Daily Archive

Yesterday, as I was reading the latest headlines for political news in the U.S., I came across another article that had the name ‘Nancy Pelosi’ in the headline. I’ll admit that whenever I see hat name, it’s a bittersweet moment. Because she is a party ‘elder’, a powerful Democrat, and a pretty apt politician, I’m always eager to read what she has said. But it’s a bitter task, because I know that one word out of her mouth, and Barack Obama’s chances in the primaries could be through.

This time, however, the title of the article said:

Pelosi: Superdelegates may do damage

I broke into a sweat immediately. Could it mean she was letting them go their own ways, and allowing Clinton to get the nomination? Could the superdelegates, in that process, tear the Democratic party apart? How much damage could they possibly do?

I read the article carefully and attentively. Then I read it again so that I knew that I hadn’t made a mistake. I digested it, thought for a minute, and then I knew.

I knew that Barack Obama would be the Democratic candidate.

Why? You just need to read what Pelosi has to say:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it would be damaging to the Democratic party for its leaders to buck the will of national convention delegates picked in primaries and caucuses

The ‘will’, thus far, of the pledged delegates is for Barack Obama to be the nominee. He leads the race on pledged delegates. From anywhere between 110 to 150+, he leads. Pennsylvania is coming up, but as I’ve written about a few times already, North Carolina will counter that. There are a string of states that Obama is primed to win afterwards, which means Clinton can’t make any grounds what-so-ever on him.

But that’s been known for some time. Since March 4, that’s what’s been said. What makes Pelosi’s words important and absolute?

If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what’s happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party

The person saying this is a superdelegate. The person saying this is one of those delegates who will decide this race. More than that, she is one of the 3 most powerful superdelegates that are out there! And she is saying that the person who goes to the Democratic National Convention with the most pledged delegates should win:

It’s a delegate race. The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee.

Just read those words, and think about who is saying them. The Speaker of the House of Representatives. Second in line to the presidency. A woman who, along with Howard Dean, has the most political clout in Democratic politics these days. This is the person who is saying that the superdelegates should go with the candidate who has won the primary race.

The only way that Obama would not become the Democratic nominee is if Clinton manages to peg back his lead, and then forge some sort of her own lead. It is statistically improbable. Sure, it’s is mathematically possible, and here’s how:

• Let’s say that Clinton wins 60% of the Pennsylvania delegates, and then two more; Clinton +96, Obama +62, difference of +34 to Clinton (that’s more than what a lot of other pundits are giving her);
• Now, let’s go on the same 60% for North Carolina, but Obama’s way; Obama +69, Clinton +46, difference of +23 to Obama;

By the end of those two, Clinton has only gained +11 delegates on Obama. With the rest of the states, there are only 293 delegates available with voting. That means Clinton needs to hold Obama to ~21% of the available delegates, which sees a spread of 232 for Clinton, 60 for Obama, and a +142 nett delegate gain for Clinton. In other words, Clinton needs to get 79% of the rest of the delegates. Now, let’s have a quick run of them, and some predictions:

• Guam, for 4 delegates. Who knows, as there is no polling data. It’s a caucus, so Obama’s strength, but it’s probably not in anyone’s strategy. I’ll give all 4 to Clinton;
• Indiana, for 72 delegates, next to Illinois and Ohio, and it seems to be going the way of Obama. Polling done in and around March 4 had Obama up by double-digits. Let’s use a ~10% win for him; Obama +40, Clinton +32, difference of +8 for Obama;
• West Virginia, and its 28 delegates. Obama won Virginia convincingly, 64% to 35%. There are no polls out on the state at the moment, and we won’t go by Virginia’s results. Let’s say a ~5% win for Clinton somehow; Clinton +16, Obama +12, difference of +4 for Clinton;
• Oregon, with 52 delegates, is a state that Obama should romp home. He won Washington, and Oregon is more liberal than it. The demographics, if I recall, could come into play, and while Obama should win by 15% or more, let’s say it’s only ~5%; Obama +27, Clinton +25, difference of +2 for Obama;
• Kentucky, with 51 delegates available, is one of those Southern ‘red’ states that Obama has continually won. But say something freakish happens, and Clinton gets up and wins by even ~10%; Clinton +28, Obama +23, difference of +5 for Clinton;
• Puerto Rico, with 55 delegates tied to the vote, is a caucus, and Obama goes well in them things, and has the support of the main politicians in Puerto Rico. But, having a large ‘Latino’ vote, let’s say it goes to Clinton by ~16%; Clinton +31, Obama +24, difference of +7 for Clinton;
• Montana, with 16 delegates, is a state that Obama will win (’red’, mid-West). He has won states like this by 20% to 30% in the pats, but let’s say it splits here; Obama +8, Clinton +8, difference of nothing;
• South Dakota, and its 15 delegates, is another state Obama will win. He will win this by so much, but let’s say its only ~10%; Obama +9, Clinton +6, difference of +3 to Obama;

Taking the +11 delegates that Clinton scores from the Pennsylvania and North Carolina primaries, and adding all this maths together, Clinton gets another +7 on Obama, and finishes only gaining +18 delegates on Obama. He still has a 110+ lead! What I outlined above are reasonable, and expected, results from the states. And by arriving at the maintained 110+ lead for Obama, it still leaves a lot of wiggle room for Clinton to gain more delegates, and still be behind by a significant margin*.

So, while it is mathematically possible for Clinton to eliminate Obama’s lead of +140 by winning 79% or more of the remaining delegates, it is statistically improbably, near on impossible. The only hope she ever had was that the superdelegates would bail her out.

And, finally, we come in a circle. Pelosi has said that the superdelegates should go to the candidate who has the most pledged delegates come the D.N.C. That candidate will be Barack Obama. Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate for the November 4 election. You’ll hear people say “I knew it all along”, but never had it been more clearer or certain that the moment Nancy Pelosi finished her previously mentioned statement.

Just to repeat: Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate.

Thomas.

Thomas.

*With all of that said, Michigan and Florida are pushing for a re-vote. It’s likely to happen in some form. If they come into play, it could throw things out of whack, but with Obama’s bargaining power, I don’t expect him to settle for any re-vote scenario that would allow Clinton a chance to eliminate his +140 lead that he has now.

I reported earlier that Barack Obama had gained just 7 extra delegates from the Iowa caucus convention. That was a premature call from all sources on the ground, as it turns out he has actually gained 9 delegates, and netted 10 in the overall count. How is this possible?

8 (rather than 7) of Edwards’ delegates have come over to Obama now, and in what is perhaps even more stunning news, 1 of Hillary Clinton’s caucus delegates left her for Obama’s team. That Obama won over half of Edwards’ delegates is important, but that single delegate switch sides is even more important. Clinton has, for the past week and some, trashed and tarnished the standing of what people call the ’small’ states. Those states that don’t have a bazillion delegates attached to the vote - and those states that have given Obama the tentative win, Clinton the loss. She has said that they don’t ‘count’ for much as she has tried to portray Obama as unable to win the ‘big’ states, somehow more important than all else.

The thing is though, a lot of these ’small’ states run on the caucus system, not primary voting. And while Clinton is going around and speaking ill of these ‘nothing’ caucus states, they are meeting for their state caucus conventions, where the final pledge will come from the delegates. Obama’s strength in Iowa, then subsequent string of victories across the mid-West, and showing in caucuses, with superdelegates, and with taking the lead in the race, has seen the delegates at the Iowa convention move to him. He has landed the first ‘poach’ blow - taking a pledged delegate from Clinton. There’s going to be an argument over whether Obama won that delegate over or whether Clinton’s tirades and antics lost it. Either way, Clinton’s count fell one more. And with Obama’s gaining of 9 delegates, he extended his lead by 10 delegates by the close of the day.

Ohio’s ‘impressive’ win is now, literally, nothing. Anything that she or the media or the ‘people’ thought she gained on March 4 is officially a loss. She lost Texas on the delegate count, Vermont and Rhode Island canceled each other out, and Ohio she had a 7 delegate advantage. Not anymore. In two primaries, it was all for nothing. Funny. March 4 was predicted to be the date of the Clinton ‘comeback’. And when that day ended, it looked like it might just happen. Now, she has actually even fallen further behind since that date. That’s very funny actually.

I could talk a little more about this, and the delegate count, is going to hurt her even more in the eyes of the superdelegates, but that is a post for tomorrow. I want to post it tomorrow to continue my back-to-back days of posting, but I’ll say this about it now:

In it I will outline why I know that Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate in the November general election.

Thomas.

Ok, if you thought that the U.S. primary system couldn’t be any more complicated that the version the Democrats have running (primary voting, caucuses, superdelegates, combinations, etc.) then you’re about to get a whole lot more confused. Today, well, in the past 24 hours say, Iowa (the first state in the whole primary system for the Democrats) held their national caucus convention to officially award the candidates with their delegates.

I can hear you asking “Didn’t the candidates already win some?” Well, without going into too much depth, they were only ‘loose’ wins - more like delegates that were likely to go to the candidates come today. The official decisions were always going to be made at the convention.

Because the Iowa caucus was held so long ago, John Edwards was still a candidate. And, in his showing in Iowa, he ran 2nd to Barack Obama (forcing Hillary Clinton into 3rd) with 30% of the caucus goers voting for him. Obama won with 38%. Now, at the time, Obama was ‘awarded’ 16 delegate,  Edwards 14, and Clinton 15. Once Edwards pulled out, all eyes were on the handful of delegates he had pulled to his campaign because, especially those he won in Iowa because they weren’t officially obligated to support him. Being part of the Iowa caucus system meant that the delegates, come the convention, could change to either Obama or Clinton without any hassle what-so-ever.

That’s what happened overnight - there were delegate changes. Clinton managed to win 1 over (which shows how pathetic they view the Clinton campaign), 6 stayed with Edwards, and Obama received 7 more. Obama’s official total, from Iowa, stands now at 23, Clinton’s at 16, and Edwards on 6.

What I would look out for are Obama spokespersons and supporters speaking on the news in the next few days, reminding everyone that Clinton only won Ohio by 7 delegates, and that now Obama has written that off with just this shifting of support. Further, I would expect these people to say that Obama has ‘won’ the Edwards supporters over. From that, the media will be abuzz about two things: The first is that they will be focusing on the movement of Edwards supporters on the floor of the Democratic National Convention. If Obama has won over Iowa’s supporters now, what about those additional 6 that are still in Edwards’ camp even after the Iowa convention?

And the second thing: What about those caucuses that was only Obama versus Clinton? Are her delegates she won at caucuses safe at the D.N.C. when the fight gets really heated and close, what could happen to the 177 delegates she has won in caucuses? If things manage to stretch into a 3rd day of delegate poaching, will these be the Obama targets? I expect Nevada and Texas delegates to get the most attention - Nevada because Obama netted more delegates than Clinton in the process, and Texas because Obama won the caucus there, and left Clinton with only 29. He can make the argument that their respective states went to him anyway, so they aren’t turn-coating on the entire state.

There was another tidbit of news to come out today. Remember how big California was for the Democrats? The most delegates, the most populated stated, etc.? Well, the vote tallying only just finished overnight. Apparently over 9 million people voted in the primaries there. The official results are in 1 month, 1 week, and 4 days after the event. Obama managed to win 5 of the delegates that were still ‘too close to call’, while Clinton picked up 2. The final spread was Obama winning 166 delegates, Clinton 204.

So some good news - Obama, on a non-primary day, increases his delegate lead by 12 more. Up to a 140 lead now, roughly, and real estate is running out.

Thomas.

So what does Obama need to do in Pennsylvania? This delegate-rich state is very similar to Ohio and, if we are to go by the previous state, Pennsylvania should go to Clinton. By how much is up in the air, because it all depends on the approach Obama takes in the state. Similarly, he can dampen the effect Clinton winning the state has on the race by taking certain approaches to the state’s results.

First, Obama’s weakness in a lot of states has been the rural area. With the six weeks he has, he needs to get into the rural areas. I know that might sound like the bleeding obvious, but it’s extremely important if Obama is going to hold Clinton to any sort of nothing lead in the state, and it’s where Obama needs to start if he is going to win the state.

As I said, Ohio is very similar to Pennsylvania. And Obama was effectively crushed in the Ohio rural areas. Obama usually has the better ground network of the two candidates, so he needs his supporters to get their roots into the rural towns. But he can’t campaign in any way that’s annoying or off-putting to the citizenry. There were reports that people in the rural areas of Ohio received past 10 phone calls from each candidate’s support team in that final 3 days. That is off-putting and annoying. Obama needs to get down on the ground often to make it look like it’s not a proxy campaign - that he is actually out there and wants the votes. Having a candidate in your town is hardly going to be as annoying as getting automated phone calls and strangers telling you to vote for someone, right?

I expect that Obama will continue his trend of winning the urban area. Places like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and the area known as the Delaware Valley are ripe for Obama to gain a majority of the delegates there. It will come back to the vast rural areas that will decide this - like Ohio. Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton - these were the urban areas that Obama won in Ohio, but he still lost the state by 7 delegates. While winning the urban areas is likely to keep things reasonable (like a 7 delegate difference), it would be best if he could infiltrate the rural areas through the surrounding counties that these urban areas lie in to turn the state into a delegate tie.

Pennsylvania is one of the two remaining states that have more than 100 delegates tied to the voting. The other state is North Carolina - expected to go Obama’s way. The polls indicate anything from 7% to 15%, but nothing nearly close to a tie, nor any polls showing Clinton in the lead. Thus, Pennsylvania is the last state that Clinton can really make a dent in Obama’s lead. Of the states that follow Pennsylvania (Guam (4), Indiana (72), North Carolina, West Virginia (28), Kentucky (51), Oregon (52), Puerto Rico (55), Montana (16), South Dakota (15)) see Obama winning 7 (Indiana, N.C, W.V., Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, S.D.) and getting more nett gains on Clinton. So, in the short term, Pennsylvania will provide Clinton with a chance to close the lead and maybe swing momentum.

Ignoring that the nett gains that Obama makes in the final 7 wins he can get will wipe off whatever gains Clinton gets in Pennsylvania, North Carolina is the only other big state left. It legitimately is a big state. 115 delegates. Guam votes before it, and Indiana on the same day. What Obama needs to do is get out and keep in everyone’s mind that Pennsylvania is roughly the same size (in terms of delegates) and North Carolina, his next win, and his previous win in Mississippi. He needs everyone to be thinking that Clinton’s win in North Carolina is something that will be wiped off come North Carolina. Obama needs to keep talking delegate maths, and remind everyone that Clinton can only come close to his pledged delegate count if she wins big in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and back that up with a string of victories in the rest of the states.

What happens if he does that? A result that is similar to Ohio (a 7 delegate difference) is a blow-up for Clinton. The papers will read that it wasn’t enough, and North Carolina is her last chance. And, with Obama leading in North Carolina, say he goes on to win, the next round of headlines will read that it is impossible for Clinton to catch Obama in terms of pledged delegates. The rest of the states hear this and start going to Obama, and come the convention, it’s on everyone’s mind that Obama has more pledged delegates than Clinton. And if the superdelegates decide this race by going with the candidate that has the most pledged delegates, than Obama has it locked up.

If he keeps talking maths, and throwing out unattainable margins in the news cycles like 65%+, 70%+, keeping Obama down to the low 30%, then he will win the battle for delegate ‘narrative’, and even a moderate win in Pennsylvania will be a loss for Clinton. Figures like 65%+ are near-on impossible for Clinton because Obama is likely to win the urban areas, students, and the ‘black’ vote. If his campaigning goes well, then he is gnawing into the demographics that delivered Clinton Ohio.

On a side note, the delegate ‘narrative’ is that Clinton cannot win the pledged delegate math. Thus, her only escape or distraction is to say that Obama’s campaign is losing momentum, direction, and is generally under-prepared to take on a national campaign. While it’s what will win over superdelegates without evidence, it isn’t enough to change anything to do with the pledged delegate maths. She needs to win the delegate war as much as Obama, but Obama has a way out: Tell everyone that each candidate leads in one of the two last ‘big’ states. They both have a big state under their belts, which means Clinton won’t be able to catch him.

Through the break, Obama needs to play further ‘mind games’ with the media, the constituents of Pennsylvania, and Democrats all over the country. Most importantly the media, because they have the most influence on this race. Those mind games are playing to expectations that he sets, not playing to expectations that the media set, or (worse still) expectations that Clinton sets. Obama needs to, by voting day, be seen as the underdog in Pennsylvania.

By presenting himself as the underdog, Obama isn’t going to have another Ohio. You see, Ohio’s results were a big disappointment because of Obama’s win in Wisconsin. A 17% win in Wisconsin meant that Obama could easily win Ohio. Everyone was beginning to think that a win in Ohio meant Clinton would be out of the race completely too. Obama quickly became the frontrunner, Clinton the underdog, and the expectation that anything other than a win in Ohio was a disappointment. What he needed to do was keep the expectations of everyone out there down, so that the result that he got (the 7 delegate difference) would have been a win.

Funnily enough, internal polling from the Obama campaign that came out the next day had the team expecting to lose by 6 delegates. A bloody good guesstimate. If that had been the expectation of everyone out there, the media and ‘people’ too, then his loss would have been a ‘loss’.

So, as long as Obama gets some sort of reasonable result in Pennsylvania, he can maintain his insurmountable delegate lead. If he is portrayed as the underdog, has everyone thinking about low expectations, a result that is even really bad for him could be presented as an understandable loss. And, combine that with his future projection in North Carolina, it doesn’t make the loss so bad. Something like a lose by 20% of the vote could be a ‘reasonable result’.

To sum up: Obama’s campaign wants to project 4 things. One, that he is the delegate leader. Two, that Pennsylvania is Clinton’s last chance to make a really big dent in his lead. Three, even if Clinton does get that really big win, he is leading in North Carolina, and he will make up any lost ground. Four, he isn’t expected to do at all well in Pennsylvania, so don’t expect much.

To make it a close race, and blow those low expectations out of the water, Obama will need to continue his domination of the ‘black’ vote, maintain his lead in the ‘youth’ vote, keep winning the urban centres, and get out campaigning in the rural counties. If he can start putting pressure on the areas Clinton has ruled in, then Pennsylvania might be very close indeed.

Thomas.