Super Tuesday for dummies

225 comments on “Super Tuesday for dummies”

1. 41
   jaundiced view

   yeah, the polls for this primary mega-bash are all over the shop.

   When I looked at them last night I did notice that the spread for McCain over Romney was consistenly high and with a big spread between high and low, but that Clinton’s was much narrower and with a smaller spread between her highest and lowest lead over Obama.

   For what it’s worth, and I don’t have any idea, but it seemed to confirm the notion that Clinton has most certainly had her lead eroded and it’s not just one ‘outlier’ poll that says so.

   I get the feeling that Obama is ready to slug this out, especially as neither of them spent everything on today’s vote, $11 and $8 mill respectively, which means they’ve still got a huge pile to go on with.

2. I think that videoes like the one put out by the Black eyed peas can make a huge difference in getting to voters who normally are immune to the political process.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yq0tMYPDJQ

3. I just saw an interesting article on Andrew Barlett’s blog noting that a small number (variously reported as 11 to 28) delegates were allocated to overseas resident registered democrats. He pointed out that if the race was close, 20 or so delegates were important. Any viewss on how they would split? Or when they vote?

4. Socrates, here is some info.

   http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59115&archive=true

5. It’s pure Groundhog day: “it’s the economy, stupid”

   With recent polls showing the economy as the really big concern nationally, we are catapulted back to the past:

   Only 19 percent of Americans now rate the nation’s economy positively, the fewest to say so since June 1993, when the Clinton administration was grappling with a struggling economy. On the eve of the last midterm elections, 55 percent assessed the state of the national economy as “excellent” or “good.” Now, about nine in 10 Democrats and independents give the economy a negative review; nearly two-thirds of Republicans agree.

   …all the gory poll detials are here:

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/03/AR2008020303148.html

6. RBA announces +1/4%

7. Just a note on the economy in the US, and an interview I saw on Lehrer recently, you know, the usual sombre economist, talking about the latest Federal Reserve rate cut, and the gigantic sieze up in the credit markets, the whole enchilada.

   What struck me about this guy, so serious, so knowledgable, so articulate in all things money and central banking, was what a complete load of sh!t he was talking!

   “Yes, the Federal Reserve has acted swiftly to calm the markets”…ah, they’ve been saying for nearly a year there was nothing to worry about! Now, however, they are more than ‘worried’, they are in full panic mode!

   “Bernanke has moved to give us more medicine”…ah, no, he’s pouring even MORE of the same poison that’s almost killed the economy, even more ‘cheap’ money, and it will not ‘cure’ anything!

   On and on, he spoke in Orwellian double-speak, each claim as patently wrong as the last, and not once did he ever seem to actually doubt what he was saying.

   But he assured everyone that it all showed just how well the Fed had it’s finger on the pulse (what’s left of it!), and how everyone should feel somehow assured that everything was under control.

   My god! And this on PBS! Just where, in god’s name, does anyone EVER, tell the poor punters the truth?

8. 56
   Basil Fawlty

   No surprise! Especially after seeing the shocker inflation numbers. And if you think this is bad now, just imagine what the US are going to be seeing while they hold the overnight rate well below inflation.

   Stevens is doing what he must, and we should thank our lucky stars we live in a country where the central bank is not the whore of the market.

   Now, that is truly ‘medicine’, it hurts, yes, a bit, but the disease it eventually cures is a bloody damned sight worse.

9. To Notch @32

   There are complicated rules about delegates being ‘released’ from their ties to their candidate, those rules being set by legislation in each state.

   Some pledged delegates are not really forced to vote for their candidate at all, and can use either their own discretion or their candidates instructions on how to vote at the convention.

   Some delegates, depending on their state of origion, are bound to vote for their candidate, even if that candidate has dropped out, for either one, two, three or even more rounds of voting at the convention.

10. Forget all the polls. There is only one poll and it’s tomorrow.

    #33 – Socrates – It looks like WB will get my $50.

11. KR @ 57 – Maybe they won’t tell the truth because if they did a lot of Americans would take to the life rafts and start paddling to China or, even worse, Cuba! ;(

12. Rates go up……and taxes go down….and the wheels on the bus go round and round….

13. KR55

    Thansk for that article link. Despite all the money spent, I suppose this is where I find teh reporting of the US race surprisingly unsophisticated. Not only are their poll samples small and highly variable, but they don’t rate cndidates against issues. For example, whoever among Obama, Clinton and McCain is rated best for “economic management” or “most likely to fix the economy” will surely win in November. Perhaps I have been looking in the wrong places, but I don’t seem to see this anywhere.

    By comparison, I remember in the last Oz campaign as interest rates started rising then Howard’s lead for economic management began to be eroded. So you coudl see the impact on voting. Indeed, Possum did an excellent analysis of the quantitative effect. Surely similar efects will hold in the US, religeous fanatics or not. An unemployed religeous fanatic who has lost his house will still surely be reluctant to vote for the republicans?

14. For the candidates policies on Global Warming there is a summary and links on my blog post ‘Fighting Global Warming US Style’. They do have them. Obama’s is very detailed. In the last debate, Clinton mentioned the issue as one the new President should address as a top priority.

15. Man I’m getting anxious, I’m swept up in the hysteria! IT’S NOT EVEN MY COUNTRY WHY DO I CARE?

    Gobama! :p

16. 60
    MayoFeral

    Ha,ha! This thought has occured to quite a few people I suspect! Although I can’t quite remember where, but I’ve seen a spoof where Americans are crossing the border into Mexico as ‘economic refugees’ and the Mexican government has to tighten border controls.

    Satire, sure, but like all good jokes, there’s a grain of truth in it.

17. 64
    Erytnicam

    Mac, you’ve got an excuse, it’s all the neuro mind-altering consciousness stuff you’ve been forcing yourself to master.

18. 62
    Socrates

    Good point Socrates, in some ways our polling seems much more sophisticated, despite their sheer mind-boggling quantity, it doesn’t seem nearly as ‘issues’ focused.

    Oh well, it is only a presidential nomination, after all! LOL

19. God, he’s so close to winning California I can almost smell it. If he wins it, the narrative would be just awesome for him. I still assume HRC will finish the night ahead by 30-80 delegates before counting super delegates, but the states after that are all pure Obama territory, including the fact that I think he is very likely in Ohio, Texas etc.

20. 61
    Ferny Grover

    You forgot to add the next verse:

    And the bloggers on the bus go
    Chatter,chatter,chatter

21. 68
    Erytnicam

    Calm, there Mac!

    The circus is exciting, we’re all enthralled, but don’t spill your popcorn! LOL

    (It would truly surprise me if he pulled off a majority vote in California, but I’ll happily settle for a very close second. That will severly dent the aura of invincibility the Clinton machine assumed as their right.)

22. Erytnicam @ 64,

    I am anxious too. I think it’s becuse i’m hoping that the US elects a President who doesn’t divide this country over whether or not we should be supporting their wars.
    Many people in many other countries will be hoping the same I think.

23. Obama would be suicide for the Democrats – the USA has not elected a northern liberal as President since 1960 and probably won’t ever again – the votes needed to win the presidency are in states where a “northern liberal” would be poison and the words “ACLU” are treated the same as “NSDAP”.

24. Well KR….if it were set in the US the song would be:

    Rates go down…and taxes go down….and the wheels on the bus go…pppfffffttttt

25. #69
    And here I am – crawling on the floor picking up my popcorn.

26. 72
    Ferny Grover

    Classic! ROFLOL

27. The ‘other’ side of Hillary is well explored by David Brooks in this neat little expose of the Hillary ‘wronged’:

    Cooper, who, not surprisingly, supports Barack Obama, believes that Clinton hasn’t changed. “Hillary’s approach is so absolutist, draconian and intolerant, it means a replay of 1993.”

    …a good read, especially if you’ve got doubts about Hillary Clinton’s ability to ‘unite’ the nation she so eagerly wants to lead.

28. “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country” (Hermann Goering).

    Do you think we’ve finally stopped falling for that?

29. #75
    Ferny Grover
    I think the possibilities for large scale manipulation are much weaker – and for only one reason – the Internet. It is only 15 years since the terms url and http were introduced. In this time we have accumulated historical information at a level never before seen and we constantly developing new tools that help us find and evaluate information. It is my opinion that this is the driving force behind policies of openness and ethics that we see in campaigns like Kevin07 and Obama08. On the other-hand – watching the post 9/11 fallout would suggest that we still have a way to go.

30. I was keen to get a breakdown of how many of the California districts had odd numbered delegates in the Democratic race. For those who don’t know the significance of this, the delegates are awarded by congressional district in numbers varying from 3 – 7. If the numbers are even then, as happens in the ACT and NT, Senate race its an even split unless there’s a landslide. So the only point is the contests in the districts with odd-numbered delegates.
    Goolgling found me this: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/4/155020/1046

    It’s an analysis from someone who is clearly an Obama partisan and he/she seems a bit over-keen to assume that the demographics favour Obama in some seats. However, his most compelling arguyment is that no Latino district has odd numbers and three of the biggest African/American districts do.

31. To continue…(I was rudely interrupted). Also the vast majority of the seats are even numbered and this appears to be especially the case in suburban LA which is Clin ton’s strongest area. Apparently there are more odd numbered seats in the more liberal northern areas of the state (especially the Bay area) and the rural areas which he/she speculates will favour Obama in the same way that rural Nevada seats will. The basic argument is that if the vote is close enough then Obama’s inbuilt advantage re delegates is enough to overcome even the extra delegates Clinto will get out of the 129 allocated on the basis of the overall vote.

32. with the narrowing of the overall State California Poll feeding into Congressional districts & being distributed proportionally plus the odd number factor explaineed by Robert , California is unlikely to impact on who will be the Nominee

    Who would have believed the biggest State’s importance gets marginalised when a fews months ago it was one of Obama’s albatross

33. 79
    Robert Bollard

    Without raking through the details it’s an interesting thesis, and the sort of thing I’ve been reading ie Obama is in with a shot to hold close enough to Clinton to make the post “Super Choose Day” a real contest.

    Bloody ‘ell, this is an amazing ‘narrowing’ of the sort that the Coalition could only have dreams about! LOL

34. Here’s the core of the post I link to above:

    “There are 6 districts which allocate 6 delegates, where it is still likely to be an even scenario, but where a strong showing could give a 4-2 split (I think a candidate would need close to 60% of the vote for that to happen). These districts, the most Democratic in the state (the allocation is based on Democratic turnout in primaries), are CA-06 (Woolsey), CA-08 (Pelosi), CA-09 (Lee), CA-12 (Lantos), CA-14 (Eshoo) and CA-30 (Waxman). As these are districts populated with liberals, and given that some of them are high-income (06, 08, 12, 30), they seem to trend toward Obama. I think CA-09, Barbara Lee’s district serving heavily African-American Oakland as well as some other East Bay cities, offers the best chance for a 4-2 split. Let’s say that Obama gets one of these. The number is now 71-69 Obama.

    As I said, there are two districts with 3 delegates: CA-20 (Costa) in the Central Valley, and CA-47 (Loretta Sanchez) in Orange County. (As an aside, this means that these two districts turn Democrats out to primaries at the lowest rates. And they both have Democratic Congressmen. Way to go, Bush Dogs!) I project that CA-47 will go to Clinton, and think that CA-20 is up for grabs. There are a decent amount of campesinos in that area, but rural districts in Nevada went strongly for Obama. So let’s hold off on that for now. The number is now 72-71 Obama, with 3 delegates outstanding.

    Now we come to the real electoral prize: the 19 districts which offer 5 delegates. There are quite a few advantages for Obama in these districts. First, all three heavily African-American districts in Southern California are in this group: CA-33 (Watson), CA-35 (Waters) and CA-37 (Richardson). Obama should be able to attract a majority here. Then there are two districts in the far north of the state: CA-01 (Thompson) and CA-04 (Doolittle). Based on how their Nevada neighbors voted, I project them to Obama. Third, there are three districts in the Bay Area that fall into this category, and in the most recent Field Poll, Obama was stronger in the Bay Area than Southern California. I expect him to take CA-07 (George Miller) and CA-13 (Stark), but lose CA-10 (Tauscher) because that’s a more suburban district. That’s so far a 7-1 split for Obama.

    Clinton’s strength is in the suburbs and in Southern California, as well as among Latinos. But very few of those districts fall into this grouping. There are three in the San Fernando Valley: CA-27 (Sherman), CA-28 (Berman) and CA-29 (Schiff). But Adam Schiff has strongly endorsed Obama, and his Pasadena district is more liberal and upscale. I see a 2-1 split for Clinton here. NONE of the Orange County districts offer 5 delegates.

    Going into the wild cards, we have 8 districts for Obama and 3 for Clinton. The rest include CA-05 (Matsui) in the Sacramento area, CA-15 (Honda) in the San Jose area, CA-17 (Farr) in Monterey, CA-23 (Capps) in Santa Barbara, CA-36 (Harman) in the South Bay of Los Angeles, CA-50 (Bilbray) in the San Diego suburbs, and CA-53 (Davis) in San Diego. If I were to guess, I’d say that CA-23 and CA-36 have some built-in advantages for Obama (upscale, highly educated, “wine track” liberal), making it an 11 to 3 split, with 5 outstanding.

    So, before the polls close, we can reasonably project a 111-102 split for Obama, with 28 delegates up for grabs, as well as the 129 that will go proportionally to the winner. If you split the rest of the district-level delegates evenly, I think you end up with anywhere from a 7 to 12 delegate advantage that Clinton would have to make up in the popular vote. At the lowest level she would need 53% of the vote or a 6 percentage-point victory to make this up; at the highest level, 55-56% of the vote or a 10 to 12-point victory. Given the polling recently, and the fact that there has been an unusually slow rate of return of absentee ballots until after the South Carolina primary, I think the final result is likely to be narrower. And so, despite the possibility of Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote in the Golden State, I’m not sure she’s favored to win the majority of delegates, given the reality of the allocation.”

35. More on the issue of odd and even delegate numbers here.

36. If one were to design the ultimately silly electoral system, it would be really hard to go one up on this thing in the US that we all seemed to be mesmerized by.

37. 84
    Robert Bollard

    It’s utterly fascinating, thanks for that. (I’d decided not to go to the link and wade through the details, but it is worth a detailed look into the Alice and Wonderland of the Democratic system of primary voting.)

38. Re the junior senator from Illinois:
    “He’s definaitely hooking up with my better angels”
    http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20080204/cx_db_uc/db20080204

39. Supporting the silly-season supposition of the Comitator at eighty-six. Sir, when it’s all said and done, they’re bloody Seppos. What do expect, simplicity? These people are masters of manglespeak and obsfucation. Until they learn to spell and pronounce aluminium properly they remain beyond redemption.

    http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20080131/cx_nq_uc/nq20080131

40. Both Clintons field questions during forums in San Francisco

    How long before she nominates Bill as her VP running mate?

41. To highlight the gross mis reporting by the Murdoch Press , they lauded Hillary for winning Nevada but omitted to headline that due to the proportional congressional districts allocation…Obama actually won 1 more delegate !

    A repeat in California would simply be a repeat of Nevada , but as indicated California looks increasingly of academic interest rather than being decisive

    As for Bill MaoFeral…I feel sorry for him because a month ago it looked like Hillary would be so busy as POSTUS that he had 4 Hillary-less years of casanova in front of him

42. #86 – Poss, i think this time the singers are much more interesting than the song. Usually, the singers and the song are boring.

43. 90 – MayoFeral

    Does that mean Chelsea would be First Lady???

44. Hello is anyone there on the other side?

45. #94. Considering the usual slant of this forum. And the bang up job the republicans (bush in particular) have been doing for the past 7 years even the few conservatives here probably think the dems should win.

46. Just a little bit of data to put Bush’s “stimulus” into perspective (it’s about $150 billion, depending on what actually makes it past the Senate):

    Between 2004 and 2006, Americans pulled more than $800 billion a year from their homes via sales, cash-out mortgages and home equity loans.

    …and that money got spent to keep the American dream alive…for a wee bit longer. Of course the housing ATM no longer exists, so you can scrub that source of ‘free money’.

47. I’d fit the Republican model – bar a few differences – given I essentially think the government should for the most part piss off and let us live our lives. I have found myself classed as a ‘libertarian’ quite a few times, so I seem to be in the middle somewhere.

    However… I can’t bring myself to think McCain would be a better option for the world than Obama. 72 years old vs 46. Yes there are risks, as there are with everything, but a leader who can inspire his people is something we could all do with right now. A break with the past is what the US desperately needs.

    Having said that, should Clinton win I will be barracking for McCain (or, to a lesser extent, Romney) all the way.

    I think you would find there are many many many conservatives out there who feel exactly the same way. Wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of Dem’s felt that way as well – minus, of course, the voting for a Republican.

48. Max
    Having said that, should Clinton win I will be barracking for McCain (or, to a lesser extent, Romney) all the way.

    McCain talks of US bases in Iraq for posibly 100 years , a form of colonialism that guarantees terrorist responses

49. I don’t think the presidential debates make a huge difference, but I would love to see Obama debate McCain. IMO McCain would be left well behind. McCain, ‘We are winning in Iraq all because of me’ (or something of that sentiment) will be torn apart.

50. Darryl @ 95 There are not many of us lefties on here who are overly confident of a Democrat victory. The prevailing view seems to be that against McCain the Dems will have a real fight on their hands. From this far out, it looks like neither side has a runaway lead.

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