Checking in on the forgotten race...

Well, apparently the polling organizations have given up on polling the Clinton/Obama races in KY, OR and elsewhere, so we'll just have to wait for the most important poll of all, the one on Tuesday. Let's look back at my previous predictions and the long and difficult road Clinton would have to take to be nominated and compare them with where the race stands as of today...just for fun. I realize that most of the attention has now shifted to the Obama/McCain race, but what the hey.

These were my predictions back on April 26, 2008:

Prediction for contests (supposing no resolution beforehand):

Guam: Obama 3; Clinton 1
NC: Obama 68; Clinton 47
IN: Obama 37; Clinton 35
WV: Obama 9; Clinton 19

Total: Obama 114; Clinton 102



Here's how it actually turned out:

Guam: Obama 2; Clinton 2
NC: Obama 67; Clinton 48
IN: Obama 34; Clinton 38
WV: Obama 8; Clinton 20

Obama: 108; Clinton 107 (Obama -6; Clinton +5; off by 11 delegates.)

So, while Clinton faired a little bit better than I predicted back in late April, she hasn't come forth with anywhere near the sort of game-changing victories she needed to. And given the steady flow of superdelegates to Obama, the road has become that much more difficult.

Obama Blowout Scenario

Another great electoral college website is www.270towin.com, where you can build your own map. This map is the best case scenario for Obama in November. It shows all states in which he has held a solid lead and those in which polls have showed him competitive (single digits) over the last couple months going to him. There are a lot of surprises. One surprise that doesn't quite make the list is Utah, where polls have shown Obama only around 10 points behind McCain.

What a difference a week makes!

Last week I was afraid that Hillary's momentum spelled ruin for the Democratic chances in the Fall. Barack's victory in NC and slight loss in Indiana was slightly below his performance as I predicted two weeks ago. But his substantial meeting of my (and other's) previous expectations of two weeks ago, after the most bruising couple of weeks of his campaign means that he was able to push back and be resilient against the Clinton machine. I have to agree that the gas tax may have done Hillary in. Tuesday extended Obama's delegate lead. What I didn't anticipate was that the media and much of the Democratic party leadership would declare the end of the Clinton campaign and call Barack the presumptive nominee. As much as I'm an Obama supporter, and as much as I loved hearing it, I'm not sure Tim Russert was exactly acting in his most professional journalistic capacity when he declared Obama the nominee on late Tuesday night. I've been supporting campaigns that are too often on the short end of the stick when the mainstream media declares an issue important or an election over. This means the superdelegate floodgates have begun to creek open and Obama could have the nomination in-hand in May or early June. This is something that needed to happen for the sake of party unity.

It is not mathematically impossible for Hillary to win (just extremely difficult). So, I can understand if she wants to stay in until it is mathematically impossible, as Huckabee did, but she should campaign like Huckabee did in the final days (no attacks on Obama).

I am somewhat concerned that the media is rumoring that the Obama campaign will declare victory on May 20 (when the Oregon and Kentucky primaries would put Obama over the majority of elected delegate threshhold. This is only because Oregon is a mail-in state, and if it works like Washington's mail-in balloting, ballots must only be postmarked by election day, meaning thousands of ballots will come in after election day and counting won't be done for at least a few days afterwards. On that Tuesday the only election sure to have been called will be Kentucky, which will be in Clinton's favor in all likelihood. That would be a prime time for Clinton to withdraw with grace. I am not convinced that Obama should pay Clinton's campaign debts, but I suppose that if that is the cost of party unity, then it would be a small price to pay.

All in all, it's been a good week for our family. Obama is being declared the presumptive nominee, Merinda landed a new job managing a Babystyle store, Maggie does not have a cold, flu, or ear infection (though she did get a diaper rash this week), and I won a case that was completely my baby on Friday.

Incidentally, this will be the first election in my lifetime where the nominee I supported will be the nominee of the party (other than 1996; when Bill Clinton didn't have a challenger for the nomination.) In 2000 I supported Bill Bradley, who lost to Gore, and I ended up voting Nader. (Before the stone throwing commences, I was in Utah, which wasn't exactly a swing-state.) In 2004, I was a Dean man.

a brief history of politics and economics

1620-1776: Colonial Era; Agrarian economy gives birth to industrialism and capitalism
1776-1812: Revolutionary Era; American political institutions are formed; capitalism in its infancy; industrialism rising to challenge agrarianism as a dominant economic institution
1812-1860: Agrarianism's last stand; expansionism and advances in technology; lead to a dominant industrial capitalist North.
1860-1870: Civil War/Reconstruction: Industrial capitalists consolidate political power
1870-1900: Gilded Age: industrial capitalist economy dominates; economic inequality grows
1900-1910: Progressive Era: limited efforts at government regulation of capiitalism are largely ineffective at changing the American socio-economic landscape
1870-1930: referred to by some (such as Paul Krugman) as the Long Gilded Age
1930-1935: Depression Era: loosely regulated industrial capitalist economy, unable to sustain itself, collapses.
1935-1945: New Deal: Government, led by Democrats and opposed by Republicans, through New Deal programs and World War II, rebuilds American economy from ground up and institutes strict economic controls that create large and prosperous middle class.
1945-1970: Era of Relative Economic Equality and Propsperity: government loosens war-time economic controls but maintains other social programs and very progressive income tax structure to maintain relative equalities and prosperity created during the New Deal Era. Republicans moderate and support New Deal policies.
1970-1985: Conservative Era: New element of Republican Party, eventually known as neo-conservatives, advocate programs that dismantle New Deal programs and controls. Neo-cons implement policy to divide Americans along racial and religous lines to obtain political success for their policies.
1985-present: Second Guilded Age: some New Deal social safety nets remain, but are crumbling as governnment is bankrupted through large defense and war spending (neo-con "starve the beast" policies succeeding.)
1992-2004: DLC wing of Democratic Party adopt a tempered anti-New Deal economic agenda, but maintain a liberal social policy agenda; exemplified by Clinton administration
2004-present: battle within Democratic Party between DLC wing and traditionalist/Internet Democrat coalition. Anti-DLC forces gain political support with unpopular war and increasingly failing economy and are led by groups such as moveon.org, exemplified by 2004 candidate Howard Dean.
2008: This is what the battle for the nomination is about. It is about the DLC-wing of the party versus the traditionalist (Kennedy-wing)-Internet democrat coalition. Barack Obama is not generally known as an "anti-DLC" candidate and has many relatively conservative economic advisors, but looking at his support base and his position on such issues as the capital gains tax it is clear what side of this battle he stands on. The anti-DLC wing seeks to succeed not through adopting neo-con economic policies, but by seeking to unite Americans again and seeking to break down the political barriers that have been established along racial and religous lines. Exemplified by Howard Dean's "50-state strategy" and Obama's campaign theme.

Clinton Momentum --> Deadlocked Convention --> Pres. McCain--> God help us all

Well cnn.com has a great delegate tracking tool here.

What the counter reveals are two things. 1. It is very unlikely for Hillary to overtake Obama in delegates and she will llikely have to convince a huge number of remaining supers to vote for her or take the fight to the convention; which leads to the second point. 2. It is very possible that even with all superdelegates deciding and all contests allocated (minus FL and MI) neither candidate may have sufficient totals. If Clinton's momentum continues, this result becomes more likely. And with Democrats largely deadlocked and some Republicans crossing over (some for strategic reasons), this appears to be the track we're heading down.

This is how difficult it is to unseat a powerhouse within the Democratic Party. Obama needs to do something to fight back in my view. If Clinton's momentum continues, and she wins all remaining contests (NC tie or slight win; same with OR; IN high single digit win and gains about sixty percent of remaining superdelegates, we're going to Denver with neither candidate able to cross the 2025 threshhold. Proof once and for all that Democratic voters are not strategic voters. If they were, Clinton would have lost Texas and Ohio and the race would have been over long ago.

A deadlocked convention is of course the mainstream media's dream come true in the otherwise slow ratings season in August and it appears they are about to have their self-fulfilling prophesy come true. 80% of media coverage on Obama has been negative since Pennsylvania, even if it has surrounded a single subject. CNN just this weekend showed us that it refuses to let the Rev. Wright issue die, making him once again the headline political story.

Yes, this may be the only way Republicans could conceivably win in November and it appears to be happening, however slim the odds were when the primary season started. Clintonites will blame it on the upstart Obama who dared run before his annointed time and dared overtake Queen Hillary in the delegate count. Obamanites (myself included) blame Clinton's dynastic vanity, who could care less if they send the Democrats and the future of our country into oblivion if it means they have a slim chance at continuing the dynasty.

Democratic voters need to wisen up to the delegate math and where this is taking us. It is time to vote strategically as a Republican would and it is too late to coalesce around Clinton without chaos. If not, we have no one but ourselves to blame for sixteen straight years of Republican rule that could do irreversible damage to our country. I personally don't want to raise my daughter in a third-world America.

ObamaMath

Well, the contest drags on...here's my look at the delegate math going forward.

2025 to win

Current Standings (per Real Clear Politics) (elected and superdelegates)
Obama: 1728 (needs 297)
Clinton: 1596 (needs 429)

Superdelegates remaining: 296 undecided; 496 decided (792 total)
Elected delegates: 3318 decided

Contests for Elected Delegates Remaining (408 delegates total):

Guam: 4
Indiana: 72 (Obama +3 in polls)
NC: 115 (Obama +15.5 in polls)
WV: 28
Oregon: 52
KY: 51
PR: 55
MT: 16
SD: 15

Prediction for contests (supposing no resolution beforehand):

Guam: Obama 3; Clinton 1
NC: Obama 68; Clinton 47
IN: Obama 37; Clinton 35
WV: Obama 9; Clinton 19
OR: Obama 31; Clinton 21
KY: Obama 18; Clinton 33
PR: Obama 16; Clinton 39
MT: Obama 10; Clinton 6
SD: Obama 9; Clinton 6

Remaining Elections Total Prediction: Obama 201; Clinton 207
Total delegates after all elections (supposing no changes in superdelegate decisions or indecision): Obama 1929; Clinton 1803
Supposing 0 supers decide in the interim (unlikely) Obama will be 96 superdelegates away from victory (32% of remaining) and Clinton will be 222 supers away (75% of remaining). If in the interim 32% of the remaining supers go for Obama, he can lock up the nomination by the end of all elections in June. But, thankfully, it might be over sooner...

Looking down the road...after NC and IN, but before other contests:

All the following is after IN and NC and Guam (supposing current poll numbers hold)

Delegate Totals after IN, NC and Guam (supposing poll numbers hold)
Obama: 1835 (needs 190)
Clinton: 1679 (needs 346)

Path to Victory for Clinton

This is the rougher road for sure...

Clinton's worst case, but still possible to win scenario: 50 elected delegates (23%) plus all remaining superdelegates.

In other words if she does worse than 23% in the remaining elections, it will be impossible for her to win without superdelegates defecting from Obama (which is extremely unlikely if she does that badly.) However, it is extremely unlikely for her to do this poorly in the remaining post-IN; NC elections with many contests that probably favor her demographically (WV; KY; PR).

After NC, IN and Guam, there are 217 elected up for grabs.

Other Clinton scenarios:

Clinton gets 50% of remaining superdelegates (148) plus 198 remaining elected delegates (91%); OR 80% of remaining superdelegates (236) plus 51% of remaining elected delegates. In other words she needs a substantial majority of remaining superdelegates to choose her to have a chance.

Path to Victory for Obama

This really illustrates how much easier it is for Obama to win this nomination...

Obama can win with 64% of remaining superdelegates and 0 additional elected delegates OR
50% of remaining elected delegates (109) plus 81 remaining superdelegates or (27% of remaining superdelegates)

If he wins half the remaining delegates to be elected (a reasonable scenario as laid out above), he only needs to convince 27% of the remaining supers to vote for him.

All of this will likely change as more and more superdelegates decide; and I guess that they will go to Obama by a 2:1 margin. If he can hold current poll numbers in IN and NC and persuade 64% of the remaining undecided supers to decide then and there in his favor after those elections (likely only if he wins both states), he will be able to reach the magic 2025 number and effectively end the primary.

Polls Confirm that Distraction Issues Did Not Hurt Obama

As I predicted, and as the pundits continually ignore, it appears that Obama may actually have benefited a few points since the ABC debate and since Clinton has started focussing on the non-issues of the campaign.

Another ignored poll is the one showing Obama pulling way ahead of Clinton among Democrats nationally. Instead, ABC News (who seems to be making clear what they want to happen in Penn. Tuesday) last night cited an unnamed "new" poll showing Clinton gaining by a single percentage point nationally and saying that Sen. Clinton was using the poll as evidence of her electability. Unfortunately, no more was said about the poll (who conducted it, was it among Democrats or the general electorate?).

My prediction is a 4-9 point victory for Clinton on Tuesday. If she loses Pennsylvania I think she would likely withdraw from the race. But if she wins even by the smallest margins, she will simply try to reset expectations and probably fight until the last votes are cast, and beyond. She has lost a nearly 20 point lead in the polls from a few weeks ago and in this system of proportionate delegate allocation, that is significant, even if she still gets the check mark next to her name.

Religion, Technology and Politics

The raid of the polygamist compound in Texas was distrubing to me for a number of reasons. First, it is quite distrubing to me that law enforcement thinks it has probable cause to separate over 400 children from their families because of a single report of sexual abuse within a community. The only thing that separated this community from any other in Texas is that it was viewed as a strange community, due entirely to its religious beliefs. The other thing was that it revealed a continuing undercurrent of anti-Mormon sentiment within the evangelical Christian community and in America at large. I'm not talking about anti-fundamentalist LDS sentiment; but about interchangeably speaking of the mainstream LDS Church and the compound inhabitants. I was at a legal seminar recently (on a completely unrelated topic) where the Texas compound raid came up and a speaker immediately lumped them in with mainstream LDS folks.

Of course, anti-Mormonism is nothing new in America and since the religion's latter day birth in the 1830's Protestant and evangical Christians led the crusade against Mormonism, then considered one of the twin relics of barbarism (the other being slavery, the fight against which of course I am grateful for.) To add insult to injury, the FLDS children were driven off on buses owned and operated by the local Baptist Church. I am sure to the local dominant evangelical community, the term "saving" the children took on an entirely different connotation than it did in other parts of the country.

Yes, since near the times of our nation's birth, many evangelical Protestants have been seeking to establish their own religion as the official American faith. Make no mistake about it that when they say America is a Christian nation, they don't mean a Mormon nation and many probably don't even mean a Catholic nation; rather only their own licensed brand of Christianity. And yet, the most disturbing element of all of this is that their calls for theocracy gain more traction today than ever. Why is that? Great American presidents and many founding fathers (think Thomas Jefferson,and Abraham Lincoln) espoused a healthy skepticism of organized religion and all advocated for an America where no faith was preferred over any other, and yet no candidate running for public office today could write a jot or tittle against organized faith without being burned at the proverbial political stake. What has become of America since the enlightenment?

Perhaps the electorate (or is it more the media?) latch onto organized religion now more than ever in the wake of a religious war waged against America and the West by Islamic extremists. But perhaps people have turned back to superstition because technology has grown so sophisticated that every day activities are again totally inexplicable to the average person who is not a physicist or engineer. In the enlightenment one could still see the human hand and effort in the newly developing technologies that gradually were improving daily life, but in today's world the vast majority of people don't know how their cell phone call was place to a friend thousands of miles away, and it may as well have been magic for all they know. Thus, supersitious beliefs do not seem too far beyond everyday reality to them. They have to take it "on faith" that human technology and science leads to today's technological miracles; and some do not even place faith in many principles established in the scientific community (such as the approximate age of the universe, the nature of space and time, the nature of the quantum world, etc.) even though many of these theories make it possible for them to do things like post to a blog, send an email or place a cell phone call.

What is the difference between religious faith and this faith that society has in science? Of course, the answer is that one can eventually be deduced, understood and tested by using reason and the scientific method, if one spends enough time. The other makes no pretenses that it can. Of course, no one in the everyday work-a-day world has the time to do this or truly understand how their everyday miracle devices work; they just take it on "faith."

Obama, ABC, and the growing irrelevance of mainstream media

To explain my political evolution throughout the last year, I was undecided coming into January. Obama's failure to call for single-payer health care disappointed me. I was leaning towards John Edwards before and after Iowa, then went to Hillary Clinton for about a week, until I saw her tears flow in NH. That really turned me off to her and I edged toward Obama. The Clintons' South Carolina performance and racial insinuation (with the Jesse Jackson comments) insulted me as both an American and a Democrat, so I was firmly in Barack's camp after that. I listened to him speak and realized that finally a politician was using reason more than anecdote.

The ABC debate might finally be the breaking point where Americans say to the media, enough is enough. When the nation is embroiled in two wars, our banks are starting to fail, millions are losing their homes and jobs, and the questions presented are to do with flag pins and Rev. Wright, mainstream media has ceased to serve any useful purpose. For Sen. Clinton to suggest in the debate that in a presidential contest all these issues are legitimate I think will cost her a couple points on Tuesday in Pennsylvania. Despite the uproar, incredibly half the punditry believes that the questions were legitimate. It's time for PBS to host debates. Moreover, many pundits are still saying how the Rev. Wright, flag pin (David Brooks, whose opinions I have since lost all respect for) and the debate are not only legitimate issues but will hurt Obama in the primaries. Apparently, Mr. Brooks et al. forget that these are Democrats voting in the primaries, most of whom are offended at ridiculous notions that one must wear their patriotism on their lapel to prove their loyalty to America. Swift-boating may work in the general election, but not in a Democratic primary. In that respect, in some weird twisted way, that these non-issues are hashed out, answered and run through the media ringer now may be better for the Obama camp in the long run (and the short run, as I think they will backfire on the Clinton camp). However, that is no excuse for the media that runs issues like this through the ringer, and gives them more attention than the serious issues facing the country. Of course, it's probably in the for-profit media's interest to see to it that the primary drags on as long as possible and thus it is in their best interest to bring down the front-runner. Spring and summer are low-ratings time. But this presidential election may be the mainstream media's last, before they are cast into the void of irrelevance and after watching the debate on ABC I say, "good riddance."

Maggie's calling, so I'm off!

in case anyone still is checking

Life has been amazingly busy since Maggie arrived in our world, leaving little time for blogging. She is approaching 9 months old now and on the verge of walking unsupported! So now back to the topics of the day...