What If: President Burr

Mrs. X likes to refer to these type of posts as my nerd posts. She's right, but I still like to do them.

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (DR) defeated John Adams and Charles Pinckney (F). In the days prior to the 12th Amendment, the electors cast 2 votes for President and the runner up was supposed to be Vice-President. This was how Jefferson (a man of the opposite party) managed to be John Adam's Vice-President. In the election of 1800, the electors were supposed to game the system so that Aaron Burr received one less vote than Thomas Jefferson. Someone screwed up though and Jefferson and Burr received the same number of electoral votes, throwing the election to the House to be decided.

Burr deferred to Jefferson but he refused to withdraw from the race and even stated openly that if the House somehow elected him, he would serve as President. The procedure in the House was that every state received one vote and that a majority of states were needed to produce a President. There were sixteen states then. Seven were controlled by the Democratic-Republican party, seven were controlled by the Federalist party and two were split down the middle. For 35 ballots, the DR states (and Georgia,although it was controlled by the Federalists) voted for Jefferson while the Federalists voted for Burr (mostly to spite Jefferson since Burr was also a DR, but still seen as less abhorrent than Jefferson), while the two spit states could cast no vote. Finally, on the 36th ballot, the Federalists in Maryland and Vermont opted to abstain from voting and the DR members shifted the two split states to Jefferson.

But what if they hadn't? What if several of the DR controlled states blinked first and voted for Burr to get the process over with? Jefferson would have been enraged (although he would never have shown it publicly). The state of Virginia would likely have put on some sort of public display of rage (they had been grousing about assembling the state militia to get things on). But Burr was fairly popular in the South outside of Virginia (his son-in-law was from South Carolina) and the elevation of James Madison (who met his wife Dolly though Burr and considered him a good friend) to the Secretary of State position. Burr's other cabinet positions would probably have not varied much from Jefferson's.

Once the political dust settled, President Burr's focus would have probably shifted almost immediately to Spain. In those days, Spain controlled Florida, the entire Gulf coast, and the Louisiana Territory in addition to Mexico. However, Spain's control of these territories was more though inertia rather than heavy military investment. Spain was at the end of it's empire days and France was pressing heavily on them in Europe (France would essentially conquer Spain that same year). Spain had allowed a limited amount of trade from the Western United States to pass down the Mississippi and through New Orleans but the economy of the West was stagnated unless free trade could be established through the port. What's more, the national debt was piling up and conquest and plunder of the rich Spanish lands was seen as an easy way to settle the debt.

Burr would likely have summoned the most prominent military leader to the White House at the time: General James Wilkinson, head of the US Army and a paid agent of Spain. Burr might have also invited one of the loudest agitators for war with Spain: Andrew Jackson (currently serving as judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court and Colonel in the state militia). Wilkinson would likely have flattered Burr but demurred against an actual war with Spain. In addition to having an agent of Spain at its head, the Army of the US was only about 6,000 men at the time. Jackson, on the other hand, would have likely been enthusiastic at the prospect and spoke eagerly about raising forces in Tennessee for invading Spanish Florida.

Burr would likely have planned out a two prong attack. Wilkinson would a western army (made of most of the forces of the United States) to seize St. Louis and then float down the Mississippi to take Natchez, Baton Rouge and finally New Orleans. Jackson might have been appointed to a US Army generalship and then tasked with raising an army from Tennessee, the Carolinas and Georgia to invade Spanish Florida and take St. Augustine. Then it would march West and take Pensacola and Mobile before linking with Wilkinson at New Orleans. From there it could be assessed whether to stop there or to push on either South to Veracruz or overland to Santa Fe.

Madison would likely have insisted that they try to negotiate with Spain first (this would also give Jackson and Wilkinson time to build and train their armies). Burr would likely have agreed and postponed invasion until Spring of 1802, while telling Madison that he was free to use the threat of war to push Spain into a deal. Spain, under threat of French claims to Louisiana, would likely have told the Americans to piss off. Spain may have even been hoping that an American invasion of Louisiana might prompt France to aid Spain in an American war to protect the territory that France was claiming. This is unlikely as France viewed the territory in the same light as Spain, large and expensive to garrison while not yielding much to the treasury.

With the failure of negotiations, the Americans would likely have gone ahead with the war and invaded Spanish territory in 1802. Wilkinson would likely have dallied and done very little beyond the occupation of St. Louis without significant prompting. He likely would have made complaints about logistics or supplies or the state of his men. Anything that would have slowed him and prevented him from moving against Natchez.

Jackson would likely have had no such limitations. The population of Spanish Florida was still very small and St. Augustine would likely have fallen very quickly. Needing very little garrison, Jackson would have likely marched overland to Pensacola in short order. West Florida was more restive than East Florida as the British settlers resented Spanish rule. Upon marching into East Florida, Jackson would likely have received support from the locals which would have made taking Pensacola and Mobile significantly easier.

At this point, things get tricky. Jackson might have become aware at this point that Wilkinson had not moved from St. Louis. Rather than waste men and material marching overland up to Natchez, Jackson would likely have enlisted the support of the locals in West Florida and marched straight for New Orleans. New Orleans would have had a significant garrison as well as some artillery. However, there would have likely been confusion as to whether the Spanish or French actually owned the city at that time. Dissension over control would likely have weakened the defenders. Things might have been bad enough that elements of the city would have simply invited Jackson in as a liberator from either side.

With these captures, Wilkinson would probably have given up on his Spanish masters and set down to take Natchez and Baton Rouge. If New Orleans had already fallen by this point, both cities might simply have surrendered rather than risk any loss of blood. Negotiations would have been reopened with Spain and France. Likely, the French would have said good riddance and just asked for some monetary compensation, likely in terms not that different from the actual Louisiana Purchase. Burr would also have probably instructed Madison to push for ceding of all Spanish territory North of the Rio Grande. Spain would have objected harshly but with an American army of likely over 10,000 men ready to march on either Santa Fe or even go down to Mexico City, there was little they could do.

Negotiations would have continued into 1803 but by then the United States would have been in control of nearly all the continental territory that it currently has. Only the disputed regions in the North with British Canada would have remained to be settled.

With all these feathers in his cap, Burr would likely stood for and easily won reelection in 1804. Although he would have burned in humiliation, Jefferson would probably have not bothered to challenge Burr for the party nomination off such a significant victory. On the Federalist side, Alexander Hamilton would likely be operating heavily on the sidelines to try and undermine Burr. He likely would have thwarted Burr in some aspects, although not directly since Hamilton was out of the government and barred from running for the Presidency himself. However, because of the prominence of the position and because of the work involved, it is unlikely that Burr would have had a chance to engage in a duel with Hamilton (at least until after his term as President was over).

One other thing that might have changed historically is the War of 1812. British impressment and seizure of American ships was becoming more and more of an issue. In 1807, the USS Chesapeake was fired upon by the HMS Leopard when she failed to submit to being searched for British deserters. If Aaron Burr were President at the time (and especially if he was being harried by Hamilton's Federalist Party) Burr might have mobilized General Jackson and his army (which would have still be seeing to the establishment of American sovereignty over the vast reaches of former Spanish territory) to march North and lay waste to Detroit and other parts of Canada in retaliation for British attacks on American interests.

Because the British were so heavily tied down with Napoleon in Europe, the British would probably never have been able to do more than the same modified defensive strategy they did in the first two years of the War of 1812. It is not impossible that the British might have simply settled things with a minor treaty in 1808 or 1809 simply to get the Americans off their back while they were fully invested in Europe. It is unlikely that the Americans would have gained more than pushing out British influence from Michigan (although some areas of Ontario might have been taken as well), especially if the British settled quickly. But the seeds would probably have been sown for a subsequent war after 1814 when the British were free to exercise their full strength.

Unless things were going badly with the war with Britain, Burr probably wouldn't have stood for the Presidency in 1808. Assuming the friendship with Madison had stood the test of the Presidency, Burr would probably have recommended that he be nominated in 1808.

The long term effects of a Burr presidency in this line are harder to surmise. The taking of Spanish territory north of the Rio Grande before the formation of Mexico would mean no war with Mexico in 1844. Indeed, Mexico might have declared her independence even earlier than 1810, once it was shown that the Spanish were impotent against a determined force. Mexico might have sparred a bit with the United States over the territory taken, but since it would have come directly from Spain and not from Mexico (and was very lightly populated outside of Santa Fe and a few California missions), Mexico would probably never bothered to risk all out war over territory that she had very little claim to either.

Settlement of the West would have probably continued at about the same pace. California might have been settled a bit sooner and that might have lead to the discovery of gold sooner and a stronger westward migration as much as 20 years earlier than the historical model.

Because there would likely not have been a significantly decisive engagement in the war between the United States and Britain (such as there was in the Battle of New Orleans) Britain and the United States would likely have renewed hostilities at some future date. The US would likely be feeling pompous and Britain would likely be feeling a strong disdain for the United States' uppity nature. Likely the conflict would have come over Oregon territory. In this case, the fight might have actually come in "54'40" or Fight."

The largest issue would have been slavery. The southern states would have pushed for slavery in all of the new territories but the same objections that were raised in the 1840's would probably be raised earlier. Burr was a known opponent of slavery (although he kept a few slaves himself) and would have respected the argument that the Constitution kept slavery out of the Northwest Territory. In the end, a form of Missouri compromise would likely have been settled on. But the settling of the American West earlier than in the historical model would have likely brought conflict and civil war sooner than 1860.

Reverse Operation Chaos

Back in 2008 Republicans, spurred on by Conservative Talk Radio, went to the polls registered as independents or Democrats and voted for Hillary Clinton in an effort to keep her in the race. This was known as Operation Chaos and the theory was that the two Democrats would tear each other down and expose weaknesses in whichever candidate won that Mr. McCain could exploit.

Overall it had mixed results. Mr. Obama did get more exposed than he probably would have had he finished off Ms. Clinton earlier in the season. But the process also toughened him and what weakness were exposed were not exploited by Mr. McCain, who seemed very reluctant to attack Mr. Obama at all.

Four years later, the shoe appears to be on the other foot. Liberal blog Daily Kos, has announced that they will engage in their own version of Operation Chaos (Operation Hilarity) but supporting Mr. Santorum in Michigan and other states where the process is open or allows same-day registration.

Their aims are obviously the same as those of Republicans four years ago. The perception being that either Mr. Romney will win but be made weaker by the long primary fight and easier for Mr. Obama to beat or that Mr. Santorum will actually beat Mr. Romney and that he is an easier candidate to defeat for Mr. Obama.

The first place this will be felt is Michigan. Michigan is a close primary but voter affiliation may be easily changed. Michigan is normally a strong Democratic state with its large union population. Any shift of these voters (no matter how small) could tip the balance rather significantly to Mr. Santorum. Arizona, on the other hand, is a closed primary with no easy method of changing voter affiliation. So it possible that if Mr. Santorum does win Michigan in a week and a half, he may have the Democrats to thank for it.

Sam the Eagle as Kurt Cobain

Some would think this sacrilege, but I like this version better than the original:



For the record, the members of the quartet are Sam the Eagle, Rowlf the Dog, Link Hogthrob and Beaker

Romney Wins Maine... Sort of

On Saturday, it was announced that Mr. Romney won the Maine Straw Poll. This is being treated by the Romney camp and his supporters as a halt to his slide and a rise back to the top of the heap. It might be in terms of perception, but the actual results (meaning delegate count) from Maine might be quite different.


The Maine problem stems from two sources. First is that it's a caucus state and as with Iowa, Minnesota, and Colorado, no actual delegates are awarded based on this results. Only delegates to the state convention (May 5) are elected and the actual candidate delegates will emerge from that.

Second is that Maine's caucuses are not finished yet. Unlike every other state caucus which meets on one day or even one weekend, Maine's caucuses meet over six weeks. The first caucus met on Jan. 29 and the last will meet on March 3. However, most of the caucuses were scheduled to be done on Feb. 11 so the Maine GOP elected to call an end to the straw poll on this day and the "winner" would be announced based on these numbers. Even this wouldn't have been too bad if Washington county hadn't decided to postpone it's caucus meetings until the 18th due to weather. This dropped the completion percentage from the 95% expected, to 84%. What's more, Uncle Ron has a lot of support in Washington County so the lead of 194 votes (out of 5585 cast) that Mr. Romney has will certainly shrink.

We won't know until May what the real results are. At the moment, Mr. Romney is simply taking the ball and running with the victory, which is the correct thing to do. Public perception is 9/10th of the game as far as the later races are concerned and that's all the matters to someone shooting for the actual nomination. Uncle Ron is just hoping to get enough delegates to influence the party platform and get a little respect.

This should be a pretty dead week from a political standpoint. The next debate is the following week and the next races are not until the end of February. So we have very little except traditional campaigning and fundraising.

The Boat Rower's Song

Mrs. X and I have been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to child X1.0. We actually just finished the dismissal of Violet last night. But reading the book always makes me think of the Boat Rower's Song. Very creepy and I can't help but sing it every once in a while when I'm either trying to freak someone out or seeing something freaky myself.

Narratives

Much hooping and hollering has been going on lately over Mr. Santorum's wins on Tuesday (despite not actually earning any delegates out of it). The biggest reason for this is the fact that there's not going to be any story to fill the media vacuum for a couple of weeks. Yes, we have the Maine caucuses on Saturday, but Maine is one small state and is expected to be only a contest between Mr. Romney and Uncle Ron.

Regardless of what happens in Maine, there is a two-week lull where nothing happens except campaigning and fundraising until we get to the debate in Phoenix on Feb. 22. By that point, I'm sure the talking heads will be so starved for something new that they will take anything they can get out of the debate and make hay out of it. But until that time, the void will be filled with endless chatter of how Mr. Romney is not quite so inevitible now or whether Newt's southern firewall will hold, et cetera.

Speaking of Newt's Southern firewall, that raises an interesting question about how long he may choose to stay in the race. I think it unlikely that Newt will do well in Michigan, Arizona, or Washington so that will leave him desperate for any kind of win come Super Tuesday. There are three Southern states voting on Super Tuesday: Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee.

Unfortunately, both Newt and Mr. Santorum made errors in their filing and will not be on the ballot in Virginia. I don't know if Virginia has a write-in policy but it seems likely that this kind of mistake will allow Mr. Romney to make nearly a clean sweep of the state.

Georgia, being Newt's home state, will go heavily for him so it's effects will be rather diminished (even though it gives the most delegates of any state on Super Tuesday (76). That leaves Tennessee (and maybe Ohio) to help Newt keep the narrative alive that he is still a viable candidate. If Newt loses Tennessee, especially if it's to Mr. Santorum, then he will probably receive even more pressure to drop out and make it a two-man race.

Of course, anything could happen. It could be revealed in the news tomorrow that Mr. Santorum serves barbecued puppies for Sunday dinner every week and that would both change the narrative and give Newt a third riser from the ashes. It is still early and I wouldn't want to denigrate any one's chances (except Uncle Ron who has no chance).

Santorum Sweep

In a bit of a surprise, Rick Santorum swept the three contests last night. Missouri was not a surprise. Mr. Santorum was the only one that bothered to visit the state and Mr. Gingrich had not made the ballot, rendering it a genuine Romney vs. not-Romney race.


Minnesota was also not much of a surprise as polling had Mr. Santorum up in the state (33-24 over Mr. Romney). However his margin was a bit of a surprise (45-27-17-11 as of now) as well as who came in second: Ron Paul. I know caucuses can get skewed but a margin that dramatic is slightly eyebrow raising.

But the big surprise came in Colorado. Mr. Romney was leading in the polls by 10 (37-27) and now it appears that he has lost by 5. Interestingly, the percentage of Romney support stayed about the same (37 vs. 35) but Mr. Santorum surged from 27 points to 40 points. This suggests he took many of the undecideds as well as poaching from other candidates. Again though, it is a caucus and weird things happen at caucuses. Weather may also have been a factor as the heavy snow around Denver may have kept a number of more tepid Romney voters from going to the caucuses, giving Mr. Santorum's wins in the outer counties more weight.

The overall result tonight doesn't mean much. The base estimates from Colorado are that Mr. Santorum and Mr. Romney will essentially split the delegates (13-12) with the rest being passed out to Newt (4) and Uncle Ron (4). The same is done in Minnesota, giving Mr. Santorum 17 delegates to Uncle Ron's 10, with 6 to Mr. Romney and 4 to Newt. Missouri, of course, is not giving out anything until March.

A three state sweep however will give a boost to Mr. Santorum's fundraising and set up some interesting commentary leading up to the primaries in Michigan and Arizona (Maine does come up next but that's a two man race between Mr. Romney and Uncle Ron and those delegates aren't selected until May as well). Even though history has been on his side, Mr. Romney may start to see some hits in the polls in Michigan. I'm not sure about Arizona at the moment, although I know Mr. Romney is currently ahead there.

Probably the biggest question of the night won't be answered until Super Tuesday. Although he finished badly, I see no reason for Newt to drop out until at least after Super Tuesday. Newt is going to win Georgia as it is his home state. Newt and Mr. Santorum failed to get enough signatures to appear on the Virginia ballot so it is likely that Mr. Romney will easily take Virginia. That leaves Ohio and Tennessee as the really big prizes on Super Tuesday. If Mr. Santorum wins Ohio and Tennessee (or at least finishes better than Newt in those states) it essentially destroys Newt's argument of viability, even as a "Southern Candidate." It is possible that Newt might retire to allow a single candidate to become the focus of the "Not-Romney" support.

Of course, Mr. Santorum could flame out in the next debate and Newt could rise from the ashes a third time. We shall see.

An Interesting Question

There are three contests today, none of which result in any actual delegates being awarded. There will be some assumptions for Colorado and Minnesota, much like Iowa so we will probably see the delegate summaries on the various news networks toggle in some fashion. Missouri is a complete beauty contest so even less attention will be payed to that.

The one interesting thing that will come out of today will be how the spin goes. If polling is to be believed, Mr. Romney will win Colorado while Mr. Santorum will win Minnesota and Missouri. If you are keeping score, that means that Mr. Romney will have won four contests (New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado) while not-Romney has also won four (Iowa, South Carolina, Minnesota, and Missouri). In the four contests that Mr. Romney has won, it's been a complete blow out, usually with saturation bombing of negative advertising. However, turnout was down a bit in Florida, significantly down in Nevada, and only up a slight amount in New Hampshire. Conversely, turnout was significantly up in Iowa and South Carolina (even though SC was a blowout for Newt).

The turnout numbers will likely be skewed from four years ago as Mr. McCain was starting to settle in on his victory tour by this point but I would still be interested to see if the idea of a proper contest between Mr. Romney and those opposed to him generate higher turnout. If the turnout is low in Colorado (or if Mr. Santorum finishes closer than the 10 point margin he is behind) and turnout is up in Missouri and Minnesota, there could be some discussion among the various talking heads that Mr. Romney hasn't quite sewn this thing up yet. We shall find out tonight.

Then the Game

For a totally bleh match-up, it was quite a good game. I didn't particularly care who won (I was slightly leaning toward the Giants) but was hopeful that it would be an entertaining game. In this, I was not disappointed.

The Patriots were clearly a little off in the beginning as the nerves about the Giants defensive line was obvious. However, they settled down quickly and the Patriots offensive line handled the Giants defensive line well. Brady was under some pressure, but it never got to the point where you could see him getting happy feet. In fact, more pressure seemed to be applied to Eli, who was sacked more and getting whacked a lot more than Brady was.

In the third quarter and early in the fourth quarter, I though the Patriots were going to pull away and win the game. The Giants weren't getting good pressure and they were consistently giving up the check down pass which the Patriots used to march down the field. Two specific plays cost the Patriots a chance to ice the game. Brady got greedy and threw his deep pass to his injured tight end. If he were healthy, it would have been at worst knocked down and may have even been caught. Instead it was intercepted. The following drive, Wes Welker dropped a pass that was a bit overthrown, but still catchable. Had he caught that, the Patriots would have been at the 20 with less than four minutes to go and up by 2.

The Giants drive that won them the game was impressive but the Patriots secondary had been weak all season and it didn't surprise me that the Giants were able to drive down the field. I was rather amused when the play that Cris Collinsworth mentioned two plays earlier (taking a knee at the one yard line) actually happened. In this case, the running back was so surprised by the parting of the sea, he couldn't stop his momentum.

The praise of Brady was as over the top as I expected. It was quite obvious that since Brady had won his first two Super Bowls on game winning drives, this would be no different. There were two very big differences in those though. In the first two, the game was tied. The game is very different when all you have to do is lead your team into field goal range than when you have to get a touchdown. Second, the Patriots were not operating with the full complement of weapons that they had in previous Super Bowls. They only had two decent wide receivers and one tight who was healthy enough to make the cuts needed. Still, the Patriots did manage to get to mid-field and did come surprisingly close to making the hail mary. The initial receiver was triple covered but the tight end was lurking below and came very close to catching the ball as it was knocked down.

So a good game. Kind of a meh season overall, although at least the Bengals did make the playoffs. Maybe they'll actually manage to be better next year.

I offer no opinions on either the halftime show or the commercials this year. Mrs. X and I were folding laundry during the halftime show and the music was barely registering to me in the background. The commercials were meh at best and all very predictable. I must say that I was slightly amused at the dog bribing the man about his wife's cat with Doritos. I know a few people that could easily bought for that price.

First Nevada

I don't know if it was because of the Super Bowl, but Clark County (where Las Vegas is located) took two full days to finish counting the caucus ballots. In the end, it didn't matter much. Mitt Romney took the state handily with 50% of the total votes. Newt took 21% for second place in what had to be a disappointment for Uncle Ron. Uncle Ron fell to third with 19% of the vote and Rick Santorum rounded out with 10%.


Unlike most caucus states (such as tomorrow's Colorado and Minnesota), delegate allocations are awarded at this level. The individual delegates won't be selected until the state convention, but the awards have been decided. Mr. Romney will receive 14 delegates, Newt gets 6, Uncle Ron 5, and Mr. Santorum 3. That brings the hard total up to 73 (81 soft) for Mr. Romney, 29 (33) for Newt, 8 (14) for Uncle Ron, and 3 (9) for Mr. Santorum.

There are three contests tomorrow: the aforementioned Colorado and Minnesota Caucuses and the Missouri primary. No delegates will be awarded at any of these contests, although they will probably have influences on the state conventions and the actual Missouri Caucuses that will be held on March 17. At the moment, Mr. Romney has a strong lead in Colorado with Mr. Santorum holding the second spot (mostly due to his support from former congressman Tom Tancredo). Mr. Santorum has a very narrow lead in Minnesota as well over Mr. Romney, but I think Minnesota could swing wildly during the actual caucuses. Mr. Santorum is also leading in Missouri (helped strongly by the fact that Newt failed to get on the ballot). In terms of actual delegate allocation, tomorrow won't matter for much. However, if things break for Mr. Santorum as much as they seem to be, it would provide him with a much needed surge in momentum and a revaulting back into the primary "not-Romney" position.

Delegate Challenge

In another sign that you can't trust any of the delegate counts yet, the news has surfaced that Newt intends to challenge Florida's winner-take-all policy.

It seems that the RNC has a rule that states that no state may have a winner-take-all policy until after April 1. Florida got around this because they were already under sanction for jumping out of their place in line to the end of January. This sanction took half of their 99 delegates and reduced it to 50 delegates. It is unlikely that the RNC will opt to impose two rounds of penalties on Florida (which is what forcing proportionality would do since it would upend what the state voted on) but this is still a good idea for Newt.

Based on what happened in the Democrat 2008 primary (and especially considering that the Republican convention is in Tampa this year) it is highly unlikely that the RNC will actually refuse to seat the removed 49 delegates from Florida. This has the net effect of the RNC punishment to be zero. So, knowing that Florida will probably get it's full 99 delegates anyway, why not challenge for proportionality. The RNC might see this as an easy opt-out situation. They agree to give Florida their full delegate roster in exchange for the proportionality agreement. Florida won't care because the full seating of their delegates is what they really want. Who they actually vote for is irrelevant.

The RNC will probably not act to vote on this until May or June, by which time, all of this might be irrelevant. If the rules are changed to the above scenario, Mr. Romney would actually lose 4 delegates to give him 46. Newt would then get 32 delegates, while Mr. Santorum gets 13 and Uncle Ron gets 7. That would leave one additional delegate to be assigned and I would guess that would go to Mr. Romney as winner of the primary.

All this would change the delegate totals somewhat, although things are still so much in flux that it's hard to see it that much. Mr. Romney's current hard total of 59 would be reduced to 56 while Newt's hard total would increase to 55. Uncle Ron would bump up to 10 while Mr. Santorum would actually get on the board at 13. All of these candidates will be getting more delegates from Iowa later but since nothing will be set until mid-June, speculating about totals doesn't help much.

More of interest will be gained with the contest in Nevada on Saturday and in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri on Tuesday.

Five Percent

To no one's surprise, Mr. Romney did win Florida. The one surprise was by how large a margin he won (14 points). To a significant degree, this was a two-man race. Neither Uncle Ron nor Mr. Santorum had the money to do any ad buys in the expensive state and only spent a little money on organization offices and some tours around the state. Their 7 and 13% showings tend to reflect this lack of attention.

Mr. Romney was heavily buoyed by the early voting. The early numbers that went up over the networks were all due to early voting and Mr. Romney consistently held around 50% of the vote in those cases. His percentage steadily went down as the actual election day votes came in (even more so as the panhandle votes came in, which Newt won).


As noted in yesterday's post, all four men are soldiering on. For three of them, it's going to be nibbling at Mr. Romney's heels until Super Tuesday. He will be favored in most of the states but none are winner take all and I think there is enough dissatisfaction with Mr. Romney that there will be delegate allocation to other candidates.

February hands out 196 delegates as opposed to the 115 that were handed out in January (although this is theoretical as caucus state do not award delegates until their state conventions which are held later). The hard count stands at 59 for Romney, 23 for Gingrich, and 3 for Paul. Santorum has been credited in most standing with anywhere between 6 and 12 delegates for Iowa, but he won't know how many he's actually getting until mid-June. Likewise with Mr. Romney who gets anywhere from 6 to 12 Iowa delegates and is generally awarded Mr. Huntsman's 2 delegates from New Hampshire. So, given how you slice it, Mr. Romney has anywhere between 5 and 6.5% of the delegates he needs to win the nomination (1144).

Nevada theoretically gives out 28 delegates on Saturday (although they won't actually be allocated until the state convention on May 6) with Colorado and Minnesota giving out an additional 76 theoretical delegates on February 7 (state conventions are April 14 and May 5 respectively).

Florida - Meh

Barring some very weird skewing of the final vote in defiance of the polls, Mr. Romney will win Florida tonight. Newt will almost certainly finish in second place while Mr. Santorum and Uncle Ron slug it out for third.

The only question is what the final numbers are going to be and even that isn't that interesting. Florida (because of the penalty inflicted by the RNC for going early) lost half it's delegates and will be awarding them all to the winner rather than proportionately. As such, it doesn't matter whether Mr. Romney wins by 1 or 100,000 votes, he gets all 50 of Florida's delegates.

The anticipation is also diminished in that no one is going to drop out after Florida. The first four contests in February (Nevada, Maine, Colorado, and Minnesota) are caucuses which are easier to be competitive in on a shoestring budget (like Uncle Ron and Mr. Santorum are on). Missouri will have a primary but it's non-binding and means nothing outside of PR. Thus we do not have an actual primary which would require dipping harder in the budget until the end of February when Arizona and Michigan come up to bat (Michigan will be ceded to Mr. Romney. His father was governor there back in the 1960s and he has remained very popular in the state). Of course, once you've gotten this far, you might as well stay in one more week until Super Tuesday. So I don't believe that we will see the field reduced again until Super Tuesday at least.

Still, it will be fun to see the talking heads attempt to read the tea leaves and either claim or deny that the margin of victory and what people voted for whom means if you project forward to other states and the general election. The one narrative that could become very interesting is if Mr. Romney fails to win by the margin that the polls projected him at. Some polls had him building a large lead of 15 or more points. Others showed the gap narrowing to an 8 point lead. I would suspect that if the margin of victory is either less than 10 points or if Mr. Romney fails to clear 40% of the vote, there will be a discussion of how he is still vulnerable and is still failing to get conservative voters to fall in line.

Of course, if Mr. Romney blows his competition out of the water the discussion will be that opposition to him is essentially a waste of time and that we should start looking forward to Mr. Romney vs. Mr. Obama. We'll find out in a few hours. Most polls close at 7 pm EST but there are those in the panhandle that close at 7 pm CST so the News shows won't be able to announce full results (and the projected winner) until 8 pm EST.

Trivia Question of the Day

I saw this in a Google ad and thought it a good trivia question.

Q: Did the state of Florida vote for the last President elected who was neither a Democrat or a Republican?

A: Yes. Florida's 3 electoral votes were won by Zachary Taylor (Whig) in 1848.

This is real

This is funny because it is absolutely 100% true.

Florida Fluidity

What a difference a week makes. Last Friday, Newt was surging to the cusp of a dramatic win in South Carolina and Mr. Romney was looking battered and bruised. Now it is Newt that is looking battered and bruised. Mr. Romney has staunched the bleeding and is now moving to win Florida and take it's 50 delegates (winner-take-all primary).

The current delegate count is as follows:

Romney: 17
Gingrich: 27
Santorum: 6
Paul: 9
Huntsman: 2

There are more delegates that have to be allocated from the three previously decided contests, but those have not been fully calculated and allocated yet. So other totals are estimations based on what we do know. Most of those are given to Mr. Romney, who is believed to be working with 31 delegates at the moment. Winning Florida would bump up his total to at least 67 and perhaps as high as 81. Of course, it takes 1,144 delegates to secure the nomination so there is still a long way to go just yet.

The real curiosity will be in how things shake out from last night. Mr. Romney did well in the beginning but then got torn up by Mr. Santorum on his support for health care mandates. That won't dent much of Mr. Romney's support so I'd still look for him to settle in to the 35-40% range. However, Newt did not engage and scored no point for himself. With the conservative take down that Mr. Santorum gave, it is possible that some of the soft surge that Newt had gotten from South Carolina will bleed over to Mr. Santorum. That could end up putting both men in the twenties (high for Newt, low for Santorum) with Uncle Ron rounding out the field at around 10%. We'll see how things go. Perhaps some of the ads or some outside influence will change things beyond this before Tuesday. But this is my take at the moment.

She Turned Me Into a Newt...

I got better.

I'm not sure why CNN was so behind the curve in calling South Carolina for Newt. But, it's a moo point now. With 94% off the vote in, Newt has 40%. Romney is second with 27%, Santorum is third with 17% and Uncle Ron rounds out the field with 13%.

I'm watching Gingrich's speech at the moment. He's laying it on thick as the champion of the conservative people (flipping off the so-called elites even in his own party). It might work. It may not. Florida will be interesting. Newt may challenge Romney but he's going to need an infusion of capital to fight the rest of the way.

Dynamics

So a funny thing happened on the way to the coronation of Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee. Yesterday it was revealed that eight counties in Iowa failed to report all of their ballots. As a result, Rick Santorum is the actual winner of Iowa by 34 votes.

Meanwhile Mitt Romney has stumbled in the last two debates and, as a result, has fallen to second place in the polling for South Carolina behind Newt. Now, this doesn't mean that much. Romney could still pull out a win in South Carolina. But even he doesn't, Florida may still provide a good make up win.

After that you have Nevada and Michigan which will probably be Romney wins. Still we could be surprised. It'll be curious to see how quickly things are called tomorrow.

Myst Ret-Con Annoyances

One of the things that has always bugged me (and I think a lot of other people) is the concept of ret-con. Put simply, this is something where some writer or designer didn't like how something happened in a previous chapter of a story and then either invents some way to dismiss it, or simply pretends that events didn't happen that way to begin with.

Frankly, it's a lazy way out. If you want to continue a story, use your imagination and come up with one. Don't just say something didn't happen because you have a new story that you want to tell but there is this little detail from the past that blows a huge hole in your story.

One example that jumps out at me is about one of my favorite games when I was in high school: Myst. Myst was a first person puzzle game that came out in 1993. The storyline was that a stranger had come across a book called Myst and when he opened it, he was transported to an island in a completely different world. As the game evolves, the player learns that two brothers, Sirrus and Achenar, have been trapped in books and need to have the pages of these books returned from other worlds to free them. However, as the player does this, he learns that both men are very dangerous. In the end, the player learns that they were caught in traps set by their father, Atrus, as they moved to get rid of him so that they could control everything themselves. In winning the game, the player frees Atrus from his own prison and he subsequently destroys the books that his sons were trapped in (presumably killing them).

This theme was continued in the sequel Riven. In that game, the player goes on a quest on behalf of Atrus to capture his father, Ghen, in a prison book and then free Atrus' wife Catherine.

The third game, Myst III: Exile, deals with the earlier actions of Sirrus and Achenar and their effects on a man named Saavedro, who had tried to stop them. It doesn't mention or use prison books.

Then comes the fourth game, Myst IV: Revelation. Apparently the game designers had been grousing for a few years that prison books didn't actually exist (despite creating two games where they were central plot points) and finally implemented this thought. In the fourth game, it is revealed that Sirrus and Achenar were not caught in prison books but in prison ages (small worlds that didn't have any linking book out of them). The storyline then follows the effects of Atrus, Catherine, and their daughter Yeesha of their attepts to contact the brothers and their possible release if they had reformed. The storyline is somewhat weak in this game and the game designers ret-con of the prison books throws everything out of whack.

If there was nothing special about the books that trapped the brothers in the first game and they were just links to other worlds without exits, then there is not much point to the game. There would have been no need to collect pages from other worlds because if pages were missing from the books, they wouldn't have worked (this is how they trapped their father in the world called D'ni). Likewise, how would the player have known anything as communication with the brother in their books is a key element in how the player learns both what to do and who to trust in the end.

The idea that prison books don't exist also blows Riven completely out of the water as well. The whole point of the story is to capture Ghen. There is a key point in the game where Ghen is close to falling into the trap but he has the player go into the trap first. This idea fits with his personality as developed in the game. When the prison book concept is used, it works well because the prison can only hold one person. If you go in, you're trapped until Ghen uses the book. Then he is trapped and you are set free. But if the concept of prison ages is used (as discussed in the context of Myst IV), the game is a dead end. The player would go to the prison age while Ghen follows. Both would be trapped (Ghen would probably kill the player in a fit of rage) and Catherine would still be imprisoned. With the disappearance of Ghen, it is likely that Ghen's followers would assume that the rebels had killed him and kill Catherine in retaliation. Not exactly a good ending to a game.

This is perhaps an extreme reaction but it was something I recently read about and it revived my old dislike of ret-cons.

/Andy Rooney mode off

On to South Carolina

To no one's surprise, Mr. Romney won New Hampshire easily. With 95% of the vote in, the numbers are waffling between 39 and 40% of the vote (probably depends on the rounding of the decimal). Mr. Paul came in second (which surprised me a little bit) at 23% and despite his last minute surge, Mr. Huntsman finished a disappointing third with 17% of the vote. Newt and Mr. Santorum are dueling it out for fourth place with each currently at 9% (Newt seems to have the lead by a couple hundred votes). Mr. Perry opted not to campaign in New Hampshire and his 1% sixth place finish reflects that.


Despite his lower than desired third place showing, Mr. Huntsman has vowed to soldier on. He is not expected to do much in South Carolina and he is probably hoping to capture some key part of the Romney vote in Florida. I suspect monetary reality will sink in after that.

Now it's on to South Carolina on Saturday, January 21. South Carolina will probably winnow at least one more candidate out (probably Mr. Perry unless something significant happens). January finishes out with Florida (1/31). Who knows how many will be left standing after Florida. My initial guess is that will be down to three: Mr. Romney, Mr. Paul, and some not-Romney.

The itinerary for the rest of the primaries is as follows:
February 4 (Saturday) - Nevada Caucus
February 4-11 - Maine Caucus
February 7 (Tuesday) - Colorado, Minnesota, Non-binding Missouri Primary
February 28 (Tuesday) - Arizona, Michigan
March 3 (Saturday) - Washington
March 6 (Super Tuesday) - Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming
March 10 (Saturday) - Kansas
March 13 (Tuesday) - Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi
March 17 (Saturday) - Missouri Caucus
March 20 (Tuesday) - Illinois
March 24 (Saturday) - Louisiana
April 3 (Tuesday) - Maryland, Washington DC, Wisconsin
April 24 (Tuesday) - Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island
May 8 (Tuesday) - Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia
May 15 (Tuesday) - Nebraska, Oregon
May 22 (Tuesday) - Arkansas, Kentucky
June 5 (Tuesday) - California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota
June 26 (Tuesday) - Utah

Things will continue to look up for Mr. Romney through February. He will probably win Nevada, Maine, and Michigan. Minnesota also will probably turn for Mr. Romney although it may be closer there. Colorado could just be odd and go for Mr. Paul so who knows there. Arizona I don't have a clue yet.

My gut feeling at this moment is that the not-Romney forces will eventually consolidate around Santorum. I think Mr. Perry will fall out after South Carolina and Newt is now solely committed to running a seek and destroy mission against Mr. Romney. It may damage Mr. Romney but it will probably drive away Newt's support as well. With few options, they either rally behind Mr. Romney despite Newt's attacks or they rally behind Mr. Santorum as the last option. That's just my gut feeling. We'll see how long all this lasts.

Politics Today

I don't think a better song has every been written to describe politics:

New Hampshire Predictions

Tomorrow is the first primary in New Hampshire. In many ways, it'll be a snoozer. Mitt Romney has been polling way ahead of all the other candidates for months and the only questions is how much he'll win by. Generally the thought is that if he wins less than 40% of the vote, it'll be a disappointment for him.

The networks will probably declare Mr. Romney the winner as soon as the polls close and then go into an overly animated discussion about who will win second place. Uncle Ron is currently holding that position as he's been pretty stable in the high teens (even flirting with 20% in one poll). Jon Huntsman has been surging lately as his total commitment to New Hampshire starts to pay off. He has an outside chance to overtake Uncle Ron and claim the #2 spot for himself. If he fails, he may not last much longer. Mr. Huntsman has ignored South Carolina and he had hoped to turn a strong showing in New Hampshire into a chance to keep enough money flowing in to compete in Florida. However, if he finishes in third (or worse), he will probably see his money dry up just as Ms. Bachmann's did.

Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum are fighting it out for fourth place. This actually matters to some degree. If Mr. Santorum beats out Newt by any significant margin, it will solidify his position as the "conservative option". He would then probably start to peel more of Newt's supporters away in South Carolina and maybe even a couple of the Perry diehards (Mr. Perry is pulling 1% in New Hampshire and only 5% in South Carolina). Conversely, if Newt finishes ahead of Mr. Santorum, it could feed into the impression that Mr. Santorum lucked into his Iowa tie and his supporters will bleed back to Mr. Gingrich.

The one thing that is the real take away in all of this is that if any one candidate (outside of Ron Paul) can keep some money flowing in, there will a consistent drum beat of challenging Mr. Romney through the cycle. That candidate may suffer for it, but the primary voters appear to still not like Mr. Romney very much (even if they don't like anyone else either) and will keep at least one person around as long as that person is willing to stay around.

NFL First Round Predictions

Tomorrow kicks off the first round of the football playoffs. Some games will probably be stinkers while others are pretty good. Here's my own take.

Cincinnati Bengals at Houston Texans - I'm very torn here. The Bengals have been over performing all season in my opinion and taking advantage of some very good luck for them (and bad luck for the other teams). They are in the same position they were back in Week 14, only this time the game is at Houston. The Bengals should have won the Week 14 contest (which would have made all the Week 17 tension moot) but allowed Houston to come back and win (the Texans didn't win again after that). Houston's running game will give the Bengals fits but I'm going to give the Bengals one more chance and say they edge Houston just because of how badly the Texans limped into play-offs and because Yates will make some mistakes.

Detroit Lions at New Orleans Saints - This game could set records for scoring. What started out as a decent defense has completely dissolved for the Lions. Fortunately for them, their offense has managed to compensate. But no one but the Green Bay Packers (and maybe the New England Patriots) can keep pace with the Saints in terms of scoring. I favor New Orleans in a total shootout that will bury any knowledge of of the New Hampshire Republican debate going on at the same time.

Atlanta Falcons at NY Giants - Both of these teams have had real up and downs this year. Atlanta started bad but has been on a good streak lately. The Giants meanwhile can't decide week to week whether they are going to come and play or not. If the good Giants show up, they can keep pace with the Falcons and use the home field cold to beat them. But if the bad Giants show up, the Falcons will win in a laugher. I think the Giants will forget to show up until the second half and the Falcons will hold on and win the game.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Denver Broncos - I would love to think that there is some way that Denver will win this game. I loathe the Steelers and they've got enough injuries that they are vulnerable. But Denver's defense has gone away and after 9 weeks, teams have finally figured out how to slow down Tim Tebow. I think the game is close as the Steelers won't score many points, but I think their defense shuts down even a whiff of offense from the Broncos and win a close one.

Real Unemployment

Back in December, I ranted about the tricks the Bureau of Labor Statistics used to show a huge drop in unemployment. Today's drop wasn't as big and it was accompanied by some good news (addition of 200,000 jobs) but it got me wondering enough to put together a true apples to apples comparison.

The economy began to go south in 2008 and about September or October (remember McCain's campaign suspension) is when the tipping point began. The labor participation rate had been holding at about 66% for the better part of two years. Starting in October 2008, the unemployment rate began to jack up significantly and the labor participation rate also began to go down. I decided to chart what the U3 unemployment rate would be if the labor participation rate was held constant (no magicking of jobs away because people stopped looking). I also started in January 2009 just so I could keep it simple over a solid three years. The labor participation rate in January 2009 was 65.7% (with a U3 unemployment rate of 7.8) and that was my baseline. At the moment it's 64.0% (but with a U3 unemployment rate of 8.5), which represents a base loss of about 2.5 million jobs.



Holding everything equal, unemployment should be at 10.9%. Now, some flux is to be expected with people retiring or choosing to leave the workforce for other reasons. However, much of that should be offset by new workers coming in so keeping a labor participation rate constant or close to constant is not unreasonable.

This is why I hate statistics and the inferences people choose to pull from them.

Romney Wins Iowa (Technically)

Mitt Romney has won the Iowa Caucuses by 8 votes over Rick Santorum, giving them each 25% of the vote. Crazy Uncle Ron finished 4 points back at 21%. Newt came in fourth with 13% and Rick Perry notched fifth at 10% (although Perry won two counties in the southwest section of the state). Michele Bachmann flamed out at 5% while Jon Huntsman (who skipped campaigning in the state) notched 1%.


The first big questions come from those who did not do so well. Michele Bachmann has stated that she will push on despite her very poor showing. She can say that, but her money will completely dry up now. She is certainly free to leave her name on the ballots but she is now effectively done.

Rick Perry has announced that he will be reevaluating things down in Texas. He has been unable to climb above 10% in the polls of either South Carolina or Florida and while he has a reasonable amount of money left, his funds may start to dry up as well.

The big question is how fast the not-Romney forces consolidate. Mr. Romney has done quite well to maintain his steady 25%, but he has never had any real fluctuations above that. He carries an air of inevitability but one that carries a stink of dislike. There will be a strong push to cast off some of the lesser candidates and to get those votes to unite into a single not-Romney candidate. Whether that is Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich remains to be seen.

As an aside, I'm not completely dismissing Ron Paul, who obviously has passionate supporters. But he also has some of the highest negatives of any candidate. Also, if you look at the breakdown of those who voted for him, they were mostly independent and very young. Quite a number of these folks will be both unable and unwilling to vote in later primaries so it is likely that Mr. Paul's vote percentage will steadily decline as the contest continues. In states with a closed primary (such as Ohio) I would suspect that Mr. Paul will fare rather poorly.

Now it's on to New Hampshire. That Mr. Romney is going to win is a given. The question is by how much. With expectations running this high, anything less than 40% will probably be seen as a disappointment. Mr. Huntsman will do well as he has been glad handling the New Hampshire folks almost as much as Mr. Santorum was the Iowans. Probably the real question is who challenges Ron Paul for third place.

*UPDATE*

And what I predicted on Sept. 13 has now come to pass.

We're now down to six, with it possibly being five by the end of the week.

Minor Political Events

About 50% of the precincts in and Santorum leads Romney by about 300 votes. Each is getting about 24% of the total.

Meanwhile, bad news for Obama. I'm not sure what this Mexican warlock's track record is from 2008.

Blue Shell

Via TeeFury.

These moments suck:

New Congressional Districts

So last week when I wasn't paying attention, Ohio agreed to the original Congressional District map proposed by Republicans with just a few minor tweaks. This keeps me in Chabot's district 1 come next election cycle. *Blech*



At least we are now going back to Super Tuesday (March 6) for the Presidential Primary vote. Maybe my vote will still count.

Jib Jab 2011 Recap

Not quite as good as past years, but still funny.

Tenth Doctor Theme

I am not a true Whovian in the classical sense. I have more of a general awareness and mild enjoyment, although that is tied predominantly to the classical Fourth Doctor episodes.

Still, I heartily enjoy the reissue of the Dr. Who theme done in 2005 for the revival of the series under the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant or Barty Crouch Jr. to Potterphiles).



You might also enjoy this evolution of the theme though the lifespan of the eleven doctors.

Fantasy Football What-ifs

I've been doing fantasy football (Potbellied Pigs) for three years now and this was my best season yet. I finished 2nd in my division at 8-6 and missed out on the playoffs literally by 2 points. The fellow who ended up getting the wild card berth (Flashes of Glory) had the same record as me and the first tiebreaker in our league is total points scored over the course of the season. He finished the season with 1433 and I finished with 1431. Even more galling is that if I had played Doug Baldwin of Seattle against the Rams instead of Johnny Knox of Chicago against the Broncos (week 14), I would have finished with more points and made the playoffs.

As the wild card winner, I would have played the number one seed (Bungles4Life). As it turns out, he ended up having a horrible fantasy weekend and I would have won (although not by much as my team also did pretty badly). The other match up is not set as one person (Bus Drivers) has two players going tonight. Those two will almost certainly put him over the top and making our fantasy football final Flashes of Glory vs. Bus Drivers.

I hope Flashes wins but I shall remain rueful about what might have happened had I played one person differently.

Dictator Death March

Word leaked out late last night that Kim Jong-in of North Korea died of "fatigue" yesterday. Kim had been sickly for the past couple of years so his death is not a huge surprise.

What is a bit odd is how many of the world strongmen have gone down or are preparing to go down. This past year we've lost Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen. In the very near future Hugo Chavez of Venezuela will probably die of cancer and Bashar al-Assad of Syria will decide whether to flee or commit self-immolation with his entire nation as the pyre. This also does not take into account the likelihood that Father Time will remove both the Castro boys of Cuba and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in the near future.

Of course, new dictators will rise up to take the place of the old, but it still feels just a little odd that so many of the well-known scoundrels of history are going down in such a short time.

Hopefully things go well in North Korea. There has been a fear that Kim Jong-il's designated successor, Kim Jong-un, will not be strong enough to reign in his generals and that he will be deposed. If that happens, open warfare may break out as the generals jockey for position and that in turn could spill out into South Korea. That might potentially draw in the US and the Chinese as well. We shall see and hope that things don't get out of hand too quickly.

Driving Distance Puzzler

This is another puzzler stolen from Car Talk (which I've been listening to on Podcast now):

A man and his wife decided to go to a bed and breakfast over the weekend. They got into the car and the wife drove for 40 miles. They then pulled over at a rest stop and the husband drove for the rest of the way to the B&B. On the drive back home, the husband drove for 50 miles and then asked his wife to drive the rest of the way home.

The question is, how many more miles did the husband drive than the wife over the course of the whole trip? (You do not need to know the total distance driven to solve this problem)

(highlight to see answer below):

A: 20 miles.

Set the total trip distance to any number and solve. The difference will always be 20 miles. Thus, if d=50, then the husband drove 60 miles while the wife drove 40 miles. If d=100, then the husband drove 110 miles while the wife drove 90 miles.

TV Political Affiliation

According to Entertainment Weekly, I have a weird straddling of viewing habits between Liberal and Conservative.

I enjoy the "liberal comedies" of Parks and Recreation, Glee, and Modern Family (although to be fair, Glee's writing is getting annoying. I just like the songs). Yet I also enjoy the "conservative work shows" of Mythbusters and Deadliest Catch.

I was disappointed to see that no food competition shows (Chopped, Iron Chef) were ranked as either Republican or Democrat. I guess those are equally enjoyed.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

If you want to know why the unemployment rate is one of the worst indicators of the health of the economy, here is proof.

The government just released the numbers for November and a total of 120,000 jobs were created. That sounds good except that just to keep pace with population growth our economy needs to create 90,000 jobs a month.

Despite this tepid number, the unemployment rate dropped 0.4 to 8.6%. To accomplish this little trick, the government reduced the labor participation rate by 0.2 from 64.2% to 64.0% This effectively means that they said that .2% of the population was no longer looking for work (or put on permanent unemployment). That's a magical reduction of nearly 300,000 people from the workforce in one month.

Of course, all people will hear is that unemployment is now in the 8% range and that we've turned the economic corner. B******. Just five years ago (Dec. 2006), the labor participation rate was 66.4. In five years that a loss of over 3.3 million jobs before you even get to the change in unemployment rate.

Something stinks over the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Or maybe they're just living up to the old adage about statistics.

BCS Mess

Having looked at the pro playoffs last time, let's look at the BCS Bowl bids.

Assuming LSU beats Georgia in the SEC Championship game, the National Title game will be a rematch of LSU and Alabama (in the Superdome no less). Not great, but no one else has established themselves to supplant Alabama. Oklahoma St. came close and if they beat Oklahoma at Oklahoma thus winning the Big 12 Championship, there is an outside chance they could get voted in over Alabama. But I'm not confident that Oklahoma St. will beat Oklahoma so it may be moot.

The Rose Bowl will be Big 10 vs. Pac 12 as normal. In the Big 10 we have a rematch of the great Wisconsin-Michigan St. game from earlier in the year. I would favor Wisconsin but they have shown a tendency to choke in big game situations. The Pac 12 championship game will be Oregon vs. UCLA. Oregon goes because they beat Stanford head-to-head and UCLA goes because USC is still banned from bowl games. I fully expect Oregon to slap UCLA silly.

The Big East was won by Louisville this year and they might get picked up by the Orange Bowl. The Orange Bowl ACC berth will go to the winner of Virginia Tech and Clemson. I would give a slight nod to Virginia Tech but this is a pretty even match-up.

As the Big 12 only has ten members now, the Big 12 championship game has been discontinued. But because of the way the season has played out, Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma St. is a de-facto championship game. If Oklahoma St. wins, they win the conference outright. If Oklahoma wins they win the tiebreakers with Oklahoma St. and Kansas St. due to victories in head-to-head match-ups. Whomever wins, they get the automatic bid to the Fiesta Bowl.

That leaves the at-large bids. With Alabama presumably going to the National Championship game, the SEC is excluded from sending any more schools to the BCS bowls. Should Oklahoma St. somehow get in over Alabama, Alabama would take LSU's Sugar Bowl berth. If Georgia knocks off LSU, all hell will break loose as the computers could conceivably put Alabama and Stanford in the National Title game (neither school having won their conference).

But aside from the doomsday scenario, I suspect the at-large bids will go to Stanford, Houston (assuming they defeat Southern Mississippi in the Conference USA title game) and Boise St. Arkansas and USC would be more deserving but USC is under sanction and Arkansas is excluded due to Alabama getting in.

The Sugar Bowl would probably take Stanford to fill the LSU hole and may try to match them against Houston to get a local flavor (many New Orleans residents fled to Houston after Hurricane Katrina) as well as a game that could push 120 combined total points. The Fiesta Bowl would probably be quite happy with Boise St to face off against whichever Oklahoma team wins the Big 12. That would leave the Orange Bowl as ACC vs. Big East.

I'm not 100% sure about the selection order, but these would make the most sense to me as far as selections go. But we shall have to see how the various games go to see what truly happens. Certainly Georgia would love to throw everything into a phenomenal state of chaos by winning the SEC and knocking LSU from the Number 1 spot.

Early Playoff Speculation

Now that Week 12 is just about over, we can start to speculate about the playoffs.

Starting with the AFC, things are starting to look pretty solid on several fronts. New England will probably win the AFC East. Baltimore has the tiebreaker against Pittsburgh but they really need another game to make themselves comfortable as winners of the AFC North.

Houston has a two game lead over Tennessee for the AFC South and has won their first game against Tennessee. Houston has lost both their starting and backup quarterbacks so their two game lead over Tennessee is not solid. They play Tennessee in the last game of the regular season. It is not impossible that that could end up being a game for all the marbles. Houston could actually be a game behind Tennessee going into that game and if they win, the tie-breaker would go to Houston.

In the West, Oakland has a one game lead over Denver. Oakland and Denver split the season series so that race will remain tight. Looking ahead, Denver has a very real shot of going 3-2 at worst and may go for more. Oakland has a slightly tougher schedule with games against Green Bay and Detroit still on the horizon. This division also could come down to the wire.

Pittsburgh, as they are nipping on Baltimore's heels is looking strong for that first wild card spot. Should they overtake Baltimore in the division, Baltimore would probably supplant them at the #5 seed so there is little excitement there. Cincinnati currently has exclusive rights to the second wild card, but the NY Jets, Tennessee Titans, and Denver Broncos are all one game back. Cincinnati has the tiebreaker over Tennessee and a better conference record than the Jets. Denver has the tiebreaker over Cincinnati. If the Bengals could go 3-1 over their next four games (Pittsburgh, Houston, Arizona, St. Louis), they would be in good shape, even if Denver and the Jets stay on their current strong streaks. Still, it might be to the Bengals advantage to have Denver overtake Oakland for the AFC West crown as the Bengals would be better off matching conference records against Oakland than the guaranteed tiebreaker loss to Denver.

Seeding is up in the air. Houston currently has the #1 seed but that's not going to hold up over the next several weeks. Likely, it will be New England and the AFC North winner (Baltimore currently) that will get the first round byes. I think Houston will hold on to the #3 unless they completely free fall. This gives the #4 to Oakland/Denver. If Oakland held on to win the division and faced Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs, that would pose a very interesting match-up as it would call up the shades of when Carson Palmer tore his ACL in the 2005-6 playoffs against Pittsburgh.

On the NFC side, things are also a bit murky in the lower reaches. Green Bay is very close to wrapping up the NFC North crown and will probably wrap up the #1 seed by Week 15. San Francisco will win the NFC West next week if they beat St. Louis, regardless of what anyone else does. This puts them is a solid slot for the #2 seed.

New Orleans currently holds the NFC South lead and the #3 spot. Atlanta is right behind them though and could move into a tie for the lead if New Orleans loses to the NY Giants tonight. New Orleans won the first match-up with Atlanta and they face each other again in Week 16. New Orleans also has a better divisional record which gives them an additional inside track against Atlanta.

Should New Orleans fall, they will lose the #3 seed to Dallas who currently sits atop the NFC East. Of course, a New Orleans loss means that the NY Giants will vault into a tie with the Cowboys at 7-4. Dallas and New York have not played each other yet this year. Dallas has a better divisional record, but the contests of Weeks 14 and 17 will likely decide who wins that division.

Chicago, Detroit and Atlanta are all tied at 7-4 and looking for those two wild card spots. If New York wins tonight, that'll introduce a 4th team fighting for the two spots. Currently the Bears have the #5 seed by virtue of a better conference record and a head-to-head win against Atlanta. Atlanta beats out Detroit due to their head-to-head win against the Lions for the #6 spot. However, I would not put much stock in these standings. Detroit is a gritty team with at least three winnable games on their schedule (Minnesota, Oakland, San Diego). They also play Green Bay in the last game of the season and Green Bay may be resting people giving Detroit a real chance of getting 11 wins this season. Chicago has lost their starting quarterback but a softer schedule (Kansas City, Seattle, Minnesota) gives them a good shot at 10+ wins.

At least one team from the NFC North will make the playoffs and possibly two depending on how Atlanta plays out. The Giants and Cowboys could enter into the picture as well, but I think it is likely that they will beat each other up too much to sneak a wild card spot from a 10+ win Chicago, Detroit, or Atlanta.

Much will probably change in the next couple of weeks, but this is where we stand now.

Easter Island Excavations

I stumbled across this website earlier today. It documents the expeditions to explore and excavate the Moai statues on Easter Island.

One of the most fascinating things is that contrary to popular opinion, the heads on Easter Island are more than just heads. When excavated, the rest of the statue is revealed. Instead of just being an uncarved or wedge shaped piece of stone to anchor the heads, they are revealed to be fully carved statues with significant detail that has been hidden from the elements. The largest one so far discovered would have stood at over 38 ft in height. It's very cool stuff.

Weight Loss

I first entered our company weight loss competition on Sept. 24, 2010. That time it was unofficially as I didn't want to pay into the pool. Still, I decided to chart my progress and see if I could really lose anything. Today (Nov. 18, 2011) I just finished our third weight loss competition (I actually paid the $20 entry fee into the pool on both the second and third competitions).

On Sept. 24, 2010 I clocked in at 264.4 lbs
On Nov. 18, 2011 I clocked in at 215.0 lbs

Feels pretty good.

Solving Thursday Night Football Problems

I occasionally ready Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column. Last week, one of his readers e-mailed him a suggestion when King wrote about the problems with Thursday Night Football. The problem is that teams have to cram a week's worth of preparation into three days. This gets further exacerbated when you have late games and travel. For example, the New York Jets played the Sunday night game this past weekend. It was after midnight when the players got home. Then they had to cram a week's preparation into three days, then hop on a plane and fly out to Denver to play tonight. That doesn't seem like a fair situation.

The solution that this reader e-mailed Peter King was a setup where all 32 teams in the NFL played one Thursday game and that to prepare, they not play the Sunday before. This would have two additional advantages in that it would get rid of bye weeks as we have them now and it would guarantee every team at least one prime time game. I would think the NFL network would like it in that it would mean extending Thursday night games to nearly the entire season.

My own spin on it would work like this. There are 32 teams in the NFL. To give each one a unique match up on Thursday would mean 16 games. However, Detroit and Dallas already play on Thanksgiving, in addition to the normally scheduled Thursday night game (this year it's SF vs. Baltimore). This now gives you 13 games to fit into 16 weeks. My thought is to have all 32 teams play for the first three weeks, give four teams week 4 off and then open Thursday Night Football with a double header much like Monday Night Football does now. The remaining 15 weeks would then be filled in with a single game and the two teams taking part in that game taking the week before off.

An example using match ups from this season (and including all scheduled Thursday Night games) might look as follows:

Week 5 - Minnesota at Carolina, Arizona at St. Louis
Week 6 - New Orleans at Tampa Bay
Week 7 - Kansas City at Chicago
Week 8 - Washington at NY Giants
Week 9 - Cincinnati at Tennessee
Week 10 - Oakland at San Diego
Week 11 - NY Jets at Denver
Week 12 - Green Bay at Detroit, Miami at Dallas, San Francisco at Baltimore
Week 13 - Philadelphia at Seattle
Week 14 - Cleveland at Pittsburgh
Week 15 - Jacksonville at Atlanta
Week 16 - Houston at Indianapolis
Week 17 - Buffalo at New England

This will probably never happen, but it fun to think about.

Evil Community Lives

With the recent announcement that Community may be headed to the trash bin of television history, I would like to remind everyone that Evil Community will live on no matter what the Networks decide. Eventually, they will overcome the Prime Timeline.

Beatles Guessing Game

Teefury put out a shirt yesterday referencing a number of the Beatles songs. I can get most of them, but there are a few that I don't know. Perhaps someone else can do better than me:

Ron Swanson's Pyramid of Greatness

Capitalism: God's way of determining who is smart and who is poor.
Intensity: Give 100%. 110% is impossible. Only idiots recommend that.
Attire: Shorts over 6" are capri pants. Shorts under 6" are European.


Also, Ron Swanson for Governor of Indiana.

Election Day - 2011

Today is the off-year election. Nothing too big going on (at least from a national point of view) but there are a number of things on the ballot today. On the local level, aside from city council and school board, there are three levies (the biggest of which is the school levy).

But more play will be given to State Issue 2. This is a referendum on the Ohio law to restrict collective bargaining for unions. It's similar to the one Wisconsin passed and had all their trouble over, but the Ohio version is more restrictive, going so far as to essentially eliminate all collective bargaining. Because the law is even more Draconian, independents as well as some Republicans are torn over the law while Democrats are strongly unified against it. As such, Issue 2 will almost certainly be defeated.

I've not read anywhere what the contingency plans are. The general thought was to break the law up and pass various pieces individually that people did like. That would likely remove some of the worst parts of the legislation and start restricting costs without destroying the unions completely (which would garner more independent and some Democratic support).

If anything interesting happens, I'll update later today or tomorrow.

*UPDATE*
Issue 2 did go down 60-40, but Issue 3 (healthcare opt-out) passed nearly 67-33.

All levies passed and all three incumbents were reelected to the school board.

Occupy the Caucus

It would seem that the various Occupy Wall Street groups are trying to coordinate for a major sit-in of both the various Republican candidates offices and Mr. Obama's reelection offices a week before the Caucus on January 3.

The first move will be to try to sit in the offices. Obviously this won't last long and they will probably be evicted quickly by the various local sheriffs. After that, they'll sit outside and try to block doors, harass workers, and create as much nuisance that will get them noticed (without being arrested).

Now my parents live about 15 miles from Iowa (on the Illinois side). I've been over to Iowa many times for various things, especially in December and January. I can tell you that it can get downright miserable outside at this time of year. Cold, biting winds. Sleet and snow. Misery. If they can hang tough and get something done, more power to them. But I wonder if all members who go are going to be prepared for just how miserable Old Man Winter might make this for them.

Nevada Surrenders

After my hype and hysteria, Nevada has surrendered to the whims of the National Republican Committee. Not only did they abandon their originally planned caucus date of January 14, but they actually fully complied with the RNC's request and moved the date behind Florida to Saturday, Feb. 4.

With Nevada out of the way, New Hampshire will almost certainly take January 10 as their primary date, a week after Iowa's locked in date of January 3. As such, the dates should be as follows:

January 3 (Tuesday) - Iowa
January 10 (Tuesday) - New Hampshire
January 21 (Saturday) - South Carolina
January 31 (Tuesday) - Florida
February 4 (Saturday) - Nevada
February 4-11 - Maine Caucus
February 7 (Tuesday) - Colorado, Minnesota, Non-binding Missouri Primary
February 28 (Tuesday) - Arizona, Michigan
March 3 (Saturday) - Washington
March 6 (Tuesday) - Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming
March 10 (Saturday) - Kansas
March 13 (Tuesday) - Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi
March 17 (Saturday) - Missouri Caucus
March 20 (Tuesday) - Illinois
March 24 (Saturday) - Louisiana
April 3 (Tuesday) - Maryland, Washington DC, Wisconsin
April 24 (Tuesday) - Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island
May 8 (Tuesday) - Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia
May 15 (Tuesday) - Nebraska, Oregon
May 22 (Tuesday) - Arkansas, Kentucky
June 5 (Tuesday) - California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota
June 12 (Tuesday) - Ohio
June 26 (Tuesday) - Utah

Ohio Election Games

The primaries are currently scheduled in Ohio for March 6 (Super Tuesday). However, the recent appeal from a petition group that wants to put the 2012 Congressional Districts on the Nov. 2012 ballot has thrown a wrench into things. Since there is a possibility that no one will know what the districts look like for the 2013 Congress, the Ohio legislature is looking to buy itself more time in trying to figure out what to do.

To accomplish this, the Ohio Senate passed a bill yesterday that keeps nearly all the primaries in March. But it moves the Congressional and Presidential primaries to June 12. Why the Presidential primaries? Because of the way Ohio allocates delegates to the Republican Party convention, which rely on Congressional District vote totals to apportion the delegates from each district.

This bill still has to pass the House and then be signed by the Governor. However, with the likelihood of the Congressional Districts being unresolved in the next few weeks, postponement is a very likely possibility. For the Democrats this is no big deal as there is only one person on their ballot. But for the Republicans, this is rather annoying as it is highly likely that the contest will be decided by June. In March there would have still been some uncertainty as the race will probably have started to reduce itself to a Romney vs. not-Romney contest (with Mr. Cain and Mr. Perry being the strongest vyers for this role at the moment). But, such is life.

Once the dust is settled here and between New Hampshire and Nevada (Iowa has now locked fully in to Jan. 3 as their caucus date), I'll repost the dates so we can get a bead on when we can start to figure who will be challenging Mr. Obama next year.

One final note, it is looking as though Nevada may back down and reschedule their caucus for Tuesday Jan. 17. That would give enough space between contests that New Hampshire would then insert itself into the Jan. 10 spot. This has not been officially confirmed yet though.

Palmer to Oakland

Carson Palmer has been traded to the Oakland Raiders. In return the Bengals will get the Raiders first round pick of the 2012 draft and the Raiders second round pick of 2013. If the Raiders make the playoffs and win a game before the 2013 draft, the second round pick will be upgraded to a first round pick.

This is probably the best deal for Palmer where he will be able to jump in immediately and the coach of the Oakland Raiders, Hue Jackson, was a coach of Palmer's at USC and the Wide Receivers coach for the Bengals. Even better, it makes Mike Brown eat his words. Now, we just have to see what the Bengals do with these two picks.

Volcano in the Canaries

The El Hierro volcano is currently erupting about a half mile below the ocean's surface. El Hierro is the smallest and Westernmost of the Canary Islands and has been experiencing massive earthquake swarms since July.

Yesterday there was a 4.3 earthquake that has opened a fissure in the rock and something is erupting out of it. At the moment, scientists haven't been able to determine if it's lava or gas.

The primary danger is to the residents themselves. However, there is a secondary danger. If the eruption continues and becomes large scale, it could cause a partial collapse of the island. If this were to happen, the resultant impact could generate a tsunami that would impact the East Coast of North America (potentially significantly in places like Virginia and Florida).

We'll see if anything happens.

Just About Set

Things are just about ready to go for the Republican Primaries. With the announcements of Mr. Christie and Mrs. Palin that they are not running, the field of candidates looks to be locked in to what we have. Mr. Romney and Mr. Perry will be considered the favorites and awarded frontrunner status by The Powers That Be. Mr. Cain will probably be set in tier 1A, close to the front but not quite of their caliber. Everyone else will be considered to be behind those three unless they make a big splash in the earlier primaries.

Speaking of the primaries, the calendar is almost set as well. Nevada announced yesterday that they have set their caucus for January 14. That puts a full week between them and South Carolina (January 21) with another 10 days before the Florida primary January 31).

The only remaining states are New Hampshire and Iowa. The main problem is that New Hampshire actually has a law on their books specifying that their primary must be held at least a week before the next primary or caucus (Nevada). This now means that to comply with New Hampshire law, the primary date must either be set on Saturday (January 7) or the next available Tuesday (January 3).

If New Hampshire opts for January 7, Iowa would probably take January 2 or 3, keeping everything in 2012 (barely). However, if New Hampshire opts for January 3, Iowa will vault itself into 2011 with the caucuses being held sometime in the week after Christmas. Christmas is on a Sunday this year so I wouldn't be surprised to see December 27 (Tuesday) being looked at as the target date.

For ease of reference, I've put together a map with the various states and what month their primaries and caucuses are. I didn't bother creating a new color for Iowa, assuming they fall in December. Most of the March contests (including Ohio) are being held on the 6th which is Super Tuesday.


The official dates for the 48 set sates (Republican contests only) are:
January 14 (Saturday) - Nevada
January 21 (Saturday) - South Carolina
January 31 (Tuesday) - Florida
February 4-11 - Maine Caucus
February 7 (Tuesday) - Colorado, Minnesota
February 28 (Tuesday) - Arizona, Michigan
March 3 (Saturday) - Washington
March 6 (Tuesday) - Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming
March 10 (Saturday) - Kansas
March 13 (Tuesday) - Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi
March 17 (Saturday) - Missouri
March 20 (Tuesday) - Illinois
March 24 (Saturday) - Louisiana
April 3 (Tuesday) - Maryland, Washington DC, Wisconsin
April 24 (Tuesday) - Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island
May 8 (Tuesday) - Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia
May 15 (Tuesday) - Nebraska, Oregon
May 22 (Tuesday) - Arkansas, Kentucky
June 5 (Tuesday) - California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota
June 26 (Tuesday) - Utah