A Specious Argument Falls Apart

Hillary Clinton’s performance in the so-called “big states” is perhaps her last, desperate claim on the Democratic nomination. It doesn’t matter that New York, Illinois and California, for example, are almost certainly going to vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is – that’s her stake, since she seems to feel strongly her performance outshines Barack Obama’s in those areas.

So let’s take a look.

I was surprised last night when I heard that North Carolina is the 10th most populous state in the nation – I never would have guessed that. But indeed it is. In fact, here are the top ten in population, as of 2007 according to Ye Olde Wikipedia.

1. California

2. Texas

3. New York

4. Florida

5. Illinois

6. Pennsylvania

7. Ohio

8. Michigan

9. Georgia

10. North Carolina

11. New Jersey

12. Virginia

Those mathematically inclined will notice that this top ten list includes twelve states. (Even though blogger somehow refuses to use the correct HTML code to assign numbers, and instead gives it bullets. Grr.)

That’s because two of the top ten, Florida and Michigan, are states in dispute because their party officials broke the nomination rules and – before the primaries began – Clinton and Obama both agreed that the results wouldn’t count. So, I’m adding in the next two states for arguments sake.

Of these, Obama has won: Texas (yes, he did – he got more electoral votes there), Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Clinton has won California, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey.

In other words, they’ve each won 5 of the 10 biggest states in the country. And if you don't include New Jersey and Virginia, they've each won 4 of the 8 non-contested states. (Sure, adding up the populations of each state favors Clinton, but that takes an already extremely shaky argument and pushes it over the edge of reason.)

Even if you want to give Texas to Clinton – which is, once again, incorrect, since Obama received more electoral votes – the argument is incredibly weak. And at this point, it’s really all the campaign has.

I’m just sayin.