Talk:2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries/Archive 5

Image copyright problem with Image:Obama Race speech.png
The image Image:Obama Race speech.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

i will be making a change and putting the popular vote in the template. Nick37 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.92.203.158 (talk) 01:53, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --09:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Edwards in infobox
I do not know who keeps removing John Edwards from the infobox, but he should be in there especially if you consider the fact that Alan Keyes and Lyndon LaRouche are in their 2000 Primary infobox. Most infoboxes have 3 major candidates and Edwards should be kept in. - Rockyobody (talk) 18:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have never edited the infobox, but Edwards should not be in it. He may have gotten a similar amount of attention as Obama and Clinton early on, but he did not win a single state, and he dropped out very early on.  By your standard, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel should be included in the infobox as well. DougOfDoom   talk
 * Edwards did win delegates, and is the only candidate to come ahead of either Clinton or Obama in any primary/caucus. (Second in the Iowa caucuses, ahead of Clinton.)  He also had a significant fundraising advantage over the other candidates that you mention, and after having withdrawn was the most coveted endorsement between the Clinton/Obama camps.  To the extent that there's any significant debate over it, I say keep him in the infobox.Ificouldyouknowiwould (talk) 09:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Popular Vote on Info Box
The Popular Vote on the InfoBox is misleading because there is no "definite" popular vote winner due to the problems with counting the popular vote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.194.250.71 (talk) 17:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

It's further misleading, because this is using the Michigan ballot when all candidates but Clinton took their names off the ballot, but not the IA, NV, ME, or WA estimates. Why not use the popular vote total Real Clear Politics itself uses? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SillyInventor (talk • contribs) 13:04, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Vote mismatch?
Maybe I'm confused, but when I add up the total delegates from the table in the article for Edwards, Obama and Clinton I get 4284, however the article states that 4233 is the total number of votes available. Furthermore, the vote totals of 2306.5 and 1973 for Obama and Clinton respectively disagree with Results_of_the_2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries, which differ by one vote higher for Obama and one lower than Clinton. Both state that they're estimates, so that in itself isn't bothersome (although they should surely be consistent!) but a 51 vote differential does bother me. Am I missing something? Darquis (talk) 02:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposed contgent
An IP editor has been edit warring (4X now) to make an edit to say that Obama accused Clinton of race baiting. I find the content unhelpful in its entirety, and note that that per WP:BRD and WP:CONSENSUS the content has not been approved for the article. The IP has been edit warring WP:POV edits across multiple articles and considers this a demonstration of Clinton's "racist" remarks. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:41, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "But Clinton vowed to continue her campaign." - redundant filler, nearly identical language in next paragraph
 * "On May 7, she argued she would be a stronger nominee in the general election than Obama because she appealed to a wider coalition of voters... when she cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me." - Clinton's statement is verifiable and was indeed the campaign issue of the week. This would be a viable addition if there is consensus for it, but on balance I do not believe this is of due weight to include, and by raising the race issue without proper context it confuses the reader more than it enlightens.
 * "The Obama campaign and others accused Clinton of race-baiting..." - ''the cited sources do not say this and it appears to be a POV swipe at Clinton

Current estimate?
We do realize, right, that this election was held almost four years ago? What are these "Current estimate" columns? Why are they here? john k (talk) 22:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Another issue is that Florida and Michigan should not be included in the running totals for the period between January 15/29 and May 31. No media counts at the time were so including them, and it gives a confusing picture of the race to do so. john k (talk) 22:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

There should be a delegate total near the popular vote total (at the top of the page) to demonstrate that Obama won the most delegates

 * This is a glaring error right now, with the main infobox showing a purple and gold map with popular vote totals? That map has no place in the main infobox because the Democratic primary is won by total delegate count. Not decided by popular vote. Having that map there is like having only a popular vote map in the main infobox for the 2000 election, showing Al Gore to have the most votes (which is true but irrelevant as to the electoral college and how the presidency is decided). A prime example is that Nevada is shown in Hillary's color on the popular vote map, but Obama got more delegates than her. The delegate count is not a strictly measure of who can get more people to show up even 100% in one precinct, it is a measure of how widespread a candidate can get supporters to show up in multiple precincts. That is why the nomination is decided in a combination of caucus and primaries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.47.238.235 (talk) 19:24, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Merging all U.S. states presidential primary and election articles
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012. Jack Bornholm (talk) 17:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Odd note about John Kerry
What does this under the gold and purple map mean?

Democratic presidential candidate before election

John Kerry

Does it mean

Prior presidential candidate

John Kerry

? Yopienso (talk) 22:26, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is correct. The infobox election template puts in the words before election. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 23:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The only reason I didn't change it is because it's above my skill level. Can you? The way is stands, it doesn't convey meaningful information. Yopienso (talk) 23:56, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not really. The words before election is pretty much hard-coded into the infobox template code. Changing that would affect thousands of other articles. Doesn't appear to be anyway that I see yet to do a free-form field there. And, honestly, I'm not sure that it is needed. "Democratic presidential candidate before election" really does convey the correct info even if "Prior Democratic presidential candidate" might be more specific. Since it really has more to do with the template itself rather than this article specifically, you might want to pose the question at the template's talk page. Note that this would affect all of the party primary pages. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 00:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Democratic Presidential Nomination Roll-Call Map

 * In the same vein as the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination map I have put up for discussion, this is a map of the state votes in regards to the Democratic Nomination for President. Now, I realize that the actual roll-call as we saw it was interrupted, and Obama was technically nominated by acclamation, but apparently the Secretary of the DNC did his own tally, which is present on the Green Papers in addition to the interrupted one. However, given that it is the only official tally that was completed, I would put this one forth, unless it is truly preferred that the interrupted vote be put forth instead. --Ariostos (talk) 21:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I just realized the upload has a tendency to shift all the text to the right for whatever reason. :/

--Ariostos (talk) 21:40, 7 January 2013 (UTC)




 * I definitely need to rework this one as well. Even forgot New England and the other smaller states somehow. --Ariostos (talk) 04:58, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

By vote count, Hillary wont this primary election
So why did the Liberals who complained so vociferously about Bush v. Gore, roll-over and lay down about this popular vote miscarriage? Any reliable sources on that question? 98.118.62.140 (talk) 02:21, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Inconsistent numbers

 * Democratic Party presidential candidates, 2008 says Hillary had 18,107,587 votes and Obama had 18,045,829.
 * The top line on Results_of_the_2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries has those two numbers, but reversed - Hillary gets 18,045,829 and Obama gets 18,107,587. The source given for the table doesn't seem to match anything in the table.
 * Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2008 says Obama gets 17,584,692 and Hillary gets 17,857,501, which occurs nowhere in the table.

So I'm not at all sure what the right answer is - but I'm highly confident that something isn't right. If the table has numbers exactly the opposite of one line at Democratic Party presidential candidates, 2008, I'm betting at least one of them is wrong. --B (talk) 19:58, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Table Column headers "Election result" and "Current estimate"
The primary tables give two separate delegate counts under the headings "Election result" and "Current estimate". Am I right in suggesting that by now these should actually be called "Preliminary Result" and "Final Tally"? — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 00:10, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 6 one external links on Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2008. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101006191218/http://www.democrats.org/page/-/dem_convention/rules.pdf to http://www.democrats.org/page/-/dem_convention/rules.pdf
 * Added tag to http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/finance/2007/q1/
 * Added tag to http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071127/NEWS09/711270383/-1/caucus
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080328142649/http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/10/507731.aspx to http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/10/507731.aspx
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080520111531/http://blogs.rgj.com:80/inside-nevada-politics/2008/05/obama-flips-clintons-nevada-win.html to http://blogs.rgj.com/inside-nevada-politics/2008/05/obama-flips-clintons-nevada-win.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110523160441/http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/08/a_clinton_campaign_shakeup.html to http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/08/a_clinton_campaign_shakeup.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080117032103/http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/01/edwards-he-obam.html to http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/01/edwards-he-obam.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081007213503/http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/05/superdelegate_jack_evans_switc.html to http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/05/superdelegate_jack_evans_switc.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 17:58, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Popular Vote figures
1) Why is MI included in the infobox total? As noted in the article, the MI results "were unsanctioned, the results were not recognized by the national committee". The "compromise was reached four months later" was to split the delegate count regardless of who voted. I acknowledge that there is a note that somewhat explains this, it seems somewhat inaccurate and leads to a misrepresentation of what happened (i.e. that Clinton won the popular vote, when her MI votes were not counted and resulted in Obama winning the popular vote).

2) I note that several websites and news-agencies, for a single example factcheck.org, all quote the figures provided by realclearpolitics.com. The latter appears more reputable, and provides what is apparently the official total that excludes MI (in the overall count, and then provides additional info that includes it for comparisons sake). Why does this article relay on another site, which looks - no offense to owner - like an amateurish blog (i apologize if it is not, but that was my first impression)?165.166.215.220 (talk) 17:12, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Delegate count
The delegate count in the infobox lists the delegates awarded at the convention. However, this is different from the delegates awarded via primaries and caucuses. Should the infobox perhaps instead display the pledged delegates awarded from the primary process? Barack Obama had 1,794½ and Hillary Clinton had 1,732½. SecretName101 (talk) 00:14, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

She should be in bold
more voted for her. She should be marked in bold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.138.239.112 (talk) 01:52, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Her popular vote is, in fact, in bold. This might have not been the case when you first comment, and perhaps subsequently occurred.SecretName101 (talk) 07:19, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * As the RS note, the MI votes were not counted, and furthermore Clinton was unopposed there as it was an unauthorized primary. Does it not seem to be a misleading to include votes that were not taken into account at the convention? The note does go into detail about this.165.166.215.220 (talk) 00:08, 18 February 2017 (UTC)


 * No, The votes were counted, the delegates were only temporarily stripped of seats and later allowed to seat at essentially half their usual power, but even at half delegates, the MI delegates voted based on primary results. Since the delegates voted at convention, the tally stands correct. --59.102.75.141 (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

This was discussed in the archives here Talk:Democratic_Party_(United_States)_presidential_primaries,_2008/Archive_4 with no clear consensus. The numbers at present: The 1st is obvious - we shouldn't report official totals where impossible. The 2nd is what we should focus on. Arguments to include MI MI/FL: Arguments to exclude MI MI/FL: I lean towards include, based on recognition of the Michigan Michigan/Florida delegates by the party. Is there an argument against applying whatever we conclude re: MI to FL? In both cases the states changed their primary dates and the DNC seated their delegates but stripped half their votes.
 * Exclude caucus states, which don't report popular vote totals
 * Include Michigan Michigan and Florida, whose delegates were seated and allowed to vote but sanctioned by losing half their vote
 * The MI MI/FL delegates were seated, thus recognized by the party
 * No one but Clinton accrued votes in Michigan
 * FL was sanctioned by the party

UPDATE: I'm surveying the sources to see how the majority report popular vote total. Should we collect the relevant sources in a list somewhere in this section?

UPDATE: I've added a section for the source survey below: Talk:Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008. James J. Lambden (talk) 18:55, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Suggested Page Lock
There's been an influx of vandalism from this reddit thread, due to perceived error/retroactive censorship in the popular vote counts between Obama and Clinton.

I strongly suggest that this page be locked for the time being; an additional clarification on the talk page as to why the vote totals were changed would probably assist in ameliorating the controversy. Swordstone86 (talk) 14:33, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * You're not Clarifying anything, The MI Delegates were allowed to seat at convention, meaning they enacted their states votes, Obama, Biden etc, removed themselves from the ballot, Clinton chose to stay on ballot, Delegates represented those votes simple, you do not have the authority or facts to erase American peoples votes. --59.102.75.141 (talk) 14:45, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I was not attempting to clarify anything, I was simply asking for one of this page's writers to clarify the reasoning behind the edit, so that the disgruntled readers coming from that reddit thread understand why the vote totals were changed. You're being a bit confrontational here; I'm not trying to "erase American peoples votes," I just think that this page should be temporarily locked, so that we don't have an edit war between angry redditors and this site's more senior editors. Swordstone86 (talk) 14:58, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * It won't be locked yet, because it still has Hillary with more votes. Once someone steps up and puts the numbers so Obama has more votes, THEN it will be locked down.  Trust me on this one. 98.114.156.33 (talk) 16:38, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if that's an attempt to imply that the main editors of this page have some sort of nefarious agenda, but quite frankly, it was noted before in this talk page that the MI primary results were unsanctioned and came from a primary where Clinton was basically uncontested, and so were not included in the primary popular vote numbers. Notably, sites like RealClearPolitics also decided to leave the MI votes out of their main total count, and so it only stands to reason that this page should have the correct numbers as well (correct implying Obama having more votes.)


 * EDIT: It seems the consensus has been to include the MI votes in the page after all, so it looks like your concern about some sort of agenda was unfounded.Swordstone86 (talk) 18:38, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Repeat edits to the page, most with vague commit messages. I'm not sure what to do. Someone seems intent on minimizing the Michigan portion of the popular vote. Edit war?  100.15.147.127 (talk) 05:04, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Popular vote source survey
James J. Lambden (talk) 19:21, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) Real Clear Politics: highlights "Popular Vote Total", with Obama leading. Shows both caucus state estimates and popular vote including MI
 * 2) factcheck.org: Presents reasonable arguments for both positions
 * 3) Hoover Institution: Doesn't count MI
 * 4) Politifact: Supports Obama's claim of a slight lead in the popular vote
 * Would it not be worth including both figures? There is already in text detail of what happened with Michigan. Why not simply write in both numbers with words to the effect of "You get this number if you count Michigan" and "you get this number if you don't". This would be good for two reasons:


 * It would now mean the article would not only be factually accurate, but factually complete. The reader will encounter the stuff about Michigan in the article, and they will now have all the facts.
 * It would save a very long and very tedious argument about which figure is "more correct" to which there is no definitive answer. Which, although nobody is going to say it but you're all thinking it, would inevitably veer off topic to drivel about Clintons popular vote win against Trump and how Wikipedia is somehow bias one way or another.
 * A simple inclusion of both numbers and detail about why some sources and experts discount Michigan and others don't (already provided) would be the most complete and smooth fix to this issue. —Frosty ☃ 01:18, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Support: Excellent solution. I'm not skilled enough with infoboxes to implement it. Given the current sources I can't support the current version with the MI numbers alone and unqualified. FL seems to be the same situation as MI but I don't see it mentioned as much in the press for some reason. James J. Lambden (talk) 01:31, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I played around with it and reviewed Template:Infobox_Election but I can't find a way to make it work. Is there a way we could instead generate it manually with wiki markup? If I don't get a response here I'll ask on the infobox talk page. James J. Lambden (talk) 22:16, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * and : You both came up with an amicable solution to the issue. The restrictions on this page have now been lifted, and you can now both experiment with the infobox in order to show the convoluted situation better than it is currently displayed.Infoboxneedsfixing (talk) 20:41, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I tried but was unable to display alternate vote counts. It may be a technical limitation of the template. I've posed the question on the template's talk page. James J. Lambden (talk) 16:50, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Per the infobox talkpage solution, and the above discussion; the infobox has been edited. In addition, the lede has been slightly modified (the cited link did not work) to acknowledge the situation is a bit more complex that previously suggested. Hopefully, this will resolve the issue ... for the most part, although one expects tweaks to ensure readers get the whole picture without bias and as clear as possible.Infoboxneedsfixing (talk) 04:15, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 12 external links on Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2008. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080123201111/http://www.nvdemscaucus.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=13&Itemid=30 to http://www.nvdemscaucus.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=13&Itemid=30
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110608011743/http://www.democrats.org/page/-/pdf/FINAL2008CalltotheConvention.pdf to http://www.democrats.org/page/-/pdf/FINAL2008CalltotheConvention.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080305072103/http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/weekly_presidential_tracking_polling_history to http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/weekly_presidential_tracking_polling_history
 * Added archive https://archive.is/20060822232125/http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/08/highlights_of_t.php to http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/08/highlights_of_t.php
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080116220117/http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0%2C1607%2C7-127--177580--%2C00.html to http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0%2C1607%2C7-127--177580--%2C00.html
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20080103%2FNEWS06%2F801030383%2F1008
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080115115003/http://www.michigandems.com/121007prs.html to http://www.michigandems.com/121007prs.html
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-demcampaign7feb07%2C0%2C5501826.story
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080830071103/http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/02/whats_next.html to http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/02/whats_next.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080401022002/http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/13/661146.aspx to http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/13/661146.aspx
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120321030407/http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/03/fixcam_obamaniacs_and_mcclinto.html to http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/03/fixcam_obamaniacs_and_mcclinto.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080725040829/http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/03/the_blueprint_hillary_rodham_c.html to http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/03/the_blueprint_hillary_rodham_c.html
 * Added tag to http://www.democrats.org/page/-/pdf/2008RegulationsoftheRBCFINAL.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 12:56, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2008. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120325124656/http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/01/report_hillary_largely_skippin.php to http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/01/report_hillary_largely_skippin.php
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071029035430/http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2007/06/democrats-still.html to http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2007/06/democrats-still.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 12:28, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Obama's color
I think we should change Obama's infobox color to match that of the 2012 primary election. I'm not experienced enough to do it for the maps. Smith0124 (talk) 22:02, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Striking sockpuppet comment. Humanengr (talk) 22:56, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe it would be easier to change 2012 to Obama’s 2008 color? Michelangelo1992 (talk) 22:05, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If I may inject personal preference, the 2008 color is really ugly. I like the sky blue much better. But if it's significantly easier than sure. Smith0124 (talk) 22:12, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Striking sockpuppet comment. Humanengr (talk) 22:56, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

2016 KS caucus vs 2020 KS primary results
Bernie won 23 delegates with 26k votes to Hillary’s 10 delegates with 13k votes. KS switched to a primary in 2020 and Biden won 29 delegates 110k votes and Bernie only got 10 delegates with 33k votes. In 2008 Obama got 23 delegates with 27k votes and Hillary got 9 delegates with 9k votes.

So just like Bernie dominated caucuses in 2016 Obama dominated caucuses and after 2016 Democrats determined caucuses were suboptimal and tried to get states to switch to primaries. Furthermore in 2008 Texas had a primary and caucus so obviously everyone that participated in the caucus voted in the primary and Hillary won the popular vote and Obama won the caucus and ended up with more delegates out of Texas. So we have proof that the UNDEMOCRATIC caucuses gave Obama and Bernie an advantage over their respective opponents. Clam chowdah (talk) 20:05, 2 November 2020 (UTC)