The popular vote arguments are meaningless

A lot of people, particularly liberals, seem impressed by the fact that Clinton won the popular vote while losing the electoral college. This is supposed to prove all sorts of things about where the American people stand and about how the Democrats should conduct their opposition. But the arguments strike me as totally meaningless.

Different rules generate different gameplay. Under the current rules, the gameplay is supposed to be oriented around winning key states, not winning the most total votes. This seems like a dumb way to do things, but that is nonetheless how it is.

If the rules were oriented around winning the most total votes, it is likely that candidates would have campaigned differently. So, in this election, Trump would likely have dedicated a lot more resources towards maximizing turnout in Republican strongholds rather than squeezing out victories in tough Rust Belt states. If he had done that, perhaps he would have won the popular vote. It is impossible to say.

This might seem like a cute hypothetical objection, but it isn’t. The fact is that in this election the Clinton campaign bizarrely dedicated resources towards juicing its popular vote outcomes even where doing so had no effect on whether she would be elected president:

But there also were millions approved for transfer from Clinton’s campaign for use by the DNC — which, under a plan devised by Brazile to drum up urban turnout out of fear that Trump would win the popular vote while losing the electoral vote, got dumped into Chicago and New Orleans, far from anywhere that would have made a difference in the election.

It is not surprising that she won the popular vote while losing the electoral college. Her campaign was apparently designed to do exactly that. Relying upon this popular vote outcome to say anything other than that the Clinton campaign was daft seems wrongheaded to me.