Dishonest Reporting

You know, I'm getting real tired of CNN and the rest of the world with the following headline (or derivation): "Clinton still leads in Delegates, Obama closing".

It just doesn't represent the truth. According to CNN, Clinton has 1,148 to Obama's 1,121. But that's hogwash because it includes the Superdelegates WHO HAVE NOT YET VOTED. It's estimate, a guess, of how those superdelegates will vote, nothing more. It's especially absurd considering that Superdelegates are inherently fickle and an early "pledge" to vote one way, means little. Aside from Clinton, Bill there is no way to guarantee that Hillary's pledged Superdelegates actually vote for her and we won't know that for a long time.

A more honest way to report this would be: Obama 986 - Clinton 924. Because that's the truth. Obama is ahead on delegates. That is, delegates that have actually voted and whose votes are fixed. Rant over.

UPDATE: Yahoo is significantly different. As in, honest.

Handicapping the Race

The general mainstream media narrative at the moment suggests that Tuesday was a tie. It further suggests that we’re in a “horserace” and that it will essentially be tied for the foreseeable future. Yes, this is what they get paid for. Stunning insight and analysis.

I’ve been reading about Blogostan and I’ve come to some conclusions I thought I would share.

It wasn’t a tie

Prior to Super Tuesday most pundits were suggesting that Obama needed to stay within 200 pledged delegates of Hillary Clinton to have a chance. The wide expectation was that she had a strong advantage and that he would be lucky stay close enough to compete. This post accurately sums up this sentiment.

But Obama just killed on Tuesday. He won more states and more delegates. He won red states and states all across the country. Any spin from the Hillary camp that it was a tie, so carelessly absorbed in the national media narrative is little more than that – spin. She should have won big the other day and instead, she survived.

Advantage Obama.

It’s getting worse for HRC

There are essentially two factors that spell trouble for HRC (although some articles suggest 5 or more factors, I think these are the two worth mentioning). First, she’s running out of money. As confirmed by NBC, her financial situation is getting increasingly dire. Not only did HRC loan her campaign $5 million, but some of her staffers are working without pay. Obama just destroyed her in January ($32 million to $15 million) and, while the HRC campaign is touting its $3 million raised since Tuesday, Obama is claiming $6 million $7 million raised.

Generally, when presidential campaigns start running out of money that spells the beginning of the end. Just as Rudy Guiliani. I’m not suggesting that this is the end of the HRC campaign. But it is true that having money troubles in February, in a race that, as the clear favorite (near incumbent), she should be winning outright, speaks to underlying trouble that is not likely to go away.

But aside from the general funding issues, the larger issue is that Obama just has more money and can spend more to get his message out than she can. The HRC campaign’s response to this dynamic is to propose a series of debates which would offer free publicity for her and her message. I hope that Obama rejects them. He doesn’t fair particularly well in the debate format at this point and he doesn’t need them to keep winning. And the less free advertising the HRC campaign gets, the more money she has to spend. It’s a win-win cycle for Obama.

The second factor related to the future of the HRC campaign is that the election calendar favors Obama in the near future. There are two reasons for this. First, the calendar is spread out. After next Tuesday, there is a gap of a week before Hawaii and Wisconsin, and then another gap until March 4th. This is good for Obama because the more people get to know him, the more they like him.

The rest of February is positive for Obama in another sense as well as the states voting and the formats both favor him. In terms of format, Obama is 8-1 in caucuses. Many HRC supporters are griping about that and the reason is that Nebraska, Washington, Maine, and Hawaii all have caucuses in February. It’s not inconceivable that he could sweep (the unknown is Maine). Combine that with positive demographics in Louisiana, Virginia, DC, and Maryland and it’s almost certain that he has 6 states and DC in the bag. The US Virgin Islands is anyone’s guess as is Wisconsin. But the point is that there is a chance that Obama could win out in the rest of February and win the majority of the 447 pledged delegates up for grabs. That would spell disaster for HRC.

HRC supporters in Blogostan are going apesh*t

It’s always a dodgy game taking the pulse of greater blogostan since the internets is filled with crazy people who have little more than ravenous passion and a keyboard but it is telling that the average HRC supporter is doing 2 things: whining about the caucus format and spinning Tuesday as a loss for Obama. They’re also going generally crazy and making arguments that are getting progressively more stupid as things get worse for HRC. Maybe it doesn’t mean much for blogostan is filled with radicalism and bad arguments, but it is noteworthy that the shrillness of these complaints is increasing.

I see two options for the future

I was watching CNN’s John King last night (who is a total badass and never gets enough air time – damn Wolf Blitzer) and he went race by race making reasonable projections of the number of delegates that Obama and Clinton were likely to win. The result was that neither won enough to gain the nomination.

I think this is the likely scenario. Both have their strengths and the democratic electorate is essentially divided between the two. White women and Latinos are opting for HRC, men and blacks for Obama. There’s a divide on class and age as well with lower income and older folks going for HRC and higher income and younger folks for Obama. I don’t see these dynamics changing greatly in the near future.

What this means is that neither is likely to win big states by great majorities (over 10%) from here on out. And in a proportional distribution system, when the votes are close, so are the delegates awarded.

There is, however, an outside chance that Obama wins out in February. If that happens, I think the HRC campaign collapses. I wrote about this yesterday with my winners-win argument but more to the point, if the perception is that Obama has gained inevitability, the money will dry up for HRC and she simply won’t be able to compete for air time, etc.

As a party, this is the outcome we should hope for. It’s a bitter pill for HRC supporters but faced with the option of a brokered convention or an early Obama nomination, we should opt for the Obama nomination. The last democratic convention that was brokered didn’t work out so well (see Hart, Gary 1984). And in an election year in which the Dems have a clear advantage, it behooves us to unify behind the strongest candidate early so as to beat back the McCain McMachine. It is my distinct hope that Obama sweeps February and HRC gracefully steps aside so that we can shift the focus to destroying the GOP. I know that is an audacious hope (intended) and that an HRC supporter would vehemently disagree with me but she doesn’t have a predetermined right to be President and I think at some point you have to acknowledge that she can’t win, she can only tie. (Maybe the same can be said about Obama but he was never supposed to win and I think, at this point, he’s got the best shot at the nomination through the primary process.)

Look for the issues and focus to change

It’s the economy stupid and it still is. It is not without irony that 2008 is mirroring 1992. There’s a Bush in the White House, his popularity has hovered just under 30% for months, there was an Iraq War, and the economy is tanking. Up until now, the big issues have been health care and Iraq. These are issues both candidates have pushed for obvious reasons. HRC sees health care as her strength while Obama sees Iraq as his. They’ve both won and lost votes based on those selling points.

But it’s time to change the focus. The economy is tanking and at the end of the day, people care more about the money coming in and their jobs than they do about anything else. Expect both candidates to refocus their message. Obama started doing this on Tuesday night when he spoke about his experiences in Southside Chicago. It’s a start, but it’s not enough. He’s going to have to articulate more details for economic stimulation and support for homeowners on the verge of foreclosure. I’d advise he adopts some of the Edwards platform on the homeowner issue (Edwards owned that issue) and that he talk about major infrastructure work – repairing bridges, etc.

Both candidates will talk about the economy more than anything in the days and weeks to come and it remains to be seen if Obama can connect with those most at risk in these days of decline. But message and policy are both important and it’s up to the candidates to come up with winning talking points.

But more than just issues, I see both candidates trying to reach out to the voters they haven’t been winning. Obama did this after New Hampshire and significantly closed the gender gap. So far he’s been basically getting nowhere with Latinos (race is a factor in my opinion) but I expect him to reach out to Latinos and have some success as they get to know him (so far, Latino support has come mainly from the Clinton name and not from any particular policy issue). For HRC it’s a bit more complicated. I don’t think she’s going to turn too many of Obama’s target support to her side, but she will give it a try.

But either way, I think the candidates are going to reformulate both the message and the target audience (to a certain extent). These changes in tactics and strategy are going to have huge play in the coming weeks but, oddly, I don’t think they’ll make much of a difference in February. Instead, I think the change in message will help in places like Texas, West Virginia, Indiana, Mississippi, and Ohio, among others. So even if HRC does make inroads here, I don’t know how it starts helping her until March 4th at the earliest.

Conclusion

If I were to bet on it, I’d put money on neither securing enough delegates to win the nomination outright. That seems the most likely outcome. But, I have to say, I like Obama’s chances. He’s got the money, the favorable calendar, the organization, and the momentum. In some ways, he’s gone from challenger to favorite. That doesn’t mean he’s going to win, but he’s got a great shot.

Update: A couple more links to bolster my story. First, an AP article providing more details about the calendar schedule for February. It notes that HRC expects to lose MD, DC, VA, WI, and Hawaii. The other link is the story I referenced above that details 5 reasons for HRC concern. And now, two extra points:

1. It looks like the Edwards supporters went for Obama. No link but I've seen it written in several places.

2. HRC's entire campaign was based on "inevitability". People who suggest Obama didn't win on Tuesday either have very short memories or a tenuous relationship with the truth. He smashed the central premise of her campaign to bits and they're reeling. There's even talk of a shakeup at the top now. Getting interesting.

Handicapping the Democrats

First, an update from yesterday. Several polls have McCain moving up sharply and Guiliani dropping off the electoral map. As currently positioned, it’s quite possible that Guiliani will be done by the end of January. People just don’t like him (no surprise, he’s a total dick) and his scandals have caught up with him. McCain’s rise, to me, is startling as I have long considered him DOA but some people are now predicting he will win the whole thing. I won’t go that far as some of the polls they cite which show McCain’s rise have been vastly divergent results from the bulk of other polls out there (polling is a variable “science” that I may tackle in another post) and since these predictions are based on the moment not on potential trends. But I will say this: McCain is the least ape-sh*t of the GOP candidates and that’s got to be appealing to the core who are turned off by the evangelical option and the flip-flopper. At any rate, this could all change on a dime. As we all saw with George “Macaca” Allen, one mistake can destroy a campaign and trends don’t necessarily mean anything.

Now, onto the Democrats.

The Democrat side is much more challenging to predict because they use a proportional system to divide up the delegates. As I understand it, any candidate that receives less than 15% of the vote will be disregarded and the remaining candidates will receive a proportional share of delegates based on the percentage of votes they receive. What isn’t clear is this: Are the actual votes for the sub-15% candidates subtracted meaning that delegates for above-15% candidates are calculated only based the new percentage of support?

In other words, Candidate X, Y, and Z get 32%, 30%, and 23% in the primary while Candidates A,B, and C get 7%, 3%, and 5% for a total of 15%. Assuming there are 1000 total votes, then as I understand it, the 150 votes for A, B, and C would be discarded and new percentages would be calculated for the others. In this case, X goes to 37%, Y to 35%, and Z to 27%.

Based on the guidance manual I read yesterday (page 15), I believe this is how things work. But I could very well be wrong as the manual was a bit unclear on this and I had not the time to give it a full examination.

That being said, this system obviously is harder to predict in that there’s no telling how many total votes are likely to be cast so the following predictions are more rough than the GOP side.
To win the Democratic nomination for president a candidate has to accumulate 2,184 total delegates. Some delegates have already “voted”. These are congress members and other special delegates that exist outside the primary process. The current count follows:

Clinton – 75
Obama – 31
Edwards – 16
Dodd – 10
Richardson – 7
Biden – 1

(This will be the last time Dodd, Richardson, and Biden are mentioned.)

Due to similar problems with state primary moves (as described yesterday) the following primaries and their values count for January:

Iowa – 56
NH – 30
Nevada – 33
South Carolina – 54

Michigan and Florida won’t count unless they move the primaries back, which doesn’t look likely to happen, so I will ignore them. That leaves 4 races to start momentum going.

According to the latest poll data, Iowa is statistically tied between Obama and Clinton. However, trend lines show Obama moving ahead and Clinton dropping. Assuming those trends continue up to the election, an Obama victory is looking likely. Edwards is also trending upward of late. However, Iowa is a caucus state, not a straight primary and that makes any prediction unreliable at best (due to the power of groupthink). The “winner” will get a huge momentum boost and that’s spells good things for Obama but it says here that those 56 votes are split 21 Obama, 19 Clinton, and 16 Edwards.

New Hampshire is a bit more clear cut. Trend lines show sharp increases for Obama and Edwards and a very steep decline for Clinton. I’m going out on a limb here and saying that those trends continue and that NH follows Iowa’s lead (as it historically has). Obama 12, Clinton 11, Edwards, 7.

Nevada is a Clinton stronghold and she’s been far ahead for the entire race. That being said, trends lines show both Clinton and Obama gaining with Edwards dropping. At current levels this is a 2-candidate race and I will estimate the vote count at Clinton 21 and Obama 12.

South Carolina is a bit closer. Trend lines show Obama nudging into Clinton territory but Edwards is also trending up. Right now, Edwards is hovering at that 15% line. I say he makes it over, but just barely, while Clinton nudges out Obama. That would result in the following count: Clinton 23, Obama 22, Edwards 9.

Based on these estimates (which are incredibly loose and subject to great error) this would leave the following total before Super Tuesday (with percent accumulated for the nomination):

Clinton: 149 (6%)
Obama: 98 (4%)
Edwards: 48 (2%)

I fully expect, therefore, that Clinton will be leading the pack at the end of January. But, as you can see, it’s unlikely that her position will be dominant or even strong. The majority of her advantage still remains with the pre-pledged delegate endorsements she has received. In terms of actual popular vote her margin is extremely thin (74-67).

I also expect that Edwards is probably going to be on the outside looking in. His inability to win South Carolina will be his undoing. He’s from the South. He has to win there to have a chance and right now, it’s not looking good. This is too bad for I quite like Edwards but I’d say it’s looking more like he’s headed for the Vice-Presidentship or a cabinet post.

At any rate, no matter how poorly I have predicted the ballot count, February 5th still remains decision day. There are 2064 delegates up for grabs in one day and the day’s winner will likely win the nomination.

I have no information about the strategies of the various campaigns, but it’s looking increasingly likely that Obama needs to win early if he wants a chance. I suggest that he needs to win both Iowa and New Hampshire to build the necessary momentum. People have to start to believe that he’s a winnable candidate and he will only solidify that image (and destroy Hillary’s aura of invincibility) with wins. There is also a chance that he could win South Carolina. It says here that if he wins Iowa, NH, and South Carolina, he’s the next Democratic candidate for President.