STILL INCOMPLETE

The Silly Season

With a new set of Democratic primaries complete, Ohio,Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island. Senator Clinton, by almost all accounts, accomplished what she had to in order to continue her campaign. Possibly to the presidency or just maybe to the destruction of the Democratic party, which result ensues might still end up being a coin toss. But currently that means theres not a lot of action between now and the Pennsylvania primary. There is the Wyoming primary today. As I recall Wyoming is not quite the most populous state of the union. Also, it is a caucus, and there hasn't been a lot of suspense in most of those, considering Nevada is the only one Clinton has won. Mississippi, later seems almost equally safe for Obama, unless of course enough Republicans cross the voting line as suggested by Rush Limbaugh, just doing his best to add clarity to the process for the Democratic party. I remember too that it was Newt Gingrich who first suggested a Florida and Michigan revote. Of course, now that is one of the more seriously discussed options to avoid disenfranchising the Democratic voters of those states. As they said in the movie Spinal Tap, 'There's such a thin line between clever and stupid.'

So there's time on our hands to ruminate over these things, go a little Donald Segretti and get into general weirdness, a silly season.

"I am a proud conservative, liberal Republica--- conservative Republican"

- (McCain, Richardson Texas)

Just to be different I'll start out here by considering an incident involving the Republican candidate John McCain. The origin...

Senator John McCain got a question at a town hall meeting this morning in Atlanta that he never has addressed publicly before: Since Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, had approached Mr. McCain about being his running mate for the White House in 2004, would Mr. McCain now return the favor?

Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, who has long been viewed by many conservatives as a Democratic sympathizer, quickly said no — and just as quickly said he had never considered sharing the ticket in 2004 with Mr. Kerry, a friend of his.

“He is, as he describes himself, a liberal Democrat,’’ Mr. McCain said, adding that he meant no offense by the term. “I am a conservative Republican. So when I was approached, when we had that conversation back in 2004, that’s why I never even considered such a thing.’’ - Elisabeth Bumiller [03/07/08]

Bumiller, a reporter for the NYTimes then asked McCain about this on his campaign plane...

Elisabeth Bumiller: Senator, can I ask you about Senator Kerry? I just went back and looked at our story, the Times story, and you told Sheryl Stolberg that you had never had a conversation with Kerry about being, about vice president. Is that … - Question

The issue did seem to involve just a bit of sophistry on the part of McCain concerning the privacy of a conversation on this topic - probably in 2004. McCain seemed to think since it was a private conversation he could deny it occured when he wants. Or, he can acknowledge it occured, say everyone knows it occured but not give any specifics. Well, it was a private conversation so maybe he can do this and it's not sophistic. The furor about this is that he did seem irritated during the exchange. One interesting thing to me in the video was a photographer, sliding around McCain looking for a better angle for a picture. There was a shark-like quality to that, he seemed to be circling in, sensing the possibility of blood in the water.

As to McCain's irritation, I would have to think that all he was seeing was the gray lady. It hasn't been that long since the Times ran what as far as I know still amounted to a smear against him. If a Times reporter asked him what color his shirt is, they might get a simple answer. However, if a Times reporter asked him what time it is I'd imagine his answer could be, 'What time it shows on my watch is private and none of the New York Times [expletive deleted] business.' So his response was possibly subdued.

The Scotsman

Of course the Democratic Party contest is where most of the action remains. It may also be where more fear and loathing develops during this silly season period. This has been evident even up to now. Clinton, called the Fighter on the cover of the current Time magazine, and her campaign continues to take on all-comers including itself...

Penn was growing increasingly aggravated by what he saw as an untenable management structure, which another aide described as an "oligarchy at the top." Penn had no real people of his own on the inside and chafed whenever Solis Doyle or Ickes got involved in his sphere. At one point, he and Ickes, who have been battling each other within the Clinton orbit for a dozen years, lost their tempers during a conference call, according to two participants.

"[Expletive] you!" Ickes shouted.

"[Expletive] you!" Penn replied.

"[Expletive] you!" Ickes shouted again.

- Even in Victory, Clinton Team Is Battling Itself

Then there was this exchange which started with this crash of a Clinton campaign conference call...

In an extraordinarily aggressive bit of pushback, Bob Bauer, general counsel to the Barack Obama campaign, jumped onto a Hillary Clinton campaign phone call with reporters on Tuesday night to dispute the premise of the call.

Bauer, pressing "star 1" to get called on with a question, demanded the Clinton campaign "stop attacking the caucus process" -- just seconds after Clinton officials said they were receiving complaints about caucuses in Texas. Lyn Utrecht, a Clinton lawyer, said that Obama supporters had locked out Clinton supporters at certain sites.

Bauer, invited to ask a question by the operator, launched into a series of accusatory ones directed at the Clinton campaign.

- Call Crash

Guilt By Association

More for the blog that just won't end. The photographer I mentioned earlier who seemed to be trying to catch a possibly unfortunate moment for McCain could be said to be just doing his job. Last night the news mostly concerned the involvement of the New York Governor in the investigation of a prostitution case. On a number of occasions it was mentioned that he was a super delegate - I believe all Democrat governors are. On a couple of those occasions it was emphasized that he was specifically a Clinton super delegate. The first suggestion, that his actions throw doubt on the judgment or character of all super delegates is an example of a 'hasty generalization' logical fallacy - 'moving too quickly from the specific to the general'. The second, to somehow tie him to Clinton with regard to this, besides just being absurd, is an example of the logical fallacy of 'guilt by association'.

I would again have to say as I have in the past that these are indications of a press bias against Clinton, and now it would seem, against all super delegates as well. Unfortunate on a whole different level from the photographer.

Beyond the Silly Season Math

Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. - Winston Churchill

Or I'm going throw in some silly season math of my own, if you want to look at it that way. But, for the moment lets ignore the delegate math. You can't do that! I know, I know, but think about it for a minute. So, forget Michigan and Florida, and the millions of dollars that might be spent for what would very possibly be no real shift in delegate numbers. Forget, for the moment, what the super delegates might do and whether or not they could be the determining factor in choosing a candidate who trailed in real delegate numbers. Lets just consider simple popular vote, non-representative, one for one pure democracy. Lets look at that...

Popular Vote Total - 13,025,003 49.4% 12,421,316 47.1% Obama +603,687 +2.3%

Popular Vote (w/FL) - 13,601,217 48.3% 13,292,302 47.2% Obama +308,915 +1.1%

Popular Vote (w/FL & MI)* - 13,601,217 47.3% 13,620,611 47.4% Clinton +19,394 +0.1%

- Democratic Vote Count

Now the simple thing I'd like to consider I think has obviously been brought up before, there is probably no way these numbers haven't been considered. But I'm not so sure looking at it from the point of view of a coin toss, or 50-50 odds. So that either way this goes, one half of the people who have voted for these candidates is going to be getting a candidate they didn't vote for. (OK, I adjusted I'm not sure quite what it'll end up being but right now that is 13.5 million voters to a greater or lesser extent disappointed. It doesn't matter which way it goes, heads, 13.5 million people on the other side, tails, almost exactly the same. The discussion is getting around more and more to this, so I can't claim I'm out in front on this one. But the only thing I can think of that offsets this to any extent is the "Dream ticket". The Clinton's are actually both currently bringing this possibility up from time to time. So far Obama hasn't seemed too enthused. Because of course it is supposed be "the delegates". Well, there are maybe a few hundred of those that need to go his way, but there are again millions of voters you don't want to see go the other way as a result.

Now the next question that might come to mind would be what about the polls that show either Obama or Clinton beating McCain right now? Doesn't that mean there is at least enough support that will continue beyond the convention to whoever the candidate might be? Obama could pick his favorite poll there that shows him with at least currently a good lead over McCain. This might well be true. However, it might depend on who the question is being put to. Suppose you are asking a Clinton supporter at this point the question for both candidates? Now the person answers to both that yes they would vote for either Democrat over McCain. Obama wins the nomination so the person doesn't turn out to vote. If they did turn out they would as they said vote for Obama. However, their first choice was actually Clinton, so they opt out of the general. Again, this is a coin toss, so the exact same argument could be made with the names reversed. Hopefully, the number crunchers for both sides have taken the other sides turn out in how they are considering approaching the convention.

Well, here's something I came across with some numbers specific to Democrats views of the Dream ticket