Author Archives: tom

From Super Tuesday to the Potomac Primaries, and Why Is the Delegate Count So Confusing?

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It’s now a week since Super Tuesday and it appears that the nomination picture is slowly coming into focus. On the Republican side Mitt Romney dropped out of the race; that made some sense as he and Mike Huckabee appeared to be splitting the social conservative vote. Interestingly enough his exit speech talked primarily about Iraq and the War on Terror which was never a major part of his campaign.

This has essentially paved the way for John McCain who is now the presumptive nominee of his party. You would think this would be good news for the GOP but it isn’t. Long simmering hatred of John McCain has boiled over, especially with Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. I have to confess I don’t know much about what they are saying as I don’t have the stomach to listen or read very much.

I’m still trying to keep track of the delegates. It’s become dramatically more difficult and complicated than I thought. I’m writing this before we have the results of the Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. primaries, and as I write (for example), NPR gives Barack Obama 994 pledged delegates and 160 super delegates (for a total of 1,154). CNN gives him 1,181; MSNBC gives him 958. Finally Fox News gives him 1,154. Perhaps the best irony is that Fox News and NPR are the only organizations who agree.

I’m using NPR numbers simply because NPR is the news organization where I get most of my news. Right now I’m attempting to keep track of delegates using an Excel spreadsheet. It’s a good way of keeping track but this type of spreadsheet doesn’t translate well into html or xml. In future days I’m hoping to translate these numbers into a table that I can post.

Speaking of the delegate count, I’ve been doing some reading about why this is so confusing. Earlier I talked about how some places are using projections. I’m also learning a great deal about super delegates and uncommitted delegates. The best explanation I’ve heard is from the NPR show Fresh Air on January 31st. Terry Gross interviewed David Rohde from Duke University. Here is a synopsis of some of his points:

  • Several of the candidates who have since dropped out of the campaign had delegates. At the conventions those delegates can still vote for their candidate but don’t have to. They are essentially now free agents and can change their votes at will
  • The states of Florida and Michigan moved their primaries to January against the wishes of their parties. The Democrats say they will refuse to seat any delegates from those states and the Republicans will only seat half of them. That is what they are saying now but there is nothing to stop them from changing their minds and seating those delegates. That could prove to be a nightmare as several candidates didn’t campaign in those states
  • Of the delegates at the convention, the Democratic Party has designated 796 (20% of the total) as “super delegates.” They are senior members of the Democratic National Committee, current, and former office holders. Bill Clinton, by the way, is a super delegate. We can assume he will vote for Hillary and several of these politician have endorsed a candidate but nobody is bound to anyone until the convention.
  • In the Republican Party there are also super delegates, but each state can also allocate delegates who are uncommitted, regardless of who wins the primary or caucus.

Had enough? OK, this puts me at odds with many of my friends, but I love all this chaos and complication. It makes for a more interesting race. Hang on, we’ve got months of this stuff.

Groundhog's Day, Super Bowl Sunday, Tsunami Tuesday, and Mardi Gras: This is Too Much Happiness

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I’m writing this a few hours before Super Bowl XLII. It’s hard to keep up with everything.

Our friend Ann is a big fan of Groundhog’s Day and sent us three haiku’s. I’ve enclosed one:

Rays of sunlight call
Awake, O furry sleeper
Has winter now passed?

Here in San Diego, Super Bowl Sunday has brought with it a bit of a dilemma: It was the New England Patriots who knocked the Chargers out of the playoffs. On the other hand, there is no love loss with the New York Giants because their quarterback is Eli Manning. For the uninitiated, Eli was drafted by the Chargers in 2004 even though his father Archie Manning had previously announced Eli would not play for the Chargers, even if he had to sit out the entire season. The Chargers traded him to the Giants but nobody here has forgotten the snub. As for me, well again this year I just hope it’s a good game.

In the political world we are just a few days from Tsumuni Tuesday (also called Super Tuesday) where 22 states, including California, go to the polls. Most commentators think the nominations may be set by Wednesday only because there are so many delegates are up for grabs. I imagine I’ll be staying up late on Tuesday, because it’s not only Tsunami Tuesday but it’s also…

Mardi Gras: Fortunately most of the festivities happen as the polls are closing but it’s my favorite argument that Catholics are the most fun. Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday” and it’s the day before Ash Wednesday. It’s a day for eating, drinking, and exposing one’s self too much because there’s no point in doing penance unless you have something good to confess.

Finally, if you scroll down the left column below all the independent candidates you will find something called a Truth-O-Meter. It’s sponsored by Politifact.com. I heard about them on NPR. They monitor political ads and check to see how truthful they are. Interestingly they allow bloggers like me to place their “widget” on our site without any advertising. This is worth keeping up with.

Florida's Half Primary

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I’m writing this 3 1/2 hours after the polls have closed in Florida. This only matters to the Republicans as the Democratic primary doesn’t count (Florida, like Michigan, pushed their primary up so soon that the Democratic Party is refusing to seat their delegates. Hillary won the most votes in the primary but it really doesn’t matter in the all-important delegate chase. In the Republican primary John McCain edged out Mitt Romney and won all 57 delegates in the winner take all contest. I’ve updated the delegate count on the left side the page. It’s assumed that Rudy Giuliani will drop out of the race but he hasn’t conceded on his web page and I’ll wait for that.

I don’t normally watch the CBS Evening News but we had it on tonight and Katie Couric did an interesting story. She asked this question of each of the candidates: “If you were elected president, what is the one book other than the Bible you would think is essential to have along?” Here is how they answered (I have included only the book title and author, and not their explanations; also, I put them in the same order as Katie):

  • John McCain: Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
  • Barack Obama: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • Mitt Romney: John Adams by David McCollough
  • Mike Huckabee: Whatever Happened to the Human Race by Francis Schaefer
  • John Edwards: The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone
  • Hillary Clinton: The Federalist Papers
  • Rudy Giuliani: The Federalist Papers

Of the 6 books listed, I’ve only fully read two: Team of Rivals and John Adams but The Federalist Papers is on my list.

If It's the 26th It Must Be South Carolina

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I’m watching the results of the Democratic primary in South Carolina and it appears it was a good day for Barack Obama and his campaign. The big loser today is Hillary Clinton who barely beat John Edwards. It appears that part of the reason for the big Obama win was a backlash against Hillary and especially her husband Bill for going negative. I hope that’s true because it may lead to a decrease in negative campaigning.

I continue to get frustrated looking at the delegate counts, but have (perhaps) found a place that agrees with my math and doesn’t include projections. If you look at the MSNBC page it has the same numbers as me.

Remembering Martin

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Today we celebrate the life and work of Martin Luther King (1929-1968). He was born on January 15th and the holiday is celebrated on the third Monday in January. If were alive he’d be 79 but he died nearly 40 years ago. It’s the first major national event I remember, mostly because of the riots in Washington D.C. and other cities following the assassination.

We continue to suffer from the sin of racism in this country (talk to someone who looks Arab) and I continue to admire Dr. King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail.

Thinking wistfully about this time next year

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Exactly one year from today we will be inaugurating a new President. It’s been a long 7 years and the White House’s next occupant will have a great deal of healing and repairing to do. The country feels to me like she’s ready for a new direction and I know I am.

I’ve updated the delegate numbers after yesterday’s primaries in Nevada and South Carolina. As I’ve said I’m depending on NPR for my numbers. Today I looked at some of the stuff CNN had and their numbers are different than mine. I’m not sure where they get their numbers from except that it appears that at least some of them are projections based on expectations. They have this disclaimer on their page: “Delegate Total shows CNN’s total current delegate estimate for each candidate, including pledged delegates and superdelegates, and may include delegates not accounted for in the summation of the current delegate counts listed by state. ” At this point I feel more comfortable with NPR’s stuff over CNN’s

Yosemite in the Rear View Mirror

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We’ve just returned from our annual pilgrimage to Yosemite. We go every year at this time for the Chef’s Holidays.

Knowing that this is a down time of year for the park they invite gourmet chefs to conduct cooking demonstrations. They also plan a magnificent dinner for the last night. We don’t normally attend the demonstrations as we go hiking around the valley floor. This year was, as usual, excellent. We sat at a table with 3 other couples and one of them (Mike and Tracey) got engaged earlier in the day and it was fun celebrating with them. It had snowed a few weeks before we got there; the good news was that the roads were clear. The bad news is that the snow was no longer fresh: it was hard and crusty and not adequate for snow angels.

Then again, it’s hard to lose with a week of vacation in Yosemite. Can’t wait until next year.

The Delegate Race is On (if you can find the information)

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I have to confess a certain amount of frustration as I write this entry. With all the publicity surrounding the caucuses and primaries it occurred to me that I didn’t know how many delegates the various candidates have as they move toward their nominating conventions. It took a great deal of looking; you’d think that the Republican and Democratic Party home pages would give a list, but all their effort points to what is wrong with the other guy. Finally I found the NPR web page that has an interactive map and by going to each of the states and manually counting the delegates I was able to come up with the number. I’ll try to keep up with the process, and please let me know if I’ve made a math error.

I was only able to do this with the two major parties. Obviously the independent candidates don’t have nominating conventions but I wasn’t able to find any information on the process of the other parties. Of the other parties, either I could find no information on their conventions (e.g. Green), or they do have conventions (e.g. Constitution party: April 23rd in Kansas City Missouri) but don’t give current delegate counts. Again, if I’ve missed something let me know.

This Is Going to be a Long Process

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I’m writing this early on the morning after the Michigan Primary. It was a strange primary for the Democrats as it didn’t mean anything in terms of the delegate count: only Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel appeared on the ballot (along with Christopher Dodd who has since dropped out). Also, because the Michigan Democratic Party tried to defy the national party in picking an early date, these delegates won’t be seated for the convention. That said, Hillary won 55% of the vote with Uncommitted coming in second at 40%. You have to wonder how Dennis and Mike are taking the news that they placed lower than “I don’t know.” As a footnote, Dennis’ campaign page is now his re-election to Congress and his presidential bid has moved here.

The Republican race has gotten more complex. Mitt Romney won Michigan; this is good for him not because it gives him a boost but because he needed to win it. He grew up here and his father, George Romney (1907-1995) was Governor from 1963-1969. To use his imagery, he now has two golds (Wyoming and Michigan) and two silvers (Iowa and New Hampshire).

In the Republican race, the four states that have had either a caucus or a primary, there have been three winners: Mike Huckabee in Iowa, John McCain in New Hampshire, and Mitt Romney in Wyoming and Michigan.

The other Republican candidates appear to be staking out states where they think they can (or have to) win. I believe the interesting story is there. Rudy Giuliani was supposed to be be much stronger at this point, and he has staked out Florida (January 29th). Fred Thompson has staked out South Carolina this Saturday. I’m not sure exactly what happened to Rudy’s campaign, but the word on Fred Thompson all along has been that he is a poor campaigner. This is not exactly new: nearly every campaign has some group wringing their hands looking for the candidate and I think Fred thought he was that man. Perhaps he was but he never got the word that he would still have to campaign. The Christian evangelical movement may have been looking for someone like him but it doesn’t mean they were prepared to proclaim him king just on his entry into the race.

Super Tuesday is February 5th; even the best case scenario sees it a longshot that either party process is over.

The Nomination Process: a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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The news outlets are writing lots of material about Tuesday’s primary and how the various candidates are doing. It made me think about the calendar of primaries. I found it on NPR.

Date State
January 15 Michigan
January 19 Nevada
South Carolina (Republican)
January 26 South Carolina (Democrat)
January 29 Florida
February 1 Maine (Republican)
February 5 Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut</td
Delaware
Georgia
Idaho (Democrat)
Illinois
Kansas (Democrat)
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Missouri
New Jersey
New Mexico (Democratic)
New York
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Utah
February 9 Kansas (Republican)
Louisiana
Nebraska (Democratic)
Washington
February 10 Maine (Democratic)
February 12 Washington D.C.
Maryland
Virginia
February 19 Hawaii
Wisconsin
March 4 Ohio
Rhode Island
Texas
Vermont
March 8 Wyoming (Democrat)
March 11 Mississippi
April 22 Pennsylvania
May 6 Indiana
North Carolina
May 13 Nebraska (Republican)
West Virginia
May 20 Kentucky
Oregon
May 27 Idaho (Republican)
June 3 Montana
New Mexico (Republican)
South Dakota

As you can see this is an exhaustive list. Unfortunately for most of the country the choice will be made before they get a chance to vote. I’m guessing that after all the primaries on February 5th (known as Super Tuesday) we’ll know who the nominees will be.

The winnowing has begun; today Bill Richardson withdrew from the race, though he didn’t endorse anyone. Look for more in the next few weeks.