Blog stats break

Just a quick little break from everything. My stats, over the past few days, have gone crazy. I had 4 consecutive days of 100+ visitors and page views, and of the past 8 days, 7 of them have also been 100+. But yesterday was the real winner. Sitemeter says that, just yesterday, this blog had 368 visitors and 423 page views. This brought just the week’s page views to 1030, and 769 visitors.

The WordPress stats read a little different, but that’s because they run on different timezones. But regardless, it says yesterday was the biggest day too on 233 visitors, followed by the 226 that I’ve received thus far today. I expect that today will create a new record. At the moment, it’s only the second biggest week on 585 visits, though there are more days, and primaries to go. Therefore, I expect a very big week. I think I mentioned that last week was the biggest week so far on 754. So far, the month is in 5th place on 876 views. 1240 more and it will become equal biggest month. I still don’t think it will climb that high, but I won’t try to not get the new record.

In terms of popular posts, yes, you guessed it, my Superdelegates post has ranked #1 over the past 2 days. It even got a link to here on some else’s blog (Law and Letters), while another blogger (from Step Ya Damn Game Up! Think), who commented on the helpfulness of the post, has linked to this blog as well. Earlier, a forum recommended the post as a good explanation for the superdelegate process, and I know that twice my article came up in comments at DailyKos. So a pretty popular post. Today, so far, the post has received 152 visits. Yesterday129. For the past 7 days, 406 views. For the past 30 days (for which it hasn’t existed) it has been viewed 840 times. And for the quarter, year and all time (3 new statistics that WordPress has enabled), it’s the same amount. No derr. In the all time rankings, it is first – leading Amélie vs. Garden State, which is on 301. Insanely popular.

If I can get around to it (code for if I’m not too lazy), I’ll take some screen shots of the graphs and upload them so that I have a reason to brag some more. Not that I really needed a reason in the first place, did I?

Thomas.

Super Tuesday IX – Some fallout

So what happened? Who were the winners and who were the losers? There’s only one clear winner today, and that’s John McCain. The man has all but stitched up the Republican nomination. Mitt Romney is the only clear loser today. As one man on CNN (who provided, by far, the best coverage of the day) put it “The only thing Mitt Romney can spin about today is that he’s got good hair.” That’s about all that Romney won. Mike Huckabee also came out ahead – streets further than I would have put him at – but it wasn’t enough to challenge the nomination. And, of course, Ron Paul plain old sucked. Really, I want to know where all those Internet people (also known as nerds) got off thinking that Paul had any real chance. While I said that he would be the best Republican candidate, I never for a moment thought he’d win the nomination.

The only murkiness that remains surrounds the Democrats. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama have come out of this with any significant lead. Granted, the Obama campaign was never expecting to come out with a significant lead, but I can remember even a month ago that Clinton supporters were claiming she’d have the nomination in the bag by this hour. It must be disappointing for their campaign that she now finds herself in a rather tight race.

What the Clinton campaign will take hope from is the staying power of their candidate. As you read here, there was a late surge by Obama in polls everywhere. In places where Clinton wasn’t campaigning hard, that can be understood. But in places where she was supposed to win, that’s something that’s pretty rare. I had been saying for the past few days that if Super Tuesday actually was Super Friday, Obama would have won hands down. The momentum that he had over the last days of campaigning was huge, and as a results, if there was even two extra days, those surging poll numbers would have translated into actual votes.

Unfortunately, Obama didn’t pick up enough of the crucial states to make a real impact on Clinton. He needed any combination of two of these:

• Win/split the New York delegates;
• Win/split the Californian delegates;
• Win/split the Massachusetts delegates;
• Win/split the New Jersey delegates;
• Win/split the Connecticut delegates

Some of those, going by the polling numbers that were coming in, were very much on the cards. He pulled off a win in Connecticut, which was very welcome, but he needed another North-East state to show that it wasn’t a fluke. I’d be very disappointed in the Massachusetts Democrats – a state where he was endorsed by both Senators (Kennedy and Kerry) and the Governor, and he couldn’t get more than % of the vote. Splitting the vote here should have been an outcome. And California. And New Jersey. The polls pointed towards that as an outcome.

I wonder if the polls were premature or if they scared more Clinton supporters out to the streets. New Hampshire was like that – the Obama win in Iowa actually brought more Clinton supporters to the booths. It’s exactly the same as what will happen if she runs as the Democratic nominee – her presence scares Republicans out to the polls in droves. Either way, it looks like it happened in the pro-Clinton states this time around.

What is good is that Obama won more states than Clinton. This will feed the fires of electability. The argument has been raging, but has received less attention than the who race/sex debate on T.V. so far. The primaries should really be who is more electable. And, if that’s the judge, then from today’s performance, you’d say Obama, and give him the nomination. He won more mid-West states, has won as many Southern states in the whole race (and will likely win more than Clinton), he has snagged a couple of North-East states too. All-in-all, he has delivered in all the different parts of the U.S. at a better rate than Clinton.

However, the biggest disappointment, and probably the only legitimate one, is how he fared in California. I suspect the campaign was expecting a really tight race there so that he split the delegate count. If he had won it, then it would have been a whole new race. But that was never on the cards until the last polls came out. What was always expected was a close race. Closer than what was the outcome – 10% between the two (52% to 42%). A 5% or less difference would have been ideal; a win a dream. But it didn’t fall that way.

Obama’s big percentage wins in Alaska (75% to 25%), Utah (57% to 39%), Colorado (67% to 32%), Idaho (79% to 17%), Minnesota (67% to 32%), Kansas (74% to 26%), North Dakota (61% to 37%), Illinois (65% to 33%), and Georgia (67% to 31%) are what kept the big loss down. Obama has won significantly more delegates than Clinton across all of these, especially Illinois. These states kept his losses in the ‘big’ states to a reduced impact. Those ‘big’ states that Clinton won – California, New Jersey by 10%, Massachusetts by 15%, New York by 17%, Tennessee by 13% – might have hurt a lot more if those large percentage wins in the rest of the smaller states wasn’t so high or frequent. Similarly, those states where the two have split the vote (Connecticut, New Mexico, Missouri) have helped Obama stop any more of a lead that Clinton might establish. And finally, by picking up states that could have, had Clinton won them, created momentum for the opposition (Delaware, Alabama, New Mexico, Missouri), he has created momentum for himself, gained more delegates, and come out with an advantage.

So, to wrap this up. A week ago, if someone had shown me these results, and the end numbers, I would have been quite happy. I guess that when the polls started to suggest something miraculous, I should have been more wary. The day wasn’t an Obama sweep in terms of delegates. But thankfully, neither was it a sweep for Clinton either. And with more delegates to be factored in, though a current delegate count of 825 to Clinton and 732 to Obama (93 difference), I’d say that it was a very good day for Obama. Then remember that he won 13 states, possibly 14, and it turns into a fantastic day for him. Momentum and news cycles going into the next phase of the race. And that phase is in 3 days time, where Washington, Nebraska, and Louisiana vote for the Democrats. For the Republicans, it’s the same day, but Louisiana and Kansas. But John McCai, I suspect, won’t be worried. Though Clinton may very well be. The next few states are all favourable for Obama in terms of location, demographics, and delegates. The primary race for the Democrats is far from over. And it’s going to start up again tomorrow.

Thomas.

Super Tuesday VIII – The spin

I’ve been watching the results come in all day. I haven’t missed a minute. Is this the greatest outcome for Barack Obama? No. But it’s a fantastic result for his campaign nonetheless. He has won 12 states (as of this writing) out of the 22 that were available, stands a chance at winning 14, and has proven that he is remarkably electable. He has played in all the demographics (other than the senior vote) in at least a handful of states. He bridged the sex, race, and age (almost) divide all around. Obama proved, with Super Tuesday, that he is more electable than Hillary Clinton.

Ok, that’s one side of the argument that you’re going to hear. The next is that Hillary won big. She has won more delegates. California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts are all delegate rich, and winning by comfortable majorities in those states has, in fact, pushed Clinton closer to the nomination that she will (not) win. This is all that counts, delegates, and winning more delegates is all that counts.

What do you believe? Do you take sides with the electability debate that the Obama campaign will cite as the reason they won the day? Or will you take part in the Clinton campaign’s push of the delegate count. Of course, at the end of the day, Obama won’t be behind by any ridiculous amount (70-ish at the moment, but that doesn’t have hardly any figured in. I suspect it will get to 110 or so), or by any amount that couldn’t be reduced significantly by a good number of superdelegates coming out and endorsing Obama in the wake of winning 12+ states, and gaining more momentum.

The spin is one of the biggest players in the race, without a doubt. The way it is used by each side is an art And the campaign that wins the ’spin wars’ can thank the media – because they are the ones who decide which ’story’ is better to tell. And, a lot of the time, the ‘underdog’ story is more popular. That’s Obama this time around – the man who came from no where to the fore, who stands on the edge of destiny, and there is only one thing standing in his way. Granted, that thing is a Clinton, but it’s not something the popular story telling and superdelegates can’t move.

I thoroughly enjoy the spin that plays out. It’s almost as entertaining as the electioneering that happens. Almost, but not quite. The politics of it all is far more interesting – like West Virginia. There, the caucus meeting resulted in no majority for the Republicans. It was split between John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee. After the first round, as I said, there was no majority. So what happened? McCain’s henchmen pulled those people voting for McCain in the meeting aside and told them to vote for Huckabee, break the deadlock and give a man who has no real chance at winning the nomination the state’s delegates. The second round of voting came, McCain’s supporters voted for Huckabee, and all of West Virginia’s delegates went to Huckabee.

Speaking of Huckabee, it looks as though he will be the number 1 name for V.P. come John McCain getting the nomination. He was won more states than I would have ever pegged him for – and they are in the South. And in the states that he didn’t win, he was getting the conservative vote. Huckabee is now a name to be reckoned with. Not for the nomination this year, but for the V.P. spot. I’ll expand on this idea in a later post.

The results are still being released, and this was really a progress post. With no locked-in delegate count, states still being decided, and a whole lot of prospects on the horizon, I’ll be doing a recap post come tomorrow. But for now, it’s been a great day to watch the race finally come to its biggest event. It could have been a little better with even one state changing sides, but things don’t always go the best way in politics. By the end of the day though, there will have only been one clear answer delivered: This primary race will be going on for a while.

Thomas.