Freezing my butt for Barack

Ok, the Nevada caucus count is well underway, and with about 70% reporting, it appears that HRC will win; right now it is 50-45:

As the polls predicted, Hillary is going to win this thing. So apparently, the polls get it right every once in a while…

68.97 percent of precincts reporting

Clinton 50.18
Obama 45.16
Edwards 4.39

One more results thread and then I’m heading out for a bit.

87.41 percent of precincts reporting

Clinton 50.74
Obama 45.12
Edwards 3.79

1.) What’s interesting about this whole affair is that neither Clinton nor Barack are delivering knockout blows. Hillary will likely emerge with a couple more delegates than Barack, but nothing to essentially knock him out of the race. He’s got plenty of cash to go on. She certainly does. This race can drag out for a long time.

Two brokered convetions in the same year? Wouldn’t that be something!

2.) Edwards did poorly in a state that was once supposed to be a stronghold because of its strong labor presence. His numbers were better than 4% — the caucus rules forced his supporters to pick one of the other candidates because of a lack of viability. But still, this isn’t going to do much for his stalling effort. And with polling in the teens in his home state of South Carolina, this may be the last week of his campaign.

Evidently it ended 51-45.

But oh boy, is there some major complaining going on. That is mostly because the last Kos straw pool had it 41-38-13-5-3 with 41 for O, 38 for JRE, 13 for HRC, 5 for DK and 3 undecided/no clue/Gravel. There aren’t many HRC supporters there, but what they lack in numbers, they make up for in being vocal. And there are supporters of all candidates who are downright obnoxious.

There are some disappointed Obama supporters on the Kos, but many of us called it this way (see a previous entry)

But you know what is ironic? Obama won more NATIONAL DELEGATES, 13-12.

Yes, that is right: HRC won more state caucus delegates, but O gets the national delegate nod.

If this seems strange, well, let’s see what could happen in a proportional delegate by district state, like Illinois. Suppose that in all but one district in Illinois (and assume 4 delegates per district), suppose O wins 62-38. Then O is way ahead in the popular vote, but even with HRC in delegates. Then in the remaining district, HRC wins 63-37. Then she gets 3 of the 4 delegates, and she ends up with more delegates, even though O won the state handily.

Anyway, something like this happened in Nevada (though not exactly, as it was a caucus state).

Today, I walked for Obama; it was 4 F when we started.

If you are wondering if you should take part in a “primary canvass” I’ll say: YES.

There are many reasons why.

• You’ll meet some cool, like minded people that you might not have met otherwise. Today, I was partnered with Mindy, who works in a law office.
• You’ll be mostly going to the houses of people who have voted in a Democratic primary before; hence you’ll be talking to people who are mostly happy to see you.
• You’ll feel good about yourself when you finish
• If nothing else, you’ll get some exercise

So, go ahead and freeze your butt for Barack, or say hello for Hillary (or for my Republican friends, march the miles for Mitt, or jingle the doorbell for John, make the miles for Mike, or rack up support for Rudy), do it. You’ll be glad that you did.

Political Trivia

Workout notes It is -2 F outside (about – 15 C) and the footing isn’t all that good in spots. So, I “ran” 8 miles on the treadmill (home treadmill) in about 1:25. Not fast, not hard, but good enough to break a sweat. I’ll do some yoga before I shower.

Politics We were supposed to go out and walk for Barack Obama; we will be making calls instead. I might go off on my own and walk anyway as I have the necessary health and gear. I still have to write a letter to the editor.

Though Obama is well ahead in Illinois, the Clinton campaign has sent people to the state. Basically, it works like this: suppose a congressional district has 4 delegates (as ours does). If HRC gets 15% of the vote, she gets one delegate. If she gets 37.5%, she gets 2 of the 4. Right now she is polling at 25% state wide, which, if uniformly applied to all districts, would get her about 1 delegate per district.

So, it is our job to “run up the score” so to speak; to try to hold her to under 15% in as many districts as we can.

Political Trivia
I posted the following at the Daily Kos. It was sort of a “fun” thing, though it wasn’t that well read.

Kossak atlliberal wrote an excellent diary yesterday called “We are Not Normal“.

The lead in was this:

Last summer I went to the DFA training in Atlanta. The first thing they told us is that “We aren’t normal” It was very important to understand that up front before learning how to run a campaign, because MOST people don’t think like us.

The diarist then goes on to remind us that most folks don’t sit around and micro-analyze everything out of a candidate’s mouth for some hidden agenda, and that dust ups here are meaningless outside of the circle of political junkies. I’ve decided to have some fun with this below the fold:

(source)

(side note: the cartoonist is Julie Larson; she lives in Lincoln, Illinois and I just love her work)

Seriously, according to what one crusty old former Illinois House member told me, “most people aren’t stupid, but they don’t pay attention to politics. That is why you have to keep repeating the same message over and over”.)

Also, they just don’t have an awareness of everything that goes on in a campaign.

Don’t get me wrong; I think it is good to follow the race, the issues and the like. That makes us harder to B. S.

But most are not like us. I propose a little “political trivia quiz for Kossaks” to make a point.

1. Who keeps repeating the phrase “rush to war”?
2. Who keeps saying: “[he/she] needs to be seasoned and stewed to boil all that hope out of [him/her]“
3. What did JRE’s father do for a living?
4. Who said “you’re likable enough”.
5. Whose health plan has mandates only for children and people under 25 years old living with their parents?
6. Who said that raising the cap on social security payroll tax would hurt middle class people?
7. Who is pushing for “medicaid for all”?
8. Which one was a former mayor?
9. Which one(s) have a law degree?
10. Which one(s) have a spouse with a law degree?
11. Which one(s) have a spouse with a law degree from the same place that they got theirs?
12. Which candidate was endorsed by the Culinary Workers Union?
13. Which candidate voted FOR the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage bill while in the Senate?
14. Which candidate voted for the 2005 Energy bill (in the Senate) and which one voted against it?
15. Which candidate has run marathons?
16. Which candidate gave the student commencement address at their school?
17. Which candidate(s) has written at least one best selling book?
18. Which candidate(s) grew up as a Republican?
19. Which candidate(s) has won an election in a red state?
20. Which candidate(s) is a UCC (United Church of Christ) member, which candidate(s) is a Methodist, which one(s) is a Catholic?
21. Can you same a state in which voting “present” is an accepted way (as in usual way) to vote “no” while not having to go on record of voting no?
22. Which states are the 4 remaining candidates from?
23. Can you even name the remaining Democratic candidates (no, Gravel doesn’t count)
24. Do you know who gravel is?
25. About the Republican candidates: which one stars on Law and Order?
26. Which Republican candidates were governors?
27. Which Republican candidate is against the Iraq war?
28. Which Republican candidate is supported by the white power movement?
29. Which Republican candidate voted for George McGovern?
30. Which Republican candidates ever supported some form of gay rights.
31. Which Republican candidate(s) supports gay rights at this time?
32. Which Republican candidate(s) have ever been pro-choice?
33. Which Republican candidates are pro choice at this time?
34. Which Republican candidates accept evolution?
35. Which Republican candidate(s) are under fire for not being “anti-illegal immigration” enough?

Ok now, my guess is that all of these questions would be easy for Kossaks; most of you would say “big whoop; these questions are not only easy but are basic knowledge, and many really aren’t that important anyway”.

But how would the general public do on such a quiz?

Seriously?

One note: one person (who doesn’t read these boards) said that she was surprised at how unified the Democrats appear to be as contrasted to how fractured the Republicans are at this moment!

You wouldn’t get that impression from reading the postings here.

Prediction: Clinton in Nevada, Obama in South Carolina

Obviously I am hoping for a sweep. But that is a tall order; Nevada is Clinton country, but South Carolina should be ours.

Bill Clinton: this was billed as a “blow up” and I guess this was, by politician standards. But this would be billed as “spirited discussion” in the mathematics community; not much more than that.

Of course, this agreement was reached by all parties a long time ago, and was only contested as the CU endorsement went to Obama.

As far as Clinton’s claim that these at large caucus goers are being counted with “5 times the weight of a regular caucus goer”:

First, how does a caucus work? See this 7 minute video:

What is the ruckus? here is a summary:

At a rally this afternoon, Senator Barack Obama questioned the timing and legitimacy of a lawsuit that had been filed here seeking to prevent caucuses from being held Saturday in nine casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.

“Are we going to let a bunch of lawyers try to prevent us from bringing about change in America?” Mr. Obama said, speaking to members of the Culinary workers union, which has endorsed his candidacy.

A federal judge is expected to rule this week on a lawsuit filed against the Nevada Democratic Party by the state teachers’ union, which believes that nine “at-large” caucus locations at casinos provide an unfair advantage to Mr. Obama. Why? Culinary union members and other shift-workers who are on the job Saturday will be allowed to take an hour break to caucus near their workplace in a hotel ballroom, rather than return to their home precincts.

The rules were approved by the Democratic National Committee months ago. But criticism began after the Culinary union here – the state’s largest – endorsed Mr. Obama last week.

“As soon as you decided, I’m going to support the outsider, I’m going to support the new guy, I’m going to support the guy who is standing with the working people instead of the big shots,” Mr. Obama told union members here, “all of the sudden, they decide they want to change the rules.”

The lawsuit was filed late Friday by the Nevada State Education Association. The group has not endorsed a candidate, but several officials involved in the legal action are closely associated with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign here. The campaign has not taken a formal position.

Asked about it Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Mrs. Clinton said, “The courts and the state party will have to work it out.”

“The caucus idea is for neighbors to get together to argue and talk about their choices,” she said. “The problem is that if you have a limited period of time, as I pointed out long before anything happened in Nevada, you’re going to essentially leave people out who can’t be there during those one to two-hour periods of time.”

Then, she added: “I haven’t read the lawsuit. The coverage of it seems to suggest that some people are saying, ‘Well, wait a minute. What about us? Those are not our workplaces. We have to be at work. How are we going to participate?”

So why would this impact be disproportionate?

[...]The Las Vegas Review-Journal broke down the complicated case thusly: “The lawsuit claims the caucus structure violates the voters’ right to ‘one man, one vote’ because delegates assigned during the at-large caucus will be based on attendance. Delegates at traditional caucuses will be based on the number of registered party members.”

“The [Democratic] party blatantly intends to treat one group of party members more favorably than others,” the teachers union’s lawyer wrote in a brief. But in an analysis, the Las Vegas Sun’s David Schwartz contends that the actual impact of these at-large sites is greatly exaggerated.[...]

From Schwartz:

Are you wondering how those suddenly controversial at-large precincts on the Strip will affect Jan. 19 Democratic caucus? Could they dominate the statewide results? Or are they really going to be a modest bump in the overall results?

My colleagues and I say reports of the at-large’s influence are greatly exaggerated in

today’s story.

But here’s the math formula so you can see for yourself. Just grab a calculator, try to channel high school math, and away we go.

First, make your best guess on what turnout will be in the at-large precincts on the Strip (assuming they survive the legal challenge filed Friday). Now divide your guess by 9, making the assumption that turnout will be equal among the nine sites.

We’ll call that number X, and it represents how many people will show up at each Las Vegas Boulevard site.

Then plug X into this formula of how many delegates are awarded to each precinct depending on caucus turnout, as laid out in the state Democratic Party rules.

If X is not greater than 400, divide it by 5. If X is between 401 and 600, divide it by 8. If X is between 601 and 800 divide it by 10. If X is between 801 and 1400 divide it by 15. If X is between 1401 and 2000 divide it by 20. If X is between 2001 and 3000 divide it by 30. If X is between 3001 and 4000 divide it by 35. If X is above 4000 divide it by 50.

Call this new number Y. It is the number of delegates at each at-large caucus site.

Now multiply Y by 9, and that’s resulting total number of delegates created on the Strip. Call that number Z.

Still with us?

Now take Z and add it to 10,446, which is the total number of delegates elsewhere in the state. This new number is ZZ.

Divide Z by ZZ. Multiply by 100.

Voila!

That’s the percent of delegates these at-large precincts will contribute to the state’s total.[...]

As in Iowa, the results that will be reported in Nevada’s caucus will be the percent of delegates each candidate won – not the number of individuals caucusing for each candidate.

So in Iowa, Sen. Barack Obama got 38 percent of the delegates, Edwards got 30 percent and Clinton 29 percent.

Also see this article:

Warne said she didn’t even know about the at-large caucus sites until last week. But new court filings submitted Wednesday by attorneys for the Democratic Party of Nevada allege that other plaintiffs in the lawsuit not only knew about the at-large sites, but supported them.

In an affidavit, Travis Brock, executive director of the Nevada State Democratic Party, said minutes of a March 31, 2007 meeting of the State Central Committee show that plaintiffs John Birkland, Vicky Birkland, John Cahill and Dwayne Chesnut voted in favor of the draft delegate selection rules.

“It is my statement that at no time did any of the plaintiffs object to this plan prior to the week before the caucus,” Brock said in a sworn statement. “In fact, many of the plaintiffs voted in favor of approving these at-large caucuses that were clearly stated to operate under the very conditions they are just now objecting to.”

The teachers union fears that because of the way the at-large precincts are weighted, heavy turnouts there would allow participants to earn more delegates than those at traditional caucus sites.

Eric Herzik, chairman of the Political Science Department at the University of Nevada, Reno, said caucuses were never designed to reflect a one man, one vote process. He said the teachers union is playing a late-game “dirty trick” because the Culinary union endorsed Obama.

Bill Clinton’s calculation assumes a high turnout at the traditional caucus sites and a low turn out at the casino ones.

[...]“Do you really believe that all the Democrats understood that they had agreed to give everybody who voted in a casino a vote worth five times as much as people who voted in their own precinct? Did you know that?” Clinton said in a testy exchange with Mark Matthews of KGO, ABC’s affiliate in San Francisco. “What happened is nobody understood what had happened. … Now, everybody’s saying, ‘Oh they don’t want us to vote.’ What they really tried to do was to set up a deal where their votes counted five times, maybe even more.”

If turnout were incredibly low in the casino caucuses and incredibly high in the regular precinct caucuses, Clinton would be right in warning that votes cast in the at-large casino caucuses could be worth “five times, maybe even more” than votes cast at regular precinct caucuses, according to Bill Buck, a consultant to the Nevada Democratic Party.

Clinton is being disingenuous, however, when he makes it sound as if this feature of the Nevada caucuses was only recently discovered. It’s been known for months.

What has changed is knowledge that the Culinary Workers, the union which represents the casino workers, is backing Barack Obama.

Clinton also criticized the casino causues saying: “This is a one-man, one-vote country.”

What Clinton left out, however, is that it’s not just the at-large casino caucuses which is at odds with “one-man, one-vote.”

The regular Democratic precinct caucuses in Nevada are also at odds with “one-man, one-vote.”

In rural parts of Nevada, five people are needed to produce one delegate.

In Clark County (home to Las Vegas), 50 people are needed to produce one delegate.

Democrats in Nevada and Iowa structured their caucuses this way in order to encourage candidates to campaign in rural parts of the state. [...]

So in some sense, the caucus works against Obama, as he does better in the city than in rural areas. But that doesn’t seem to bother Bill.

What about South Carolina? The New York Times has an interesting article on the African American vote in the South.