DNC Rules Committee: Will Faulty Logic Fix Faulty Logic? May 31, 2008
Posted by justingerman in Uncategorized.Tags: 2008 Democratic Primaries, 2008 Presidential Election, DNC Rules Committee, Hillary Clinton, The Democratic Party
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There aren’t any states right now feeling dumber than Florida and Michigan. Instead of abiding by the predetermined primary schedule they decided to leap-frog Super Tuesday and have their primaries in January in an attempt to gain some additional influence in the process. However, due to their violation of the sanctioned schedule, both states were stripped of their delegates to the convention and in retrospect they could have actually gained more influence by moving their primaries a few months backward as opposed to a few weeks earlier.
Hillary Clinton won both primaries by a large margin, including Michigan in which only her name was on the ballot. At the time it was generally percieved that the results were electorally meaningless beyond any PR bump that might occur. Now, while trailing in convention delegates, Hillary Clinton, for several months, has argued to seat all Florida and Michigan delegates despite agreeing in the Fall to not campaign in either state. See below Clinton supporters protesting outside today’s rules committee meeting.
Update: Is Hillary More Electable? May 29, 2008
Posted by justingerman in Uncategorized.Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain
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Yesterday I wrote about Hillary’s recent surge in polling against John McCain. I said this was likely due to Republicans picking up their attacks on Obama as he became the front runner, which drove up the negatives for both Obama and McCain while leaving Hillary untouched. Now this morning the guys at fivethirtyeight have published a study of press release attacks by all three campaigns and both national committees during the last nine months. This chart really couldn’t be more explicit in showing how much the national committees have attacked both McCain and Obama in the last four months while leaving Hillary virtually untouched.
It’s interesting to see how little, at least through press releases, Obama has attacked both Hillary and McCain over the course of the campaign. This is likely due to the fact that he was never really behind electorally and also his calls for a new kind of politics makes it difficult for his campaign to attack blatantly through press releases. Another thing to point out is that Clinton has significantly toned down her attacks against Obama in May and actually attacked McCain more in this month than Obama.
Is Hillary Really More Electable? May 28, 2008
Posted by justingerman in Uncategorized.Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, electoral college, Hillary Clinton
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That’s at least her strongest and most articulated argument at this point. See this story from CNN. If by more electable she means currently polling ahead of John McCain she is certainly right. Most polls have Senator Clinton ahead in the Kerry states as well as Florida, Ohio and Arkansas. Fivethirtyeight.com reflects this by producing a Clinton electoral victory about 62 percent of the time. The Clinton campaign has also issued a graphical memo that exhibits her advantage.
While this map takes some liberties with Kentucky and maybe New Hampshire I think it’s generally pretty accurate. But I should also point at that Hillary’s surge in the last month or so is likely due to Republicans picking up their attacks on Obama, which has driven up his negatives. If the situation were reversed it’s likely Obama would be doing better than Hillary against McCain, but at the same time a lot of Obama’s woes have been self-imposed.
Hillary’s Obama/McCain map (after the flip) shows Obama 46 points behind McCain but shows McCain winning in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio in all of Which Obama is actually about even or slightly ahead. If Obama were to win two of these three he would surpass 270.
Barack Obama And Rural America April 14, 2008
Posted by justingerman in 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain.Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Pennsylvania Primary
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An unnamed, esteemed reader of iapprovedthismessage has asked me to comment on the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s recent comments about rural Americans being bitter due to their down-and-out economic conditions. Here is the full quote.
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama said. “And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Four things come to mind when I read this.
1. Hardly anyone will actually change their vote for Hillary, or John McCain for that matter, after hearing this quote. I think there is actually a large swath of people in these small towns who likely agree with Obama because this is the kind of thing they see everyday. The people who try to make political hay out of this aren’t going to vote for Obama anyway.
2. Obama wrote pretty much this exact thing several times in the Audacity of Hope and he also made statements along these lines in the debates at well without any kind of backlash. Additionally, Obama has been significantly more critical of the self-destructive nature of black-urban communities and blacks have been voting for Obama to about the tune of about 90 percent.
3. I think the timing of this statement, two weeks before a primary that could propel him to the White House, shows that Obama is probably the most authentic and wise politician since King Solomon told them to cut that baby in half. Anyone that doesn’t think this statement shows the legitimate nature of Obama as a different type of candidate is probably not paying attention. Sure you can disagree with him on policy but it’s hard to disagree with the fact that Obama is rewriting the rules of presidential campaigning.
4. Let’s just contrast Obama’s statement with Hillary hammerin’ back a couple shots like she just got off the line at the steel plant. What? That whiskey is Canadian!? SHAME ON YOU HILLARY!
Tim Russert Is A Pretty Smart Guy April 9, 2008
Posted by justingerman in 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain.Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, electoral college, Electoral Map, Hillary Clinton, John McCain
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I say that because his 2008 electoral map prediction for an Obama-McCain race looks very similar to the state-by-state probabilities that I made in my post predicting the electoral college expected values. This map can be found on theelectoralmap.com.
The only real differences between this map and my probabilities are the states of Arkansas, South Carolina and Michigan. It’s more or less imperative that Obama wins Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan to win the election. I think Russert is right in assuming that Michigan will be the closest of the three, but I still think it leans to Obama due to the economic circumstances in the state and McCain’s support for freer trade.
For some reason Russert also thinks that Obama stands less of a chance in South Carolina than Georgia or North Carolina. This may be true to a point, but I still have trouble writing it off to McCain at this point.
Geoff pointed out in a comment to my expected values calculation that he thought my probabilities for Arkansas and West Virginia were escessively low and that Obama has at least a marginal chance of winning in each state. However, I stand by my projections and say that Hillary likely would win in both states but Obama really doesn’t stand a chance in either due to the highly white, low income, low education democraphics. Russert seems to agree with me on West Virginia and with Geoff on Arkansas.
Below the fold I added Russert’s Clinton-McCain map just for fun. I think this map shows that Obama’s and Clinton’s expected values would be about the same, but with different strengths in different places. But I’m definately not going to take the time to add up Clinton’s values. (more…)
Hillary Wants to Make Sure That People Know She’s White April 5, 2008
Posted by justingerman in 2008 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton.Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton, Martin Luther King Jr.
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From Clinton’s Speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.-
“It was a revolution of hearts and minds, of attitudes and actions. when one heard Dr. King speak, and I stood in line for a very long time that night, to shake his hand. And he was gracious and he was kind. To lean over to shake the hand of a 14-year-old girl from the suburbs of Chicago. who went to an all-white church and an all-white school and lived in an all-white suburb. but he didn’t ask me, as i reached out my hand, where do you live? what’s your experience? he just took it. and looked in my face and thanked me for coming. That Dr. King had such a profound and lasting impact on a young white girl, that he had that kind of impact on millions of people of all colors, faiths, ages and walks of life, tells us something about the reach and power of his vision.”
McCain’s Powerful First Ad March 28, 2008
Posted by justingerman in 2008 Presidential Election, John McCain.Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, John McCain, TV ads
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As a student of politics I can’t help but get chills watching this ad. Just when you think the Republicans can’t create anything better they come up with something like this. I think this ad, titled “624787″ is the greatest I have every seen. But in fairness it’s true that John McCain is the perfect candidate for the perfect ad.
Amazingly, McCain simultaneously makes a compelling case for the war while also distancing himself from Bush (“John McCain, the American president Americans have been waiting for”). Kerry could have slammed Bush with an ad like this in 2004, but of course, he didn’t.
The two big questions going forward are whether or not the Democratic candidate can convince Americans that the life and money spent on this war are not worth the price and whether or not McCain will have the money to thoroughly get this message on the airwaves and on the ground to be competitive with the Democrats in terms of spending.
Surely a single ad can not win a campaign, but this message is a great starting point around which McCain can mold the rest of his campaign.
The Electoral Map March 24, 2008
Posted by justingerman in 2008 Presidential Election.Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, the electoral map
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Any nerds out there looking for some really awesome, graphical analysis of American politics will love this site theelectoralmap.com. This map is just a little taste of what this site has to offer. The numbers for the graphic below are derived from a survey USA poll and show how the electoral map in an Obama candidacy would vary significantly from previous democratic presidential election strategies. To get a better perspective on the geographic strengths and weaknesses of Obama and Clinton check out the entire post from the Electoral Map.
