Hillary's Favorite Fallacies

Hillary Clinton: 1,258,278 (54.7 percent)

Barack Obama: 1,042,573 (45.3 percent)

When you subtract 45.3 from 54.7, you get 9.4. As Brant also observes, 9.4 does not equal "double digits". Indeed, since we round up for decimal values equal to or greater than .5 and round down for decimal values less than .5, as long as .4 is a value less than .5, Hillary won a 9 percent victory. It was not "double digit". That is simply a distortion.

It is not difficult to appreciate why Hillary's staff went to work manning the phones to make calls to supporters for money. Since she was reported to be between $10 and $20 million in the red, when the percentages appeared to be 55%-45%-a bona fide 10% (and "double digit" difference-it was prudent to take advantage of the latest tabulations, even if they might not stand up. What many may find most remarkable, of course, is that her victory is not the kind of "double digit" margin that might have made a difference, which would have fallen in the 18-25 percent range, but it was not even "double digit". Yet how many commentators have explained to the public that Hillary didn't do well enough?

What is striking is that her failure to make a significant difference in Obama's lead has been taken out of context and promoted as though she had attained a great victory! In light of the history and context of this contest, however, such an argument becomes an excellent illustration of special pleading, in which you cite only evidence favorable to your side and ignore the rest. That Hillary's people are very good at this become apparent in reading the coverage of the outcome. The overwhelming attitude has been that Hillary won an important victory, when circumstances-including the minimal difference this is making in pledged delegates-suggest that it actually represents a significant defeat.

Obama can't carry key blocks.

Even The New York Times (April 24, 2008) has run another front-page story questioning Obama's ability to gain support from key blocks ("Obama Struggling to Add Support of Key Blocks"), which it has elaborated in the following words:

It is a question that has hung over Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and it loomed large on Tuesday night after his loss to Senator Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania: Why has he been unable to win over enough working-class and white voters to wrap up the Democratic nomination? (p. A1)

The obvious answer, of course, is that he has been competing with a strong and attractive woman who has more than 20 years in public service and has accumulated a substantial and dedicated following. That means this argument overlaps with the faulty analogy that motivates the claim that he can't carry the large states. As kos of Daily Kos (April 23, 2008) has observed, when we focus specifically on the "key blocks" of voters, it turns out that Obama has been improving his success from contest to contest. For example, he increased his support from those 60 and older from 28% in Ohio to 38% in Pennsylvania; among whites generally from 34% in Ohio to 38% in Pennsylvania; among white men from 39% in Ohio to 44% in Pennsylvania; and among Protestants from 36% in Ohio to 53% in Pennsylvania. Hillary won by 10.5% in Ohio but only by 9.4% in Pennsylvania.

These gains, as kos remarks, were made against on onslaught of criticism from the Rev. Wright affair to the "bitterness" controversy and the flag-pin flap. Personally, having studied what Rev. Wright actually had to say, I think Obama would be better off, not by issuing a vague disagreement with some of the things he said, but by simply asking, when criticism is raised about him, "What did he say that you find objectionable?" After taking nine–actually ten, if you include "God damn America!"-of his comments, I have found ("What's Wrong with Rev. Wright", diatribune, March 23, 2008) that most of them are true and that none of them is obviously false. Even damning the United States for its harsh treatment of minor drug offenders who are black appears to have been completely appropriate, when it is considered in its rhetorical context. But the superficial state of political discourse in this country today all but precludes discussion of serious issues.

So what's going on here?

Hillary continues to promote the notion that, unless the primary votes in Florida and in Michigan "count", the Democratic Party will have disenfranchised a significant portion of its own members. This, of course, would require changing the rules after the game (with respect to Florida and Michigan) has already been played. Even though the Republican legislature in Florida moved the date of its primary over the objections of Democratic Party officials, her demands are not only self-serving but constitute an assault upon the integrity of the Democratic National Committee itself. If the party cannot enforce its own rules for securing the nomination, then it has no rationale for existing as a political party ("Hillary's Perfidy", diatribune, March 22, 2008). Hillary is laying down the gauntlet by demanding that either she is the nominee or else she will take the party down with her-even though Barack Obana's name was not even on the ballot in Michigan! In logic, this is called an "appeal to force".

Such extreme tactics call for an explanation. Robert Creamer (The Huffington Post, April 23, 2008), has put his finger on the problem. Pennsylvania was Hillary country-older, blue collar, Catholic, and rural-yet in spite of extremely favorable demographics, she was unable to pull together the kind of 18-25% victory that she needed to change the course of this campaign. Obama still enjoys a substantial lead with respect to pledged delegates, where even if she were to take 80% of those that remain after Indiana, that would still not be enough. Pennsylvania was also her best shot at overtaking Obama in relation to the popular vote. And her margin of victory was not enough to convince the party leaders and super-delegates that Obama could not win there and elsewhere. Which means she was unable to make her case against Obama under very favorable conditions.

Her recent claims to have taken the lead in the popular vote by including votes cast in Florida and Michigan displays transparent dishonesty. Her whole campaign reeks of the old politics of confrontation and attack, divide and conquer. Most American's today, I believe, have had enough of that. When neither evidence nor reason supports a position, in politics as elsewhere, resorting to fallacies becomes the court of last resort. Relying upon them insults the American people, of course, because it takes for granted that we are naïve enough and gullible enough to be taken in. But even these desperate measures will probably not be enough to bring her the nomination. As Creamer concludes, "Clinton may have won last night, but she failed to do what she needed to do to derail Obama's march to the nomination. In retrospect, Pennsylvania will appear as Clinton's Waterloo."

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