Some commenters were saying about the Pennsylvania primary that HRC needed a “double digit win” to be able to claim that she’s still viable. She won by 0.092871783666801926938643859703884% (as nearly as I can calculate it with the Windows calculator applet), and she claims this rounds to 10%.
“According to the final tally provided by the Associated Press, which gathers precise counts for the networks and other major news organizations, Hillary Clinton won 1,260,444 votes to Barack Obama’s 1,046,220, for a difference of 214,224 votes, or 9.2871 percent - which rounds down to 9.”
However, her campaign is claiming the following justification for calling this a 10% win: “she captured 54.6435 percent of the vote - which rounds up to 55 - to his 45.3564, which rounds down to 45, for a difference of 10 points”.
I think that if you apply multiple roundings to intermediate values in a calculation for the specific reason that the rounding errors happen to interfere constructively in a particular case, producing a result that is different and favorable relative to the result of rounding once after all the calculations, that you’re lying. Is there any justification for doing this?
How good an idea is it to have her trying to influence the economy and taxes if she thinks 9.283% rounds to 10%?
Seems the press was calling it a double-digit win from the get-go too - not sure if they were picking up on a cue from Hillary, or being stupid on their own.
Now, since we’ve got this thread:
The thing that’s annoyed me is the use of ‘decisive’ to describe Hillary’s PA win. Certainly, she decisively won Pennsylvania itself. But by that standard, all but a few of both Obama’s and Hillary’s wins this year have been ‘decisive.’ BFD.
Those of us who don’t reside in PA are more likely evaluating Hillary’s PA win, not in isolation, but in the context of the overall nominating process. And in that context, it didn’t ‘decide’ shit. It left Hillary in a worse position, delegate-wise, than before, with fewer opportunities ahead to improve her standing. But it gave her a favorable publicity boost.
Net those two things out, and it didn’t really change the race much at all. ‘Decisive,’ my ass.
It’s media spin, and it’s hard sometimes to see who the msm really wants in the White House. The line now is fuzzy - Clinton’s had a boost, but not really in the numbers game, but how may people really evaluate the numbers like we do hear. I try my best to expose a lot of people to what we do here because it’s accurate. But the main stream does not see accuracy, they see spin. And right now the spin is that CLinton has a boost, Rev.Wright should shut up, and Obama’s had a bad couple weeks. But this spin is like every other spin…it will spin back to Clinton being the wicked witch of the west with no hope of pulling this off. I just wish the good Rev. would temper what he says, he seems to like to hear himself talk.
Come on! HRC really wants to be president and this may well be her only chance. By 2012, there will be new situations, new players, and (if she loses to either Obama or McCain, a big “loser” sign around her neck).
OF COURSE, she is going to claim that a 9.0000000000001% margin rounds to 10% if that is what it takes to persuade various fundraisers or voters to continue (or to begin) to support her. I would not be at all surprised to discover similar number fudging on one event or another among every serious presidential candidate going back to Andrew Jackson–maybe to John Adams.
I’m not really sure why this thread was necessary, (particularly since it looks more like a polite Pitting than a debate). I will leave it open only as long as the participants remain polite.
Looking back on the 2000 and 2004, I’ve considered starting a thread to debate whether extremely close elections have become the norm. As polling has become more sophisticated, and relentless reporting (including the results of polls) feeds back into the campaign cycle, each candidate will shore up their core constituencies and the contest will come to focus on the few swing voters/states/issues. As the media and political forces refine their techniques, that swing group will get more narrowly defined. Sometime late in this century, we’ll know that the Presidency will be decided by a retired electrician in southern Ohio.
The reporting leading up to the Pennsylvania primary said that Hillary needed a double-digit victory to keep the contest going. Presumably, if it were much more, or less, than the magic 10%, things would start to wrap up and the news networks wouldn’t have this juicy horse race to fill time on their broadcasts.
What I don’t understand is why she didn’t let the numbers stand as they were. Sure spinwise, “double-digit win” sounds more decisive and commanding but one percentage off of that is about the same thing. Sheesh. Next she’ll take a dump and tell us she cleaned the toilet because she ended up flushing.
Another thing; given that Hillary was expected to win this tailor-made-for-Hillary state weeks ago, how was this a reawakening, a revival, a comeback from the dead, especially since the outcome in terms of the bare numbers hasn’t changed in regards to the rest of the contests. Seems to me, it speaks more to an accomplishment by Obama than anything, simply by he reduced the spread by which she won.
It’s not a matter of who the media wants in the White House, really. It’s a matter of the Democratic primary being a horserace nets them greater ratings all around, so they’re going to spin Hillary as being much closer to Obama’s delegate numbers no matter what they actually are. If it were the other way around and Obama was trailing her, they’d be exaggerating his numbers.
Oh, and quite likely, if we take “the MSM” to mean “the owners of the MSM”, then they want McCain. Obama will probably be looking closely at reregulating or at least moderately regulating the industry and they don’t want that. Clinton, being DLC, won’t be looking at regulation at all, but they most likely figure why go for the Republican Lite when you can take the actual Republican (which has been the fatal flaw for the DLC since it began…)?
