On my way to work yesterday, I had the chance to hear a radio interview with
Hillary Clinton's reptilian water carrier, Terry McAuliffe, who in addition to exulting over his candidate's primary victory, put forward the startling argument that the Pennsylvania result had catapulted Clinton into the popular vote lead by about 120,000.
How did McAuliffe get his number? First, by adding all votes for Hillary Clinton in the illegitimate Michigan and Florida straw polls to her total, second, by adding zero of the uncommitted votes in the illegitimate Michigan straw poll to Obama's total, and third, by throwing out estimates of popular support in the Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington caucuses.
Assuming that non-Hillary Clinton supporters can see without difficulty that the McAuliffe math is preposterous, the rest of this goes out to Hillary's ardent supporters, who are latching onto McAuliffe arithmetic, and are already firmly latched onto the type of argument of which the McAuliffe math is a token.
Dear Clinton Supporters,
The reason that the McAuliffe math is preposterous is that the (non-question-begging) motivation for the first step is (clearly and flagrantly) inconsistent with the (non-question-begging) motivation for the second and third. Say that "letting the voices of the people be heard, man" trumps everything, including the procedural rules Michigan and Florida violated, the necessary conditions of electoral legitimacy, and manifest unfairness to the Michiganders and Floridians who didn't vote because the elections didn't count. Then the democracy-and-rainbows principle trumps everything, also including the difficulty of assigning a precise number of Michigan uncommitted votes to Obama (it'll be more than the 120,000 vote Clinton lead under McAuliffe arithmetic) and the difficulty of measuring popular support in caucus states.
Alternatively, say that this is not 'Nam, this is voting, there are rules, and you can't just give Obama the likely number of votes cast by his supporters in Michigan, or count estimates of popular support in non-reporting caucus states even if the estimates are fairly precise, because procedural fairness prohibits it. Then there are rules, such as the rules that govern electoral legitimacy, and elections that don't meet minimal standards of legitimacy aren't legitimate, and can't become legitimate because lots of people show up to vote. Do you know why nobody argues that elections in Russia or Cuba are legitimate just in case they have record turnout? Because that would be fucking retarded.
According to the principle that motivates step one of the McAuliffe math, don't do steps two or three. According to the principle that motivates steps two and three, don't do step one.
So if each of the steps of the McAuliffe math is motivated, the result is a (clear and flagrant) contradiction. No contradiction is true. Therefore at least one of the steps is unmotivated. So, Clinton supporters, you've got a tri-lemma: (1) You can argue for a contradiction. Or, (2) you can argue for an unmotivated manipulation of the primary and caucus results. Or, (3) you can junk at least one of the steps of the McAuliffe math and accept that Obama is in the lead, that he won't lose the lead, and that all donating money to Hillary Clinton accomplishes at this point is helping a woman much richer than you pay off her loan. If you opt for (1), good luck with that, you're a ridiculous person, and you probably shouldn't be voting. If you opt for (2) you're scarcely better off than you would be if you argued for (1)†, you're likewise ridiculous, and you likewise shouldn't vote.
If you opt for (3), congratulations, unlike your candidate and her staff, you can put two and two together. Well done. Do you see how crazy the people still inside the cocoon look from the outside?
Love,
Dan
† There are literally uncountably infinitely many possible manipulations of the primary and caucus results, of which uncountably infinitely many produce a lead for Hillary Clinton, uncountably infinitely many produce a lead for Barack Obama, uncountably infinitely many produce a lead for Mike Gravel, and uncountably many produce no determinate leader. (That's not an exhaustive profile.) For example, if you only count states Barack Obama won, Obama's lead in both delegates and popular votes is massive; mutatis mutandis for Clinton. If you only count Gravel voters, Gravelmania is sweeping the Democratic party. Also, if you only count states that are yellow on Wikipedia's US map, or only the total number of commonwealths won, or only count the average elevation of states won by each candidate, or only the total number of years voters for each candidate have lived, or total X chromosomes possessed by each candidate's supporters, Hillary Clinton is killing it. But if you only count states named for French and English monarchs, only count the total student loan debt of each candidate's supporters, or only count membership totals in facebook support groups, Obama's coasting.
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