Clinton's math is right, Part II

Surfing the blogs today found this post that again makes the claim that Clinton is lying in stating that she is winning the popular vote. Although I thought I did a pretty good job of making the case that in fact she's telling the truth, I wanted to address some of the points Political Insider makes in suggesting that Clinton's claim to the popular vote is ridiculous. According to PI:

Clinton's claim to winning the popular vote count includes counting the primary results in Michigan, where Sen. Barack Obama's name was not even on the ballot. In addition, her count doesn't include some caucus states won by Obama -- Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington state -- where the popular vote was never reported. And she also includes the results from Florida, where none of the Democratic candidates campaigned.

Point 1: Clinton's claim to the popular vote includes the Michigan results. Well, of course it does. Even before the DNC decided to seat the MI and FL delegates (at half strength, but whatever) it didn't change the fact that a boatload of people in Michigan put a check mark by her name on the ballot. I felt I was being magnanimous in my count by giving all of the MI undecideds to Obama. Whether or not the undecideds are counted, however, Clinton's still ahead.

Point 2: Her count doesn't include caucus states where a popular vote was never reported. I can't speak to her count; I've not actually seen the numbers she's using. However, my original count used only the caucus numbers for these four states. So, I went to Realclearpolitics.com, which has estimated the popular vote totals for these four states and suggests that overall they give Senator Obama a 110,224 vote margin. Using that numbers, she STILL WINS.

Point 3: She includes numbers for Florida where none of the candidates campaigned. So what? Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan, and yet it's expected that he should get the undecided voters in that state. You can't have it both ways, Political Insider. You either use the numbers in states where folks didn't campaign (which means Florida numbers count for both Obama and Clinton and Obama gets the undecideds in Michigan, in which case Clinton wins the popular vote) or you don't use those numbers (which means that nobody gets votes for Florida and only Clinton gets votes for Michigan, in which case she STILL wins the popular vote).

So. Here are my numbers. I've included the totals for American Samoa, the Virgin Islands and Democrats Abroad (using Realpolitics.com). I've included the MI results, giving Obama the undecided votes. I've taken out the caucus numbers of Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington and instead given 110,224 votes to Obama based on Realpolitics.com's estimates. And I've included the Florida numbers for both candidates.

Clinton 16,980,372
Obama 16,967,454

Granted, these numbers can change on a dime. I've already noticed that almost all of the numbers reported by MSN and Realpolitics are slightly different. And with a margin that small, that difference really matters. Additionally, the results of today's last primaries are also a big question mark. Thirteen thousand votes here or there could change things immensely.

Nevertheless, I'm tired of people calling Clinton a liar for her claim that she's winning the popular vote when there is every possibility that she's right.