I am writing today in an appeal to all Democratic Primary Voters to carefully consider their choice when selecting the candidate to support. Primaries are always hard, it's a pit of brother against brother, and the difficulty of setting yourself apart from your opponent without destroying relationships with your own allies approaches impossibility. We find ourselves in the State of Texas this year not only in the rare position of a primary that not only matters but could in fact prove decisive, but also with two exceptional candidates for office. For some time, I wavered in my support for a single candidate, trying to cut through the media bias and the inevitable campaign rhetoric, trying to discern for myself which candidate would in fact make the best President. While I certainly have been both moved and impressed by Barack Obama and his ability to motivate a crowd to action, I have to ask myself if this a great President makes. One can never dismiss the value of being able to motivate people, it's what gets people to the polls and gets people engaged both in politics and the world around them. Just words? No, words have power, there is no more effective tool than words to influence the hearts and minds of men and to motivate them to action. However, does the ability to stir a crowd make for a good judge of policy or the wisdom to develop such policy?
The latest People Calling People/Call Voyager Texas Poll shows results for actual early voters. It gives Clinton the edge by 8 points, w/ MoE of 3.9%. I guess that's no surprise, you'd expect the early voters to skew older, where she has always been strong.
They've been running a series of these polls in Texas, almost every night. You can download the previous results also. Here are the highlights from the web site:
• Feb. 18 - "Loyal" Texas Democrats Prefer Obama
• Feb. 19 - Hispanic Texans Overwhelmingly Favor Clinton
• Feb. 20 - Texas Republican Crossovers a Major Factor
• Feb. 21 - Clinton narrowly leads among Texas Women
• Feb. 22 - Clinton leads among Texans who watched Debate
• Feb. 25 - Clinton holding support among Texas seniors
• Feb. 26/27 - Clinton leads among early Texas voters
• Feb. 28 - Predicted Turnout Analysis (NOT COMPLETED)
• Feb. 29 - Independent & Republican Crossover (NOT COMPLETED)
• Mar. 2 - Final Statewide Horserace (NOT COMPLETED)
(Volunteer if you can -- take a day off from work or school, let us know about your experience, and we'll feature your story on BOR after the election is over! - promoted by Phillip Martin)
Passed along from The Travis County Democratic Party (512) 477-7500 (info@traviscountydemocrats.org):
Here's the deal, if we don't get enough folks to work these precinct polling locations, THEY WILL HAVE TO BE COMBINED!! This will lead to much confusion, turning first-time voters off, and possible voter disenfranchisement for both the primary and caucus!
If you are an Election Judge worried about missing your own caucus, you can hand off the post-poll closing paperwork delivery to an alternate judge or clerk.
If you can work basically 7am-7pm on election day, please read more below...
I am a precinct chair. I am trying to guess this right now. Your guess is as good as mine. Join the fun! Let's all guess! I will post the results on the day after the election because I'm sure as heck going to a party and get drunk after my caucus. The person who gets the closest to the actual number of voters that show up, without going over the number, is the winner!
Winner gets .... A NEW CAR! .... um no... a PONY.... no ... a lollipop. No. A lock of my hair which I am tearing out. o.O
The Clinton campaign's mantra is that she has won all the big states except Illinois, and that's what counts the most. That's a fairly shaky claim.
There are seven very big states with 20+ electoral votes:
1) California (55): Clinton won by 9
2) Texas (34): March 4 primary
3) New York (31): Clinton won by 17
4) Florida (27): Clinton won unsanctioned primary by 17. (I'll let you argue whether that counts or not, but the demographics for a redo would probably favor Clinton anyway)
5 tie) Illinois (21): Obama won by 32.
5 tie) Pennsylvania (21): April 22 primary.
7) Ohio (20): March 4 primary.
In other words, of the 7 giant states, Clinton won two (or 3 if you count Florida) by healthy margins, and Obama won one by a huge margin. Even if you throw out the home states of New York and Illinois, the score is only 1-0 or 2-0.
There are four big states with 15-19 electoral votes:
8) Michigan (17): Clinton got 55% of the vote in an unsanctioned primary with Obama and Edwards not on the ballot. In a redo, the demographics would probably favor Obama.
9 tie) Georgia (15) Obama by 35
9 tie) New Jersey (15) Clinton by 10
9 tie) North Carolina (May 6 primary)
There are 10 states with 10-14 electoral votes:
12) Virginia (13) Obama by 29
13) Massachusetts (12) Clinton by 15.
14 tie) Missouri (11) Obama by 1
14 tie) Tennessee (11) Clinton by 13
14 tie) Washington (11) Obama by 37 (caucus)
14 tie) Indiana (11) May 6 primary
18 tie) Maryland (10) Obama by 23
18 tie) Arizona (10) Clinton by 9
18 tie) Wisconsin (10) Obama by 17
18 tie) Minnesota (10) Obama by 34 (caucus)
Clinton's supposed dominance in big states really boils down to one or two things: She won California, and some would say Florida. Those are important shows of strength, but Clinton's other signature wins are more than matched by Obama's. New Jersey is no bigger than Georgia, Massachusetts is smaller than Virginia, and in both cases Clinton's margins were a lot smaller than Obama's.
The bottom line is that Clinton has done a little better than Obama in the biggest states, getting 3% more of the vote in California, New York and Illinois combined. Obama has done better than Clinton in the states with 10-20 electoral votes, and it's been an Obama rout in the small states.
Senator Obama has been beaten severely about the head and shoulders with the lack of experience canard. So I wondered, what is the value of experience? I decided to check out the CV of a particular executive:
At the age of twenty-three, he became a candidate for Illinois General Assembly, but lost the election. The shop where he worked went of business
At the age of twenty-four, a second store failed. He was appointed postmaster for his town, and later Deputy County Surveyor.
At the age of twenty-five, he was elected to the Illinois General Assembly.
At the age of twenty-seven, he was re-elected to the Illinois legislature, and received his law license.
At the age of twenty-nine, he was elected to a third term in the Illinois legislature.
At the age of thirty-one, he was elected to the Illinois legislature for a fourth term.
At the age of thirty-four, he was unsuccessful in a campaign for his party's nomination for U.S. Congress.
At the age of thirty-seven, he received the nomination as his party's candidate for Congress, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the age of forty-six, he sought to the office of U.S. Senator from Illinois, but was unsuccessful.
At the age of fifty-one, he was nominated as his party's candidate for President of the United States, and his run for the White House was successful.
At the age of fifty-two, he was sworn in as President of the United States.
To recap: A failed merchant, a low-level government bureaucrat, a state legislator, a lawyer, a U.S. congressman. And yet this relatively modest level of experience does not keep him from being elected as President of the United States...and seeing the United States through a bloody civil war.
So you tell me: How much experience does one need to be president in a time of crisis? How much character?
Texas Democratic Women has launched an aggressive plan to Get Out the Democratic Vote in Collin County this year.
As of February 2nd, TDWCC has obtained office space in Plano and has established a full calendar of Get Out the Vote activities through the March 4th Texas primary. Their newly-revamped web site includes a complete listing of GOTV events and the ability for volunteers to sign up online.
Let's see. Ah yes, the politics of divisiveness and fearmongering? CHECK.
A sampling of the hate-mail we're seeing in HD99 to unseat Charlie Geren in the primary, from Dr. Tom's west-coast consultants. The very same who happen to be serving all of the Tom Craddick loyalists challenging in the primaries and general elections this year.
The Divisive Hate Mail:
Illegal Immigration? Apparently Charlie just loves Illegal Immigrants, much more than Texas.
Good Time Charlie. I'm Sorry - what the #%@#? Dr Tom accuses Charlies of putting drunk drivers behind the wheel. Charlie's Railhead *yum yum* closes at 9pm.
Babies (Roe v Wade)? Charlie apparently hates babies too. They actually put Roe v Wade on the mailer.
When Dr. Tom knocked on Sheila's door in December, with no list apparently, the "facts" on this good-time Charlie message nonsense were at the forefront of his answer to Sheila's query of "Why do you hate Charlie?"
Hey, if Dr. Tom doesn't ask or know who he's talking to while blockwalking...
Hey Dr. Tom, where do you stand on school vouchers? It's fun to see a Craddick loyalist squirm. (Yes - she did ask, Yes - he did avoid the answer and walk away)
(This is some fantastic analysis! - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Trying to predict who's ahead in the Democratic primary right now is about as hard a job as there is in the world of punditry. Hillary has enjoyed a solid lead in most of the Febrary 5 states since the race began, but Obama is surging following his win in South Carolina. John Edwards' exit introduces the problem of how his supports will disperse (or not) to the remaining candidates. To further complicate matters, the party's complex method of allocating delegates ensures that only organizations with a full research staff on salary can even hope issue an accurate prediction (actually, even those organizations are clueless). It may be the case that the best strategy for the aspiring pundit is to punt until February 6, then join the rest of the hacks doing post-mortem analysis.
But what would be the fun in that?
This post is an attempt to use what we have now, polls and rules, to project the answers to several important February 5 questions. Who will "win"? Will the outcome determine the results of the election? And most importantly for those of us on this blog, will Texas matter?
I am using data from the last several days of polls (the rapid movement in this race makes any data before Sunday obsolete -- Actually, anything before next Sunday is probably obsolete, but we do the best we can). Polling data is compiled from RealClearPolitics.com. I took the delegate breakdown for each state from wikipedia, also verified on a few other sites. Because there is no polling data at the Congressional District level, I am basically treating all pledged delegates as proportional at-large delegates. Of course, this will introduce a level of error into the results -- hopefully, it will balance out for both sides.
Without further ado, here's the current delegate status:
HRC
Obama
Pledged Delegates:
48
63
Super Delegates:
208
118
Total:
256
181
And here's the current polling data:
Upcoming Super Tuesday States
State
Delegates
Date
Current Polling
Total
Pledged
HRC
Obama
Edwards
California
441
370
1-31 (RASS)
43
40
9
1-29 (SUSA)
49
38
9
1-29 (CNN/)
49
32
14
1-28 (GALL)
47
35
10
New York
281
232
1-28 (GALL)
56
28
10
Illinois
185
153
1-26 (R2000)
22
51
15
New Jersey
127
107
1-22 (QUIN)
49
32
10
Massachusetts
121
93
2-1 (SUSA)
57
33
1-31 (RASS)
43
37
11
1-31(W.NE)
43
15
8
Georgia
103
87
1-31 (IA)
36
52
Minnesota
88
72
1-31 (MPR)
40
33
12
Missouri
88
72
1-26 (RASS)
43
24
18
Tennessee
85
68
1-31 (IA)
59
26
Colorado
71
53
1-28 (DP)
32
34
17
Arizona
67
56
1-26 (BRC)
37
27
15
Connecticut
60
50
1-30 (RASS)
40
40
11
Alabama
60
52
1-31(AEA)
35
40
Arkansas
47
35
Oklahoma
47
38
1-29 (SUSA)
44
19
27
Kansas
41
32
New Mexico
38
29
Utah
29
23
Delaware
23
15
Idaho
23
18
North Dakota
21
13
Alaska
18
13
Democrats Abroad
7
7
American Samoa
3
3
For the sake of calculation purposes, I will assume that Edwards does not achieve the 15% viability and that his votes (and those of undecideds) are distributed equally between Hillary and Obama. I also used the arithmetic mean of the multiple polls for California and Massachusetts. Yep, more error.
Using my simplified formula, I get the following breakdowns for states we have polling data for:
State
total
HRC
Obama
California
370
209
161
New York
232
155
77
Illinois
153
46
107
New Jersey
107
65
42
Massachusetts
93
58
35
Georgia
87
36
51
Minnesota
72
39
33
Missouri
72
46
26
Tennessee
68
47
21
Colorado
53
26
27
Arizona
56
32
24
Connecticut
50
25
25
Alabama
52
24
28
Oklahoma
38
27
11
Total
1503
835
668
That gives the following cumulative totals:
HRC
Obama
Pledged Delegates:
883
731
Super Delegates:
208
118
Total:
1091
849
There are 188 Feb. 5 delegates left in states we don't have polling data for. I believe Hillary will win a marginal majority of these delegates, however, for arguments sake I'll split them 50/50. That gives us:
HRC
Obama
Pledged Delegates:
977
825
Super Delegates:
208
118
Total:
1185
943
If the above analysis holds true, Hillary would have a 242 delegate edge with 1,378 pledged delegates and 543 super delegates left in play. She would need to win 840 of those remaining 1921 delegates to clinch the nomination (43.7%).
Now it's time to answer our questions.
Who won? Hillary, not by a landslide, but decisively.
Will the outcome determine the results of the election? This outcome would not determine the election, but would put severe pressure on the Obama camp to sweep the remaining elections. The three biggest prizes left, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, would have to be won.
Will Texas Matter? In addition to the above delegates, another 447 delegates will have been won by the time we vote. Assuming 50/50, there is still a chance that the race will not be clinched by then.
In conclusion, my analysis makes a lot of assumptions that are not necessarily true. It also relies on polling data that has partially been obsoleted by Edward's exit from the race, tonight's debate, and the momentum that Obama has been riding lately. Still, it gives an interesting snapshot of what might happen if Superduperpooper Tuesday was held today. I will update this data on Monday to see if the weekend's polling data changes anything and then again on Wednesday to see how wrong I was.
Last night several different Austin Democratic clubs participated in a combined candidate forum. All four DA candidates were present for questions. Three of the candidates were asked a question related to the death penalty, with exception of Rosemary Lehmberg. So far no one has publicly supported a moratorium on seeking the death penalty in Travis County. Rick Reed seems to be the only candidate to question the death penalty and possibility of executing an innocent person. Videos are posted below.
