The popular vote

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

There are a number of ways to count the number of people who have "voted" in the 2008 Democratic primary. Some of those ways result in a slight advantage for Barack Obama. Some result in a slight advantage for Hillary Clinton. Essentially, it's a tie.

The fact that Hillary Clinton is using an assertion that she won the popular vote is another example of why she is turning so many people off (including me). There are two problems with her assertion: 1) it's truthfulness is debateable, but she presents it as simple fact; 2) it is but another changed goal-post for her rationale that she should be the nominee.

With Hillary, it's always something. Take the popular vote away and she'd find another metric. In a sense, her zero-sum competitiveness is admirable, and commendable in an age when Democrats have traditionally walked away from tough fights. But more than that, it reeks of the Bush Administration- particularly their changing rationale for the Iraq war.

Hillary and Obama are both great candidates with their share of strengths and weaknesses. Obama won. Hillary needs to show some class.