Five ways Clinton leads Obama
Over the weekend, Senator Evan Bayh suggested we measure the success of the candidates not by delegates earned, but by the electoral votes of the states they’ve won. In the spirit of Senator Bayh, I present you with five additional metrics that I pulled out of my ass. As you’ll see, Hillary Clinton is either winning or tied with Obama in every case.
I should say at the outset that this study is highly scientific and my methods are rigorous. Except where otherwise noted, the data for this study is available here. I have excluded American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Democrats voting abroad, because their inclusion would be un-American. Similarly, I have excluded the District of Columbia, which isn’t even a state.
Total number of “yellow” states on Wikipedia’s map of the United States
CLINTON: 5
OBAMA: 4
By Barack Obama’s own admission, at the conclusion of his Iowa address, he noted, “we are not a collection of red states and blue states.” He failed, however, to specifically identify the colors that should be assigned to the states. If anyone is to resolve this question, it is Wikipedia, the repository of all human knowledge, which makes clear that we are a nation of green, yellow, red, and pink states. It’s important of course that this study be conducted in a fair and nonarbitrary fashion, so I determined the color metric (yellow) by eliminating the states least frequently associated with submarines in Beatles songs. This yields a slight advantage to Hillary Clinton, 5 to 4.
Total number of Commonwealths
CLINTON: 1 (Massachusetts)
OBAMA: 1 (Virginia)
Here the race is neck and neck, but Clinton is expected to take Pennsylvania. As there are only four commonwealths total, it is virtually impossible for Obama to beat Clinton on the Commonwealth count. If Clinton beats Obama in Kentucky, his claim that he has won more states will be canceled out by her claim that she has won more Commonwealths.
Total number of “New” States
CLINTON: 4
OBAMA:0
Hilllary Clinton has won New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York. By contrast, Obama has failed to win a single state with the word “New” in its name. Obama’s failure among self-proclaimed new states, raises serious questions about his supposed strength among young voters (new people) and his supposed message of change (new policies).
Average Highest Elevation
CLINTON: 6135 Feet
OBAMA: 6097 Feet
Frankly, I’m surprised that more attention hasn’t been drawn to this. Obama claims to want to elevate the level of discourse, but he has failed in states with the highest elevations. Clinton has won on Mount Whitney (California), Humphreys Peak (Arizona), Boundary Peak (Nevada), and Wheeler Peak (New Mexico). Perhaps more significantly, there are so few peaks left that despite the close margins, Obama has no hope of regaining the altitude vote. Clinton also leads among states with the highest average mean elevation (source): Clinton: 1908.8 feet, Obama: 1457.7 feet.
Average Official State Mixed Drink
CLINTON: Wine, Milk, Coffee, Cranberry Juice, Orange Juice, Tomato Juice
OBAMA: Kool-Aid, Beer, Conecuh Ridge Whiskey, Milk, Moxie, South Carolina Grown Tea
It’s a close call, but on balance, Clinton has the better tasting official state mixed drink. Here’s how this is tabulated: Most states have an official state beverage (Wikipedia State Beverage List). Using equal parts of each state beverage from each state that each candidate won, I was able to produce two mixed drinks. I don’t want to go into the judging details except to say that Obama’s combination of Whiskey and Kool-Aid left me questioning whether his coalition of voters can hold together beyond the late night taco bell run.
Conclusion
It’s clear that the time has come for Obama to drop out of the race. By almost any measure imaginable (excluding delegates, popular vote, primaries, or caucuses), Clinton is leading.
Update: I cross-posted this at DailyKos and it made the front page! Good times. If you’re arriving here from DailyKos, may I recommend my annotated version of Obama’s More Perfect Union Speech?
Update II: Some fora–no, I’m not that much of an asshole. I’ll use the word forums–some forums don’t allow people to repost the url to this post because it includes the word ass. Here’s an alternate URL that works:
http://overbreadth.com/2008/03/24/five-metrics
7 Responses to “Five ways Clinton leads Obama”
I think you may have overlooked the all important inverse/girl’s name state factor. That is to say the candidate who wins states associated with girly names could not pass the commander in chief threshhold for manliness. This includes such girly states as Louisiana, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, the Carolinas, and MISSissippi. Fortunately, the name Hillary does not actually count as a girls’ name since it was taken from the very masculine Sir Edmund Hillary who had the good graces to become famous 4 years after the Rodhams chose to honor him.
http://www.vickiforman.com
Once again, I can officially state that you have missed your calling as an attorney. Another site you should consider cross posting at: Future of the Whirled (http://futureofthewhirled.com). A group political blog. They’d love you.
http://www.luros.org
Cameron,
Great work here. However, I can’t really give any credence to you saying that tomato juice tastes better than moxie. Nothing like a good swig o’ moxie to make my delegate count troubles go away.
http://www.matthewfunk.net/blog
Fine job with this one. Your distinctive sense of humor - which, for whatever reason, flourishes when it involves metrics - truly shines.
And all types of congratulations for such recognition of it on Daily Kos.
http://nothingpersonalbut.blogspot.com/
Well done. This goes back to the issue of faulty logic in political discourse. I wrote about how annoyed I was with this sort of crap here:
http://nothingpersonalbut.blogspot.com/2008/03/i-have-been-following-primaries-pretty.html
The idea that somehow because Obama lost to Hillary in “big states” such as California and New York then he would lose to McCain…that assumes that the people who voted for Clinton would NOT vote for Obama…that makes no sense. It’s faulty logic.
http://www.vertical-politics.com
I’ve been recommending this to a lot of people who mistakenly say there is no hope for Hillary Clinton. Unlike the mainstream media, you do a good job at pointing out that this race is not over yet. Props for your fairness.
I joke. You’re hilarious though.
http://overbreadth.com/2008/04/07/did-funt-plagiarize-me/
[…] my piece used the term “metrics” rather than “ways,” as you can see from the URL on my blog, where it was cross-posted. Am I being paranoid here? Surely he wouldn’t plagiarize the […]
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