Did Hillary Clinton actually win the Democratic nomination in 2008, but lost the caucus vote because of intimidation by Obama’s minions?

That’s what an up and coming film is claiming.

A film is floating around with interviews with many people who claim intimidation, vote stealing, and other shenanigans aimed at winning  the small caucus votes resulted in Obama “winning” many state caucuses.

Those of us who backed Hillary Clinton were aware of this problem, which was essentially ignored by the mainstream media. As I wrote in 2008:

Problem two: The caucuses went to Obama big time.

It is easy for well organized groups (in this case the “Move On” left) to win caucuses.

Here’s a few examples from Wikipedia.

Alaska caucus Obama 9; Clinton4

Colorado caucuses Obama 35; Clinton 20

Minnesota caucuses Obama 48; Clinton 24

North Dakota caucuses 8 5

The most egregious example of how caucus voters may not represent the grass roots can be found in the Texas Primary versus Texas Caucus figures.

Texas primary voters: Obama 61; Clinton 65
Texas caucuses:       Obama38 ; Clinton29

Total delgates: Obama 99 Clinton 94.

So Hillary won the popular vote by 100 000 votes (3.5%) , but her win is not mirrored in her delegate count.

Problem three: The popular vote in the Democratic primaries was essentially tied.

popular votes Obama Clinton who won?
Vote Total 17,535,458 /48.1% 17,493,836 /48.0%

Winner: Obama +41,622 +0.1%

Vote total including caucus votes:Estimate w/IA, NV, ME, WA

17,869,542 /48.2% 17,717,698 47.8%

Winner: Obama +151,844 +0.4%

Popular Vote (w/MI) (i.e. including the banned MI primary votes)

17,535,458 /47.4% 17,822,145 48.1%

Winner: Clinton +286,687 +0.8%

Popular vote of all above plus estimates of Maine Washington and Iowa popular votes:

17,869,542 47.4% 18,046,007 47.9%

Winner: Clinton +176,465 +0.5%

So despite all the “OBAMA IS THE BIG WINNER” hype I was hearing in the news for the last six months, that was not quite true. It was close, very close, and even when you add the limited caucus votes as ordinary voters, the “win” is less than one percent.

The Washington Post finally noticed a story on voter intimidation by Black Panthers, a story that has been floating around the right wing blogosphere for awhile. Without knowing the neighborhood, I couldn’t tell you if they were viewed as a threat or not. But when elections are close, the joke “vote early and vote often” ceases to be funny.

The right wing blogosphere is hinting that Hillary would have made a better president than President Obama, and now we read hints that she should run in 2012. Just politics, racists trying to undermine our beloved President, right?

Except that a Hillary Clinton in 2012 would be terrible news for Republicans, who now seem to have only bland Republican frontliners or a much less experienced Sarah Palin who might be nominated for their party.

So the next time you read an editorial or blogpost suggesting that Hillary would have made a better president or that she should run in 2012, just remember: She is waiting in the wings, and a lot of us still are angry: because we figure that without the intimidation, the press bias, and the voter manipulation, she would be president right now.

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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines.