Monday, March 10, 2008

The "Biggest States" Argument

If Obama beats Hillary in pledged delegates (as he surely will), wins the most states (he has 24 plus DC already), and has received the most votes overall (likely), the Clinton campaign will deploy the last missile it has: "yeah, but we won the big states." While this is technically true, the argument isn't perfectly bulletproof. Here are the largest fifteen states, and the candidate who won them.
  1. California [C]
  2. New York [C]
  3. Texas [C]
  4. Pennsylvania [likely C]
  5. Illinois [O]
  6. Ohio [C]
  7. North Carolina [likely O]
  8. New Jersey [C]
  9. Massachusetts [C]
  10. Georgia [O]
  11. Virginia [O]
  12. Washington [O]
  13. Wisconsin [O]
  14. Minnesota [O]
  15. Missouri [O]
In Hillary's favor: she will have won four of the five non-home states in the union, and six of ten. Include home states, and she won four of the five largest, and seven of the top ten. But if you look at states 11-15, Obama ran the tables. So of the top 15 largest states, Obama won eight if you include home states, seven if you don't -- a majority in each case.

Obviously, Hillary will make the argument that the big states should be limited to the top nine (I doubt she'd include Georgia), but there's a slippery slope--she doesn't want to risk denigrating those 11-15 states, at least four of which will be in play in November.

2 comments:

Chuck Butcher said...

It must suck to be Hillary

Sisters in Circle: Women's Reconnection Program said...

She will do anything, alienate anyone to get on that ballet. I wouldn't put anything past her at this point.

An analogy occred to my husband David and I this morning: Hillary has gone through the wraithing process of Washington politics. Obama is not quite Tom Bomadil, but he is like a hobbit, pure and true who could carry the 'ring' of this country for four years without losing himself. I wonder what role Hillary will play in this before the end?
-Sorry.