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Election 2008 Obama Politics

Bad Math

I’m beginning to think conservatives, as represented by the writers at The Corner and those readers who write into The Corner, have a selective insanity that sets in when math becomes involved in any political issue.

Yesterday, I wrote about how they were using their confusions about what the numbers in Obama’s tax plan meant to attack it. “First he said that families making under $250,000 will be exempt – and then he said individuals making under $200,000 would be exempt. What’s next?” Of course, the fact that in one instance the conversation was about families and in the other about individuals was either ignored or not understood.

Now today, Mark Steyn publishes this reader comment:

He’s raised $600 million, as you say, in small donations. So divide it by ten bucks apiece and there’s 60 million donors. If 120 million people vote on Tuesday, and he gets 50% that equals …60 million voters!

Of course, Obama has published the number of individual donors at various points in the campaign – and as of the last public statement, the number was somewhat less than 4 million. Of course, if you presume that a small donation must be – say, $10 – rather than the normally accepted lawful definition of a small donation – $200, then you can see how such sloppy math and baseless assumptions will lead you to accuse someone of massive fraud.

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