McCain wins it. I'm calling it.

The official call isn't in yet, but Miami and Palm Beach have yet to come in in any serious way and McCain is cleaning up in those areas. Miami, Palm Beach, and Broward are three of the biggest Republican vote hauls in the state. Romney barely shows up in any of them. It's done. McCain wins.

South Carolina and Beyond

Obama had a blowout win that surprised all but his most loyal supporters. He more than doubled Hillary Clinton's support, capturing over 55% of the vote in South Carolina. The single most impressive statistic of the night as far as I was concerned was the turnout of 532,468 Democratic voters in the South Carolina Primary. Just for some perspective, this is close to double the 290,000 turnout in 2004, about 100,000 votes more than the Republican turnout the week previously in a state that voted 58-42 for Bush in 2004, and represents 81% of the Democrats who voted in the 2004 general election for John Kerry.

Going forward, we will see what momentum this brings him. I suspect it will be a fairly decent boost, though likely not decisive. I think potentially helpful is the endorsement of Caroline Kennedy this morning in the New York Times.

Florida is not particularly relevant as there is almost no campaign time between now and then and all the focus will probably be on the Republican side where the race is very tight between John McCain and Mitt Romney. That's right, Giuliani is nowhere to be seen and will be going home soon.

February 5th is the big cheese and here's how I see the states lining up as of now:

Safe Clinton:
New York
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Oklahoma

Likely Clinton:
New Jersey
Tennessee
New Mexico
Arkansas
Delaware

Safe Obama:
Illinois

Likely Obama:
Georgia
Alabama(I know the polling doesn't reflect it yet, but given the demographics if they vote anything like South Carolina it's going to be his)
Minnesota

Toss Ups:
California
Idaho
Utah
Kansas
Missouri
Arizona
Alaska
Colorado
North Dakota

Yes, the task for Obama is a little daunting. He has a slight delegate lead at the moment and it won't matter much on February 5th, but he can win some big delegate totals. One thing both Hillary and Obama have going for them is that it is all proportional.

Mitt Romney: One Cynical Man

Okay, I've decided to make it clear why I don't like Mitt Romney. I believe this is a man who believes he can say anything at all and there's always the trusting 30-35% of people who will believe it. He also knows that's enough to win the nomination if he can get that much of the vote.

Let me enumerate his various cynical positions over time.

1. Abortion. The big one of modern American politics. Everyone has a position. Mitt Romney has had many. In 1994 he gave an impassioned defense of abortion rights in which he not only firmly stated he supported Roe v Wade, but told a personal story of a close family friend who died due to an illegal abortion. Heartwrenching and personal. He still maintained this position in 2002 when he ran for governor of Massachusetts. Now he says that sometime in his late 50s, this guy whose moral compass is supposed to be so clear, shifted all at once on this issue just in time to run for president. Huh? Who actually believes that? No personal revelation this time, just "I saw a bill pertaining to abortion and I said...geee....maybe I'm pro-life now." What a crock.

2. Gun control. Mittens was always big for gun control in Massachusetts in 1994 and 2002. He supported the Brady Bill and Massachusetts gun laws in general both times. Then, in 2006, he joined the NRA. That's awfully convenient isn't it? Right before you run for the Republican nomination?

3. Change. He never talked about it before Iowa, well not much anyway. Politicians, particularly unprincipled ones, say an awful lot so they can claim they were talking about anything. Suddenly, after the media declared that "change" was the theme of the campaign, what does he talk about non-stop? You guessed it.

4. Michigan jobs. Mitt here knew the #1 issue in Michigan was the economy and that the Detroit area would be where the state was decided. The auto-jobs are gone and not coming back even if sales ramped up again. They will never have the market shares they used to. Mitt knows this. However, he decides to go into the Detroit suburbs and lie like a rug. It worked beautifully as he won those counties with more than 40% of the vote, but it was a dirty lie.

I can go on and on. The guy is unprincipled beyond belief. He always positions himself with the majoritarian positions in any race he is running in. He never takes a minority position on anything. I'll at least give Bush some credit on that one. He's slightly less dishonest than Romney, but that's not saying much.

I return...to make a SC Prediction

South Carolina Prediction:
Obama 43%
Hillary 33%
Edwards 21%
Others and uncommitted: 3%

We'll see what happens, but this is my total guess. These polls have been extremely volatile. The thing that I think is clear is that Obama will win, but beyond that it's tricky.

California Romney's best chance to the nomination

http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid54916.aspx

This new poll, from an outfit I've never heard of, paves Romney's single best chance to capture the Republican nomination. He polls very poorly in New York and New Jersey. Connecticut seems to be infertile ground for him. None of the polls of various southern states show him making any progress there. However, he seems to have solid strength among California's economic conservatives, who generally distrust McCain. If he can squeeze out a win over McCain in California while capturing Massachusetts and Utah, the latter of which is a slam dunk, he will have a respectable showing on Super Tuesday.

There is one big problem though. It is estimated some 40% of voters will vote absentee and many have already done so. These voters most likely broke for McCain by a decent margin. It will be interesting to see what transpires here. If Romney is to have a shot at the nomination, and he has the second best shot after McCain, he must win in California.

2008 State Profiles: Virginia

As any student of political history knows, it has been a long time since Virginia has voted for a Democrat for president. In fact it has been since 1964. The state's mixture of fiscal, social, and military conservatives has made it a powerful state for Republicans for the past forty years. However, times are changing.

Since 2001, the Democrats have won most of the major statewide races. These were the governor's race in 2001 when Mark Warner won by roughly 6%, the governor's race in 2005 when Tim Kaine, a relatively liberal candidate, won by even more than Warner, and the 2006 Virginia Senate race in which Jim Webb unseated previously popular incumbent George Allen. Mark Warner's win, despite seemingly heralding this shift, actually is not a particularly good illustration of it.

Warner's 2001 victory was without winning the rapidly growing suburban counties in Northern Virginia of Prince William and Loudon. Instead, Warner won southwestern and south central rural counties en masse including Lee and Buckingham counties. He marginally carried important suburban counties including Henrico county, north of Richmond, and rather decisively carried Fairfax county outside of Washington D.C. by 10%. Warner focused heavily on the rural areas during the campaign, touting his moderate stance on gun control and even advertising during NASCAR events.

Tim Kaine's victory had a decidedly different character to it. Kaine did not hide his opposition to the death penalty, which is widely supported in Virginia. This was potentially problematic for rural social conservative voters, who by and large strongly favor the death penalty. Indeed, Kaine did not win the rural areas as these shifted heavily towards Republican Jerry Kilgore. However, Kaine more than offset these losses with decisive wins in the urban and suburban areas of Virginia. Kaine won Fairfax county, the largest in the state, by 20%, a massive improvement on Warner's victory in 2001. Furthermore, he also won Loudon and Prince William, two of the most rapidly growing counties in the country, by slim margins. These had not voted for a Democrat for any office in a competitive race in years. He also expanded Warner's margin in Henrico county, and reduced the Republican margin in the southern Richmond suburbs of Chesterfield county.

Kaine also improved the Democratic showings in southeastern Virginia with wins in previously heavily Republican Virginia Beach and Chesapeak City. Even while he got crushed in the rural portions of the state, the gains he made in these suburban areas more than offset his losses elsewhere as he expanded on Warner's victory margin, albeit slightly.

Webb's narrow upset over George Allen once again confirmed these trends of the populous parts of Virginia shifting rapidly to the Democrats while the rural areas continue to drift more Republican. Webb won Fairfax by 19 points and carried Loudon and Prince William once again, though he did a full 5.5% worse statewide than Kaine did. This indicates that even with a stronger overall Republican vote statewide, these counties are trending Democratic. Webb won very little in the southwestern portions of Virginia and got creamed in the Shenandoah Valley. Allen defeated Webb in Henrico county narrowly and crushed him in Chesterfield by 18 percent. However, Webb's big wins up north, particularly in Arlington and Alexandria gave him a 60% to 40% win in the decisive region of Northern Virginia, cancelling out very weak showings in rural Virginia.

On the presidential level, the seemingly large shift of northern Virginia in the direction of the Democrats has yet to be seen. However, in 2004, John Kerry was the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson to win critical Fairfax County and Virginia proved to be his best showing in the south outside of the atypical Florida. Additionally, Bush's margins in Prince William and Loudon counties dropped between 2000 and 2004 by mid single digits.

One thing that appears to be driving Virginia's shift to the left is the abundance of postgraduates in the state. 24% of Virginia voters in 2006 were postgraduates versus 18% nationwide. This percentage is also far higher than all other southern states. These voters are concentrated in the north and vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Jim Webb won 57% of the vote from this growing group. This correlates nicely with the other trend which is that income earners over $100,000 in income are becoming increasingly Democratic in the state. Webb lost voters with less than $100,000 in income by 2 points and won those with over $100,000 by 6 points.

At the margins a growing Asian and Latino vote is making an impact. The two groups together make up about 10% of Virginia's population and yet only 5% of the electorate in 2006. However, they vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats with nearly 70% voting for Webb, providing more than his margin of victory. While whites are still around 75%(+ or - 3% from election 2004 to 2006) of Virginia's total electorate, they are only 70% of the total population. If voter turnout among non-whites, particularly Latinos and Asian-Americans rises, Republicans will have a hard time winning the state.

Secular voters are very critical to this new Democratic coalition in Virginia. 10% in 2006 professed no religious affiliation versus 7% in the South as a whole. While that does not sound significant, they voted 73% for Jim Webb. With Republicans in 2004 and 2006 carrying nearly 60% of the Protestant vote, this group is key to offsetting Republican strength among religious voters. Webb additionally reduced the Republican margin among Catholics from over 20% to just 2% while the Republican share among Protestants remained the same from 2004 to 2006. This trend has to be confirmed by this year's election as it may have been somewhat of an aberration.

There are a great many forces at work in Virginia that make it a competitive battleground state this year. With 13 electoral votes at stake, it is a critical state for both parties. While the Senate race between Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore(R) is pretty much a foregone conclusion, the presidential race is not.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/VA/S/01/epolls.0.html
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/VA/P/00/epolls.0.html

Post-SC Thoughts

Well, with Hillary's 6 point win in Nevada, Romney's big win in Nevada, and McCain's narrow win in SC, I had a pretty good night with predictions. I thought Romney would place above Thompson in SC, but that didn't happen so this is the first contest he didn't get a "medal" in. Huckabee is in trouble since he didn't win tonight, though he finished respectably. McCain is now going to enter Florida like a steamroller. Rudy will be lucky to finish third behind him and Romney. After a poor finish I expect Rudy to drop out.

Huckabee will limp on to Feb. 5th and win some of those states. With Thompson likely to drop out I imagine he will do alright in the south, but not well enough. McCain will be the favorite in California, New York, and New Jersey with Rudy out. I also expect him to duke it out with Romney for Connecticut.

With those wins, McCain wins the Republican nomination. I will put up the detailed polling to support this.

Entrance Polls: Hillary with the lead

The entrance polls show Hillary leading among men and women, though much more among women. She has a 3% lead among men and 22% among women.

Those voting based on debate performance once again went to her by a big margin, similar to New Hampshire, which I discussed earlier. They went for Hillary by 21%.

Obama won Independents by 2%, less than I expected.

Significantly, Latinos broke for Hillary by 45%. African-Americans went for Obama by 58%. Huge racial divide.

Fascinating. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#NVDEM

Romney wins Nevada.

No big shock here. The Republican caucus was at 9 in the morning on a Saturday. Yeah, that's going to be interesting....not. Interestingly, or not so interestingly, he got 95% of the Mormon vote. Damn. However, Ron Paul looks to finish a decent second here, carrying the non-religious, Catholics, and non-mainline Protestants. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#NVREP

Caucuses are a damn strange way to pick a president.

Thompson is Done

At best Fred Thompson can hope to finish third, but it is more likely than not that he will finish fourth behind McCain, Huckabee, and Romney. The fact he will likely finish behind Romney is nothing short of embarassing. To avoid the embarassment of losing every state except his own Tennessee on Super Tuesday, he will drop out, and probably endorse John McCain, depending on the showing of the various candidates. It's possible if McCain finishes behind Huckabee that Thompson won't endorse anybody if McCain looks weak.

Giuliani similarly looks like he's in big trouble in Florida and his big state strategy has failed with McCain leading him in New Jersey now and a distant fourth place in California. He may stay in to win New York, but that will be all he gets, if he gets that. I wonder if he will drop out and endorse. More likely than not I could see him endorsing McCain.

Democratic Predictions in Nevada

The polling here has thus far shown Hillary Clinton with a fairly solid lead in Nevada ranging from a few points to 9%. However, as this is a caucus and Nevada is not used to it, I am kind of curious as to what happens there. Obama has a couple big union endorsements, particularly the Culinary Workers Union. I think I'm going to give Hillary the edge here, even though she is outgunned organizationally.

My reasoning here is the following. We have seen in the past that union endorsements do not necessarily ensure the support of the union members. Dean and Gephardt proved this in '04 and Edwards has proven this to a great extent this year. Even though caucuses do seem to favor organization over popular support on paper, in practice this rarely seems to be the case. I will take the last Mason-Dixon poll as gospel here and say Hillary wins by 5-6 points. That's slightly narrower than the poll, but I think in keeping with the trends.

South Carolina: Tight as hell

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=91383ea5-1298-40cf-aa54-ec3eab8fc689

McCain has a four point lead in this poll, a two point lead in a Mason-Dixon poll, and is pretty much tied in a couple of others including a Rasmussen Poll, but overall he appears to be slightly ahead of Mike Huckabee. Now, as my two forecasts on this blog so far have been pretty far off I have to say that I am not too comfortable of trying to pick a winner at this point. However, I think McCain will ever so slightly win in South Carolina, but not by much. My guess is as the vote comes in it will be tight between him and Huckabee with Romney coming in 8-9 points behind second place and Thompson a few points behind of that.

Romney clearly looks like he's going to win in Nevada and Mason-Dixon has him up by 15 out there. He will have an interesting claim of three victories(Michigan, Nevada, and Wyoming) to two victories by either McCain or Huckabee depending on the outcome. However, as I will mention later, he has relatively little going his way on Super Tuesday, including a Survey USA poll that shows him only leading 48-34 in Massachusetts. This is between McCain, Romney, and Huckabee.

Next up, Democrats in Nevada.

Romney's Win in Michigan 39-30

Romney won a decisive victory in Michigan, contrary to my initial expectations, but in keeping with my forecast based on the percentages of Democrats and Independents. McCain's showing was weaker than I expected among Democrats and Independents which leads me to believe that his pull among those voters is not anywhere near what it used to be. This is most likely due to steadfast support of the Iraq War which is incredibly unpopular among Democrats and Independents. Whereas McCain was known for his maverick stance on campaign finance reform in 2000, what is his signature issue now?

In any case, this keeps Romney alive at least through February 5th, but I have seen no evidence of Romney strength in those states. We'll see what he gets out of the Michigan win, but my guess is not much. I see maybe 4-5 points across the board, but that will dissipate as time moves on and as we get a different winner in South Carolina. We shall see.

If I were Romney, I would spend money in SC to get a respectable showing and focus on Florida. Romney plays very well with upper-middle class economic conservatives and there are plenty of them in Florida. He should concentrate on them. With the divisions in the Republican Primary, he might be able to sneak in there.

I'm calling it for Romney before the count

It appears less than 35% of the electorate is Independent and Democratic meaning Romney is probably going to win. I don't see how McCain can win in that circumstance.

Granted this is based on early exit poll data, but still. That's my call.

Republican Michigan Primary Prediction

This is going to be a tough one. Polls are all over the place due to the disagreement over the amount of Independents and Democrats that are likely to be involved in the Republican Primary. Some polls put it as low as 30% or 25%. Some, like Zogby, put it more in the area of 50%. I'm going to split the difference and say 40-42%. Just going out on a limb there. Why is this important? McCain has a very favorable standing among Independents and Democrats and Romney has a pretty low one as he generally offends partisan Democrats and liberals, including yours truly.

Romney will win rock-rib Republicans by 10-12 points, but I think McCain trumps him by 17-20% among Democrats and Independents. This will lead to, what I think, is a narrow McCain victory by two or three points. If I had to put numbers on it I would say:

McCain-31%
Romney-29%
Huckabee-19%

Huckabee would have done better than this if he had only had more money as it is clear very few Michigan voters have heard anything about him whereas they know plenty about McCain and Romney.

KEY THING TO WATCH FOR:
****If Independents and Democrats are below 35-36% in the early exit polls it is doubtful McCain will win****

New SC Poll: Obama 38, Clinton 33%

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/south_carolina/election_2008_south_carolina_democratic_primary

I think the most encouraging news for Democrats universally here is that both Hillary and Obama have over 80% favorability ratings among African-Americans and pretty much the same among Democratic voters in general. This could be indicative of the idea that this is more of a media phenomenon than necessarily a true sign of racial tensions within the Democratic Party.

Edwards shows life in Nevada

Perhaps he should have spent more time in Nevada by the looks of a new poll. http://www.rgj.com/blogs/inside-nevada-politics/2008/01/new-poll-democratic-race-in-nevada-dead.html

Only 5% behind the front-runner in a race that is getting incredibly nasty between Clinton and Obama might actually make him quite viable in Nevada. Just a few more days of this back and forth about race and we might be on the verge of an upset similar to when Dean and Gephardt beat the stuffing out of eachother in Iowa in 2004. Maybe not that dramatic and race transforming, but still.

A Note on Corporate Donations

The two leading Democrats are hardly clean on this front:

Securities and Investment
Hillary: $4.7 million
Obama: $4.5 million
Romney(the quintessential corporate candidate): $3.6 million

Commercial Banks
Hillary: $935,000
Obama: $865,000
Romney: $600,000

Big Pharma
Hillary: $269,000
Obama: $262,000
Romney: $260,000

Hedge Fund and Private Equity
Hillary: $980,000
Obama: $976,000
Romney: $947,000

For all the acrimony about Hillary or Obama being the "Corporate Candidate" they both have a good claim to it.

The Michigan Polling Problem

I saw a new MSNBC-McClatchy Poll this morning conducted by the venerable Mason-Dixon polling organization that showed Romney with a decent sized lead in Michigan http://www.mcclatchydc.com/static/pdf/poll/0113michigangop.pdf of 30-22 over John McCain, but there is a problem there. The poll says that over 70% of the electorate in this open primary will be Republican. This sounds logical on its surface, until you look at the electorate in 2000 when John McCain won Michigan in a shocker of George W. Bush. In that case 51% of the electorate was independents and Democrats. Whoops. That would create a decidedly different result than this poll suggests. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/feb2000/prim-f26.shtml

This year, with no competitive primary on the Democratic side, expect a similar number. Now it is true that in 2000 there was no Democratic primary at all, but expect Democratic turnout to be very reduced. What is distressing for Mike Huckabee is that the poll also indicates that Evangelicals might be swamped compared to what he is expecting. The poll shows 46% are Evangelicals while only 27% in 2000 indentified themselves as such.

Interesting CNN Poll Findings

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2008/images/01/12/rel1b.pdf

First of all, it shows McCain being the strongest choice among the Republicans with him trailing Hillary by 2% and Obama by 1%. No surprise there. It also shows that the other Republicans simply get creamed. Obama leads Giuliani by 16, Romney by 22, and Huckabee by 19. Clinton leads Giuliani by 13, Romney by 18, and Huckabee by 14. The variances in the leads demonstrate that, at this moment, Obama is likely a slightly stronger candidate for the Democrats than Clinton, but not by much. Furthermore, in the committed opposition and support numbers there are some interesting figures.

Obama has definite support from 30% of voters and definite opposition from 38%. Hillary is more polarizing, as if we didn't know that, with 37% saying they would definitely vote for and 43% definitely against. Obama has more wiggle room as another 32% would consider voting for him versus 19% for Hillary. McCain is not as strong as one would think. 22% of voters say they would definitely vote for him versus 43% definitely against. However, 35% said they would consider it.

The other Republicans have serious problems. 55% said they would not even consider voting for Giuliani, 52% said that about Huckabee, and a whopping 62% would never vote for Willard(that's his real name) Romney. These numbers can easily change as voters are rarely so set in their ways, but for the other top three Republicans it poses an interesting problem. Also troubling is that the Republican Party has suffered serious brand damage with a net negative 7% favorable rating versus a positive 21% for Democrats.

I personally believe this will be a real dog fight as the Republicans never give anything up easily, but the political winds seem to favor Democrats.

Edwards' Waterloo in South Carolina

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/12/edwards.sc/index.html

Perhaps Waterloo is a bad example as that was a pretty closely run battle so maybe it is more like his Fredericksburg as he is polling something on the order of 20-25 points behind. He won SC convincingly in 2004, but that was against John Kerry. With Obama and Clinton sucking all the oxygen out of the room, Edwards seems ready to turn purple. It's not that he hasn't run a good campaign, because he has. However, it just doesn't matter when Hillary and Obama are rockstars within the party.

Race Notes(double meanings)

The Democrats are having quite a dust-up that I fear could cause a very painful schism in the party as The Politico notes. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7845.html These racial arguments have been fueled not just by the Clintons' statements, but also by that harmful talk of the "Bradley Effect" in New Hampshire which can only contribute to distrust by African Americans of the Clintons and white Democrats in general. It just disgusts me. None of this is necessary and has added a disturbing new tone to the campaign. One damaging thing it does is that it transforms Obama into a "black candidate" rather than a candidate who happens to be African American. His appeal is that he can transcend racial boundaries, much like Douglas Wilder in Virginia in 1989, but this row hurts his ability to do that.

The Republican race in Michigan is interesting on a number of counts. First it is clearly more than just a McCain/Romney struggle. Huckabee is making a strong push in the state on a number of fronts. As the TPM notes http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005057.php Huckabee has a huge robo-call operation that has contacted some 5 million homes. However, these things can backfire. He also had a good rally in rural Michigan following an economic speech. http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/01/1300_fill_center_to_hear_cheer.html With endorsements from Baptist preachers and the Minutemen Project, Huckabee will have a strong showing among Michigan conservatives and will be a serious contender, potentially shocking the pundits.

Meanwhile, Romney continues to have problems. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jWbI2rULUHnQwe-83Fd1Pb2lT8-wD8U3UA880 The small crowd he found when he came to Michigan should be a concern. Granted, crowd size seemed to mean nothing for Clinton in New Hampshire, but this can't be good for Mitt. He has achieved the endorsement of many papers, but as we saw in 2004, newspaper endorsements don't mean much because if they did, John Kerry would be president.

McCain did not do much notable in Michigan, but every indication is that he is ahead.

Supply Side: A Stinking Heap of Garbage

We were told time and time again by the Republicans in the South Carolina debate last night that tax cuts create more government revenue than we otherwise would have had. Larry Kudlow on his CNBC show constantly hits on this theme throughout his hour of blatant right-wing self congratulatory nonsense. However, what is the truth behind this so-called "Supply-Side Theory"? The truth is....not much.

I decided to run the numbers on the non-Social Security budget as this is the revenue brought in by the personal income tax, the capital gains tax, the corporate income tax, and so on. These are all of the taxes manipulated in our fiscal policy. I used the presidencies of two Supply-Side presidencies, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush vs. the tax-raising Bill Clinton. The split in the results is nothing short of stunning:

Clinton Years
Receipts 1993: $842 billion
Receipts 2001: $1.483 trillion
Growth: 76%

Bush Jr. Years
Receipts 2001: $1.483 trillion
Expected 2009: $ 2.086 trillion
Growth: 40.6%

Reagan Years
Receipts 1981: $469 billion
Receipts 1989: $727 billion
Growth: 55%

These results are conclusive and unquestionable. The Supply-Side experiments do not work as advertised. It is true, revenue did not drop overall, but it sure as hell did not increase more than one would expect. Is it true that an optimal tax rate for collecting revenue and stimulating the economy exists? Probably, but it is not obtained by just slashing taxes as low as you can get them. Would we have more revenue than ever if we had 1% taxes? No, because the economy would have to grow over 20-fold to get the same amount of revenue. The same applies for smaller tax cuts.

I will post more about this later.

Interesting New National Poll

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/11/2008.poll/index.html

Democrats:
Clinton 49%
Obama 36%
Edwards 12%

Republicans:
McCain 32%
Huckabee 21%
Giuliani 18%
Romney 14%

This is a reflection of the post-New Hampshire political environment. I would say that seeing some state polls both out of Florida and New York that the McCain number seems to make decent sense. However, I have a hard time believing Clinton's lead as a Rasmussen poll and an earlier USA Today poll show them pretty close at around 33-35% depending on the poll, but they were effectively tied.

The poll does suggest that this race is now McCain's to lose and that he really has pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in modern political history. Last summer I gave him no chance of coming back after his stance on immigration killed him. However, this is his to lose now. He is slightly favored in South Carolina and heavily favored in Michigan. A loss in South Carolina to Huckabee or in Michigan to Romney or Huckabee would derail him in a hurry because he actually is not the world's greatest stump campaigner. He is great at working the press and does have great ads.

Romney has to be horribly concerned. Republicans know who he is, but they just don't like him. Same thing goes for Giuliani. It is difficult to figure out exactly how either one hangs on. Huckabee also has to be concerned that he has had a lot of exposure, but hasn't been able to seal the deal. He is encountering a great deal of opposition from establishment Republicans who attack him non-stop including Fred Thompson. He needs to do well in Michigan and win South Carolina.

Rudy is done, kaput, finished

Courtesy of the Talking Points Memo: http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/poll_rudy_and_mccain_in_dead_heat_in_new_york.php

Rudy is barely beating McCain in New York State. I may have to revise a forecast or two coming up with information like this. Rudy's strategy of putting it all on Florida is terrible.

Republican Debate Thoughts 2:

Man, Thompson really does hate two things:

1. Mexicans
2. Mike Huckabee

Romney is boring as hell and isn't getting anywhere.

Giuliani isn't getting anywhere either.

McCain is saying all the right things, but not with great delivery.

Maybe because I'm not Republican I don't get it, but...

What is with singing the national anthem before a presidential debate? I've never seen that before. Maybe I just don't watch enough Republican presidential debates.

Update:

Romney had the best line ever: "Recessions hurt working families." Wow, duh!

McCain pandering to Michigan in the most direct way possible, talking about using Detroit as the engine of innovation.

Huckabee actually is making decent sense, which I actually find shocking, but he had a softball question. He actually sounds a bit like a Democrat.

Giuliani is being called out on the supply side bullplop that tax cuts lead to higher revenues. I will address this issue some later time. Saying the Club for Growth endorses a big tax cut is like citing Planned Parenthood for why abortion should be legal.

Michigan is no Friendly Territory for Romney

http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/michigan_poll_011008.htm

Romney trails by nine is barely ahead of Huckabee. If the talking heads who are pimping Romney's chances actually knew what they were talking about, I might be encouraged if I were Romney. However, since Chris Matthews and the rest of them don't seem to know a good poll number from a septic tank, he should be concerned.

Plain old strangeness

http://cache.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/AP_Photo/2008/01/10/1199991391_4917/539w.jpg

Take a good look at that and tell me that isn't strange.

No South Carolina Boost from New Hampshire for Clinton

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/south_carolina/election_2008_south_carolina_democratic_primary

She remains down double digits in S.C. in the Rasmussen poll despite that bizarre New Hampshire win. I would suspect that we don't see a similar bounce back in her direction that we saw in Obama's win from Iowa. It may have blunted his momentum somewhat, but it won't reverse it. Make no mistake this is a two person race to the finish now. February 5th may well not resolve it if Hillary and Obama split those states as I will outline later.

Confirming the idea that John Edwards has become entirely irrelevant is this poll out of North Carolina showing him in 3rd in his own state: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_011008.pdf

Why Mike Huckabee Can be the Republican Nominee

A lot of commentators continue with their garbage about how February 5th is a graveyard for Mike Huckabee because of these vaunted "Big States" like New York and California. I am sick of northeastern elitism on this point. This is why my party, the Democrats, continues to lose elections. Let me do a little math for them of likely or probable Mike Huckabee states on February 5th:

Alabama: 48 Delegates
Arkansas: 34 Delegates
Colorado: 46 Delegates
Georgia: 72 Delegates
Minnesota: 41 Delegates
Missouri: 58 Delegates
North Dakota: 26 Delegates
Oklahoma: 41 Delegates
Tennessee: 55 Delegates

The total of this: 421 Delegates
The total of New York(101) and California(173): 274 Delegates

Whoops. How'd that happen? All of the states I gave Huckabee as possibilities have very large Evangelical communities and large rural votes. They are either similar to Iowa(Minnesota and North Dakota) or are very much like it. Colorado and Minnesota have very strong religious conservative votes and they are caucuses meaning the most committed turn out. The southern and mid south states I need not even explain. Illinois and California cannot be ruled out as I explained in an earlier post and neither can Montana. Those sitting in the northeast saying how the "big states" give him no chance don't understand the Republican Party.

The Republicans give more delegates to states that are loyal Republican states than their populations would indicate. For example Missouri has 58 delegates versus New Jersey's 52. Alabama has 48 delegates versus Massachusetts' 43. The Democrats do the same but in reverse giving Massachusetts more delegates than Georgia despite Georgia have about 2 million more people. This needs to be understood when figuring out candidate viability.

Now does Huckabee have a shot at a majority of delegates on February 5th? Probably not. However, he has a good shot at getting the most out of the Republicans running. He might even do better if Romney drops out as he is the next strongest opponent of immigration after Romney. A disgusting position to be sure, but one the Republican Party eats up. McCain will have serious trouble contesting these states against Huckabee. In 2000, he got creamed in Georgia and Missouri in the face of Bush's social conservative alliance. I would fully expect to see that again there and elsewhere in the southern states and Midwest.

McCain is arguably in better position to win Illinois and more moderate Republican states making him an ever so slight favorite for the nomination. Giuliani however, will be competing with him and hurting his chances of consolidating the more moderate and liberal wings of the party. After February 5th, the Republican race gets interesting. On February 9th it moves to Kansas and Louisiana. On the 12th Maryland and Virginia. On the 19th Washington state and Wisconsin(Huckabee only has a shot at Wisconsin of the last four I've mentioned). It may only be decided on March 4th with Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island. McCain will easily take the Northeastern states, but Ohio and Texas will be dogfights between the moderate Republicans and the conservatives. Granted, the race might be over by then if Republicans sober up and realize McCain is their best chance to hold the White House, but if the true believers remain true to Huckabee, watch out.

The vote in New Hampshire did not reflect racism

Look, there is a lot of talk about the supposed racism of the Democratic result in New Hampshire and the supposed "Bradley Effect" at work there. This is utter garbage and I will dispel it with a few simple facts.

1. Obama won the white male vote. That's a simple fact and he won it big. Historically this is where you look for racism in elections. He performed right in line with expectations among those voters.

2. Obama won the rural vote. Look at the counties and towns he won. Those are sparsely populated rural places, once again usually centers of the racist vote.

3. Polling is not infallible. No one expect Carol Shea-Porter to win in the eastern district of New Hampshire in 2006 based on polling and she did it reasonably comfortably. Likely voter models can be wrong, particularly in high turnout elections. Georgia 2002 was another case. Nobody expected Sonny Purdue to beat Roy Barnes as he trailed by 8-10 points and he won by 5.

4. Obama performed within the range of his percentages in polling. He was expected to get 38%, he got 37%. Hillary just performed better.

5. Massachusetts voted for Governor Patrick by...23% in 2006. This either outperformed his polling or was inline. Is neighboring New Hampshire really that different?

Now I want to even take on the "Bradley Effect" notion in the first place. The notion is that African American politicians do worse than expected due to a hidden racist vote due to the race between the African American mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley versus Mike Deukmejian in 1982 for governor of California in which Bradley underperformed his polling. However, when it is actually looked at more closely, Bradley was leading by 7 points according to the final Field Poll, not a huge lead. He lost by a margin of less than 1%. However, if you examine it even closer you find that his margin was 49-42%, not exactly overwhelming and he lost 50-49%. This sort of thing happens all of the time. In Montana Jon Tester was projected to win by more than four points in 2006 and barely won at all. There was a very reliable Mason-Dixon poll in Rhode Island in 2006 that showed Lincoln Chaffee leading by a point and he lost by seven. Those last two were both white candidate versus white candidate in very white states.

Let's even examine the Douglas Wilder race back in 1989 where he underperformed by some ten points going into the election and barely won in Virginia. He was an African American running against a white candidate. However, Virginia polling used to be awful for some reason. Perhaps it overpolled Democrats for quite a while not taking into account the shift of the state to the Republicans. In 1997, Jim Gilmore led in the final Washington Post poll by 7 percent and won by 13% running against a white Democratic opponent. In 2001, Democrat Mark Warner led by double digits and won by little more than 5%. Granted, in the 2005 and 2006 races polling seemed pretty close, but there was volatility.

The point of all of this is, to look at a series of polls taken over only about three days before New Hampshire voting and pointing at New Hampshire voters and yelling "RACISTS!!!!" is not only incorrect, but it is also destructive. It sours the mood and potentially hurts the Democratic Party.

Romney's Lost War with Expectations

Okay, we all know Romney lost his northern neighbor last night by 5 points, which was humiliating. He spent something on the order of $7 million in ads and put in a huge ground operation and lost. That's a crushing blow considering he was ahead there for the last seven months. He didn't manage expectations well. He got ahead in both Iowa and New Hampshire by so much for so long he really couldn't afford to lose them. By conservative estimates he has spent something like $15 million between those two states, more than all the other Republicans in both states put together. That's just....awful. By some other estimates, like one I saw earlier, Romney spent almost $30 million in Iowa alone including ads, ground operations, and the bribes he paid people to vote for him in the Aimes Straw Poll earlier. By bribes I mean he paid their participation fees.

Now, he goes on to Michigan where he has allowed the media to make it sound like he is a shoe-in for a victory there. "Oh, but George Romney, his dad, was governor there!" Yeah, but that was 40 years ago! That would be like here in Wisconsin if one of Warren Knowles' descendants campaigned on his memory. Warren who? Exactly. Nobody remembers George Romney or anything about him except maybe 10% of the population. They remember much more clearly that McCain won the state against Bush by 8% in 2000 and also that they like John McCain. With McCain's media prompted boost out of New Hampshire and the general talk of his moribund campaign's resurrection he will likely pull ahead. He was in contention all along anyway.

It will be interesting to see what the polls say. However, Romney seems to be favored to win in Michigan by the pundits as misguided as that may be. Huckabee also has a decent chance here as I posted earlier and will siphon off support from Romney's push at social conservatives. Even IF he wins in Michigan the media won't give him any credit and if he doesn't, then they will say "Damn you are pathetic. That should have been in the bag." Romney completely mismanaged expectations and his strategy. Whoever was managing Mitt Romney's presidential campaign should never get near politics again.

Ron Paul's Crazy Ass Run

Before I knew anything about Ron Paul I said, "Hey, he's isolationist and that doesn't sound that bad." Then I found out he wanted to the abolish the Federal Reserve and I said, "Holy crap!" Then I found out he wanted the gold standard back and I said, "Whoa!" Then I found out was a racist bastard he is: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/08/ron-paul-newsletters and I say, "Stay the Hell away from this guy."

Libertarianism is often a comfy little foil for racism and that's what this appears to be in the case of Ron Paul. I know first hand that many libertarians are in favor of small government as a way of hurting ethnic minorities and think that we should be isolationist because they don't want us to attempt to help countries that are predominantly non-white. A lot of their protectionist policies are often racist towards Latin Americans and Asians in their motivations. They insult the quality of the products from overseas assuming that no non-Caucasian could possibly build anything of quality. I know this line of thinking because while working in retail I heard some of the most absurd anti-Asian racism from people who were unhappy with Chinese or Malaysian-produced products.

Make no mistake, the desire to "protect American industry" "shrink government" and "return to the Constitution" is a neat little foil to obscure bigotry, racism, and prejudice.

A quick thought on the polls

Everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs about how wrong the polls were. However, what is interesting is that according to Real Clear Politics' average, Obama's average support was roughly 38% going into the New Hampshire Primary(http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_primary-194.html#polls) and he ended up getting 37%. There's certainly no scandal in that. Clinton's support, though, surged from 30 to 39% from the polling average. When one disects the numbers we find that the women's vote came out very differently than expected. American Research Group, based in NH, projected Obama to win the women's vote by 3 points and instead lost it by 13%. Obama's support among men was in line with what the polling showed and his support among women was actually largely in line with what he was polling going in. Clinton just happened to clean up among undecided women which is not entirely surprising.

With how dramatically polling supposedly shifted after Iowa, it seems possible to me that in the couple days after the debates that they could have shifted back. Clinton had a pretty good debate performance as the exit poll reflects: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#NHDEM. Among those who said the debates were very important, 48% of the total vote, she won by 8%.

Also, the time when voters decided is very important. A huge chunk said they decided before a month ago and they broke for Clinton with 48% of the vote. Obama did lead substantially among those deciding between a month and a few days ago. This also possibly reflects the fact a lot of voters voted absentee and thus were not impacted by Iowa.

Then, we come to the raw strangeness of New Hampshire. In 2006, there were two incumbent Republican Representatives who seemed to be in pretty good shape. The western district, being challenged by Democrat Paul Hodes was a possible pick up as it is generally more liberal containing the Vermont border region. However, the eastern district was completely safe by nearly every measure and it too fell to the Democrats. This was a stunner. While I projected the bulk of House races correctly, I never saw that one coming and neither did anyone else except the most optimistic Democrats. This isn't limited to New Hampshire though. In Georgia in 2002, Governor Roy Barnes(D) was expected to coast to a 8-10 point win over challenger Sonny Purdue(R). The result: Purdue won the governorship by 5 points.

The lesson here: Polls are usually pretty good, but don't bet the farm on them. Some races are hard to predict due to various factors. Primaries are particularly notorious due to the fact they rely more on turnout operations than general elections.

New Hampshire Thoughts

Ummm....Wow. All I have to say, that's what I get for doubting Hillary. She sure showed me....and every pundit and polling firm in the world. The race goes on now and I would give her now a better than even shot of winning the nomination, but only slightly. Obama is still a favorite in South Carolina and Nevada is up in the air. However, Hillary has now solidified her support in New Jersey and California. Everyone was trying to pile dirt on her and she pulled it out. She will come out of the snows of New Hampshire rejuvinated and ready to continue on past February 5th if necessary. This could go on to Texas in March.

On the Republican side, this only confirmed the demise of Romitron(my own dismissive take on the most pathetically robotic and dishonest candidate in history), but he will not give in. He will put along and spend away his fortune getting 10-15% of the vote in every state from here to the point it doesn't make sense anymore. McCain is rejuvinated, but his direction is uncertain. Huckabee underperformed my higher expectations, but still had a half-way decent showing. He goes on as well. Giuliani is done and just doesn't know it. His showing was pathetic.

That is all and this will get a lot more interesting in a hurry.

Post-New Hampshire Strategies(Republicans)

Assuming my prediction is correct, Mitt Romney is in serious trouble going forward. He does have a decent showing in virtually every state going forward, usually into double digits. His problem is that he doesn't have anything more than that. While he polls between 10-17% in Michigan, South Carolina, Nevada, Florida, etc it is hard to see how he gets up to the 30% that he probably needs in all of those states to win them. He needs a win in New Hampshire and he needs one badly. People aren't impressed by huge personal fortunes alone.

McCain will probably benefit from a very definite resurgence in his fortunes and the confirmation of that from a New Hampshire win. He can move on to Michigan, where he is currently polling in the 18-20% range. I predict his primary competition here will not come from Romney, but from Huckabee. White evangelicals make up 24% of the total electorate: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/MI/P/00/epolls.0.html and this means that Huckabee has a fairly large base of support and roughly twice the size of the same community in New Hampshire. Granted, Iowa had a larger base for him, but this is still significant. Huckabee doesn't have the resources to campaign there, but he could nudge out Romney for second place behind McCain.

Romney and McCain both have a decent shot at Nevada. There hasn't been any new polling since McCain's Lazarus movment, but he will probably take Giuliani's place as Romney's chief rival. A Mason-Dixon poll in early December showed Giuliani leading Romney by 5% and Huckabee at 17%. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/static/pdf/poll/1207nv.pdf This shows the possibility of a strong Huckabee showing. Giuliani's support has probably shifted more toward McCain since then mirroring his national collapse.

South Carolina appears to be Huckabee territory. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/south_carolina/election_2008_south_carolina_republican_primary
There is a huge base of conservative Christian support in the state and regional loyalty helps Huckabee. Thompson is attempting to make a stand there, but the social conservatives that once supported him are likely going to back Huckabee instead as we have seen since Huckabee's November rise. McCain can give him a decent run for his money as the Rasmussen poll shows. Romney has moderate support as well, but that will probably move McCain's direction predominently.

Now, as for Giuliani in Florida on the 29th, Huckabee and Romney both have a good shot at it, though by this point Romney is probably out of it. Giuliani similarly is going to be in rough shape after being out of the discussion for so long. Also, Rudy's favorable numbers have taken serious damage and that does not seem likely to reverse. There is a very strong social conservative vote in Florida, particularly in the panhandle that will break Huckabee's way. Social moderates and economic conservatives are unlikely to be major Huckabee backers and seem more likely to go Romney and McCain's way. Giuliani will be in contention as he has focused on Florida, but this may split the more moderate votes in Florida and allow Huckabee to slip in there with just over 25% of the vote.

Thompson is probably gone before February 5th which is an important factor for my Feb. 5th thesis, which is that Huckabee does very well, contrary to most prognostications. They talk non-stop about California and New York, but there is a dirty little secret: there are a lot of moderate sized southern states up that day too. Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri(in terms of how it votes it is southern), and Oklahoma are all voting. These are all very likely Huckabee states as they all have very large Evangelical votes. More than these there are also Colorado and Minnesota, which also have large conservative Christian votes on the Republican side. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/MN/P/00/epolls.0.html A full 19% of all Minnesota voters are self-described "white conservative Protestants" and these voters voted 91% for Bush. In a Republican caucus they could be 40-50% of the voters there. Colorado is similar: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/CO/P/00/epolls.0.html.

Suddenly, February 5th looks like a pretty good night for Mike Huckabee. With the strength he might show in the Midwest, do not rule out a decent result in Illinois either. Even more striking was the fact that a poll in December showed him in a strong 2nd place in.....CALIFORNIA!? Yes, it is true http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/12/20/MNFBU1JHP.DTL, and if the Republicans split their vote between McCain, Giuliani, and Romney, Huckabee could slip in there. There are not many strong Christian conservatives out there, only 11% of the total electorate, but with a divided vote and solid support among staunch social conservatives he might even pull that off.

Will Huckabee have a majority of the delegates? Probably not. Giuliani is still fairly certain to take New York and New Jersey. Huckabee isn't worth a spit in Massachusetts and CT or Delaware with McCain and Romney probably splitting those, though Romney is not that strong in MA from what I can gather. North Dakota is hard to tell, but there are a lot of social conservatives there and it is a dreary caucus so that might go to Huckabee too. Utah is an obvious Romney win. Arizona certainly goes for McCain. Montana? No idea, but it doesn't matter too much.

The point of this is that Huckabee has a good shot at the nomination and probably the best shot. The two biggest states are likely to split and Huckabee is very likely to sweep the south with Thompson out of the way. Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, and Alabama are not insignificant states and they do have a lot of delegates with Georgia having more than any state outside of Illinois, California, and New York. A sweep on these states plus Arkansas(that's in the bag for Huckabee) and Oklahoma puts Huckabee in very good shape.

McCain has to try to consolidate moderate conservatives and independents in open primaries with establishment support that fears a Huckabee candidacy. Giuliani has to completely melt to make this work for McCain and this seems very probable. Romney staying in the race following a series of defeats will be weakened, but will siphon off critical establishment support McCain needs to stop Huckabee.

In any case, it should be fun to watch. While I have Democratic leanings, the Republican race is sure to provide fireworks.

Post New Hampshire Strategies(Democrats)

Assuming that the results are along the lines of my predictions below, I really am not sure how Hillary truly recovers in time to blunt Obama. http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportEmail.aspx?g=066ea20c-d300-48cd-a585-cc9c356df4eb She will get creamed in South Carolina as the Survey USA poll shows and Nevada seems like it will follow the lead of the Culinary Workers Union in its caucuses. Everyone talks about Hillary's strength in the February 5th states, but if one looks at the last Field Poll in mid-December you see that her lead was only 14 points. http://www.field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2252.pdf

Now 14 points is a good lead under most circumstances, but with how her support has plunged elsewhere, it is now extremely doubtful that has held. I would imagine that lead has entirely disappeared. Elsewhere on Feb.5 there's Illinois, Minnesota, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri and others that don't look good for her for varying reasons. Most of the southern states have large African American populations that will likely follow the lead of South Carolina and the general wave of support Obama is riding. Hillary looks strong in New York and New Jersey, but that's about it.

I predict Obama waxes Clinton even more easily than one would expect. Edwards will not be a particularly large factor unless he stays in past a potential Clinton drop out in which case he gets all the non-Obama vote, but that won't be much. Following a Clinton withdrawl, Edwards might get as much as 25% or 30% of the total vote, but Obama will be pulling over 60%.

Hillary's one hope is that something very damaging comes out about Obama between now and then. Other than that, she's finished.

Republicans up next and this one is really fun.

New Hampshire Predictions

Democrats:
Obama 41%
Clinton 30%
Edwards 19%
Richardson 6%
Kucinich 3%
Slop 1%

Republicans:
McCain 35%
Romney 29%
Huckabee 16%
Paul 10%
Giuliani 9%
Thompson 1%

I think Romney polls slightly better than he does in general. Obama is harder to tell because of the very messed up nature of the Iowa caucuses, but due to the way independents are breaking his way and the mood on the ground he will slightly outstrip his poll numbers. With the Republicans because it was a straight up vote in Iowa, that is a fairly good indicator and Romney does not do very well compared to polling.