Dear Editor,
I am deeply impressed by Clinton Urling’s keen and passionate reading of the American presidential elections. Although he is an enthusiastic fan of Barack Obama, Urling remains objective in his analysis. He is spot on. He predicted around February that Obama would win the nomination (although he did not explain why) and Obama is indeed the presumed nominee. Few expected the battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton to go all the way to the end of the primary season which concluded on June 3. I thought Clinton would top Obama; obviously I was wrong. Many people wanted Clinton to withdraw in March and called on her again to pull out in April and again in May.
But she wisely held on giving every voter a chance to be heard. It was a close contest and both candidates won an almost equal number of delegates and votes. Nevertheless, Urling is right and kudos goes to him.
However, Urling was too terse in his critique (‘Clinton did not win popular vote’ SN, 7.6.08) of AA Fenty (‘Frankly Speaking’ SN, 6.6.08). Clinton has won more votes than Obama.
The New York Times (Jun 5) did an analysis of the popular votes to test Clinton’s claim that she had won more votes than Obama. Although critical of Clinton, the Times validated her claim. As Urling pointed out, if Michigan and Florida are not included, Obama wins the popular vote. But Michigan and Florida are now included in the convention count. According to the Times, Clinton wins the popular vote by around 125,000. The Times used a special formula to estimate the votes of the caucuses, mentioned by Urling, for each candidate.
Separately, another statistical analysis in the Times (June 6) pointed out that Clinton is leaving the race when she is ahead in the electoral votes.
The analysis shows Clinton beating Republican John McCain for the Presidency by a landslide – which also coincides with my analysis of the race. McCain beats Obama comfortably for the presidency. That has been Clinton’s trump card but the party’s superdelegates have not bought it. At any rate, today’s statistical prediction is not applicable for an election five months away.
Although Clinton may have won more votes, Obama has won the nomination according to the rules established by the party. He beats Clinton by 103 elected delegates. Neither candidate was able to win a majority of requisite delegates to wrap up the nomination when the contest ended on June 3. But Obama was able to get the majority because more unelected superdelegates backed him than backed Clinton. Overall, Obama wins 51% to about 46% for Clinton in the delegate count, while Clinton wins the popular vote by about 51% to 48 per cent.
No one should take from the achievement of either candidate.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
