Monday, April 30, 2012

Politics Perspective

I enjoy following politics, especially from the horse-race perspective. But the problem is that when you follow politics, you end up having to deal with other people who follow politics. Many are fine folk, but there are some will stand on the flimsiest points and crow and others who shriek that the skies are falling at the slightest hint that their boy is not up by more than 10 points (kind of like Ohio St. fans).

I was reminded of this fact on Friday when a poll was released about the Florida US Senate race. Bill Nelson (D) is running for a third term and his seat is being heavily targeted by the GOP. The Republican primary has not yet occurred and Rasmussen released a poll of the three GOP challengers against Mr. Nelson. Not surprisingly, all three trailed by reasonable margins. The closest match was against the GOP front-runner, Connie Mack IV (great-grandson of baseball great Connie Mack) who trails 47-36.

The results of this poll didn't surprise me. The GOP hasn't decided on a single candidate yet, Mr. Nelson is fairly popular in Florida, and it's over six months until the election. Nevertheless, the amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth from conservative poll watchers and activists is mind-blowing. There was a steady stream of diatribes on how could Florida voters be so stupid and how this spells doom for the Republican's chances to retake the Senate, etc.

Perspective is a wonderful thing. Analyzing polls at this point is less than useless and politics is one of the principle games where literally anything can happen, and usually does, in a moment's notice. It is an important lesson that it's a good idea to back away once in a while and enjoy the smell of life and not act like you will throw yourself off a cliff because your team is down by 10 in the first quarter (I'm looking at you OSU).

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Senate Glance

With the Republican Presidential nomination all but wrapped up and a good couple of months before we get real insight into who Mr. Romney will pick as his running mate, we can turn our attention to the Congressional races.

There's not much to say as far as the House goes. I've not been able to find a national map with the new districts and the races here in Ohio are pretty cut and dried. The Senate on the other hand, does offer some interesting examination.

The current make-up of the Senate is 53-47 with the Democrats in control. This year it just so happens that the majority of seats up for election are in Democrat hands (23-10), so their majority is in jeopardy. What really hurts the Democrats is that they are almost sure to lose at least two seats (North Dakota and Nebraska), while the Democrats are only looking at one seat likely to change hands (Maine).

To be fair, the Democrats have a fair chance at taking at least two more seats from the Republicans in Massachusetts (Scott Brown) and Nevada (Dean Heller). Brown and his Democrat challenger (Elizabeth Warren) have been trading back and forth in the polls, with neither being able to get more than a few points in the lead before the other one claws back. Heller should be a bit safer but Democrats have done better in Nevada in the past four years and if Nevada says blue in the Presidential race, it could give the Democrats a chance to take the seat.

Prospects for additional Republican pick-ups are a bit better. The prize targets are Florida (Bill Nelson), Ohio (Sherrod Brown), Missouri (Claire McCaskill), Montana (Jon Tester), and Virginia (open). I would also expect money (and a few Romney visits) to be thrown at Michigan (Debbie Stabenow), Pennsylvania (Bob Casey), West Virginia (Joe Manchin), and Wisconsin (open). If the Republicans managed to win all of these seats and only lose the Maine (open) seat (a long shot but possible), they would take control of the Senate 57-43.

I doubt that would happen, but the Democrats are going to need a strong turnout from their base and grab a good number of independent voters if they want to retain their majority in the Senate.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Game On: Romney Vs Obama

Reality has dawned on Newt and it is being reported that he will officially suspend his campaign and endorse Mitt Romney on May 1. Why he feels the need to wait a week is beyond me.

It is also being reported that Rick Santorum will meet with Mr. Romney next week, after he stopped just short of endorsing him last night. That just leaves Uncle Ron and we all know that he won't get out, but neither will he be any obstacle to Mr. Romney. Neither man will release their delegates (which gives them power to set things in the party platform) so Mr. Romney will still have to wait until the end of May to be declared the nominee mathematically as noted in the last post.

But for all intents and purposes, we can mark today as the true official start of the general election. Technically we could have counted the official start as two weeks ago when Mr. Santorum suspended his campaign, but Mr. Romney did still have to go through the motions and there was a question about how quickly the consolidation would take. But that is all but over now.

So how will the fight go? Dirty. We've already seen a glimpse of how the campaign will go with the whole Romney's dog on the car roof/Obama ate dog nonsense. Mr. Romney apparently gave a decent attack speech last night and we can imagine that even now the Obama campaign is dusting off the book containing all the dirt that's been collected on Mr. Romney since 1994. One can only imagine the volume of mud and s*** that we'll be dragged through in this fight.

Consolidation

As expected, Mr. Romney won all five contests last night and won them handily. I was wondering if a stray county or so would turn out in protest for another candidate (especially for Uncle Ron), but that does not appear to be the case.

Pennsylvania is still sorting things out as they elect their delegates directly (with each delegate declaring whom they support), but Mr. Romney has taken 10 of the first 22 delegates available in Pennsylvania. Another 37 delegates will be assigned as they sort out the votes and the last 10 will be elected by the Pennsylvania Executive Committee in June. Nominally, these 10 along with the 3 party leaders will be "Uncommitted" but they will all fall in line and support Mr. Romney I'm sure.

The other four states were dominating wins by Mr. Romney. He took all available delegates in Connecticut, Delaware, and New York and 3/4 of the available delegates in Rhode Island (Rhode Island does not have a 50% threshold rule as New York and Connecticut do). The last 1/4 in Rhode Island (4 delegates) were taken by Uncle Ron as he was the only other candidate to break the 20% voting threshold.

So, in the hard count, Mr. Romney now has 782 delegates or 68% of what he needs. This bumps up to 844 if you include non-binding pledges and caucus estimations, which would take his percentage up to almost 74%. Mr. Santorum is still in second with 226 hard delegates. Newt is third at 138 and Uncle Ron is trying to claw his way out of fourth, having now collected 61 delegates.

Next up are the state conventions in Maine and Minnesota on May 5 which will dispense another 21 and 13 delegates respectively. I would expect Uncle Ron to take most of these. Indiana, North Carolina, and West Virginia follow with primaries on May 8.

Mathematically, Mr. Romney will not be able to clinch the nomination in any delegate count until the Texas primary. If, for some reason, he fails to get the needed delegates by then, he will certainly do it on June 5 when California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota all go to the polls.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Northeast Voting

I still don't like this new format. Makes posting harder.

The rest of New England and the upper Eastern seaboard (Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania) go to the polls today. The majority would have gone to Mitt Romney anyway, but with Rick Santorum out of the running, things should be even clearer for Mr. Romney.

Of course, that's where the wheels start to come off. He shouldn't have any problems in Rhode Island (16 delegates), Connecticut (25 delegates), and New York (92 delegates). I'd be a bit surprised if Mr. Romney didn't win all of the New England delegates and over 80% of the New York delegates. But there is still Delaware (17 delegates) and Pennsylvania (69 delegates) to contend with.

Delaware is in consideration because Newt has been camping out for the past week there and made some allusions that this is the hill that he will die on. He's over $5 million in debt and needs something to get his name back in the papers before Indiana, North Carolina, and West Virginia (states that would not necessarily have been strong for Mr. Romney a few weeks ago) on May 8. Delaware's size makes for a good stand from an economic point of view, but there are a lot of businesses there and its political make-up is far more moderate, both advantages to Mr. Romney. It also is winner-take-all so that if Mr. Romney beats Newt by one vote, everything Newt did there is for naught in terms of actual delegates.

Pennsylvania is more of a litmus test on Mr. Romney. Polling has been highly limited since Mr. Santorum dropped out, but in what limited polling has been done, Mr. Romney has never really jumped out to any kind of lead. Mr. Santorum will still be on the ballot (and let's not forget Uncle Ron as well) for anyone to register their lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Romney. I would be highly surprised if Mr. Romney did not win the state, but if Mr. Romney fails to carry large sections of the interior of Pennsylvania, it will be a further sign that he still has a ways to go in truly consolidating the base.

Polls close at 8 pm EDT in Connecticut, Delaware, and Pennsylvania and 9 pm EDT in Rhode Island and New York.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Minneosta for Paul

First, let me say that I don't like the new layout for blogger. I hope it will look better on my work computer, but I'm not hopeful.

Anyway, Minnesota is wrapping up their district caucuses today. Mr. Santorum would probably have done very well here (he took 2 of the 3 delegates in the caucus held before his withdrawal), but in his absence, Uncle Ron has ruled the roost. With 24 delegates available, Uncle Ron has taken 20. Santorum has the aforementioned 2 and 2 delegates have not declared, leaving them in the "Uncommitted" column.

Missouri also held district caucuses yesterday. With also 24 delegates available here, Mr. Romney snagged 12 delegates for a decent showing, although not as well as he would have preferred. Mr. Santorum took 7 delegates, Uncle Ron took 4, and Newt snagged 1.

Thus our updated hard numbers are 626 delegates for Mr. Romney, 223 for Mr. Santorum, 134 for Newt, and 52 for Uncle Ron.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Minor Delegate Tidying

While reading up on a few Republican party leaders who were officially declaring themselves for Mr. Romney, I noticed a couple of changes to the delegate allocations in North Dakota, Georgia, and Alaska.

Alaska and Georgia were simple changes. Finalized vote totals had lead to a slight reallocation of delegates. Mr. Santorum picked up 1 delegate in Alaska (8 total) at the expense of Newt and Newt picked up 1 delegate in Georgia (53 total) at the expense of Mr. Romney.

North Dakota was a bit more interesting. The North Dakota state convention met on April 1 and the vote totals changed rather dramatically over the caucus results. In the original allocation, Mr. Santorum won with 11 delegates, then Uncle Ron with 8, Mr. Romney with 7, and Newt with 2. At the convention, the attendees were heavy Romney backers and managed to get more of their people elected as delegates. Thus, the final total from North Dakota is now 20 delegates for Mr. Romney, 6 delegates for Mr. Santorum, and 2 for Uncle Ron. Newt was shut out.

So, our revised totals are 614 confirmed delegates for Mr. Romney (671 if you include caucus estimations and unbound pledges), 216 for Mr. Santorum (238 including caucus estimations and unbound pledges), 133 for Newt (143 including caucus estimations and unbound pledges), and 38 for Uncle Ron (63 including caucus estimations and unbound pledges).

Missouri and Minnesota elect more delegates on Saturday so we'll have updated totals then.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Very, Very Early Handicapping

In politics, a week is close to an eternity so you can imagine what six and half months will be like. Nevertheless, you have to start somewhere and the first maps shading the various states are starting to show up.

There are minor deviations here and there, but the initial take is that Mr. Obama is starting out with 201 electoral votes and Mr. Romney is starting out with 180.

The states currently up in the air and not counted for either side are: Arizona (11), Colorado (9), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), Virginia (13), and Wisconsin (10) for 157 available electoral votes.


Now, this list varies from site to site. Michigan and Wisconsin are occasionally added to Mr. Obama's column, Arizona added to Mr. Romney's column, and Missouri listed as a toss-up state. We can quibble about the edges, but it would seem that at this point anyway, that the heavy money spending and campaigning will be primarily done in the above 12 states. Any wins by either side in states outside of this list that should "belong in the other column" will be seen as a major win during the election.

Obviously expect the numbers to shift and swing wildly as the months progress.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Weekend Delegate Wrap Up

Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee, but he's still going to have to work at it. I noted on Saturday that about half of the Colorado district delegates punted and are going to the convention as "unpledged." He fared better at the state convention where he took 8 delegates with 4 remaining "unpledged", plus the three part leader delegates. This gives Colorado a final score of 13 delegates for Mr. Romney, 6 for Mr. Santorum, and 17 committed to no one.

Wyoming went far more as planned. Mr. Romney took all 14 of the state convention delegates to give him 22 out of 29 available delegates. The remaining 7 are 2 for Mr. Santorum, 1 for Uncle Ron, and 4 as "unpledged", although 1 of those unpledged party leaders has committed to voting for Mr. Romney.

A third contest, mostly under the radar, were three district conventions in Minnesota (for the 3rd, 5th, and 6th Congressional Districts). The 7th district had already held theirs on March 31 (resulting in 2 delegates for Mr. Santorum and 1 for Uncle Ron). The remaining 4 districts will select this Saturday (April 21). Uncle Ron swept these three districts giving him 9 more delegates.

So our final totals are now 604 actual delegates for Mr. Romney (646 projected), 220 actual delegates for Mr. Santorum, 135 actual for Newt, and 44 for Uncle Ron.

This Saturday we'll have the rest of Minnesota's district conventions (for 12 delegates) and Missouri's district conventions for 24 delegates (3 per CD).

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Punting?

Colorado finished their district caucuses last night. Given Mr. Santorum's recent withdrawal, one would have expected most of the delegates to be pledged to Mr. Romney. That was not the case.

No candidate took all three delegates available in each Congressional District (21 total). Mr. Romney took 5 delegates while Mr. Santorum took 6. The remaining 10 went to "unpledged". I don't know if this is what they had in mind or if those spots were thought to be for another candidate and didn't want to officially declare for Romney.

Colorado will finish it's delegate list tonight along with Wyoming. That should give us a better idea of how things are balancing out in the initial aftermath of the Santorum withdrawal.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Colorado and Wyoming Conventions

It had been my intention to post about the Colorado and Wyoming conventions that start tomorrow with the same air of dramatic interest that we'd had over the last few months. However, since Mr. Santorum has now withdrawn, the selection process will likely be heavily one-sided.

But it may not be a complete slam dunk for Mr. Romney. Mr. Santorum, despite being gracious and polite, did not officially endorse Mr. Romney. This means that he'll retain the 212 hard delegates that he has, as he has not officially released them. Although he is now essentially a non-entity, Newt is still out there and will be making a pitch for the delegates available at the various conventions and in the remaining primaries. I personally doubt he will be very successful though.

Still, tomorrow does kick off the district convention in the 7th district of Colorado (outer suburbs of Denver). At this convention, they will select three delegates while the remaining six districts in Colorado will do the same thing with the same results on Friday for a total of 21 official delegates decided.

On Saturday, the Colorado state convention will meet and they will allocate an additional 12 delegates to the convention. There will be three party leaders sent as well who will be bound by the results of the state convention. That will give 15 total delegates from the state convention and 36 delegates in total.

Also on Saturday will be the Wyoming state convention. There the remaining 14 available delegates will be allocated to the various candidates. Twelve delegates have already been assigned (8 to Mr. Romney, 2 to Mr. Santorum, 1 to Uncle Ron, and 1 uncommitted). There are also three party leaders who are officially unassigned, although 1 has stated that they will be voting for Mr. Romney.

So by this weekend we'll have 50 delegates assigned and 36 delegates taken out of the estimated column. By all logic, Mr. Romney should recieve all 50 delegates. If he does not, then it will be a sign that Mr. Romney still has some work to do to rally the conservatives. An additional tell will be if there are any similar signs of protest voting at the Missouri district convention (24 delegates to be assigned) next Saturday.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Game Over!

Rick Santorum has suspended his campaign.

He'll still be able to raise money to pay off his debt but this now leaves Mitt Romney as the last man standing. Newt and Uncle Ron are still technically in the race but they are non-entities at this point.

Let the general election campaign commence.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Veep Considerations

Mitt Romney has officially crossed the 50% line in the delegate totals and it is highly likely that he'll be tacking on between 150-200 delegates in another two and a half weeks. This would bring him to 2/3 of the required delegates with the bonanzas of Texas and California still waiting.

Given all of that, talk has started to drift from the actual Republican nominating contest to who would be a good Vice Presidential candidate. Talk has swirled around a number of people, several who are more likely than others. I'm going to leave out anyone who has actually run for President this term as they have been discussed ad naseum. Here are named contestant in alphabetical order:

1. Chris Christie (Gov-NJ) - Christie was one of Mr. Romney's earliest supporters and is a perfect attack dog. However, being from New Jersey doesn't do anything for Mr. Romney. He's also not any further to the Right that Mr. Romney is on the various issues that threaten to keep the Republican base at home. Mr. Romney might be comfortable with Mr. Christie, but he doesn't gain anything outside of that.

2. Mitch Daniels (Gov-IN) - Daniels is a long shot as I doubt he (or his wife) would be any more interested on the ticket as a #2 as opposed to the #1 slot. Daniels would help Mr. Romney in the Midwest as he is a bit more folksy than Mr. Romney has ever managed to be. However, he also is not much to the Right of Mr. Romney on the key issues in terms of generating base enthusiasm. Mr. Daniels also has failed to impress as an attack dog and that is the primary role of a Vice Presidential candidate in the election. The Daniels talk is mostly done by those who favored him for President last year.

3. Nikki Haley (Gov-SC) - Ms. Haley was, at one point, a Tea Party darling and seen as having honest cred with the hard Right. However, she has recently got under their skin, first by openly supporting Mr. Romney during the South Carolina primary and then through a series of decisions that have not slashed the budget as much as Tea Party folks hoped. She also was only elected governor in 2010, giving her little executive experience. In many ways, her selection would be Sarah Palin all over again. Ms. Haley did serve in Congress prior to the governorship, but she will likely be seen as too green to take the Veep spot.

4. Bobby Jindal (Gov-LA) - Mr. Jindal recently won reelection as governor of Louisiana, giving him executive seasoning. He also is a Southern governor with a strong social conservative streak that Mr. Romney is seen as a bit weak on. He also adds a bit of diversity, being of Indian ancestry. I don't know what his relationship with Mr. Romney is as Mr. Jindal backed Governor Perry early on and then went neutral after he dropped out.

5. Rob Portman (Sen-OH) - Portman would fall in the same area as Mr. Daniels and Mr. Christie. Ideologically he is in the same ballpark as Mr. Romney, perhaps with shades a bit to the Right. He also gives Mr. Romney a tie to the Midwest. One edge he has over Mr. Daniels is that Mr. Portman has been in Washington for almost 20 years and knows the ins and outs that Mr. Romney does not. The major downside is that even four years later, Mr. Portman is still heavily tied to the Bush administration and he suffers on both the Right and the Left as a result.

6. Marco Rubio (Sen-FL) - Mr. Rubio has been the hot pick of the conservative media. He is young and energetic. He is Hispanic and goes after the Left in attack dog fashion that appeals to the Right. He also is from Florida and could tie that state down for Mr. Romney. However, he is still fairly green in terms of national experience. He also has come out several times and said that he will not accept the Vice-Presidential nomination. So despite what people talk about, his candidacy seems to be a non-starter.

7. Paul Ryan (Rep-WI) - Mr. Ryan falls mainly in the same camp as Mr. Portman. He has been in Washington for 13 years and is a member of the senior leadership of the House. He also is from a Midwestern state that will be a battleground come November. Unlike Mr. Portman, Mr. Ryan is popular with the Tea Party and has produced several ads designed to both promote the Republican budget plan and attack Mr. Obama. These as have been popular enough in Conservative circles to cause much wailing that Mr. Ryan is running for the top job himself. The one point that the selection of Mr. Ryan would do, is to ensure that Mr. Romney is planting his campaign flag on economic issues. Mr. Ryan has become so synonymous with budget battles over the past years that money is his main talking point (despite being just as conservative on social issues).

8. Allen West (Rep-FL) - Mr. West is very popular with Conservative media. He is a retired army colonel and African-American. He also has given quite a few fiery conservative attack speeches both during his initial campaign and since winning his seat in 2010. However, he is quite green in terms of political experience and it is unlikely that his being on the ticket would even cause much drift in Florida.

I have a guess as to which candidate (assuming he only works with this list) that Mr. Romney will favor. Time will tell and the nature of the campaign may drive one more towards him than originally thought.

*UPDATE*

Literally within an hour of hitting publish, I see this story from Politico. GOP strategists appear to favor Mr. Portman and also throw Susana Martinez (Gov-NM) into the mix. Ms. Martinez would also be a long shot, due to lack of national experience, and has also stated that she would decline the offer if extended.

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Romney Sweeps

As expected, Mitt Romney won Maryland, Washington DC, and Wisconsin.


Mr. Romney took all 16 delegates from DC, all 37 from Maryland, and 33 from Wisconsin. His total delegate allocation is now 625 in the projected total and 577 in the hard total. In the hard total, Mr. Romney is now at 50.4% of the needed delegates.

Mr. Santorum was shut out in DC and Maryland, and only took 9 from Wisconsin. His delegate total is now at 262 projected and 212 in the hard total.

Next up is the district and state conventions in Colorado starting April 12 and running through April 14. 21 delegates will be assigned at the district level on the 12th and 13th, while the remaining 12 are assigned at the state convention on the 14th. Estimated allocation is 13 to Mr. Santorum, 12 to Mr. Romney, and 4 each to Uncle Ron and Newt. These estimations will probably be thrown completely out the window once the actual hard allocations begin.

April 14 will also see the remaining 14 Wyoming delegates assigned at their state convention. Mr. Romney is expected to take the bulk of those delegates.

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Fatal Blow Tonight?

Maryland, Washington DC, and Wisconsin go to the polls today. Maryland and DC should go for Mr. Romney easily and the polls are suggesting that he will take Wisconsin as well.

DC is winner-take-all of 16 delegates (and Mr. Santorum is not on the ballot) so we can just give those to Mr. Romney.

Maryland is winner-take-all for 13 delegates and 3 delegates for each of the 8 Congressional Districts (for a total of 37 delegates). Mr. Romney should take the overall and probably the majority of the districts. I would expect Mr. Romney to take upwards of 31 delegates from Maryland.

Wisconsin will be a bit closer but Mr. Romney is favored in all the polls. Wisconsin is winner-take-all for 18 delegates and, like Maryland, gives 3 delegates for the winner of each Congressional District. This puts 42 delegates in play. If Mr. Romney wins a majority of the CDs, he'll earn upwards of 33 delegates.

Lumping it all together, Mr. Romney is looking at picking up around 80 of the 98 available delegates. That should push Mr. Romney's total number of delegates to over 600 among the projected numbers and close to 575 on the hard numbers. Either way, he'll have crossed the 50% threshold with the even more favorable terrain of Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, and New York to look forward to on the 24th.

This will not be a true fatal blow to Mr. Santorum, but consensus does seem to be strengthening around Mr. Romney and the numbers are starting to fully break his way. If Mr. Santorum can keep some money flowing in, he'll probably rebound a bit in May, but the math is starting to look solid that Mr. Romney will mathematically lock things up by the time that things wrap up in June.