They Still Can't Do Math

The problem with Bernie Sanders' fans, in a nutshell, is that they're idiots. In an election post-mortem started yesterday, one of them stated, "The 3rd-party votes weren't enough to make a difference in any states, even if all of them had gone for Hillary." This got a lot of applause and no contradiction at all from other Bernie People. In other words, they're still not even close to being able to do the math. They are impaired.

Trump carried 30 states and won 304 electoral votes; Hillary carried 20 states plus the District of Columbia, and won 227 electoral votes.

Of the 30 states Trump won:

* He got 1,252,401 votes in Arizona and Hillary got 1,161,167, a difference of 91,234, less than the 106,327 Johnson got.

* He got 4,617,886 votes in Florida and Hillary got 4,504,975, a difference of 112,911, barely half of Johnson's 207,043.

* He got 2,279,543 votes in Michigan and Hillary got 2,268,839, a difference of 10,704, about 1/5 of Stein's 51,463.

* He got 2,970,733 votes in Pennsylvania and Hillary got 2,926,441, a difference of 44,292, less than Stein's 49,941.

* He got 1,405,284 votes in Wisconsin and Hillary got 1,382,536, a difference of 22,748, less than Stein's 31,072.

In none of those 5 states did I even need to consider both Johnson's votes or Stein's. One or the other was greater than Trump's margin of victory over Hillary. All together, those 5 states have 86 electoral votes, meaning that if Hillary had taken them all, she would have had 313 electoral votes to Trump's 218, and we would be busy working toward Hillary's goal of 500 million solar panels nationwide within a few years and strengthening the social safety net and pushing harder for equal pay for women and ethnic minorities, instead of wondering when enough Republican lawmakers will finally find a bit of decency and/or shame and/or sanity within themselves, so that we can impeach Trump and remove him from office. I also didn't need to consider the 111,850 people nationwide who wrote in Bernie, the 731,788 votes for Evan McMullin, the 203,010 for Darrell Castle, the 74,392 for Gloria La Riva or the 763,419 votes for others. If all of the 3rd party votes had gone for Hillary, it might well have swung more than 5 states.

And then there are the approximately 110 million people who had the right to vote but didn't. That's something to look into as well, those 110 million folks.

At least 2 things are abundantly clear: 1), in the 2016 Presidential election, 3rd-party and independent candidates most certainly did make a difference; and 2), the idiots who think they didn't make a difference in any states won't be convinced otherwise by this blog post.

Okay: maybe out of all of those millions of idiots, a handful might actually suddenly understand, because of this post. It's possible. By and large, however, they are math-proof. Concepts which seem so elementary to some of us -- such as that in a winner-take-all system, in an election where 2 candidates are far, far ahead of all of the others, you should vote for 1 of the 2 leading candidates if you can see any difference at all between them, because if you don't might get stuck with the one you like less, and that there is a huge difference between our horrendous mess of an election system and the system of proportional representation most countries are fortunate enough to have, where not voting for one of the 2 leading candidates actually does not always equal throwing your vote away, and where the Green Party is not a horrible joke -- concepts like that are beyond them. Over their dear pointy heads.

We're not going to get the votes of people who can't do math, with math. We're going to have to get their votes some other way.

Maybe if we consult psychologists who deal with infants and toddlers for a living. Ask them how the tykes are best persuaded to stop throwing their poop. Other than that, right now I got nothing.

Numbers

If you have been getting your primary-season news from CNN and MSNBC, you may think that the results of the California Democratic Presidential primary -- Hillary winning big, 56.0% to 43.1%, with 69% of the vote counted, Hillary with 1,841,285 so far and Bernie with 1,416,742 -- are jarringly at odds with the polls, which had shown Hillary up by 2 points or even trailing Bernie slightly. If you have been getting your primary-season news from this blog, however, you know that in addition to those polls, other polls continued to show Hillary with a double-digit lead right up to the end. Not even I, however, have been able to answer the question of why the polls saying it was close in California got so much more news coverage than the ones predicting a blowout for Hillary.

Here are some more numbers: there are about 125 million households in the US. The great majority, 116 million, receive cable, satellite or telco TV -- pay TV, that is. More channels than just broadcast. Only about 36 1/2 million get HBO. That's because HBO is expensive. But talking heads on MSNBC and people writing for Mother Jones have been comparing the 2016 Presidential campaign to the HBO series "Game of Thrones" as if everyone got HBO and would know what they're talking about. That assumption seems rather elitist for media outlets which are supposedly progressive.

Hillary clinched the majority of pledged delegates last night in California. There are 4046 pledged delegates in the Democratic Presidential primary, 2023 is exactly half. CNN currently shows Hillary with 2168. More will be added to that total as late returns come in. Not enough to give Hillary 2383 pledged delegates, but close. 2383 pledged delegates for Hillary would mean that it was absolutely impossible for Bernie to take the nomination away from her even if he got every single one of the 719 superdelegates. It would mean that claims that Bernie could still win the nomination, that Hillary has not completely lead-pipe clinched it, had finally crossed that fine line between completely silly and no-excuses insane.

So, how is Bernie's campaign to win over the superdelegates going? It continues to go not good: CNN shows Hillary with 572 and Bernie with 47. Superdelegates Bernie has flipped so far? Holding at 0. (I keep hoping that more of Bernie's superdelegates will switch to Hillary, to help to give him that hint hint, nudge nudge, but apparently the number who have done so remains 1. But let's keep an eye on that, see if any of the 47 he currently has fly the coop.)

Number of Bernie's supporters, both journalists and Democratic politicians, calling on Bernie to concede and help to unify the Democratic Party? I don't have any raw numbers there, but the number is huge and growing very rapidly. The allusion to "Game of Thrones" in Mother Jones to which I alluded above compared Trump to the Winter King and Democratic unity to unity of the Kingdoms of the North. (Those are "Game of Thrones" things.)

Number of people who know Bernie personally who assure the public that Bernie will do the right thing, soon: very big. *shrug* Okay. They know him personally. I don't.

Counting Up More Ways That It's Over

Hillary needs 211 more pledged delegates to have a majority of all pledged delegates. 694 pledged delegates will be awarded in today's 6 primaries. If Hillary gets 30.5% of the vote in these 6 primaries, she will have clinched the majority of pledged delegates. If she gets 50% of the vote today, she will have 136 more than half of all of the pledged delegates. With Washington DC still to go.

The Bernie Bros and Sisters who are talking about winning over some superdelegates are going to have to get hundreds of them to dump Hillary and switch to Bernie. The superdelegates are free to switch anytime they want to. Since Bernie's campaign has started hammering away at this plan of converting the superdelegates -- a couple of months now, ever since it became clear that Bernie was falling far short of the 65% or so of the remaining vote he was going to need over the course of the last couple of months of primaries in order to get the majority in pledged delegates -- in all of that time, only one superdelegate has switched. But not from Hillary to Bernie. Other way around: from Bernie to Hillary. Can anyone name one single superdelegate who currently favors Hillary who is thinking about maybe switching to Bernie? Just one?

More and more comedians are making fun of Bernie's refusal to face the fact that he's lost. So that makes the list of those who are conspiring against Bernie: Wall Street, the Democratic Party establishment, the news media for jumping the gun and saying that Hillary has won -- and now more and more comedians as well. And people who are annoyed by whiny losers who can't admit they've lost. And people who can do math.

It's Not Just Math Bernie And His Gang Are Resisting -- It's Reality

According to CNN, Hillary got 1,308 votes in the Virgin Island caucuses yesterday, or 84.2%, while Bernie received 190 votes, 12.2%. Hillary got all 7 of the Virgin Islands' pledged delegates. 2 of their 5 superdelegates are supporting Hillary and none are supporting Bernie.

If Bernie had gotten 84% of the vote and all of the pledged delegates, he and his supporters would be saying that it proved that he is the stronger candidate and that Hillary should withdraw for the sake of the Democratic Party. They'd say things like: "85% percent of all the Americans who voted yesterday agree that Bernie is the candidate who should face Trump! Clinton is defying the will of 85% of the American people!" and so forth. As it is, if they noticed that there were caucuses in the Virgin Islands yesterday and that Hillary handed Bernie his ass, they will say that it shows how the system is rigged and that caucuses are undemocratic and that Hillary and all the other Democratic insiders are corrupt and that Hillary is a corporate thug and history's greatest monster, and so forth.

I'm so sick of Bernie. I can't imagine that Hillary would ever pick him as her VP, but what do I know. Apparently she hates Barack, or at the very least she did back in 2008, and she's made nice with him for public view, and maybe more than just for public view, what do I know. Maybe the ability to stomach someone like Bernie is an example of why Hillary is a great politician and I am not.

The fantasy-land Bernie and his supporters are living in by continuing his ever more farcical campaign fits with his political career. Remember, he's only been in the Democratic Party for about a year. He only joined because he knew he could make more of a splash with his campaign by using the Democratic Party than if he campaigned as an independent. But he hasn't shown signs of wanting to return the favor and be of use to the party.

What's really strange about him having called himself a Socialist instead of a Democrat until he decided to use the Democratic Party for this Presidential run is that none of his positions were ever to the Left of what could be found within the Democratic Party. It appears that he was an independent and a self-described Socialist (the only Socialist I've ever heard of with no affiliation to any Socialist party) in order to feel special without being special.

Just as in this campaign he wants things which aren't his, and hallucinates that he has them: the will of the American people, a strong mandate, the lion's share of the votes and the delegates if one corrects for all the ways in which he's been cheated. It's all just daydreaming, and I'm sick of it. Politics is very serious, and it calls for people in touch with facts.

We can't judge how widespread his support continues to be just from all the noise made by all of his reality-challenged supporters who make noise at his rallies and on the talking-head news shows, because we don't know how big that bloc of hard-core supporters has ever been compared to the group of all the people who have voted for him. The polls in California are all over the place: some say the primary on Tuesday will be very close, some say that Hillary is way out in front.

And so many mainstream media outlets continue to report on only the polls which say it's close, and to ignore the ones saying it will be a blowout for Hillary. Why do so many of them keep ignoring the polls showing Hillary with a lopsided lead? That's so strange. I'm sick of that, too, frankly, as should any reality-based person be. Some of the press tell us that Bernie's campaign is running out of money. That would seem to indicate that he's running out of support. Perhaps because a significant number of his former supporters are significantly more reality-based than he is, and are tired of this farce?

Well. We'll see what we see today in Puerto Rico and on Tuesday in New Jersey, North Dakoto, South Dakota, Montana, New Mexico and California on Tuesday.

That is to say: some of us will see what we see, and those who only see what they want to see will continue to see only what they want to see, whether that's massive popular support for Bernie or massive corruption and rigging behind Hillary, or whatever it is they want to see. What actually happens won't matter to them. It hasn't so far, there's no reason for that to change.

How Many Of The People Who've Voted For Bernie Are "Bernie Or Bust"?

The people who insist that Bernie still has a chance to win, that the other Democrats have been cheating, that Hillary must withdraw from the race etc, have received most of the airtime and ink devoted to Bernie's supporters. Why? Because infotainment has too high a priority compared to hard news, and the mainstream media tend to find crazy people more interesting than sane ones? Or maybe because the media are too dumb, or too lazy, or both, to investigate things like the relationship between the sizes of crowds at political rallies and numbers of votes?

It would be nice if it turns out that the vast majority of the people who have voted for Bernie are not crazy at all, but are people who generally vote Democrat, who can do math well enough to see that Hillary will be the nominee, and have already decided to vote for her no matter what Bernie says or does. It would be nice if the irrational die-hard fanatics, including, quite possibly, Bernie himself, are a small enough group of voters as to be statistically insignificant in November.

That would be ultra-suede sweet.

It would also be very nice if a poll were taken of the world's leading mathematicians about Bernie's chances of winning the nomination. Or of prominent math professors, or if that also can't be managed, then at least a poll of grad students in math.

One after another in the past several days, prominent Democrats have gone on the record saying that they are certain that Bernie will switch from bashing Hillary to supporting her sometime before the convention in July. Man o Manitoba, do I hope they're right. He sure doesn't sound that way these days, though. I hope they're right, and that this is a case where my autism renders me unable to perceive things which are plain to the neurologically-typical.

I have to tell you, the suspense is killing me, waiting for signs that Bernie will concede and get behind Hillary in a major way, or that a sufficient number of people who voted for him will dump him like a sack of dirt and back Hillary no matter what Bernie does and says.

Drop Out, Bernie

It has become a widespread Democratic rallying cry: "The Republicans haven't compromised with Obama in seven and a half years, and the Nevertrumprepubs have started compromising with Trump in less than 3 weeks?!"

Yes indeed, many of them have.

Now if only we didn't have to keep waiting for you to compromise with reality, Bernie, so that we could focus the whole Democratic Party on stomping boo-boo in November.

The calls for you to drop out are increasing. But so far I haven't noticed any from within the group of your supporters. [UPDATE, 1:52 PM: I've found one.] A lot of them were saying before yesterday's primaries that it was essential for you to get 65% in Oregon, that if you didn't, it might be time to fold it up. Let's check: did you get 65% in Oregon? No, of course not: you got 54.8%. Uhh. How many of those very same supporters of yours, who were saying that if you didn't get 65% in Oregon, it would be time for an Agonizing Re-Appraisal of The Entire Situation, are today actually agonizing over such re-appraisals? I don't see one, and unfortunately, I'm not surprised.

How's that campaign to get Hillary's superdelegates going? Not well. So far 6 of Oregon's superdelegates are with Clinton and 1 for you. The Kentucky primary was practically a tie: oh, until you look at Kentucky's superdelegates. 3 of them are with Clinton and 0 for you. No superdelegates so far have switched from Hillary to Bernie. But at least 1 has switched from you to Hillary.

It's as if they're trying to tell you something, Bernie. It's as if they'd rather that the whole party started concentrating on November, instead of having to continue to deal with the endless temper tantrum your campaign has turned into.

It's not just that you've lost the nomination, Bernie. That happened months ago. You're also starting to lose what overall clout you had. And the longer you wait until you drop out, the more of it you're going to lose.

Just write out the platform you want, hand it to Debbie, and if you drop out, she'll take it, and wash your car, too. A week from now, maybe she won't.

But that's the easy part. The more difficult part would be to explain that eminently rational course of action to all of your idiot, die-hard, screaming, chair-throwing, Democratic-Party-HQ-defacing, death-threat-making followers. But for you, it'll only be difficult. For anyone else, it would be impossible.

But you're going to stick with your "until every last vote is counted" pledge. Aren't you.

Count this: Hillary has 1767 pledged delegates, you've got 1488. Hillary has 524 superdelegates, you've got 40. (# of superdelegates switching from one candidate to the other: see above.) Hillary has won 27 primaries, you've won 21. Hillary has gotten 12,728,414 votes, you've gotten 9,627,507. (That's 55.6% for her, 42.6% for you. Who's disrespecting the will of the voters?)

Number of people who've realized that it's impossible for you to win the nomination: rising fast.

Calls for you to drop out: increasing. Expressions of alarm at the anti-social behavior of many of your supporters: increasing. Comparisons of their behavior with that of Trump's supporters: increasing. Impression that both you and your supporters are out of touch with reality: spreading.

Days left until Nov 1: 167. One less every day. You've said your number one priority is stopping Trump. Time for you to actually start on that project: past.

ANOTHER Way You Can See Hillary's Already Got The Nomination

There are, of course, many ways of seeing this, and I think most people have seen it by now. But the people who are still talking about Bernie's "path to victory" are a striking example of how, if you really, really don't want to see something -- you won't.

I saw a headline in Mother Jones today, to the effect that Hillary Clinton is not a monster. The actual headline was not "Hillary Clinton Is Not A Monster," but that was the gist of it. The actual headline said something about how she's honest and responsible.

I didn't stick around to read the readers' comments. Just wasn't in the mood this afternoon. I did read another story on another left-wing site, this one by one of Bernie's die-hards. He said that Bernie must get big majorities in Oregon, California and New Mexico. In reality, on math-based Earth, it doesn't matter if Bernie gets 100% of the vote in Oregon and in all of the 7 other remaining states and the D of C, he's still lost. But today, this math-challenged Bernie die-hard said that if he doesn't get a big majority in Oregon tomorrow, he's lost.

Hillary's going to beat Bernie tomorrow in Oregon. Bernie won't get 60%, he won't get 50%. What is the guy who wrote this story going to say tomorrow night when Hillary is declared the winner in Oregon? Will it be something consistent with what he's saying today? Will he say that Bernie's campaign has lost, that it's time for Bernie's supporters to unite with the other Democrats behind Hillary and help her kick Donald Chump's ass?

It's very hard for me to believe he's going to say anything like that. It's very hard for me to believe that the "road to victory" won't be revised in an even more reality-free way. I hope I'm wrong. I could use a pleasant surprise or two from that crowd.

Well -- that Hillary's-not-a-monster headline on Mother Jones' website was exactly such a pleasant surprise from exactly those guys. So thanks for that, Mother Jones, I needed it.

Oh, the other way you can see how far ahead Hillary is, which I promised in the title of this post: if you add up all the electoral votes in the 26 states where Hillary's won the Democratic primary, they add up to 316; the electoral votes in the 16 states Bernie's won add up to 124.

Go math!

Obama: "I Think Everybody Knows What The Math Is." Oh, If Only!

An ABC News story from yesterday:

As Bernie Sanders pledges to take his presidential campaign all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this July, President Obama appeared to imply that Sanders' efforts are all but over – even if he won’t explicitly call on Sanders to drop out.

Asked whether he believes the Vermont senator should end his campaign given the current delegate count, he replied, “I think on the Democratic side, just let the process play itself out. You mentioned the delegate math. I think everybody knows what that math is.”

Wow. Wow. No. No, Mr President: unfortunately, lots and lots of people can't do the math at all. How many? Well, how many people still think Bernie has a chance? At least that many people can't do math worth shit. Bernie Sanders says he's very good at math. Rain Man, who could do the math, said he was an excellent driver. Rigorous and accurate self-criticism is not a universally-shared trait. And competence in math is sure as Hell not universally shared. I've been driving myself crazy trying to get people to grasp math as simple as who was ahead in delegates in the Democratic primaries in May 2008, as simple as reading 2 4-digit numbers and realizing which one goes with which candidate and which one is bigger.

Rachel Maddow appears to be better than average, and better than Bernie, at math. As Jason Easley noted on Tuesday,

"The reality is that Hillary Clinton has moved on to general election mode. Bernie Sanders and his supporters are the only people who are contesting the nomination. It isn’t bias driving this perception. It’s math. Rachel Maddow used reality and math to blow up the Sanders logic for a contested Democratic convention."

But the reality is that you can't make people understand math or face reality.

Yesterday Maddow aired an interview with Sanders. At the end of the interview she gave him several chances to say something conciliatory about Hillary, or something to reign in the more venomous attacks of Hillary by his supporters. Sanders repeated several times that he would do everything he can to make sure Trump isn't elected. Obviously, one big thing he could have done to make sure of that was to say that he supports Hillary. But in order for that to have been obvious to him it would have had to have been obvious to him, as it is to me, Barack, Rachel, Hillary, Bill, Jason, Rain Man and other math geeks, that Hillary is the Democratic nominee. The same way that it's obvious to all of us, and not to Bernie, that Trump is toast in November no matter what Bernie does, but that the size of Hillary's win is still very important, and that Bernie can do a lot about that, and that the sooner he starts to try to convince the Hillary-haters among his fans that they shouldn't hate her, the bigger his effect will be. The same way that it's obvious to us that the only thing that Hillary taking $800,000 from Lehman Bros meant was that Lehman Bros had $800,000 less and the Democratic Party had $800,000 more, and that the size of a bank is not the only measure of its behavior. And that Bernie actually belongs to the elite which he seems to loathe so much. And that his confidence about winning the California primary is downright strange for someone who is so far behind Hillary in the California polls...

Ahhh, what else can I say? Go math!

"The Party Elite Loves Hillary, The People Love Bernie"

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"We're Going To Lose The South Anyway," Sez Bernie. Oh Really?

Bernie's response to Hillary's beating him like a gong in one Southern primary after another is, "We're going to lose the South anyway."

Bernie, maybe YOU would lose the South to Trump. I'm not so sure that Hillary would. There are lots of female and black and Latino voters in the South, and if ever there was a Presidential candidate guaranteed to lose hard in all demographics other than white males, it's Trump. Obama won Virginia and Florida in both 2008 and 2012, he also won North Carolina in 2008 and came close in 2012, and he came close in a few other Southern states both times. The South is changing. It's gradually changing from red to blue.

And Bernie's not going to get the nomination. Maybe my ability to do math in my head really is autisitically-freakish, maybe those of Bernie's supporters who are actually jubilant about yesterday's results are a little behind the curve in math skills, maybe there's a little bit of both involved here, but let me lay some math on you. And when I do please keep in mind that Nate Silver wasn't the only person predicting 365 electoral votes for Obama in 2008, just the most famous one; and that while my 2012 prediction of 350+ electoral vote for Obama was over-optimistic (he got 332), my assurance to every Democrat I met in the run-up to the 2012 who was worried that Romney might win, my assurance that Obama would be re-elected and that it wouldn't be close, was not over-optimistic.

Before yesterday's primaries Bernie said that if he gets 55% percent of the delegates from here on in, he's got the nomination. But that will be the case only if he gets 55% of the pledged delegates from here on in, and if a great number of superdelegates currently committed Hillary jump ship and join him. If the superdelegates who are now with Hillary stay with her, that means that Bernie needs to win 68% of the delegates left. But there's no reason to think he can even do as well as 55%. They're still counting yesterday's results, but it looks like Bernie got about 45% of the delegates for the day. He lost the day. How many days has Bernie lost to Hillary so far? All of them except two: the day when New Hampshire and no other state had a primary, and the day when Maine and no other state had a primary. On those two days combined, Bernie won a total of 4 more delgates then Hillary. Other than that, every single day when there have been Democratic primaries, Hillary's lead in delegates over Bernie has gotten larger.

According to CNN, Hillary currently has 1711 delegates and Bernie has 939 -- with a dozen or so still to be awarded. 2383 is a majority, 2383 wins the nomination. Hillary needs 672 more, Bernie needs 1444 more. If Bernie's results improve to the point that he gets 50% of the delegates in the primaries yet to come, Hillary will have a majority of delegates before the California primary on June 7. California has by far the largest population of any state, a total of 475 delegates are at state in its Democratic primary.

Hillary will have the nomination before the California primary, assuming that she gets 50% or better of the votes in the primaries between now and then, and assuming that the superdelegates currently pledged to her stay with her.

Those are two very safe assumptions.

Bernie says he wants to be absolutely sure that Trump isn't elected President. Hillary beating Trump is about as sure as Hillary beating Bernie for the nomination. One thing which isn't at all sure is how many Southern states Hillary will win. The more states Hillary wins, the more Democrats are likely to win in other elections in November, elections for the Senate and the House and for Governorships and state legislatures, elections for mayors and city councils and so forth. Democrats badly need to win more of these other elections besides just the elections for President. If Bernie gets his supporters strongly behind Hillary, there's a chance for a huge Democratic landslide in all of those elections. The sooner he drops out of the race, the easier it will be for him to get his supporters behind Hillary.

Hillary has 1711 delegates, Bernie has 939, 2383 wins the nomination. That's not difficult math. This thing has been over for a while already. The earlier Bernie does the right thing, the greater the chances for a huge Democratic landslide in November. That's not difficult math either.