Election 2016
gregladen | September 10, 2016Why is America the Greatest Country in the World?
Diversity and opportunity. And freedom. Lots of freedom, freedom is great. I can tell you, I know freedom and I know we have lots of it, more than any other country. And diversity, we've almost got that under control too.
But seriously ...
If you are like me, the tirade eventually given by the protagonist in the following clip was already formulating in your head for the first two minutes of this scene, and when it spilled out (in a form better than you or I would have managed), you were like "Yeah. Go baby!" (Or words to that effect.)
It is…
gregladen | September 5, 2016You may have heard the name, you may have an idea of who she was. This recent item on the Rachel Maddow show (long, but worth every second) puts her in context. Watch it:
Schlafly was one of the key architects of the modern right wing movement. She is one of the worst people in the world, at least in the context of American society and politics. She pretty much single handedly a) defeated the Equal Rights Amendment and b) managed the propaganda campaign that makes a lot of otherwise not-too-stupid people think, even today that the ERA is a bad idea.
She was a white supremacist who urged…
gregladen | September 2, 2016I was half expecting Trump to soften on immigration. The logic of that? His main supporters, who hate all immigrants and are a bunch of racist slobs will vote for Trump no matter what he says because the are morons. But, the fence sitters, the amoral "Good Republicans" who would vote for him because they have learned to fear Democratic economic policies (this group are also all morons) might vote for him if he was less crazy sounding.
But no, that didn't happen. Instead, he embarrassed our nation buy telling the President of Mexico, to his face, that he's going to have to pay for this wall…
gregladen | August 24, 2016This explains a lot of things:
Boy, do we ever need campaign finance reform.
gregladen | August 10, 2016Several dozen nonpartisan organizations have joined together to ask for a Science Debate in the current campaign. The debate would address major issues in science, engineering, health and the environment
This is part of an effort that has been going on for several election cycles, with a certain degree of success.
More than 10 million scientists and engineers are represented by the organizations that have joined in this effort. They have provided a list of twenty major issues, and are encouraging journalists and voters to press the candidates on them during the 2016 U.S. Presidential…
gregladen | June 11, 2016Since 1968, about 17 candidates ran in Democratic primary races and earned enough votes (above about 20% all told) to count as having been contenders.
Of those, one was murdered, one was shot but lived, one was eliminated from competition by GOP dirty tricks, and one left the race because of insufficient support but would probably have been exposed as having two families (that would have been a scandal) had he stayed in the race.
Putting this another way, there is about a 24% chance that a Democrat running in a primary will be taken out of the race for extrinsic reasons.
Given the stakes…
gregladen | June 8, 2016And, how did my model do?
There was a lot of talk about California, and a lot of back and forth, but in the end I stuck with my original model to predict the outcome of that race. See the table above for the results, but the bottom line is that I predicted that Clinton would get 57 percent of the votes and Sanders 43 percent. It turns out that Clinton got 57 percent and Sanders got 43 percent.
Excuse me for a moment while I bask in the bright light of being-right-ness.
Thank you. Now, on to the details.
First, a quick, note on the numbers and methods. All my percents (for prediction and…
gregladen | June 7, 2016This is an excellent moment to revel in the complexity of life, and argument, and to appreciate the value of the honest conversation.
A candidate is the presumed nominee when she or he obtains the required number of pledged delegates to be at 50% plus a fraction in the total pledged delegate count. This is because a candidate must have a true majority to win the nomination when the delegates are all counted up at the convention, and the pledged delegates are required to cast their lot with the candidate they are pledged to, assuming that candidate exists at the time of the convention.…
gregladen | May 23, 2016The Democratic National Convention Committee has announced who will be on the all important Platform Drafting Committee. The committee will include an impressive mix of Clinton and Sanders supporters, as well as a key member associated with climate change activism.
The committee is assembled by the CND Chair, who this time around is Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The members that will represent the presidential campaigns (75% of the members) were chosen to proportionately represent the candidates according to the current vote tally from the primaries.
The platform committee will include, as…
gregladen | May 21, 2016As you know, I’ve been running a model to predict the outcomes of upcoming Democratic Primary contests. The model has change over time, as described below, but has always been pretty accurate. Here, I present the final, last, ultimate version of the model, covering the final contests coming up in June.
Why predict primaries and caucuses?
Predicting primaries and caucuses is annoying to some people. Why not just let people vote? Polls predict primaries and caucuses, and people get annoyed at polls.
But there are good reasons to make these predictions. Campaign managers might want to have…
gregladen | May 17, 2016As Rachel points out, the first one is pretty conventional. The second one is a killer. Have a look:
gregladen | May 17, 2016I have not updated my model for predicting primary outcomes in the Democratic contest, but since the last few predictions were very accurate, I don't feel the need to do so. However, I will before the California primary, just in case.
Meanwhile, my model suggests the following for today's primaries.
Kentucky should be nearly a tie, though my model suggests that Sanders will get one more delegate than Clinton (Clinton: 27, Sanders: 28).
The model also suggests that Sanders will win in Oregon, Clinton: 24 and Sanders: 37.
There is very little polling in Kentucky, but the latest poll from…
gregladen | May 16, 2016First, Sanders lost Nevada because Hillary Clinton won the caucus.
Then, the Sanders campaign put their ground game into effect, in an effort to overtake Clinton during the nearly-unique-to-Nevada process that allows for changes in pledged delegates at later caucuses. But he didn't get enough delegates to achieve that. The Sanders campaign does get credit for getting more delegates than they had before, of course.
Then, at the State Convention, Sanders had enough delegates in place to gain a couple of more delegates and possibly tie with Clinton in the end. But the organizers for the Sanders…
gregladen | May 10, 2016I'll combine my post predicting the outcome of today's Democratic Primary in West Virginia, and my post giving and discussing the results, here.
My prediction is on this table, on the left side of the line, and the actual results on the right side, for the last several primaries.
Every state is special, and some are more special than others. West Virginia has 29 pledged delegates, but not all of them were assigned today. I assume they will be assigned later. Thus, the slight difference in numbers between what I predicted and what happened.
A key message here is this. Clinton and Sanders…
gregladen | May 8, 2016Super Delegates exist for good reasons. In order for them to do their job, which hopefully is never, they need to have two characteristics. These are:
1) The capacity for thoughtful and well informed decision making at the convention, in case something untoward has happened to require this.
2) Independence with respect to whom to vote for ... in other words, being unpledged.
A big downside of Super Delegates is that they tend to endorse a candidate early in the process. This is their right as Americans and it may be seen by some of them as their duty as politicians or party officials (which…
gregladen | May 7, 2016Bernie does not want his people to disrupt speeches. He's OK with outside protests. He wants to do everything he can to stop Trump.
gregladen | May 6, 2016I've seen it said again and again that the Trump nomination will be a debacle for the Republicans. The Republican party will fall apart, become small, become insignificant. Clinton will easily crush trump. We're done. Ding dong.
But this is all wrong.
The Republican Party is in power in more state houses than ever, and in most cases, are solid in those state houses.
There are more Republican governors than Democratic governors, and this is a recent phenomenon never seen before. Most are pretty solid. Even the much maligned Walker of Wisconsin could not be gotten rid of when he messed with…
gregladen | May 5, 2016... they made that candidate THE candidate. So, that will be interesting.
Yet another of Rachel Maddow's excellent context rich historically driven missives. She almost lost it a few times while presenting this. You may do the same watching it.
gregladen | May 4, 2016Donald Trump is now the presumed Republican candidate for President of the United States. Prior to Cruz and Kasich dropping out of the race, it was not 100% clear that Trump would achieve enough delegates to "lock" the convention, but he was vey close. I am not sure if Trump will be the only candidate on the ballot for the remaining GOP primaries. Had Cruz and Kasich remained in the race, my estimate was that Trump would be about six delegates short of a lock, but even if those candidates are still listed on some future ballots, it seems likely now that Trump will win enough delegates to go…