Hillary Clinton has a chance to turn things around in Wisconsin, and have the Democrats continue on their path to self-destruction at their late summer convention. Clinton is only down by 4% in the latest RCP poll average – which is a statistical dead heat given the polls this year. But something else I noticed in one of those partisan rants about how bad it is those dirty ‘non aligned’ voters (a.k.a. independents) have a say in primaries. In exposing the rift in the party that is the train wreck coming, radio host Taylor Marsh made some interesting observations:

The latest meme from the Barack Obama camp (and one that is being heavily promoted by the media), is that super-delegates should comply with “the will of the people” as reflected in the popular vote count. But this was hardly even mentioned until the week after Super Tuesday, when Obama took the lead in total votes cast in the primaries.

In fact, on Super Tuesday, 295,952 more primary voters cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton than for Obama, yet somehow neither the Obama campaign, nor the media, was paying much attention to Clinton’s lead in the popular vote. If we include all the states that held primaries before Super Tuesday (NH, SC, MI, FL) Clinton was up by 468,024 votes—that was 2.51% of the total votes cast. But talking about that number was not a media priority either.

Only now that Obama has a miniscule lead of 128,736 in the number of votes cast (and that includes assigning all the “uncommitted” votes in Michigan to Obama) has the media focused on total votes cast. This lead represents less than 1% (0.62%) of votes cast in the primary elections held so far, yet it is trumpeted by the media endlessly.

But, since this is actually the Democratic primary, perhaps we should look at how Democrats have actually voted. Based on the available exit polling data, we find that Hillary Clinton has a commanding lead over Barack Obama in the number of votes – As of February 16, 2008, 391,992 more Democrats voted for Clinton than Obama.

That number does not include results from the District of Columbia, because of a lack of exit polling data. If we include DC, and assume that 100% of the voters were Democrats, Clinton still has a lead among Democrats of 333,981 votes.

But that number also doesn’t include Florida. Add in Florida’s Democrats, and Clinton’s lead advantage increases to 565,684. Nor does it include Michigan; and even if we assign all the Democrats who voted “uncommitted” to Obama, Clinton’s lead among Democratic voters grows to 678,276.

In terms of actual Democratic voters, the numbers from Super Tuesday are astonishing – and were, of course, ignored by the media. Out of over 12,100,000 votes cast by Democrats that day, Clinton beat Obama by nearly 7%, and just short of 837,000 votes. And if we include all the primaries that took place before Super Tuesday (NH, SC, MI, FL) the Clinton advantage among Democrats rises to 7.5%, and well over a million votes.

As Democrats, it is our votes that should be the determining factor in a close race. We’re the voters that the party can depend on, and ignoring the will of Democratic voters can lead to Democratic voters ignoring the will of the party.

I do so enjoy watching the frustration partisan puritans have when the reality of our country makes them face the fact the country is so much more diverse than their narrow partisan views. But I digress.

What Talyor Marsh is showing is that Democrats prefer Clinton – Duh! I have been saying for months Clinton was the ‘establishment’ candidate and Obama was the choice of moderates fleeing the political fringes. The illusion of his centrism is his Achilles’ Heel and why he can be so roundly beat in the general election by the GOP ‘moderate’ and seasoned fighter John McCain.

But I digress again. Clinton has the support of the Democrat party and can win WI (she is battling it out). I am not saying she will. Her organizational performance has been abysmal and is why Obama is still in this race. But if you read more of Taylor’s analysis it shows the bluer the state the stronger Clinton’s support is. Obama is winning bright red states he will not take in the general election. Tomorrow night is going to be pivotal, but not deterministic. The Dems have no way to avoid a convention showdown and with Clinton holding the edge ‘pure democrats’ she has a good claim to the mantle. As does Barack. One side is going to lose ugly and because the party eiltes decided the final candidate.

It is mind boggling some on the right are jealous of all the destruction the Dems are heading towards – praying Huckabee can stop McCain from getting the needed delegates. Those sad sentiments were as misguided as they were fantasy. Watch what happens to the dems and be grateful the GOP, in a year where it is being counted out, is not also suffering from a heartbreak convention battle.

Update: Some more recent polls in WI showing it very close.