Clinton's "New Math"
After her 9.2% win in Pennsylvania, Clinton is claiming that “more people voted for her.” I understand the need to spin results and to cast things in a positive light—but this distortion goes to far. This sort of claim is why I would have trouble voting for her if she wins the nomination.
She gets those numbers by counting the people who voted for her in Michigan and Florida and presumably not counting states like Iowa that don’t return popular vote totals. Florida was more a beauty contest than an election, but is fair game as a talking point. In Michigan, however, Clinton was the only candidate on the ballot. Even then, she only got 55% of the vote. About 40% of the vote went to “uncommitted.” However, in order to claim her “popular vote” lead she is discounting even the uncommitted votes.
In other words, Clinton is making her moral claim for legitimacy by flagrantly misleading people. It’s not that the claim is slanted, exaggerated, or merely incomplete. It’s fundamentally rotten. Making such a claim assumes 1) that Americans are stupid, and 2) that it’s okay for somebody running for office to dupe them.
The assumption that people will eat this up without questioning it is absolutely infuriating.