Hillary Wins Florida, and She Wins Big

The Florida primary is now history, and it appears that twice as many Democrats turned out in 2008 than 2004. What did they tell us and how loudly did they say it?  Any analysis tells us that Florida Democrats wants Hillary Clinton to be the nominee, and they said it with persuasiveness loudness.

The vote totals on the Democratic side, with 99 percent of the vote counted, are these:

Hillary    856,944
Obama   568,930
Edwards 248,575

Hillary is winning with 288,014 votes right now.  Hillary’s vote total is 50 percent higher than her nearest competitor on the Democratic side.  Now that’s a victory.

Let’s mix and order the vote totals of leading Democrats and Republicans:

1. Hillary 856,944

2. McCain 693,425

3. Romney 598,152

4. Obama 568,930

5. Guiliani 281,703

6. Huckabee 259,703

7. Edwards 248,575

8. Paul 62,060

So Hillary got 23.6 percent more votes than the vaunted John McCain got.  In fact, she got more votes than Guiliani, Huckabee, Edwards, and Paul combined.  Now that’s a victory.

Let’s put this in even starker perspective.  How many people have voted in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina?

Iowa 221,000
New Hampshire 285,000
Nevada 118,000
South Carolina 530,000

That’s a total of 1,154,000 votes.  Hillary's win in Florida is only a third less than the total of every vote cast for every candidate in the prior four contests. Now that’s a victory.