It's Pennsylvania Eve...

...and I'm tired of hearing about Clinton's "consistent 5% lead" in that state. They keep reporting it as though it's statistically significant in the grand scheme of things.

Are all members of the media still completely ignorant of how Democratic delegates are awarded? Or are they too math-impaired to understand that a 5% lead in votes will give her only a 5% lead in delegates within that state, which will still keep her at a large disadvantage nationwide?

It's as if you're reporting on some really terrible baseball team that has a slim chance of winning its next game. Go ahead and hype them if you want to, but don't report the story as though it means they have a shot at the World Series. (No matter how much they and their manager want it to mean that.)

6 comments:

JP Burke said...

The sports analogy is good, but with the same two teams playing over and over again people do get the impression that the underdog can still win.

5% ought to be reported as a loss for Clinton, because she needs at least to hit double digits, and perhaps as high as 15%. And with the number of undecideds still out there, reporting any lead for either candidate is rather silly.

Mike said...

Agreed. It's almost irrelevant who wins the state. Most mainstream media assumes we can't handle the concept of proportional delegate allocation and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

JP Burke said...

Of course, 15% doesn't erase her deficit, it's just that if she's going to show traction and momentum she has to exceed the advantages she began with.

Many seem to think that a perception of momentum will be enough to convince all the superdelegates or magically hand her the nomination. It's unclear to me how this would work, and Clinton's head strategist won't discuss in any detail how they plan to win. "One day at a time" is about as detailed as he gets when asked.

Maggie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Maggie said...

I suspect it's something like this:
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~greenfie/currentcourses/math291/gifstuff/miracle.jpg

briwei said...

That plan would work better with Valerie Bertinelli on the campaign staff.