For those who decided to sleep through the time change, here is what Hillary Clinton Campaign surrogate Ed Rendell said this morning on Meet the Press:
TIM RUSSERT: Governor Rendell, if, in fact, Barack Obama goes to the convention in Colorado in August with the most elected delegates, having won more contests and a higher popular vote, the cumulative vote, could he be denied the nomination?
PENNSYLVANIA GOV. RENDELL: Well, sure, Tim, because, number one, Hillary Clinton has won states with about 260 electoral votes. Barack Obama has won states with about 190. And we decide the presidency not by a popular vote, we decide it by the electoral vote. And the traditional role of the superdelegates is to determine who’s going to be our strongest candidate. Tim, you and I have been doing this for a long time, as Tom has, and we know the big four in any presidential election recently are Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and Michigan. And in all four of those states–Pennsylvania hasn’t voted yet, but I assume we’re going to do real well–Hillary Clinton will have taken those states, if it–she takes Pennsylvania, and will have taken them by significant majorities. She’s clearly the strongest candidate in the states that Democrats must win to have a chance. Look, it’s great that Barack Obama is doing wonderfully well in Wyoming and Utah and, and places like that, but there’s no chance we’re going to carry those states. Whether he gets 44 percent as opposed to 39 percent doesn’t matter, but we’re not going to carry those states. We do have a chance to carry the big four. We’ve got to in three of the big four. Hillary Clinton’s the strongest candidate to do that. That’s been proven by the voters in the–those states and hopefully by Pennsylvania as well.
Let us ignore for the moment the uncertain proposition that the winner of an intra-party primary automatically has a better chance of winning a state in a general election. (Democrats are likely to unite around their nominee, whomever it is, and in swing states, the election is likely to be decided by independents, not party regulars.)
My question is this: Just eight years after George W. Bush gained the White House by losing the popular vote and winning the Electoral College, isn’t it a bit ironic that Hillary Clinton is arguing for Democrats to focus not on the popular vote but on the Electoral College?
Google has the answer. If you search for “hillary clinton electoral college,” the first result is an article from November 10, 2000, “Hillary Clinton Calls For End to the Electoral College.” As Clinton said at the time, “I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.”
This irony does not amount to an outright self-parody, however, because the Clinton campaign seems to be returning to her old line of thinking in other areas. Just in the last week or so, the campaign has dropped its rather silly notion that the outcome of the uncontested Florida and Michigan primaries should count, even though no candidate campaigned in either state and Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan.
On this point, the Clinton people are mostly back on the side of endorsing popular democracy. Said Rendell, “Let’s revote in Michigan and Florida. Let’s end all the suspense. If our campaign is wrong and we are not going to be the strongest in those states, let the voters choose it.” The Obama campaign has also said it is amenable to holding do-overs in those states.
Meanwhile, the most extraordinary irony may be yet to come. According to Real Clear Politics, Obama has received about 600,000 more votes than Clinton since January 3. But if you count the votes in Florida (which don’t count), that margin goes down to just 300,000. Which is to say, there is still a (very) outside chance that if Clinton does well in the (as yet hypothetical) revotes in Florida and Michigan, and has a big win in Pennsylvania, she might go over the top in the popular vote, even though she could still trail Obama in the pledged delegate count. We could call this horror movie sequel, “Bush Gore Redux: The Undemocratic Demon Returns.”
And, of course, if all this came to pass, Clinton-supporters like Rendell will go back onto Meet The Press to proclaim that America is a democracy, and in true democracies, the popular vote is king.
Which it is, except for when it is not.