[Note: This post was written before the conclusion of the Kentucky and Oregon primaries.]
So Sen. Clinton is still arguing the “I won the popular vote if you count Florida and Michigan” meme.
But did she?
If we just count Florida, she did not. Per RCP, just counting Florida, Obama still has the advantage by some 300,000 votes.
Counting Michigan is a much more problematic. In that case, Clinton’s argument requires us to believe that — had Obama’s name actually been on the ballot in Michigan — he would have received around 11% (or fewer) of the 238,168 votes that went to “Uncommitted,” or around 5% of the total votes cast.
Scanning up and down the RCP list, I don’t see a single state where Obama received less than 25% of the total votes cast.
So, if we applied that “lowest threshhold received so far” of 25% to the more than 566,477 people who bothered to vote in the Michigan Democratic primary, Obama would have walked out of there with 141,619 votes. That, plus his totals elsehwere, would give him (as of today) a comfortable margin in the popular vote over Clinton, counting all states.
Sorry, Senator C. But fair is fair.