Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Bill Cunningham is a Fool (But we already knew that)

There has been a small kafuffle over the remarks that Bill Cunningham made while warming up the crowd at a John McCain rally down in Music Hall. Those of us who live around Cincinnati are familiar with Mr. Cunningham’s style. Essentially, he is an elitist blowhard who will say just about anything to drive up his name recognition. Mrs. X thinks that his ultimate goal is to get his own talk show on Fox News. But at the moment he is stuck doing a local radio show that is broadcast nationally on occasion.

Anyway, Mr. Cunningham talked in a rather disparaging manner about Mr. Obama. That in and of itself is not surprising. However, Mr. Cunningham also referred to Mr. Obama as Barak Hussein Obama at least three times. Yes, Hussein is Mr. Obama’s legal middle name, but the use of this name in a repeated message was clearly intended as an attack. People only use middle names if they need to differentiate between people with similar names, they are being excessively formal, or they are trying to make a point about something. In this case, most people agree that Mr. Cunningham (despite his denials) was intending to call attention to Mr. Obama’s Muslim roots through his father. Mr. Cunningham and many people like him have attempted to use this in an attempt to portray Mr. Obama as an Islamic Trojan Horse that will sell the American People to the jihadists after he is sworn into office. Quite frankly, the jihadists are making inroads into this country well enough that they don’t need a Presidential Trojan Horse even if Mr. Obama was one (and I’m quite sure he is not).

Mr. McCain quickly refuted Mr. Cunningham’s intro, much to Mr. Cunningham’s chagrin. Whatever one thinks of Mr. McCain, this was the best course of action to take. Mr. Obama’s record indicates that he would be the most liberal candidate since George McGovern. However, he also has the speaking ability and charisma of John F. Kennedy. If Mr. McCain is able to keep the campaign relatively smear free and focus on the issues, he is likely to win. The general public is not going to accept nearly $300 billion in additional spending in addition to the growing social security debt without a method to pay for it. Mr. Obama’s proposed methods would bring in $170 billion at best and that is a very optimistic view of the situation.

However, if the campaign devolves into issues of character and an appeal to people’s emotions, Mr. Obama will win. Mr. Obama will try to make it about character. He’ll throw enough information about his proposed programs in there to keep away the claims that he doesn’t know what he is doing, but he’ll be able to sit there and promote vision and new direction against a curmudgeony old man and clean his clock.

There’ll be a little pain for Mr. McCain in the short run, but in the long run, it’s a better move to keep things clean. Let’s just see how long things can stay that way on both the Right and the Left.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Woodstein They Are Not

There was a time in American politics where reporters employed by major newspapers knew how to research a story and present their argument in a direct manner with lots of facts to back things up. Most people forget that Woodward and Bernstein spent more than seven months researching their story before they could even crack a whisper of what happened at the Watergate Hotel. However, many reporters today do not have the patience of the famed 70’s duo. They want the notoriety and fame without having the patience or work ethic to actually achieve it properly. Some of that is due to fear that someone is going to scoop them on an important story (especially in the days of New Media), but most is due to a certain laziness fostered by a deep desire to truly believe the content of the story rather than risk finding it to be not true.

Having read the salient points of the NY Times article on John McCain and the New Republic’s article on why the story was held on to, provides a stark contrast to those media glory days of the mid-1970’s. Some quick background: a NY Times reporter received a hot tip in November regarding special influence that a telecommunications lobbyist may have had with Mr. McCain in the late 90’s and early part of his first Presidential campaign. This reporter got help from his editor in the form of three other reporters. They dug around and managed to get statements from two former McCain staffers who had not left on the best of terms. The Times reporters wrote up their piece and submitted it for publishing. The editor balked and told them to do more work, as it was too airy and speculative. Anger and resentment followed, as the reporters believed “they had nailed it.” They did contact the McCain campaign and submitted a set of written requests. Meanwhile, Mr. McCain and the lobbyist, Ms. Iseman, both retained council and vehemently denied (on the record) both the special treatment and the innuendo that they had engaged in an affair. Matt Drudge got a hold of the story (possibly from one of the Times reporters themselves, angry at the foot-dragging), allowing the McCain camp to act quickly, gathering records and evidence countering the Times’ claims. Whispers continued until the New Republic decided to run a story showing the backbiting and politics of the NY Times newsroom regarding the story. Faced with this embarrassment, the Times published the article.

In the three months that the NY Times has worked this story, they have not managed to show any concrete evidence that the story is true. Any record of Mr. McCain showing favorable treatment to the telecommunications companies represented by Ms. Iseman would have an obvious paper trail in the form of letters and recommendations filed by him to the chairman of the FCC. All letters known in the public archives show no such favorable treatment and the Times had not produced any other documents stating otherwise. Regarding the suggested affair, no staffers have come forward suggesting the two were engaging in such a manner, nor does the Times offer any evidence that the two were seen in any manner other than at public functions or in a business environment.

The bulk of the article is actually devoted to the Keating-5 scandal, which occurred nearly 20 years ago. In that event, five senators were found to have accepted campaign donations from Charles Keating, who was being investigated following the collapse of the Savings and Loan industry. All five senators were brought before the Senate Ethics committee. Although they were all cleared of anything illegal, the panel reprimanded four of them and censured Sen. Alan Cranston (D-CA). Only two of the senators, John Glenn (D-OH) and John McCain (R-AZ) returned to the Senate when their terms came up. It was this incident that lit a fire under Mr. McCain’s butt regarding campaign finance reform.

Given that this incident has been a matter of history and public record for over 15 years, it seems odd that the NY Times would devote the majority of its article to this incident in an attempt to buttress the more recent allegations. Rather than providing background and clarity, it adds an additional odor to what is already giving off the air of a poorly researched hack job.

Now, there is always the possibility that the allegations are true. But the ineptitude and lack of devotion to research renders any point that they attempt to make moot as it is washed away in a bath of perceived partisan vitriol. Dan Rather, to his dying day, will probably swear that the allegations of Mr. Bush’s conduct while in the Texas Air National Guard were true even if the memos were proven to be false (fake but accurate). However, that does not change the fact that this appears to be driven by faith in the rightness of his convictions rather than any solid facts. Faith should be left to the confines of religion. Any foray into the world of politics only makes the speaker look foolish and untrustworthy.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I Don't Want To Go On The Cart

Ms. Clinton is not dead yet. However for the first time in the Democratic nominating process, one of the final two candidates has been able to deliver a blow that drew blood. Now, the question remains whether this blow weakens Ms. Clinton and allows Mr. Obama to deliver a killing stroke, or if it just makes her mad and allows her to deliver a counterblow to Mr. Obama.

The real problem for Ms. Clinton is the manner in which she lost Wisconsin. Had she lost by five points and maintained her core demographics intact, no one would have batted an eye and her lead in Ohio would have probably stayed about the same. However, losing as bad as she did and with noticeable dings into her core-voting block open her up to serious attacks in Ohio. What’s worse; even if Ms. Clinton does win Ohio, she probably won’t win by a substantial margin. To really crack back into the race, Ms. Clinton needs to win Texas and win Ohio and Pennsylvania by 10 points or better.

Even with these types of wins, it is unlikely that Ms. Clinton will catch Mr. Obama in the pledged delegate counts. He is currently leading her by 120 in the hard delegates and when you add the estimates from the caucus states that will meet later in the year, his lead increases to almost 160. One can easily see why Ms. Clinton wants Michigan and Florida added back in. If you give Mr. Obama all the “unpledged” delegates from Michigan and add the two states to the overall totals, Ms. Clinton gains a net 60 delegates, putting her back within striking distance of Mr. Obama.

If Ms. Clinton is not able to make up the margin in pledged delegates and Florida and Michigan are not added back, her only argument left is her appeal in the swing states. There were 12 states in the 2004 Presidential Election that were decided by 5 points or less. Those states and their Democratic Primary winners are as follows:

Wisconsin – Obama
Iowa – Obama
New Mexico – Clinton
New Hampshire – Clinton
Ohio – March 4
Pennsylvania – April 22
Nevada – Clinton
Michigan – Clinton
Minnesota – Obama
Oregon – May 20
Colorado – Obama
Florida – Clinton

Ms. Clinton has a 5-4 lead in states with three yet to be played out. What’s more, given Mr. McCain’s position on Ag subsidies, Ms. Clinton can argue that Iowa will fall easily into Democratic hands. Ms. Clinton’s popularity with Hispanics might help her argue that she could win Colorado in a straight up race against Mr. McCain (as opposed to a caucus). However, all these arguments come to naught if she doesn’t win Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Still, I wouldn’t send for the gravediggers just yet.

Friday, February 15, 2008

The Clinton Endgame

As I mentioned yesterday, Mr. Obama is currently leading Ms. Clinton in hard pledged delegates by about 100. This lead is likely to grow as they will probably split Wisconsin but he will take a lead in Hawaii. Ms. Clinton has staked her political life on winning Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In addition to the notoriety of winning such large states, the numbers allow her to close back the gap between her and Mr. Obama fairly quickly.

Ohio: 92 delegates are allocated proportionally through the various congressional districts. Even with Ms. Clinton’s large lead in the polls, it is likely that the two candidates will split these in some close fashion (50-42 would be the edge of a very good night for Ms. Clinton). However, Ohio also allocates an additional 49 delegates based on the overall primary vote statewide. If she maintains her lead (and winning or losing very closely in Wisconsin will help her maintain that lead), she could take the lion’s share of these delegates.

Texas: 126 delegates are allocated proportionally through the state senate districts. Ms. Clinton will probably dominate most of these with Mr. Obama only taking the heavily African-American districts around Dallas. On a really good night, Ms. Clinton could take as many as 80 delegates this way. An additional 67 delegates are assigned via state convention in early June, by which point, some backroom deals might be going on. If not, the delegate allocation will probably follow the statewide results.

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania operations just as Ohio with 103 delegates awarded through congressional districts and 55 delegates awarded statewide. Mr. Obama will clean up around Philadelphia, but Ms. Clinton is likely to win most of the rest of the state (with the exception of the enclave around State College). Again, if current polls hold, she could take a 20 to 30-delegate advantage in the state.

These may not sound like much but piled up, Ms. Clinton could close the gap between her and Mr. Obama quickly. Coupled with wins in Vermont and Rhode Island, Ms. Clinton could come out of March 4th tied in the pledged delegate count with only the Superdelegates providing a difference again. Then it comes down to the argument of who does better in the key battleground states. With wins in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Florida (plus close seconds in Missouri, Wisconsin, and New Mexico), Ms. Clinton will have a pretty good argument that she is the candidate who has the best chance to beat Mr. McCain where it actually counts. Winning the African-American vote by 90-10 margins in the South is impressive, but it doesn’t change the fact that nearly all of the Old Confederacy is going to be won by the Republicans.

Still, we have a long way to go. Perhaps the numbers in the large states will change once Mr. Obama starts devoting major resources to the big states. I’ve seen his commercial quite a few times, but nothing sways voters like up close and personal contact (one of the reasons I’ve advocated Ms. Clinton camping in Wisconsin all week).

Some have tried to compare Ms. Clinton’s strategy to Mr. Giuliani’s Florida strategy and declared her dead already. There is some truth to this, but there are a number of key differences. First, unlike Mr. Giuliani, Ms. Clinton already has several big wins under her belt. Second, it’s a two-person race, unlike Mr. Giuliani, who had to contend with four or five other candidates (including one who was a lot like him in Mr. McCain). Third, Ms. Clinton, unlike Mr. Giuliani, is not fading from the media spotlight. If anything, the media is starting to take a harder look and Mr. Obama and what his actual ideas are. She constantly gets put up in contrast to see how the two are different. Fourth, Ms. Clinton has a core constituency that is constant and viable across many states. Mr. Giuliani was heavily banking on Florida being South New York and didn’t appeal to many people outside this group.

So, I think it would behoove us all to not draw any conclusions as of just yet. Perhaps Mr. Obama will go on to win handily, but perhaps not. It is rather strange that the media is seeming very quick to proclaim this contest as almost done when their wet dream would be to go all the way to a brokered convention. Of course, this might be a function of employing nothing but talking heads rather than actual reporters and data analysts.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The End and the Beginning

If the Republican race was almost over a week and a half ago when Mr. Romney suspended his campaign, it is certainly over now. News reports indicate that Mr. Romney will officially endorse Mr. McCain and pledge his delegates to him. This will rocket Mr. McCain’s totals from around 825 to over 1100, leaving him less than 90 delegates away from victory.

On Saturday, Louisiana will meet in state convention and will probably pledge anywhere from 15 to 24 delegates to Mr. McCain based on a caucus held back in January. Meanwhile, Guam will allocate 6 delegates based on a caucus.

On Tuesday, Washington State and Wisconsin go to the polls to allocate 19 and 40 delegates respectively. Both of these states allocate delegates based on the winner of each congressional district and the state overall. Thus, by the end of the night on Tuesday, it is possible that Mr. McCain could have racked up an additional 89 delegates. Coupled with Mr. Romney’s gift, Mr. McCain might break through to 1,191 right there.

Now, Mr. Huckabee might take away some of these delegates leaving Mr. McCain just short. Then he would have to wait until the weekend of February 23-24 when the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico allocate their 26 pledged delegates. Either way, Mr. McCain should become the official nominee before the month of February is over, rendering Mr. Huckabee’s planned last stand in Texas and Mississippi moot.

Meanwhile, Ms. Clinton seems to have finally woken up and smelled the coffee. Unfortunately, she is still reacting slowly as she is only planning on spending the last three days before the primary in Wisconsin rather than the whole week, as I would have advised her to do. She may still lose Wisconsin, but if she forces the news networks to wait an hour or more before calling the state, she will have thwarted the notion that Mr. Obama is an unstoppable force.

Ms. Clinton has also dispatched her daughter to Hawaii along with the messages of Sen. Inouye (who has endorsed Ms. Clinton) to blunt the loss in that state. Mr. Obama grew up in Hawaii so there is little chance that she can win the state, but if she loses by less than 10-points it will keep the delegate count close.

Given this, I think that reports of Ms. Clinton’s political death have been greatly exaggerated. She still may not catch Mr. Obama in the pledged delegate count (1050-952 in hard numbers), but Mr. Obama needs momentum as well as a delegate lead to capture the majority of the Superdelegates. The road is still long and windy.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Election Foolishness

For a breakdown of why it is foolish to officially declare a frontrunner in the Democratic race, I give you the following numbers:

Mr. Obama currently has 1043 firmly pledged delegates to Ms. Clinton’s 947 delegates. There are an additional 20 pledged delegates that haven’t been assigned because the votes are still being counted in four locations (MD, VA, NM and Dems Abroad). There are 156 delegates from states that have had caucuses but will not actually assign national delegates until the state conventions sometime in late spring and early summer. A majority of these (probably 60-40) will go to Mr. Obama. This leaves 1,074 delegates left to be assigned in the remaining contests from February 19 through June 7. Then of course you have the 796 Superdelegates, bringing the overall total to 4,048 delegates.

I give all these numbers because with the losses that Ms. Clinton has suffered in the past eight contests (potentially 10), there has been a slow chorus of cries for her to concede defeat to Mr. Obama. However, that would be premature at the moment. She is nowhere near mathematically eliminated and the structure of the Democratic primaries strongly suggests that she will finish within striking distance (1700-1550 possibly). This would confirm Democratic fears that things would need to be decided by the Superdelegates.

The thought processes of the Superdelegates are difficult to ascertain. Some have firmly committed themselves to one candidate or another and will probably not back down until defeat is inevitable. Others might go the way of their state or congressional district (essentially punting on a decision and following the electorate). Still others are sitting back and waiting to see how the situation will best benefit them. Mr. Gore appears to be one of these as he has refused to pick either side and is clearly trying to retain his role as elder statesman and minor deity.

Ms. Clinton might bow to perceived momentum if she loses Texas and Ohio, but I highly doubt it. Both Clintons are not known for giving up and there are too many political favors still out there for her to throw in the towel just because Mr. Obama has a flashy statistic that ultimately doesn’t mean anything. This is a scrum that will continue for a while, despite the hysterical shrieks from party insiders to end things quickly.

Meanwhile, Mr. McCain added over 100 delegates to his total leaving him a little over 350 delegates short of the outright majority. Mr. Huckabee has said he’ll stay in to offer a choice to Republicans and I expect him to now stay in until the March 10th Mississippi primary. However, after that, his money should be about exhausted and there won’t be another primary until the Virgin Islands contest on April 4th. What’s more, 376 delegates will be assigned over the next month. If Mr. McCain breaks 60-40 with Mr. Huckabee, he will take about 226 delegates, which will put him around 1,050 or only 150 short of the majority. Given the nature of the states and the delegate allocation style that the Republicans will be competing in, it is even possible that Mr. McCain could gather even higher totals and be within spitting distance of the nomination by this point.

Despite this, I believe that Mr. Huckabee has the right to stay in as long as he wants and if people want to give him money to continue in this quest, that is their business. No one should withdraw until they are comfortable with the decision to do so.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Hard Delegate Math

To give an idea of how fluid things are, these are the delegate totals for the Democrats. Many of the caucuses have been won by Mr. Obama, but the national delegates won't be awarded until the state conventions. These are the hard numbers of committed delegates that each candidate has:

State Clinton Obama Edwards Uncommitted
IA June 14 - 45 delegates avail
NH 9 9 9
MI 0 0 0
NV April 20 - 25 delegates avail
SC 12 25 8
FL 0 0 0
AL 25 27 0
AK May 24 - 13 delegates avail
A Sam 2 1 0
AZ 31 25 0
AR 27 8 0
CA 207 163 0
CO May 17 - 55 delegates avail
CT 22 26 0
DE 6 9 0
Dem Abroad Feb 12 - 22 delegates avail
GA 27 57 0
ID June 14 - 18 delegates avail
IL 45 91 0
KS 9 23 0
MA 54 37 0
MN 24 48 0
MO 36 36 0
NJ 59 48 0
NM 13 12 0
NY 139 93 0
ND 5 8 0
OK 24 14 0
TN 34 21 0
UT 9 14 0
LA 15 23 0
NE 8 16 0
Vir Is 0 3 0
WA 24 53 0 1
ME 9 15 0
DC Feb 12 - 15 delegates avail
MD Feb 12 - 70 delegates avail
VA Feb 12 - 83 delegates avail
HI Feb 19 - 20 delegates avail
WI Feb 19 - 74 delegates avail
OH Mar 4 - 141 delegates avail
RI Mar 4 - 21 delegates avail
TX Mar 4 - 193 delegates avail
VT Mar 4 - 15 delegates avail
WY Mar 8 - 7 delegates avail
MS Mar 11 - 33 delegates avail
PA Apr 22 - 158 delegates avail
Guam May 3 - 3 delegates avail
IN May 6 - 72 delegates avail
NC May 6 - 155 delegates avail
WV May 13 - 28 delegates avail
KS May 17 - 11 delegates avail
KY May 20 - 51 delegates avail
OR May 20 - 52 delegates avail
WY May 24 - 5 delegates avail
MT Jun 3 - 16 delegates avail
SD Jun 3 - 15 delegates avail
PR Jun 7 - 55 delegates avail

A few places are on twice as they allocate delegates at two different events. A quick sum of the committed delegates shows Mr. Obama ahead 905 to 875 with Mr. Edwards retaining 17 delegates and 1 Uncommitted. Mr. Obama will gain more delegates as he won most of the caucuses that will meet in May and June to allocate delegates, but as I posted earlier, Ms. Clinton could snag more than she expects. She could also lose more delegates than she thought if she is percieved as weak or Mr. Obama makes better deals. Ms. Clinton does have the lead in pledged Superdelegates, but those don't mean much as they may change their mind once the convention rolls around.

Ultimately, no decisions should be made by either party until quite a few more of these contests have been decided. I would be very surprised if one candidate withdrew before June.

Clear as Mud

I never took statistics in college so I am not overwhelmingly familiar with the various nuances of patterns. However, one of the political blogs I read does a pretty good job sifting the data and has come up with a decent breakdown of Democratic voting patterns so far. The one major caveat in all this analysis is that it assumes that voting trends stay static. After today, Mr. Obama will likely have won eight contests in a row and perception can dictate reality. There is a possibility that many of the people who are in the Clinton camp, may start to vote for Mr. Obama simply because of the perceived wave of momentum and the belief that they need to pick a candidate now to counter Mr. McCain.

However, if the patterns do remain static, we should be able to apply this measure and see how things will break in the near future. As we noted, Mr. Obama will probably sweep the three Potomac primaries today, although Ms. Clinton could do better in Virginia than many are expecting her to.

One week later, Wisconsin and Hawaii will vote. Hawaii will probably go to Mr. Obama due to its being the state of his birth and its being a caucus state. Ms. Clinton has a shot at Wisconsin due to its heavy union and manufacturing base, but that might be offset by the influence of Chicago on the Milwaukee media market as well as the heavily liberal university areas in the center of the state. But with a week of time to play with, Ms. Clinton could make things close if she spends a lot of time in the state.

Texas is almost sure to go Ms. Clinton’s way although Mr. Obama will do very well in the Dallas region and will take a number of delegates due to this area. Ohio is the real question. Ms. Clinton should do well in the union areas of Cleveland, Toledo, and Youngstown while Mr. Obama will do well in Columbus and Cincinnati. The nominally Republican areas of southeast Ohio will probably favor Ms. Clinton due to the low income and largely white nature of the region. She also has the strong backing of Gov. Strickland, which might swing a few fence sitters. Still, Mr. Obama will do well enough in some congressional districts to win a few delegates. Ms. Clinton should also win Rhode Island although I think Vermont might trend towards Mr. Obama.

These should blunt Mr. Obama’s momentum if the models hold although he will pick up steam again with likely victories in Wyoming and Mississippi a few days later. Then there is a long layoff until the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. Mr. Obama should be ahead in overall delegate count, although the margin may not be that large if Ms. Clinton does as well as the models suggest she should. The long layoff should help Ms. Clinton really work the state and she should take it, although Mr. Obama is likely to do very well in the Philadelphia region.

After this come a string of lesser primaries, many of which will favor Mr. Obama. Going with my gut and the numbers suggested by the model, I would guess the breakdown of the remaining states and territories would be:

Indiana – Obama
North Carolina – Obama
West Virginia – Clinton
Kentucky – Clinton
Oregon – Obama
Montana – Obama
South Dakota – Obama
Puerto Rico – Clinton

All total, it is unlikely that either candidate will get the 2,025 delegates necessary to win. So it comes down to the Superdelegates.

Some Superdelegates have already pledged, but they have the right to change their minds. Some will probably take the safe way out and go with the way their district or state voted. However, that would still leave upwards of 300-400 Superdelegates unaccounted for.

We also still have the nastiness that could emerge from seating the Michigan and Florida delegations. Some accommodation could probably be made with Florida since all names were on the ballot and Ms. Clinton did not break the non-campaign pledge until the day of the primary so those results are probably close to the real numbers for the state. Michigan on the other hand, did not have Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards on the ballot and trying to award those delegates based on the voting results would be drastically inaccurate. If it does come down to a floor fight, the two states might be allowed to sit after the first ballot is inconclusive, although who knows how things will actually go.

One other little wrinkle in the picture is that many of the caucus states do not directly elect delegates to the national convention. Instead, they elect delegates to the state convention who then elect delegate to the national convention. So, while Mr. Obama might have won the majority of delegates to a state convention, it is not inconceivable that Ms. Clinton and her delegates could convince some of those to change position and she would take more delegates to the national convention.

With all these variables going on, I strongly suspect that any rumors that Ms. Clinton will withdraw if she loses Texas and Ohio are strongly overblown. Mr. Obama might have the momentum at the moment, but Ms. Clinton will fight back. It may get ugly before it’s all done, but it will get done eventually.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Swing States

Now that the Republican race is all but decided (I suspect that Mr. Huckabee will withdraw following losses in Washington, Kansas, DC and Maryland (and maybe Louisiana and Virginia) on Tuesday) most of the media attention will shift over to the Democrats, who won’t have anything decided until April or May at the earliest. Pundits are already looking at national polls to try and determine who best matches up with Mr. McCain as if to use those to break the outcome one way or the other.

However, the media’s love of national polls consistently overlooks the reality of our elections and why most of this type of talk is useless. We do not hold a national election for President. We hold 50 state elections for President. It only matters how each nominee does in the states and most of those states are already forgone conclusions. For example, despite Mr. Obama’s heavy draw of the African-American vote, there is little doubt that Mr. McCain will win most of the south. Perhaps he will be competitive in Georgia, but the numbers favor a Republican sweep unless there is a southern Democrat at the top of the ticket (and Ms. Clinton doesn’t count). Conversely, despite his appeals to independents and moderates, there is very little chance that Mr. McCain will take any states in New England or the mid-Atlantic outside of New Hampshire. He may have a chance in Pennsylvania if the African-American turnout in Philadelphia is depressed, but the Democrats should hold most of these states with a little effort.

Ultimately this election will probably turn on the same states as the last two:

Florida might be in play, but due to its high military population and Republican administration, Florida is trending strongly towards Mr. McCain at the moment.

Iowa will fall back to the Democrats due to Mr. McCain’s opposition to AG subsidies. This will more than offset the likely loss of New Hampshire to the Republicans, which is a more conservative state and likes Mr. McCain very much.

Colorado has been waving back and forth for a while. The Democrats have their convention in Denver and will be pushing hard to take this state.

Wisconsin will also be in play due to the narrow margins that have been showing up in the state in the past few years. Enough independents could be swayed to turn the state red for this election.

Connecticut would not normally be in play but it seems clear that Mr. Lieberman is endorsing Mr. McCain at the moment, although I don’t know what will happen when the general election comes. If he sticks by Mr. McCain’s side, it could put the state in play, although I still expect it to go blue.

The big one is probably Ohio. There is a Democratic government in power and the numbers have been narrow for a number of years. High turnout and Democratic mobility could turn the state blue with the proper amount of prompting. I would expect Mr. McCain to organize a deep grassroots base here early to try and overcome these natural Democratic advantages. I would also expect a prominent Ohio politician like Rob Portman to lead the team in the hopes of using that for his own purposes of challenging Mr. Strickland for the governor’s mansion in 2010.

Perhaps I’ll be wrong and more states will be in play for the election, but I’d be willing to bet that these will be the states that get the most discussion in terms of swing.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

One Side Set

Well, the Republican race is effectively over. Mr. Romney has suspended his campaign. He has not released his delegates just yet. He probably won’t do that until after Mr. McCain has officially clinched. Mr. Romney will still get some votes out of protest, but I sincerely doubt that his voters will rally to Mr. Huckabee. More likely, many Republican primary voters will just stay home since the race is no longer in doubt. We can say this because despite his noble speech about staying in the race, Mr. Huckabee is almost completely mathematically eliminated based on his current delegate totals and the remaining delegates available. 2,380 Republican delegates are available so a candidate needs 1,191 to win. Mr. Huckabee currently has not quite 200 while Mr. McCain has over 700 and Mr. Romney has almost 300. This leaves about 1,200 delegates in the remaining states. Mr. Huckabee would need 5/6th of those delegates that would mean just about every Republican voter going to him. Not going to happen.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are in a sticky mess. Mr. Obama is ahead of Ms. Clinton in the pledged delegates while she is ahead in the Superdelegate count. The net result is that Ms. Clinton has about an 80-delegate lead out of a total of 4,048 delegates. Even though Mr. Obama has momentum and will likely win most of the states prior the March 4th primaries in Texas and Ohio, proportional delegate allocation will keep these two candidates neck and neck probably through all the primaries. That means that winner will have to be decided through the tiebreaker of either Superdelegates or even by reallocating the lost delegates from Michigan and Florida. Both of these would favor Ms. Clinton, although there are rumors that the Democratic Party may hold caucuses in Florida and Michigan to allocate the delegates properly. This would displease Ms. Clinton who won those states (although in an underhanded way in Michigan) and typically does not do as well as Mr. Obama in caucus style venues.

Either way, there is a very real possibility that neither candidate wins a majority based on the votes of the people. Then it suddenly becomes a game among the party elites and bosses. Who does each campaign owe the most favors to, who will make the better deals, etc. This favors Ms. Clinton due the sixteen years that the Clinton machine has been moving things in the party. This starts to give off the air of the smoky backroom that caused so much anger among the populace back in 1968.

The worst-case scenario is that Ms. Clinton emerges from the fray and Mr. Obama lets it be known that he did not agree to the deal. This would alienate African-Americans (already a little miffed at Ms. Clinton) and drive independents into Mr. McCain’s arms. It’s actually in Mr. Obama’s best interests not to have Ms. Clinton win as it sets him up as the betrayed man ready to lead the charge in 2012. A better scenario would be Mr. Obama emerging from the fray leading a united party, but I’m not sure the Clinton machine will relinquish power that easily. Plus, it might drive Latinos further towards Mr. McCain. Latinos are not block voters, but if enough of them are unhappy with Mr. Obama and mollified towards Mr. McCain’s immigration policy, it could keep the Democrats from taking back New Mexico or challenging Mr. McCain in Texas. Even worse would be a defection in mass to cause the numbers to waver in California, but this is an extreme scenario.

Also complicating things for the Democrats is that Mr. McCain can now sit back; gather up a lot of money while he makes nice with the conservatives. Then he can run lots of positive messages about his plans for the country and why we should vote for him. Meanwhile, the Democrats can’t run any positive messages because they don’t have a candidate and will be forced to only run negative ads against Mr. McCain through various 529s.

Now, make no mistake, the Democrats can win this election, but their road keeps becoming harder and harder to climb. If Mr. McCain can make peace with conservatives and bring the base out in reasonable numbers, he will retain most of the states Mr. Bush won and will only need to fight in places like Ohio, Iowa, and Florida. What’s more, with enough resources and fracture among the Democrats, Mr. McCain could even challenge Democratic weak points such as New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (possibly even Pennsylvania if he makes inroads with the African-American community). If the Democrats want the White House, they are going to need to make nice before the convention and hope that Mr. McCain is unable to mend his fences with the Right Wing. Otherwise, it might be a long and bitter four years.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Giants Triumphant

I didn’t really have a dog in this fight, but I was rather happy to see the NY Giants defeat the NE Patriots in the Super Bowl. As much as Mrs. X and I dislike Eli Manning’s audacity and presumption (“Shut up, Eli”), I was more tired of the arrogance of the Patriots. Amazon even posted a listing a book for two hours earlier in the week called “19-0,” to say nothing of Tom Brady’s look of insult when Plexico Burress stated that the Patriots were only going to score 17 points.

It was an entertaining game at the end, but not so much at the beginning. One was left with the feeling that a breakout was possible, but a good defensive struggle does not capture the imagination that well. It got really good when both teams finally managed to stand up to tired defenses and run down the field to score touchdowns. So the fourth quarter made up for a lack luster first three. Although one did get a sense that things were coming apart for the Patriots when Belichick made the stupid call to go for it on a 4th and 13 when it was a makeable 49-yard field goal kick. At the time I remember thinking that the Patriots were starting to panic a little in their offensive frustration.

I have no real problem with Eli being named MVP if only for that great escape and throw (although the receiver deserved equal credit for the play). However, I think one could easily have made an argument that someone on the defensive line should have won it. But since you can’t split the MVP into 4 parts (or at least three between Strahan, Uminyoura, and Tuck), the writers fell back to the old quarterback standby, which is fine.

Now, on to the commercials. Mrs. X and I both think that the ads have jumped the shark as none of them showed any depth of imagination and some were just outright bad (Planters, Careerbuilder and Sales Genie: Pandas were particularly bad). Very few were worth mentioning, but I will say that I liked the balloon Coke ad best. Simple, good music and a mildly amusing concept. I didn’t see all of the Garmin commercial, but based on the descriptions, I think I would have liked it as “Napoleon is short” jokes are always amusing to me (but I like to make fun of the French). I also liked the NFL oboe player one. Budweiser didn't do very well as only the end joke of the Caveman ad was funny (I thought the Rocky ad was a bit tired and predictable). I missed one or two others, but reading the brief review of each ad on Time this morning, leads me to believe that I didn’t miss much. Maybe advertisers will clue in a little next year.