The US Elections: And Pigs Will Fly

On March 26th, Bob Cesca at the Huffington Post posted a video he'd assembled to the tune of Roger Waters's "The Tide Is Turning".

This was right after Obama's extraordinary race speech in Pennsylvania, and there was, amongst Obama-ists and general optimists alike, a sense that the cynical, subversive policies of Politics had been averted.

Cesca wrote:

I have no idea who Roger Waters is supporting in this thing (and I hasten to note that this video was created without his permission), but when I heard Senator Obama's historic Philadelphia address last week, this song, "The Tide Is Turning," from Waters' underrated 1987 album Radio KAOS kept running on a loop in my head.

Cynicism averted? No so. Indeed, less than a month later, after the state of Pennsylvania had held its primary, it was the triumphant old guard - Clinton - who went on stage to claim the self same slogan. Unlike Cesca, Clinton presumably had never heard of Roger Waters. And even if she had, she certainly wasn't aware of the bitter-sweet song Cesca refers to.

No matter, though. Neither were the Pennsylvanians. And neither is, it seems, America.

But a few days later, April 27th - last sunday - Roger Waters gave the closing concert at the Coachella music festival in California. And he brought a huge inflatable pig with him. And guess what? The pig had "Obama" written on its belly. So Cesca had it right, even if he didn't dare say so out right at the time.

But here's the thing:

As Waters drew the song to a close, flame bursts exploded on the sides of the stage and the swine floated into the night sky. Waters said sadly and comically, "That's my pig."

Ah, yes, Obama. Floating away into the night sky. There's our pig, going, going - gone.

Although, of course, there is a reward. It seems that if you manage to salvage the whole thing - and get the pig back - $ 10,000 will be yours.

Well, that has to be a worthy cause, right?

The US Elections: Indiana or Bust!

Here's a fact no-one will bother mentioning: Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary by 9%.

Prior to the results, just about all the pundits were pointing out that she needed a double-digit victory in the Keystone State. It was 10% or more - or bust.

She almost managed the 10% minimum, but not quite. By current calculations, she got 1,260,208 votes. Obama got 1,045,444 votes. In other words, she beat Obama by a margin of 9.3%. Rounded, that's 9% - and not 10%, as every media source in the world is exuberantly reporting today.

Does that matter? No, not really, but it's a interesting little example of how the media push a message which makes little sense, even to themselves.

In any case, it's on to Indiana. For what it's worth, I've considered this the truly key state for a little while now. And since perceptions tend to change - and change strangely - over time, I'm laying the down the current state of affairs in that state, as far as we know them.

Clinton's ahead in the polls. In the current RCP average, she's beating Obama by 2.2%. Pollster has her in the lead by 6%.

In other words, Clinton should win, certainly given the state's demographics (roughly similar to Ohio or Pennsylvania) and certainly given the boost her campaign will inevitably get from the Pennsylvania result.

But let's see what happens. If Obama has sufficient appeal with Democrats to be a viable candidate in the general election, he will overcome his current deficit, thereby convincingly cementing his advantage over Clinton in terms of pledged delegates and waylaying Clinton's popular vote arguments. If, on the other hand, Clinton has any real momentum, she should be able to maintain and indeed augment her present lead, and we will once more have a real battle unfolding.

If, come May 6th, the Indiana results simply reflect the current situation (a marginal Clinton win by 2 to 6%), I think it's fair to say the Democrats have a very real problem.

__________

Edit I (April 25th): today, CNN's "poll of polls" has both candidates at 45%, with 10% unsure.

Edit II (April 28th): today, the RCP average too shows a tie, with both Obama and Clinton at 45.5%. The most recent poll to be included in the average, though - from Survey USA - shows a lead for Clinton 0f no less than 9%.

Edit III (April 30th): today, the RCP average is at + 2.2% for Clinton.

Edit IV (May 4th): RCP puts Clinton ahead by 5.8%.

The US Elections: Predicting Pennsylvania

Later today, ABC News will be broadcasting the Clinton/Obama debate in Philadelphia. It'll be interesting to see how well - or indeed, how poorly - Obama does. He's certainly gotten better at these debates as the campaign moved on; on the other hand, there is sure to be some emphasis on the recent "Bittergate" controversy.

Meanwhile, though, predictions are always fun to read, especially if they're specific and clearly well thought-out.

Predictions of the outcome of the Pennsylvania primary have been made in the past months. Here's an example from Real Clear Politics, written by Jay Cost. However, these have tended to be a bit unspecific. The RCP article doesn't, for instance, actually state a likely outcome when it comes to the one thing that matters above all else: the delegate tally.

Two other articles, on the other hand, provide just such a tally, based on a district by district breakdown of the state. The first is from CQ Politics. The second can be found over at Daily Kos.

To understand all the numbers, you have to first understand that Pennsylvania's pool of delegates amounts to a grand total of 187. However, that includes 29 superdelegates, who aren't going to be subject to the vote at all. That leaves 158 delegates that are actually going to be up for grabs during the primary.

Of these, 55 will be allocated on the basis of the statewide popular vote. If, for example, Clinton wins by 55% to 45% (the same margin of victory she had in Ohio), these 55 delegates will be split up as follows: 30 to Clinton, 25 to Obama.

The remaining 103 delegates will be allocated on the basis of the outcome of the vote on a district by district basis. There are 19 congressional districts in total. Each district has a certain number of delegates, the "largest" district (the 2nd) having 9 delegates and the "smallest" (the 9th) having three. 6 districts have 5 delegates to allocate; 5 districts have 4 delegates. (Strange, there almost seems to be a patern of numerical reflections here...)

Given the peculiarities of the district system, the outcome per district will either substantially augment the victor's win or substantially decrease it. The winner of the popular vote in a district with an uneven number of delegates will generally walk away with a relatively high number of pledged delegates; the loser, on the other hand, benefits when the number of delegates is even. If one candidate were to win the popular vote by, say 5%, in a district with 5 delegates, he or she would get 3 delegates, leaving 2 for the opposing candidate. The 5% margin in the popular vote, in other words, translates into a 20% margin in the delegate tally. Conversely, if that district had only 4 delegates on offer, those delegates would be split evenly. In fact, if the popular vote margin went up to, say, 20% the delegates would still be split down the middle (if there were only 4 of them to begin with).

The consequence of this system is that, when it come to the district delegates, it makes very little sense to campaign hard in a district with 4 delegates if your chances of sweeping it aren't very high; on the other hand, getting that slight edge in a 5-delegate district could be well be worth your while. The campaigns, therefore, are waging an on-the-ground war aimed at key districts; the statewide polls of the popular vote are meaningful, but not necessarily as decisive as many people think.

Now back to the two predictions. In both cases, the outcome is not really good news for Clinton. In the CQ projection, the 103 district delegates will be split as follows: 53 will go to Clinton and 50 to Obama. That's a Clinton victory of just 3 delegates. Unfortunately, CQ doesn't say anything about the expected outcome of the popular vote, so it remains unclear how they think the other 55 delegates would be allocated. Assuming, though, that Clinton "wins" Pennsyslvania as a whole by 10%, that would mean her net gain in the state would amount to (5 + 3 =) 8 delegates.

Over at Daily Kos, a statewide Clinton win of 9% is assumed, with Clinton gaining a net advantage in the district war of 5 delegates. That would put her total gain in the state at (5 + 5 =) 10 delegates.

The predictions are, therefore, effectively the same. Interestingly enough, Clinton won Ohio by 9 delegates. So Jay Cost at RCP, who wasn't explicit when it came to delegate numbers but who did say that Pennsylvania might well go the way of Ohio, may be even more correct than he imagined.

Oh, and to put it all into some perspective: Obama currently leads Clinton in the pledged delegate tally some 164 delegates. Let's say that does, indeed, decrease to 154 or thereabouts.

After six weeks, some bowling, a few shots of whiskey and all the rest, that's not really much to talk about, is it? More than anything else, I feel this proves the silliness of the entire "Bittergate" thing. Which is why I'll not say more about it.

The US Elections: The Popular Vote Myth

Things seem relatively quiet today on the Democratic front. As a result, a little news snippet that otherwise might have only have led to a comment or two in passing has been given some attention, if still not enough.

It's the assertion by two stalwart Clinton supporters, John Murtha and Jon Corzine, that Clinton needs to win the popular vote to have any real chance of winning the nomination.

Now the relevance of this seems obvious enough. Clinton can't realistically hope to overtake Obama in terms of the pledged delegate count. To stay alive and have a shot at convincing the superdelegates to back her, she needs to be able to argue that the voters, overall, prefer her to Obama.

And if that argument could be made truthfully, it might be persuavive (although not in itself conclusive). After all, quite a few Democrats are still smarting from the fact that Bush bested Gore in 2000, in spite of the fact that Gore led the popular vote by about 500,000. What could be worse than that the Democrats, after having to accept that grievous injustice, were then to turn around and inflict it upon themselves?

You can see how this could be a seen as a strong argument. It is, however, fundamentally flawed for a number of reasons.

The first flaw is as blatantly obvious as it is convincing. The Democrats set up their own rules when it comes to choosing their nominee. What they've chosen is a delegate system, not a system based on the popular vote. There's no reason on earth why they couldn't have switched to a popular vote system if they'd wanted to. They didn't. They chose for a system whereby the delegate count was the determining factor.

The second flaw, though, is the one that I find more interesting at the moment. It's this: how on earth does one actually determine the popular vote?

In the presidential election, that's easy enough. The count can certainly be hampered by technical issues - which is what happened in Florida in 2000 - but the idea is that everyone gets to vote in basically the same way, all the votes get counted and that it.

Not so in the primary season. For starters, when it comes to the popular vote there's a huge difference between primaries and caucuses. Turnout in caucuses is obviously very much lower than in primaries, so how does one compare the two? It would, perhaps, be possible to set up intricate number crunching models that would allow for some sort of extrapolation of a caucus turnout to a virtual primary. Alternatively, one could just accept the actual numbers. In both cases, however, it's essentially comparing apples and oranges.

Take, for example, State X. It's in the mid-West, and it looks a bit like Colorado. Or perhaps Oklahoma. It's got 5 million inhabitants; it's predominantly a red state, but it might just turn blue in November.

Now say it's a caucus state (like Colorado). Comes the caucus date, 100,000 people show up to vote for their Democratic candidate of choice. 60,000 vote for Obama, 40,000 for Clinton. In the total popular vote tally, that's a net gain of 20,000 for Obama.

But now let's assume X is a primary state (like Oklahoma). Suddenly, the turnout isn't 100,000. It's 400,000. Assuming the same divisions apply, Obama wins the popular vote by 80,000.

That makes for a significant difference in the popular vote tally. But that difference has nothing to do with the candidates or how well they're doing.

Now, the above example assumes that voters vote the same way whether it's a caucus or primary (the only variable being the number of voters). We all know that's not true. Caucus states favour the grass-roots candidate; primary states, by comparison, favour the more establishment candidate (whilst Texas, in an maudlin fit of madness, favours both).

In state X, if Obama would have won by a margin of 20,000 in a caucus, he may well have lost in a primary by, oh, 50,000 or so. And the vote tally would be totally different again.

So it's apples and oranges; oranges and apples. And that's just for starters.

Another thing to consider is that some states don't even release voter numbers. This is true for Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Maine. We simply do not no how many people voted for their candidate of choice in these states. If you think this is amazing, consider that these states are - quite rightly - working on the basis of the assumption that the popular vote isn't the deciding factor. So how to determine the popular vote in those states? You can't; the only option is to guesstimate.

A third issue centers on the debacle of Florida and Michigan. In the popular vote debate, does one count the voters in these states or not? And if so, how? In particular, it would certainly seem weird to include Michigan, where Clinton was the only major Democratic candidate to leave her name on the ballot after the DNC sanctions were levied. By what means could anyone assume the outcome in that state was a fair and balanced representation of the voters' views? Besides, the major non-Clinton vote went to a candidate called "Uncommitted". What is one to do with those votes in a popular vote tally? Any choice made is inevitably a wrong choice.

So, what does all this mean? Well, in the end, it's very simple. Given the Democratic nomination process in general and the specifics of this campaign, there simply is no way to accurately determine a relevant outcome of the popular vote.

As a result, the entire concept of Clinton potentially winning such a vote and thereby having a legitimate shot at the nomination is essentially a myth. With apologies to all those doing their very utmost to prove the opposite, it just can't be done. And that's as it should be: it's not what the Democrats wanted in the first place.

US Elections: Clinton's test

Throughout the primary campaign, Hillary Clinton's major strategy in attempting to prevail over Barack Obama has revolved around creating the perception that she has the experience to lead the country, whilst Obama hasn't.

In the beginning, the Clinton mantra was: "Ready on Day One". More recently, her line of attack has focused on foreign policy and national security concerns, culminating in what must be one of the strangest statements of the campaign so far:

"I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."

Leaving aside the obvious fact that the satement is rather illogical (doesn't everyone alive have, per definition, a lifetime of experience?) and politically very imprudent (any such "lifetime" argument is bound to favour McCain), it is also contradictory with Clinton's flirtatious suggestions that Obama could be her VP running mate. After all, far and away the most important qualification a vice president needs is to be ready and able to take over office at a moment's notice. So how can Obama not have a "lifetime of experience" and not be "Ready on Day One" and still make a good VP?

Rather like Clinton's foreign policy claims, the statement is undoubtedly "a wee bit silly".

Even more silly, however, are the ways in which the Clinton campaign has attempted to explain their reasoning. In order to do this, they have made up what they call "a commander in chief test".

Now obviously no such test exists (although setting it up might actually not be such a bad idea: please tell us, Contestant Number 1, who the next president of Russia will be?). But that doesn't prevent the likes of Howard Wolfson (Clinton's chief spokesman) from using their fabrication in order to explain their position:

Asked about the contradiction of touting Obama as a vice presidential candidate while condemning his ability to lead, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson implied there was still time for Obama to prove himself before the Democratic Party convention in Denver in August.

"We do not believe Senator Obama has passed the commander in chief test," Wolfson said. "But there is a long way to go between now and Denver."

Ah, I see. So whether Obama can or cannnot become VP - or, indeed, president - is dependent upon how well he's going to do in a nonexistent test, the results of which are to be determined by the Clinton campaign?

Hmm. That goes beyond being a wee bit silly. It's disturbingly delusional.

The US Elections: The MaD race

So, Mississippi has come and gone, leaving Obama with yet another big but curiously unappealing victory. Depending upon whose figures you trust most, he won by about 60% or 61% to Clinton's 38% or 37%. In the pledged delegate count, he notched up 17 of the blighters, as compared to Clinton's 11.

More or less simultaneously, we finally got some projections from the Texas caucus. CNN is predicting that Obama's lead there will translate to 38 delegates, as opposed to Clinton's 29. If you set this off against the primary in that state (which Clinton narrowly won) you end up with an overal Texan "victory" for Obama amounting to a net gain of 5 pledged delegates.

Torturous math, indeed! No wonder a lot of pundits have been bemoaning the Democrats' proportional voting system. If only those overly fair Democrats had adopted the hard and fast winner-takes-all approach of the Republicans!

But wait a moment. What would be the situation if the Democrats had done that? Assume, for a moment, that each and every state where the Democrats' contenders have competed had allocated all their delegates to the winner, regardless of his or her margin of victory. And while we're at it, let's take the uncertainty of the superdelegates out of the equation as well and assume all superdelegates pledged themselves according to the vote in their state.

According to my (possibly slightly shaky) math, here's where we'd be after the Mississippi primary:

Obama: 1695 delegates
Clinton: 1660 delegates

In other words, the race would actually be closer than it is now.

Now I'm not suggesting that these would have been the actual figures if the Democratic primary had been structured along the lines of the Republican one. I am suggesting, however, that it is quite likely that such a system would, in this particular instance, not have provided the clarity many people seem to take for granted.

The problem, of course, is that this race has basically been split down the middle from the word go. It's been Clinton vs. Obama all the way, and as the race runs, so do the demographics: whites and blacks; blue-collars and "upscales"; young and old.

And this is why yesterday's victory may well leave a slightly sour taste in Obama's mouth. Yes, he won big, but he won big because of the black vote. Gone, it seems, are the days when it appeared he was significantly broadening his appeal with white voters in general (remember Virginia?). Core components of that constituency - ordinary, everyday workers and "older" women - remain as elusive as ever, if not more so.

And this is also why Clinton can afford to be just a little bit optimistic. Her "big states" rhetoric falls a little flat when taken only in the context of the primaries (where a delegate from Wyoming counts every bit as much as one from Ohio), but come the fall and the vagaries of presidential electorial system, things could work out a little differently.

Math and Demography: it's a MaD race.

The US Elections: The Wondrous World of Misogyny

In yesterday's Los Angeles Times, there was an article by Leslie Bennetts titled "Go Away? Why Should She?"

The "she" is, of course Hillary Clinton.

Now it is true that recently - and certainly before the Ohio/Texas primaries - voices had been raised asking whether it might be best for Clinton to call it a day. And it is equally true that whilst arguments exist for suggesting such a departure, counter-arguments are readily found.

Given the title of her article, one might assume that Bennetts had set herself the task of pointing out what those counter-arguments actually are and why they should prevail.

Instead, Bennetts only mentions the Super Tuesday II results briefly and then heads off on a totally different tack. The reason why, she argues, some people want Clinton to quit is because they're misogynists.

She isn't the only one. Time and again I've encountered quite virulent comments on the Internet asserting, in one way or another, that Clinton would have wrapped up the nomination weeks ago if only The Misogynists hadn't come traipsing in with all their rampant... well, misogyny.

Gosh. Could that actually be true?

Well, duh! Of course it is! The logic is very clear indeed. Let me spell it out for you.

Firstly, Clinton is a better candidate than Obama. This superiority is a given. From this starting point, it follows that the people who nevertheless favor Obama over Clinton are motivated not by the candidates' merits, but by something else. Since Clinton is a woman, that something else must be misogyny.

Once you understand this, everything else becomes quite clear. Yes, Obama has won more states than Clinton. Yes, he's leading in the popular vote. And, yes, he's got more pledged delegates. But none of that has to do with Obama's qualities; it's all down to misogyny. It has to be, since Clinton is the better candidate.

At this point, you may wonder why Clinton is better than Obama. You may, in other words, question the starting point.

In that case, however, you haven't been paying proper attention. The only reason Obama is in the overal lead is because of The Misogynists. Take them out of the equation, and Clinton wins hands down. From this it follows that she's the better candidate.

It all makes perfect sense, you see. You just need to get into the right groove.

The US Elections: The Monster Mash

What monster have we here?
A great Deed at this hour of day?
A great just Deed — and not for pay?
Absurd, —or insincere.

- Elizabeth Browning, A Tale of Villafrance

No sooner had I posted about Obama's small window of opportunity or it was shut, it seems, by Samantha Power, one of Obama's chief foreign policy aides.

Who's Power, and what did she do?

Well, she's a very bright, relatively young graduate of both Yale and Harvard. She's American, but was born in Ireland. And she knows a hell of a lot about foreign policy issues, including - but certainly not limited to - Darfur.

Unfortunately, she's also quite outspoken. And today, she resigned from the Obama campaign for making the following comment about Clinton to a reporter from The Scotsman:

"She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything."

Hmm. Testing the virulence of American politics via the backdoor of the British tabloid press? That is not a very sensible course of action.

So it's bye bye Power. Thanks for your Pulitzer-prize winning book A Problem From Hell. Thanks for having some pretty original ideas. Thanks for being honest. Bye bye. Have a nice day, now!

But where does that leave Obama? It's obvious my previous notion of him wading into the "lost" delegate fray in decisively presidential fashion has become somewhat obsolete (in my defense: I posted that hours ago). The only decisiveness he could show was in damage control.

But what's the damage?

I think quite a lot of people - and not just the Clinton bashers - will recognise something in what Power said. I also think quite a lot of them may take some note of it - it was, after all, an obviously heartfelt remark not at all meant for public consumption. It was a remark by someone in the know. And, too, it was a remark made by a woman. In the end, perhaps, there is some truth in the adage: it takes one to know one.

In short, if someone like Samantha Power feels this way about Clinton, the question arises: could she be right?

To hark back to the Browning quote: what Clinton have we here?

I truly don't know.

The US Elections: Rise and Fall... and Rise?

Here's what I expected, just before the primaries got underway: Clinton would win by Super Tuesday, and Obama would have put in a strong innings, setting himself up nicely for 2012 0r 2016.

My expectations changed after South Carolina. Obama won the state by a landslide, and listening to his victory speech, I found myself thinking: "That guy's actually going to win".

Fast forward to the day before Super Tuesday II, and there was Clinton waving a memo on the meeting that took place between Canadian officials and Obama's senior economic advisor. Somewhere in the background, a phone was ringing. And I thought - for want of a better word - "Oops".

It's now three days after Texas and Ohio, and whilst the delegate math might suggest otherwise, everything's changed again.

In an article in today's New York Times, David Brooks put it like this:

Barack Obama had a theory. It was that the voters are tired of the partisan paralysis of the past 20 years. The theory was that if Obama could inspire a grass-roots movement with a new kind of leadership, he could ride it to the White House and end gridlock in Washington (...)

Yes, but that didn't take into account actually losing important states. Brooks goes on to say:

There are a few ways to interpret the losses in Texas and Ohio. One is demographic. He didn’t carry the groups he often has trouble with — white women, Latinos, the less educated. The other is tactical. Clinton attacked him, and the attacks worked.

The consultants, needless to say, gravitate toward the tactical interpretation. And once again the cry has gone up for Obama to get tough.

And Brooks points out that, this time, Obama's heeding that advice. He's going after Clinton. The result?

These attacks are supposed to show that Obama can’t be pushed around. But, of course, what it really suggests is that Obama’s big theory is bankrupt. You can’t really win with the new style of politics. Sooner or later, you have to play by the conventional rules.

So, is Brooks right? If so, Obama's finished. Yes, he won more states, got more delegates, and he's ahead in the popular vote. But if Tuesday's result unearths the fact that Obama doesn't believe in his own theory, no-one else will, either. He'll go limping towards the Democratic convention with an ever dwindling advantage, and upon his arrival the superdelegates will snuff him out like a spent candle. And they'd be right to do so

So, it's up to Obama to prove Brooks and those like him wrong. And he'll have to do it quickly, before Clinton entagles him further into the web of old-fashioned political shenanigans.

He needs to revigorate his campaign. And since his campaign is basically about himself and his ideals, no atttack on Clinton, however effective, can suffice.

Can he do it? Yes, I think he can. In fact, I think the answer might be fairly simple.

Think Florida. Think Michigan. Think about all the horrendous wrangling over the "lost" delegates in these two states. It's a classic example of just about everything that's wrong with American politics. Does anyone actually believe in the sincerity of Governors Crist and Granholm when they say the disenfranchisement of their voters in "unconscionable"? For God's sake, they're the ones who signed the legislature that led to that disenfranchisement in the first place! And does anyone have any doubt as to Clinton's motives in trying to seat the "lost" delegates?

So what does Obama do? He does the exact opposite of what everyone expects. At a rally, a press conference - somewhere, in any case, where he can look presidential - he gently criticises the current state of affairs and firmly requests full new primaries for both states.

Sounds crazy? Think about it a minute.

If Obama were to take such a step, he'd be showing leadership. He'd be seen stepping in to end what already is an very unattractive spectacle. And he probably would end it, too, showing not just good judgement but effectiveness as well. Just as importantly, he'd be seen as someone willing to act in the public interest and not just his own. After all, Florida and Michigan are not states he's currently expected to win.

And here's the kicker: he'd probably be doing himself a big favour, as well. Some sort of re-vote is going to take place anyway, and what better way to woo the voters than to actually stand up for them?

Finally, will he do anything like this? Unfortunately, he won't. He's still got a small window of opportunity, but I just don't see him jumping through it. After all, that would take real guts. And American politics - indeed, American life - is not about guts. In the end, it's not about ideals, or justice , or doing the right thing.

It's about winning.