Megatron Tuesday

(title idea courtesy of Erza Klein, image from Wikipedia)


Rather than trying to predict this time, since it seems the polls are all over the place, I am going to give you some anecdotes to give this historic day some flavor.

Today, my wife got up at 5:30 a.m. to opening up our polling place. That's right, ours will be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. meaning she was there from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. Her job is to make sure those touch screen voting machines work and that people know how to use them. I have asked her to tell me how many times she has to replace the paper rolls (our machines have an auditable paper ballot verification)--each roll contains approximately 250 votes. She told me that Mayor Ralph Becker already voted there this morning, which makes sense since his public schedule starts at 8 a.m. I wonder who he voted for, some of his endorsees--Sen. Scott McCoy and Pete Ashdown--have endorsed Obama, so I guess that is as good a guess as any.

I got up about two hours later and took our little McCain supporter on a walk to our polling place. It was about 15-20 degrees outside. My wife and her co-workers for the day said I could bring him in and she got to show off our dog to her new friends while I voted. Turnout was extremely light when I got there, around 8:15. To my surprise, I was listed as "unaffiliated" so I am going to have find out from Sherrie Swenson's people if I have to re-register my party affilation every time or what. Balloting was pretty simple, but none of the also-rans are off the ballot. This puts Obama at a disadvantage because his name is way down on the list, since it is alphabetical, whereas Hillary Clinton is listed towards the top. Tom Tancredo had a notice in the polling area that he dropped out, but I guess his name was still on there.

Anyway, as I left, a man from the New York Times approached me. It wasn't an exit poll per se, but more of a "gee, our website has much more features than just the print newspaper digitized" feel to it. Using a fancy pocket recorder he asked my name, my age, my occupation, what issue was most important to me, and why I voted the way I did. Since I said foreign policy/Iraq, he asked me how long troops should be in there, if I favored a timetable etc. After that, he asked if he could take my picture. Too bad I had my glasses on and was tired and wearing a hat...and that my dog wasn't in the pic (he was in my arms). My best guess is that the picture and sound clip might end up here. But really I have no clue.

Still, it is so great to have national papers care about what Utahns think without the standard "Mormons think" story. Speaking of which, I think it is very cool that President Monson picked a German dude to be in his second counselor. As someone who had a host father also named Dieter, it is nice. Also, it is a good way to show that the Church is international, and not just some Utahn or American religion.

digging out Monday

Yesterday, I went up to my parents house to watch the Big Game. Unless you were living under a rock, you know what happened and don't need the Trib's "Cliff Notes." While I was shocked and dissipointed (what happened to the immortal perfection of Brady in the playoffs? It is like the Mannings stole it from him two years running) that my Pats managed to lose, those Giants really deserved it. Anyway, what I was most annoyed with, besides sights of Payton cheering in the luxury box, was being snowed in. My parents live up Emigration Canyon and wasn't planning on spending the night.

Of course my wife wisely forced me to pack an overnight bag before we left, but I wasn't too thorough with it and left a few items at home. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep and was not thrilled with the prospect of clearing off my car and helping shovel the driveway. I don't know about you, but I am getting really tired of this every other day snow storm we have been having for the last month.

Finally, Dan Jones did a poll on the presidential primaries in Utah. Unlike what most national bloggers thought, I knew Obama would be up (due to his staffing and money comitments in the state)...but not 53-29. Of course, all of the news outlets led with the non-story that Romney was getting a dictator-sized victory in the GOP side (84-4 against McCain). Why bury the lede? Mrs. Clinton had a lead with 50-something percent of the vote just a month or so ago.

While Super Tuesday should be fun to watch across the board, the most interesting part of the night will be when California is called. Obama and Romney seem to be doing some last minute surging, but will it be enough to overcome early voting? If either or both of them win CA, it is going to be the story and overshaddow the delegate count story which is somehow much harder for the press to do (because it involves counting and research?) If Obama wins New Jersey and or Connecticut earlier tomorrow night, we know that California could be close and or Clinton could be in for a long night.

Currently, the expectation is that Clinton and Obama stay close (~100 delegate-advantage for Clinton) and that McCain blows away Romney. But if Cali changes it mind, the whole race could be turned on its head, because Momentum could finally show up in this nomination race on both sides.

I predict another round of record turn out. I saw a poll that said 47-43 people thought the Super Bowl was a bigger story than the elections. The fact that the elections are within the margin of error is amazing for America. This also bodes well for higher turnout in November. We might get back to 1960s levels or something.

A super weekend

Tomorrow, I am going to celebrate the Chinese New Year with a friend from church. gong xi fa cai! I really need to restart my ChinesePod lessons.

Sunday, I am going to watch my New England Patriots (since 1998) beat the tar out of Eli "spoiled brat" Manning's New Jersey Giants in the Super Bowl. While I grew up in Utah, I never really got why we were supposed to like Denver teams. In fact, I hated them. I did like the 49ers, because of the constant glowing coverage of Steve Young and Joe Montana, but I fell hard for the Pats, even when they sucked (Pete Caroll era). So I feel justified in cheering them on now that they are so good. Same goes for the Red Sox.

And then Tuesday (I know this is a stretch) is Super Duper Tuesday. For election night, my wife and I love to order food and watch the results come in and discuss the speeches etc. Our dog Poe is so excited that John McCain looks to be practically sweeping this round. She will even be a poll worker all day that day, so I will give you her turnout anedotes, and please be nice to her if you vote in the lower aves. She will be there from before 7 a.m. until after 8 p.m. when the polls close. And basically gets paid squat.

In 2000, I routed for McCain over Bush and Gore over Bradley. For some reason, I wanted the Republican nomination to continue on because it was so exciting, and couldn't stand the Democratic one, because it was so boring. Here both are facinating and I wish both could go on. I really think big national primaries are a mistake. Usually, it results in a tarmac campaign where media consultants get a big piece of the ad budget they push for, go figure. Thankfully, much more money is being spent on GOTV and field this year, at least on the Democratic side.

Having a series of primaries in different states a week or two a part for months is a much better way to really energize a party's base, generate good campaign staff for the fall and future elections, and to keep up lots of free media. This is true even it costs more to do intensive week-by-week campaigns. More importantly, parties prevent a steam roller effect if the contests are spaced far enough apart (or the candidates are strong enough with good field teams) that it isn't a purely "bounce nominee" ala John Kerry. I think most Democrats now look back at the 2004 race and say Edwards or Clark or Dean would have been a much better nominee than John Kerry.

While it is cool that Utah is getting all this attention for once, I would be even better if Utah was in the next round or two, since it looks like Obama and Hillary will both be in the race for another month at least. (I don't know about Mitt)

Anyway, I am looking forward to the weekend.

not really about the cali debate

While Hillary and Obama were prepping for their big debate, John Edwards was watching his UNC Tarheals drub the BC Eagles. He was sitting next to his eldest daughter, who seemed to be enjoying herself tremendously. JRE meanwhile, looked despondent even while his alma mater was beating John Kerry's law school. It was a very human moment. I am sure as happy he was to see his team up close and to have an evening with his daughter, but was understandably sad that he wasn't still in the race.

I am surprised he dropped out when he did but I guess he did it to maintain maximum positives when he left and to make himself an influential endorser. Maybe he was thinking about his choice.

The debate was very cordial and I thought they both did pretty well. Obama is better off when it is sitting down and friendly, but he still needed to wow viewers and knock her down to some extent. And that didn't happen really. Still, the race is tightening as more people are tune in and the race narrows to two.

Anyway, Lost is back, so I am going to watch it.

Small Lake City

So yesterday, I was playing basketball with some guys from a friend's Single's Ward like I usually do Wednesday nights...and a guy came over to me. It was a person I hadn't seen since I was 16: C.J. C.J. and I were friends during grade school; I invited him to my birthday parties and had gone over to his house. We weren't best friends by any means, but liked each other and would enjoy rides on the chairlift together.

The odd thing was, he was there to support his wife you lead a yoga session that ends about when basketball begins at this single's ward. So there you have two married guys who hadn't seen each other in a dozen years meeting each other by chance at a single's ward. What are the odds?

This kind of thing seems to be happening to me more and more these days. Maybe it is because I go on Facebook tears, but I seem to be reconnecting with people from my past all the time in the last few weeks. More likely, it is because my tenth high school reunion is this year, and my wife is organizing it. {Yes, I married my high school sweetheart)

My mom calls this town Small Lake City because of the numerous times you bump into people you know, or how you meet people who know other people you know. And it is true. I went to get flu shots this fall at Smith's at a random time of day, and I spotted former Chief Justice Michael Zimmerman reading motorcycle magazines and buying super glue. I said hello (both his and my family used to go camping together) and he explained that he bought a Harley from his brother-in-law and loves it. I didn't ask what the super glue was for.

So what is the point of all this rambling? Well, either you can get annoyed and hate the fact that you can never be anonymous in this city, like I did in high school, or you can enjoy it, like I do now. You can find drawbacks in any city or town you live in, or make the most of the place, or move to somewhere you like better. Throughout the years, I have lived in lots of different places, and all have their pluses and minuses, but Salt Lake always feels like home to me.

And then there were two

In case you didn't read all the articles on the subjects, John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani are out of the presidential race. This effectively leaves two candidates for each party to choose among. I know technically Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and Paul Gravel are in the race still, but all three of them are thinking about something other than being president at this point. Huckabee wants to prove that John McCain needs him for VP. He would be great in a VP debate and a great surrogate, but same part of the GOP that hates John McCain on economic issues also hates Huckabee for the same reason.

Ron Paul might as well start saving up those millions to get on the ballot in November as Libertarian. Sen. Gravel should just take a bus home.

So who gains and who loses with the departures of the two serious contenders for the nomination? In the short term, Obama is hurt the most by Edwards' leaving. Ideally for Obama, Edwards would have hung around to attack HRC in debates while siphoning off white voters from HRC to ensure Obama wins states like Oklahoma on February 5th. As others have pointed out, he was probably the best debater out there of the three of them, or at the very least the second best. Now Obama needs to get better at debating in a hurry, because Hillary is looking forward to smacking him around on CNN. In the long term, perhaps Hillary loses the most. Perhaps that fabled ABH vote (anybody but Hillary) will coalelse behind Obama and he can get more states than he otherwise would have, especially if Edwards gives him his delegates, endorses and campaigns with him. Obama certainly wants his endorsement. He lept out of the gate with a fawning farewell statement. Ideologically, Edwards 2.0 is much more like Obama than HRC.

On the Republican side, Giuliani's departure certainly helps McCain the most. The two were both relatively moderate Republicans on just about everything except foreign policy, where both want to start a war with Iran and stay in Iraq indefinately. Rudy's endorsement should insure that NY, NJ, CT, etc. all go for McCain. Romney is in serious trouble because almost all of the Super Tuesday states are winner take all on the GOP side. Which means that, unlike Obama, he can't content himself with 45% of the vote in some state and draw about the same number of delegates (or if he targets optimally, get more than the popular vote winner). Romney has to win outright in pretty much any state besides CA to get those delegates. And even though he still does better among conservative Republicans than McCain, there is too much momentum and elected officials behind McCain for Romney to stop.

While Obama's path to the nomination is very difficult, it is still plausible, especially when you hear things like Connecticut being now effectively tied. By contrast, I just don't see how Romney gets back on top after narrowly losing Florida.

The question now becomes, who would each side match up best against, and who would be the best VPs for them. For Hillary, I think she is stuck with picking Barack if she gets the nod. No way any party head will let her pick a dud like Evan Bayh. On the other hand, Obama can't pick Hillary because it would undermine his message and overwhelm him. Does he pick Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who endorsed him and reminds people that his mom's side of the family grew up in Kansas? After the bland SOTU response, I think she is done. Bill Richardson is similarly too gaffe prone. John Edwards doesn't want to be second banana again (but he would take AG I think). Barack needs someone with Washington street cred without undermining his change/unity message. NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg? Not unless the FEC says he can spend all of his money on the race. VA Sen. Jim Webb? Fits with the appeal to "Reagan Democrats" and change message (especially on Iraq). If he wants to get the mini-me, like Bill Clinton did in 1992 with Al Gore, I would say Newark mayor Corey Booker: a charismatic black mayor who whites like and is trying to make his notorious city better. This fits in with the stories of Obama working in the projects prior to law school, since Booker lives in one.

As for McCain, he has to pick a social and economic conservative, even though McCain is pretty solidly pro-life. I would say someone like Sen. Sam Brownback. But if the Democrats nominate Obama, McCain needs his ticket to get young fast, but not Dan Quale young....we are going to see a lot of basketball games if Obama wins the nomination. If McCain picks Sen. Lieberman or Sen. Graham, he is just asking for a whooping. Romney I think would pick Huckabee because of his appeal to evangelicals, whom Mitt needs to be back on his side for November.

Florida prediction time

I decided to get out my glass ball again and see if it has so cracks or needs polishing. Right now, it is pretty murky about who will win Florida for the Republicans, but I will take a stab in the dark anyway.

1. McCain
2. Romney
3. Huckabee
4. Guilini
5. Paul

McCain: This is going to be a close one. Sen. Mel Martinez should bring the Cuban-American vote out for McCain in South Florida, and Gov. Crist should bring out votes all over the state. While it is true that Crist has governed much more moderately than I would have initially guessed (he is trying to re-enfrancize certain felons of their right to vote for example) he still won a GOP primary and general election pretty handily. He doesn't want to look weak in this primary, so his old campaign hands will be helping out Sen. McCain, who helped him out by campaigning for him 2 years ago. 30-33%

Romney: All those adds (Mitt ran more commericals in the fall in Florida than McCain has all of January) and organization makes him close. Plus, many Republicans still just don't trust McCain for his loud and proud unothordox votes during the past 8 years. Some polls show him leading, others have him behind. You have to believe that a popular governor (he is basically the Jon Huntsman Jr. of Florida) can drag his endorsee over the finish line within his own party's primary, however. Mitt falls just short, close enough (1 percent) that he will claim he "tied for the gold" but he needs this win out of Florida more than McCain does. 30-33%

Huckabee: He has basically pulled out of the state, because he doesn't have enough money to compete here and all of the states to come. But his fellow Baptists will help him get a respectible showing: 11-14%

Giuliani: The dream of another war in the Middle East for no good reason dies in Florida. The more voters got to know Rudy, the more they disliked him. Look for him to endorse McCain. At least he beat his arch rival, Ron Paul: 10-13%

Paul: Will the blimp go to the Super Bowl? 8-10%

As for the Democrats, they all agreed that this race wouldn't count.... Until Hillary lost South Carolina, then they had to parse the meaning of "campaign," pointing to national cable ads that Obama bought that happen to run in Florida. So Hillary made some statements and viola, Sen. Nelson of Florida endorses her, as does Janet Reno. She is even planning on being in the state immediately following the voting to hold a victory rally in hopes that the media will cover her (assumed) win. Having a million Democrats vote with all of the major candidates on the ballot sure is hard to ignore, but I just don't like the changing the rules in the middle of the game. Look for HRC to get about 50-55% Obama to get 25-28% and Edwards to get 17-20% Oh and apparantly Gravel is still "running."

On Gordon B. Hinkley

My condolances to his family, friends, and to Saints everywhere.

To me, President Hinkley was very much like John Paul II. Now I am not Catholic, but one can also respect all the good things both men did, not just to expand the membership of their respective faiths, but also to improve the public perception of their faiths. That Pope and this President did a great service to their respective religions followers to ease the concerns that many had. For Catholics, many saw them as stuck in the past. So JPII appologized for Gallieo and any role the Church had in the Halocaust. Similarly, Pres. Hinkley addressed polygamy head on with the media, emphasizing how that tenant had long ago fell out of doctrine and those who continued to practice it weren't Mormons and were in small tiny sects.

More importantly, both men had a kindly and warm presence that was a very positive face of their world religions. They made themselves hard to hate.

I just hope the President Monson won't be as reactionary as I find Pope Benedict to be.

media narratives

There are two schools of thought on how to examine the squabbles between Obama and the Clintons. Both of which are assuredly spin. The real question is whose version of spin is prevailing in the coverage.

The first school is to say that Obama has never faced serious attacks and his reaction to the stuff the Clintons are throwing his way is a sign that he is unprepared to run in a national election against Republicans who will be far more organized against him with a candidate much better than Alan Keyes (although Ambassador Keyes is technically running for his party's nomination as well). This, the argument goes, reinforces Hillary's message that she is ready to take on the Republicans, while Obama is naive and bumbling along.

The second school says that poor little Obama is being ganged up on by the titular head of the Democratic party--the former, still beloved president--and his also popular wife and former first lady. The more Bill Clinton attacks Obama, the argument goes, the more people remember all the bad times of the Clinton presidency--the in-fighting, the leaks, the scandals, the inability to get health care reform done, and of course, the affairs. Moreover, the theory posits that the bigger the limelight Bill gets, the more people begin to worry that Hillary won't be her own president and won't be able to control him.

Both schools of thought revolve around a kernel of truth: Obama never really has faced a tough primary and won against a politician as entrenched in the party as Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton's love of campaigning and attention really could undermine Hillary's "I listened and found my own voice" rhetoric.

Amazingly enough, it seems Obama's press people are sort of winning this battle but maybe losing the overall media picture. On CNN yesterday, the screen said "the Clintons v. Obama" and the whole story was about how Obama is having to campaign against Bill in SC and Hillary nationally, and gee how tall an order it is to do that against a pol as skilled as Bill AND Hillary, who has a loyal cadre of supporters all around the country.

I saying losing the overall picture because the media have come believe--like I have, given the coverage--that Obama has to win SC big. Anything less will be a disappointment. So a win there if "narrow" will give him little bounce for the next round of campaigning. Also, the media will focus on his percentage of white voters to see if they can peg him as 2008's Jessie Jackson.

Currently, I am expecting a 8-15 point win for Obama and John Edwards to get a narrow second place over Bill Hillary Clinton in South Carolina.

On the GOP side, every poll I see shows Mitt Romney trending up, with McCain relatively stagnant and Rudy 9ui11ini and Mike Huckbee falling down. That is also my order of finish. Once again, someone has to thank Fred Thompson, but this time it is Mitt Romney, who gets most of the "Fredheads" and lucks out that the economy is suddenly the biggest issue while national security has fallen down the list a couple notches. And if I am right and Romney does win Florida, I think he is suddenly in the driver's seat to the nomination.

He is this cycles John Kerry for the Republicans--he has a little something that every part of his party can be happy with and feel ok voting for him. Plus, he has the money and the "presidential look" to win, while the rest of his rivals are essentially broke. They may be jealous of his big checkbook, but they will all fall in line if he wins Florida and then many of the Super Tuesday states.

Right now, I can't predict Super Tuesday for the Dems because it is hard to tell what sort of impact SC (and FL) will have on those states. If the impact is negligible, Obama will still be viable, but far enough away that he won't be able to catch up with her in February. If he is somehow able to narrow the gap in states like California and New York, and rack up wins in little states like Utah, then he will be at parity with her...and the next round of contests seems to favor him.

As a political junkie, I am so excited that Utah finally gets presidential campaign commercials. At the gym last night I saw an Obama one, and when I got home and watched Oprah with my wife on DVR, I got to see a Clinton one and another Obama one. If Romney wasn't LDS, I think we would have GOP ads here too. This really is the closest and most exciting primary election on both sides in my life time. Of course, as luck would have it, this is the one year I just have to sit back and watch. But at least it is quite a show.

this week in irony

Tragic irony for sure but...

Twenty members of the Polish military were killed when their plane crashed on the way back from a flight safety conference.

Officials said it was the first accident in Poland involving a CASA transporter, which is generally considered an extremely reliable aircraft.

This is what I get for listening to BBC World News Service last night.

fun fact

Other than national cable TV ads by Obama and a fundraiser held in Miami by HRC, no Democrats are doing anything in Florida. Yet...

the number of returned absentee ballots in Florida so far [96,286] exceeds the total number turned in in the 2004 general election [93,909], and the number of Democratic early voters [121,693] plus the number of absentees requested is more [316,940] than the number of actual voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada combined.
[...]
The party projects a turnout of more than 1,000,000.

One Million votes, basically without any campaigning? That's some pretty excited Democrats and it has got to make Republicans nervous, both the targeted House members, and the GOP nominee wannabes. Republicans need to win Florida in order to keep the White House, period. It would be pretty embarrassing and foreboding if the Democrats outdraw the Republicans, who have been campaigning like mad for weeks in the Sunshine State, in the upcoming primary.

turing on a dime

Going into the presidential election, there was much talk about the "surge" and how John McCain was gambling his candidacy on supporting it and the Iraq war in general (except for his complaints about mismanagement). There was debate in Democratic circles whether Obama's objection to the war in 2002, or Edwards's admission of error in voting to authorize the war, or Hillary's refusal to do admit error would be the best course against McCain.

Then McCain seemed done for, even though "the surge worked" (since the goalposts changed). So did Obama, for a while...

But as quickly as he rose, Obama fell down to sub-parity with Sen. Clinton. And then economy got progressively worse.

While the markets were closed in the US yesterday, the DAX (the German stock exachange) lost 7% of its value. The same thing happened in London, Hong Kong, etc. The fed tried an emergency .75% interest rate cut, but that seems to have hastened the panic.

And all of the sudden, Romney with his business consulting know-how and claims that he can turn around the economy seems to be not just a one-trick-pony for Michigan. Meanwhile, McCain and his "I don't know much about the economy, but I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night" routine looks a little scary.

My the same token, Hillary's claim of experience and having the same old Clinton economic team around sounds pretty good when a recession seems to be upon us.

So the question becomes, can Obama (and to a lesser extent McCain) change their message around to the economy and how they will do a better job than Mitt and Hillary would? And in general, can Republicans walk back from their rosy talk about the economy when the markets tank and lots of real people come up to them on the campaign trial to tell them their horror stories?

Washington DC is a panic to do SOMETHING, anything to show they care...even if it might make the situation worse. Democrats of late have owned economic issues it terms of health care, unemployment etc. Republicans have always claimed tax cuts will fix everything...but what will the package look like? How much tax cuts will there be, and how much will pure spending stimulus will occur.

The situation is quickly spinning out of control and politicans from both parties need to figure out how to capitalize in the new environment.

South Cackalacky

No this is not a misspelling. My friend and Southerner Ed Kilgore taught me that is what you call the Palmetto State.


Anyway, McCain needs to thank Fred Thompson, who sucked up 20% of the vote in key conservative counties--mostly at the expense of Mike Huckabee. Thompson have his farewell speech at about 8 PM EST and blamed it on the bed time of his grandchildren, when it really was his own bedtime he was worried about.

Huckabee is now up giving his speech, and claiming he ran with honor. Now I try not to take sides these days, but I need to call BS. He has a 527 making millions robo-calls attacking all of the other candidates. He is trying tell his people not to blame Thompson for their 3 point loss...but wait next week when Fred endorses McCain in Florida at some old folks home. Huckabee is saying very nice things about McCain now because he probably realizes that his best shot now is to be McCain's running mate. While that might help McCain with some social conservatives, it really will drive the fiscal conservatives and immigration activists nuts.

So now I wish to correct my earlier post about this primary and the GOP primary. The media will largely ignore Romney's win in Nevada and build up his win in New Hampshire too. Because he let them interview him all the time and had an open bar in the bus. That's how easy it is to win the press over. Now McCain is the leading candidate, and he will probably win Florida. At least my dog is excited about him.


(Photo credit: Mrs. Oldenburg)

And another point I want to make. I don't care what the delegate count says for this race or the Democratic one. About 5% of all delegates have been declared and right now Romney probably still is in the lead and Obama is virtually tied overall against HRC (minus the super delegates) but wins are what matters in this compressed schedule. I seriously doubt that the overall delegate count number will make any difference in the end. Someone will start racking up wins, and voters in future states will follow. That's the way it has happened every other time before. Even if somehow it come down to a brokered convention on either (or both) sides, that's where insurgents lose. Obama won't win a brokered convention because Bill Clinton will twist enough arms of super delegates to secure the nomination for his wife.

In order to win the nomination, Obama has to knock Clinton out, which is even harder now that he lost New Hampshire and Nevada narrowly. I don't know how he is going to do it, but that race won't end for a while.

Again, Ron Paul beat up on Giuliani. So Paul has beat Rudy in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina (I don't remember Wyoming) Mr. 9/11 is TOAST he is already behind McCain AND Huckabee in Florida...while he has been all by himself for weeks.

So the Republicans are down to three with McCain probably going to win it all (and Romney and Huckabee with outside chances). And the Democrats are down to two, with Hillary looking like she has the inside track.

neva-duh

Here I was thinking that the Clinton's tiff with the Culinary Union would cost them the caucuses in the Silver State, and yet they seem to have won it by about 6%. The big news to me seems to be that:

1. the Culinary Union was all talk and no substance, Hillary's institutional support from big name Democrats mattered more.


2. Edwards' support disappeared. Four percent? That is Rudy Giuliani territory (more on that later). That was so embarrassing that he might have to fold up his tent soon.


3. Republican turn out was much, much higher than Democratic turnout, even though only Romney and Paul campaigned here and Obama and Clinton set up shop here for the week. This was counter to the trend we saw in all the other states thus far, but it could be due to my next point. I guess the numbers on CNN are delegates? From the NY Times:
   

   state party officials said more than 114,000 Nevada voters attended the caucuses. It is the third state in the row to achieve record-setting turnout in the Democratic presidential nominating fight, which party strategists believe is a referendum on the Bush administration and a strong call for a new direction in Washington.



4. Mormons came through for Romney in a big way--20% of GOP caucus voters were LDS, more than double their state population. (42,250 people caucused for the GOP today.) He has about 19,000 votes right now, Clinton got about 5,200 (Obama got about 4,600) and Ron Paul got about 4,500. With reports of bad weather and voting problems in areas with lots of old people, could Romney get a strong "bronze" in SC? I would say he is the new front runner even if Huckabee ekes out a win in SC, because the press will talk down Huckabee as a regional, religious candidate.


5. Republicans have voted in 5 going on 6 states now, and Giuliani has been in the bottom 2 or 3 every time. How can you expect to win the nomination, let alone the presidency without being even a factor in the first month of voting? I will say it again, he won't win Florida, Huckabee or McCain will. I am starting to think it will be the Huckster.


6. Obama HAS to win South Carolina big now. He need Nevada, and he can talk about how the raw delegate count is still relatively even (if you don't count super delegates) but he needs wins to knock down Hillary to have a chance in states like California and Texas.


7. African-Americans are now going nearly 4-to-1 for Obama over Hillary several states in a row. Yes I am counting Michigan, which was probably due to Rep. John Conyers getting his people out to vote for "uncommitted" but this is a trend that could help Obama win all of the Southern states on February 5th (save Arkansas)


8. Clinton's lead in Nevada was around 55% prior to Iowa, and Obama's share was somewhere in the 20-25% So it seems that all that happened was Edwards' support collapsed to Obama, and a bit of the Hillary supporters and some undecideds broke his way. But he never fundamentally changed the dynamic there, even with the union endorsements and winning Iowa.


9. The race to the nomination for both parties is going to get tighter and nastier as the weeks roll on. To me, it seems like it has come down to two on both sides: Clinton and Obama, with Clinton having the upper hand; then Romney and Huckabee, with Romney having the upper hand. Assuming these bits of news out in South Carolina are true, it seems McCain is in big trouble.


10. If McCain loses tonight (still a big if) this will be yet another primary where he failed to get Republicans to vote for him in sufficient numbers. Even in New Hampshire, he lost the GOP vote to Romney. Maybe he should have ran as an independent in 2004 after all.

What were they thinking?

The Clintons, like the Obamas, and the Edwards, are lawyers--both candidate and spouse.   But you knew that already.  And you know the talking points about the failed lawsuit to block the at-large precincts along the Vegas strip.

Let's assume for a moment that Bill Clinton is right that these precincts carry an unfairly disproportionate voting power.  

But remember again that lawyer thing.  Bill and Hill didn't just go to any law school, they went to Yale.  And they weren't just "average" Yalies (if there is such a thing), they were first and second in their class (Hillary was first).  And she is the junior Senator from New York.

Just yesterday, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that New York State's crazy law that allows party bosses to effectively pick judges was OK-dokey.  And this wasn't a surprise.  I went to oral arguments and everyone who I talked to who was there was betting 9-0.  The case is a follow up to another case that also said political parties can make up basically any internal rules and keep their First Amendment associational rights.

If they didn't know this, they should have.  Or at least someone on their staff should have.  

I guess my real point in all this is to say the Clinton's knew the lawsuit would probably fail, even if the optics weren't so bad--using one union to block voters from another union after that union doesn't endorse you.  So why join the losing side in advance?

Besides being otherwise brilliant, the Clintons are known by both Republicans and Democrats as having the keenest political mind.  So again, why pick this fight?  

..but liquor is quicker

"Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker" -- Ogden Nash

To something but dandy and quick, corporations created Achopop:


(Image Courtesy of The Science in the Public Interest)

The LDS Church has decided they don't like these flavored malt beverages too much:

Church spokesman Mark Tuttle said today leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints support the Utah Attorney General and the state's alcohol-control board in their belief "that the sale of distilled spirits - including so-called alcopops - should be restricted to state liquor stores. To allow the sale of distilled spirits in grocery and convenience stores promotes underage drinking and undermines the state system of alcohol control," Tuttle said in a prepared statement.

Let's be honest, these drinks are basically beer, only taste sweeter. Studies have shown that underage children are watching ads featuring these drinks, but I have yet to see any studies that say more youth are drinking these rather than any other alcoholic beverage, especially one with similar alcohol content.

In fact, if anything, the market is taking care of the "problem" beverages all on their own.

When "malternatives" bubbled onto the scene in 2001, beverage companies everywhere could almost taste the sweet opportunities. A new category sprang up nearly overnight: 87 million cases of the stuff sold in 2002.

But today the market for flavored malt beverages, or "alcopops," is struggling, with 2003 sales down 14.6 percent, according to Information Resources. Individual brands (including the best-sellers) fare even worse: Sales of Bacardi Silver plunged 62.4 percent last year, Skyy Blue's dropped 58.1 percent, and market leader Smirnoff Ice's slid 33 percent. Others, like Diageo's Captain Morgan Gold, have disappeared altogether. United Kingdom-based Diageo took a £24 million write-off last year--about $42 million at today's exchange rates--to deep-six the product. Miller Brewing abandoned three of its four malternative brands, forcing a $40 million write-off in fiscal 2003 due to "excess production" of Sauza Diablo and Stolichnaya Citrona. Only its drooping Skyy brand remains.

Of course, this was in 2004, but I don't see any other stories about this type of drink other than the one about what Utah's liquor commission decided to do on a problematic 3-2 vote, "with the three nondrinking commissioners outvoting their two imbibing colleagues to send the proposal to the Utah Legislature." I just don't get what all the fuss is about.

I wonder if stores will sue the state on this legislation (assuming it passes).

Its that time of the year again

The legislature is starting up next week for another marathon-but-time-wise-short session. Per usual, the papers are reporting the most controversial bills, which benefits liberal activist groups, conservative activist groups, and the conservative legislators that push them. Today, we have one on abortion, an old stand by for conservative legislators to push. Utah has always been on the bleeding edge of abortion laws, testing what is the outer limits of restrictions on the US Supreme Court's interpretation of the right of privacy. Some times they lose, most times they just follow what other test states have done that was upheld.

Currently, state law allows a minor to get court permission instead of parental consent for an abortion in certain cases, and parents are never notified their child is petitioning the court.
That doesn't seem right to [Rep. Stephen Sandstrom] Sandstrom [(R-Orem)].
"For something as life-altering as an abortion, parents should have a right to say," Sandstrom said.
[...]
Sandstrom also would like to reduce the reasons for requesting a bypass to only cases in which the pregnancy was the result of incest or if her parent previously was convicted of child abuse. Currently, minors have to convince the court the pregnancy has put them at risk of death or debilitating injury, it was the result of incest or that the minor's parents will abuse her if they find out she's pregnant or wants an abortion.
... Only eight minors have filed since the law was enacted in 2006.

Now lets go back to the last monumental case on Abortion--1992's Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania (The 2007 case which upheld Congress's ban on so-called "partial-birth abortion" (Gonzales v. Carthart) explicitedly stated it was not overturning Casey even if its reasoning was directly at odds with O'Connor's opinion in Casey). Anyway, here is relevant part in Casey:

We next consider the parental consent provision. Except in a medical emergency, an unemancipated young woman under 18 may not obtain an abortion unless she and one of her parents (or guardian) provides informed consent as defined above. If neither a parent nor a guardian provides consent, a court may authorize the performance of an abortion upon a determination that the young woman is mature and capable of giving informed consent and has, in fact, given her informed consent, or that an abortion would be in her best interests.

We have been over most of this ground before. Our cases establish, and we reaffirm today, that a State may require a minor seeking an abortion to obtain the consent of a parent or guardian, provided that there is an adequate judicial bypass procedure. See, e.g., Akron II, 497 U.S., at 510 -519; Hodgson, 497 U.S., at 461 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment in part); id., at 497-501 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); Akron I, 462 U.S., at 440 ; Bellotti II, 443 U.S., at 643 -644 (plurality opinion). Under these precedents, in our view, the one-parent consent requirement and judicial bypass procedure are constitutional.

And then in 2005, the court issued an unanimous opinion against a NH law that was similar to State Rep. Sandtrom's. It was called Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England The court only reversed the First Circuit's invalidating the entire statute because it wanted the NH legislature to tweak the provisions relating to whether a doctor needed parental consent even if the conditions for a judicial bypass (The minor is pregnant as a result of incest with the parent or guardian OR The parent has abused the minor OR The parent has not assumed responsibility for the minor's upbringing) or health of the mother exceptions existed. That is, the legislature was basically asked to make sure the existing exemptions under abortion jurisprudence (health of the mother and judicial bypass) remained intact and not subject to parental notification (and approval).

This is all to say that while Rep. Sandstrom's position may seem right, it is not constitutional at this point. Of course, Ayotte came out before Justice O'Connor was replaced by Justice Alito and maybe the 3 other arch conservatives feel empowered now that Alito (who authored the Circuit court opinion that upheld PA's law that was later overturned in Casey by O'Connor) is with them and they "won" Carthart II. So maybe Rep. Sandstrom's bill is a much more subtle attack on Casey and Roe than the full frontal one the legislature is also considering. Only time will tell if this bill will pass and if the Court will decide to overrule Ayotte.

Sorry about all of the constitutional law crap, but that article brought out the inner con law nerd in me.

Man, did I call it or what?

CONFIRMED:  I am Mitt Romney's bad luck charm.  I had a feeling that he would win, but I couldn't say it, because then of course he would lose.

This is about as scientific as "he forgot his lucky jockstrap" analysis in sports.  But hey, I am doing this on my own spare time.

As promised here is a picture of my dog watching a Republican speak. See how interested he is! Turned out to be Mike Huckabee, but John McCain's speech was rudely prempted by the Mittster.

Oh and I switched over the Democratic debate given that Michigan was an easy call for the networks, and that too was a boring debate, although I am still glad there was no Kucinich...thanks Nevada Supreme Court. Really, the three main candidates on the Democratic side agree on the 99% of everything. They all pledge to get combat troops out of Iraq in a year, all will try to get some sort of universal health care, reform the tax code to go after high income earners and corporations, made trade deals more contingent on union and environmental standards, push for more "alternative" energy, etc. The details are slightly different, but as my mom said tonight, they don't get to decide those details. As I have pointed out previously, that's Congress's job. So Dem voters are stuck with deciding based on the theory of change they like best, personality, or demographics... "Electability" which was the key buzzword in 2004, seems to be a foregone conclusion in 2008 in Democratic thinking.

A friend of mine who is a libertarian Republican (but not a Paul supporter I don't think) still sees this as a Hillary-Giuliani race...maybe Hillary, but Giuliani? He got 3% in the GOP race tonight...Dennis Kucinich, Fred Thompson, and Ron Paul all got more support that Mr. 9/11. Heck, Edwards and Obama weren't even on the ballot and their "undeclared" beat Giuliani on the Dem side by more than 10 times the amount...undeclared almost beat Giuliani on the GOP side as well.

Unless Fred Thompson wins South Carolina, I don't see how Giuliani could possibly win Florida. Who ever wins South Carolina or the national front runner (if the two are different now that Mitt won big in Michigan and seems to be focusing on Nevada rather than SC) will win Florida. Neither of those would be Rudy.

Oh and East Coast media, it is nɨˈvæːdə (Nevăda) not Nev-vaaaa-duh. It really annoys us all out West when you say it the wrong way.

not another prediction thread

Groan, I know, can't he leave this to the pundits that get paid to be wrong?

It has not gone unnoticed here around the Third Avenue that every time I predict Mitt Romney will make a come back from second place to win a primary/caucus, he gets a distant second place. In order to test the theory of being the Mittster's bad luck charm, I will predict that he will come in second to McCain in Michigan, despite some polling trends that have Romney making a late surge.

As an aside, while watching the New Hampshire primary results, my dog seemed to be rooting for John McCain. When the senior senator from Arizona made his victory speech, my little 8 lbs. Poodle/Pekingese mix stood on the couch with rapt attention staring at the TV and seemingly following every word that dripped from McCain's mouth. My wife and I cracked up and starting joking about our dog being a closet Republican, at which point he whipped his head around and stared at us as if to say, "Stop laughing, I am trying to listen to the war hero speak!" He promptly went back to staring at the TV. Tonight we will have the digital camera ready in case our dog again acts like a McCainiac. If so, I will be sure to post it on this site.

It has been painful watching the local newspapers spinning Romney's losses as it has been watching them cover the Democratic side. Somehow they found the worst, most crazied picture of Hillary Clinton during her victory speech (as she was opening her mouth to say something, but it looks like she is trying to swallow you whole). And people wonder why Utahns dislike her so much. Even local Democrats are afraid of supporting her too loudly. I just hope that the coverage for Clinton and Romney isn't too ridiculous from our friends in the print media tomorrow morning.

What I am watching for tonight:

1) How big is "uncommitted" (aka Edwards and Obama) in the Democratic primary? The bigger the uncommitted, the more you will hear the media talking about how the Democratic party is rejecting the Clitons. The smaller the number, the greater the potential there is that Dems are crossing over to either vote for McCain, or mess with the Republican primary and vote for Romney.

2) What percentage of Republicans do McCain and Romney get? If either win with Democrats/liberals, the other will try to claim that they had more support of "true conservatives." If the winner wins both GOP and Dem voters, it will be a double digit margin of victory.

3) Where is Huckabee? He too pulled ads out of South Carolina, not because he was saving money for Michigan, but because he was gambling (isn't that a sin for a Baptist minister?) on being able to knock out Romney or McCain by getting second place or better. Right now, he is in a distant third at 10-13% but if the push polls work and he gets his evangelicals out to vote, he could surprise everyone and be much further down the road to sewing up the nomination.

4) Where is Giulaini relative to Ron Paul? In Iowa, Ron Paul beat him, in New Hampshire, a last minute push propelled him to eek out a narrow lead over Paul. If Rudy finished behind Paul again, another round of media reports about the "tanking" campaign of Mr. 9/11 will surely resurface.

I further expect that the winner of this race will either win or narrowly lose South Carolina to Mike Huckabee. If the same person wins Michigan and South Carolina, then they will win Florida and probably the GOP nomination.

On the Democratic side, Nevada is key. Obama has to win both the Silver State and the Palmetto State to recapture his 5-day frontrunner status between Iowa and New Hampshire. If Edwards wins Nevada, the nomination really could get messy. (if HRC wins, I think she wins the nomination) Hillary and Obama's teams have finally agreed to a cease fire on their surrogate-based slime-a-thon, and the Democratic party is better off for it. I wonder who brokered the agreement...the next Secretary of State...or just Howard Dean?

Tonight I guess I will watch CNN, which is less annoying than MSNBC, but it is a race to the bottom as far as I am concerned. Maybe Fox News will provide better GOP coverage. Any advice?

know thyself

We recently have started getting serious about doing some home remodeling that we have talked about for years. On Saturday, we went to IKEA to look at bathroom accessories/fixtures. The next day, we went crazy at Lowe's and bought most of the pieces we needed. When we got home, I went even more crazy and forced my wife to help me clear out the spare bedroom of all the crap we had been storing there Clean Sweep style. Well, we didn't have a yard sale, or a TV show host or a organization guru, but we need create donate, toss, and keep piles. I moved as much as I could into our storage space in front of our car.

Some time in the evening, I got this idea into my head that I could swap out our old bathroom faucet with one we just bought. The box said it was easy as 1-2-3, and our plumber had said it was a snap. Quickly I learned that 1-2-3 might be easy, but first I had to remove the old faucet, which was impossible without some random tool that only (you guessed it) plumbers own. Plus, I really had no clue what I was doing. The most I saw my dad do that was mechanical was put on new bike pedals.

Not that it is his fault. I don't really have the ability to sit down and learn how to do all this stuff. The wait kills me.

When I was 17, I lived in Germany for a year with a couple families. One host father was a policeman...their version of the FBI I believe. I don't know what exactly his job was for that agency, but he coolly told me one day when I asked him to how something worked that I was the type that paid people to do stuff for me and he was the type that knew how to do stuff. At the time, I was insulted. (He also told me I was panicky and not a warm person, but that was because he constantly critiqued EVERY little thing I did, i.e. forget to turn off a light switch once after 30 seconds of non-use.)

But perhaps on this, he was right. After getting a third way through the sink project, I realized I was stuck and that I had broken a perfectly good sink. We had a guest coming over the next day, and she couldn't even wash her hands in the sink because I had an urge to feel like a handy man.

Somehow, I managed to undo all of the dissassembly and the sink seems to work about as well as it did before. But I learned my lesson: go earn some money and leave the home improvement to the professionals.