing PA with ads,

In North Carolina, one of the two vital May 6 states, the Obama campaign's office count has risen to 16, including smaller locales like Hickory, Boone and Elizabeth City. Two Obama television ads are airing around the state, at a total cost of $800,000, according to a source familiar with the campaign's media budget. Today alone, an army of organizers and volunteers conducted 22 training and and voter registration sessions, focusing in particular on African Americans, students, and independents and Republicans.

In Indiana, the other May 6 contest, the Obama campaign has so far spent over $1 million on TV and radio ads. The office tally climbed today to 17. The Obama campaign's latest gimmick: a high school-outreach program that targets students who will turn 18 by the Nov. 4 general election, making them eligible as primary voters. Indiana students who register at least 20 of their peers by April 6 will be eligible to play three-on-three basketball with Obama, a big-time hoops fan and reputed aggressor on the court.

Obama has spent $3 million on Pennsylvania ads to date to Hillary's $500k.

A Research 2000 poll of Indiana voters is out today. It has Hillary 49%, Obama 46% with a 5 point margin of error. Full poll results are here (pdf).

The poll over-represented African-American voters. They make up 12% of those surveyed, but 9% of Indiana's population. 81% of those surveyed favor Obama to 16% for Hillary.

Obama had a big lead in the 18 to 29 age group, 63 percent to 36 percent, but in the over 60 age group, Hillary leads 60% to 34%.

And Hillary leads the 30 to 44 age group by 7 points and the 45 to 59 age group by 6 points.

Hillary's campaign says she isn't taking a single vote for granted and the race will be close. [More...]