Michigan and Arizona primaries 2012

February 28, 2012, primaries in Arizona and Michigan

Santorum in Michigan

GOP primaries in Michigan and Arizona today–and it will be mildly interesting to see which candidate Republican voters will be stuck with, if either. On the one hand they have the lurid imaginings of former Pennsylvania Rep. Rick Santorum, who is more and more coming to seem like the type of religio more hell-bent on damning other human beings than on sharpening his own conscience. Deafness to the promptings of conscience might or might not be expected of someone who spent his years out of office working as a corporate lobbyist in DC, even if the lurid version of religion dominating Santorum’s idiom is not stereotypically associated with the kind of inside-the-Beltway job Santorum held, and profited from.

 

Romney

On the other hand primary voters have former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who famously penned an op-ed for the New York Times Nov. 18, 2008, titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” ‘Flip-flopper’ or not, Romney has stuck by his argument on this one, following up recently in Michigan with a Feb. 14 op-ed in a Detroit paper calling the auto rescue “crony capitalism.”

 

Automobiles and candidates

Santorum has been proclaiming a “two-man race” in the Republican primaries for several weeks. It seems like years. Most of the political press is following suit for the moment–while waiting to see whether Newt Gingrich’s race-baiting resuscitates the Gingrich campaign in the South in March. It is tempting to streamline the Romney-Santorum contest as a contest between the corporate-insider and barking-dog segments of the Republican Party, dignified as ‘wings.’ This would be over-simplification.

Not that Romney isn’t giving this over-simplification all the help he can. Set aside the off-the-cuff references to the two Cadillacs (American-made cars; that’s why Romney mentioned them in Michigan) his wife drives, or to the Nascar team owners Romney knows. More importantly, Romney also advocated letting the foreclosure crisis run its course, an argument obviously not targeted for Arizona. While Arizona’s foreclosure problems do not equate to those in neighboring Nevada, in December 2011 Arizona hit the top-ten list for foreclosures by state. Spikes in oil prices that deter travel to the wide-open spaces in the Southwest will not help over coming months.

Needless to say, Rick Santorum is even farther to ‘the right’ on the auto-industry and foreclosure issues. Santorum may speak touchingly of miners related to him personally, but when it comes to holding mine owners accountable for mine safety—or any other wholesome and necessary regulation to save lives and health—he’s on the other side, if quietly.

 

Speaking of oil prices–

There are a few facts that the GOP candidates—except occasionally for Ron Paul–do not mention on the campaign trail:

  • Gasoine prices spike when oil prices spike. When the price of crude jumps, the price at the pump is sure to follow. Historically, by the way, a decline in crude price is less swiftly followed, and less equivalently, by a decline in pump price.
  • Spikes in the price of crude oil come largely from rampant, unchecked speculation on oil futures; less from demand for the oil than from betting on the future price of oil
  • Speculation on oil futures in recent days—heightened buying ahead of retail, which has driven up the price of crude–has been fueled by the public discourse, if you call it that, over Iran
  • Iran, as we know, is now newly and again being touted as the favorite hot spot for right-wingers in politics and in Fox-ified media outlets, ever on the look-out for the next war to send other people to

Then these cats vilify President Obama for not doing something magical to hold down the price of oil or of gasoline. Even rightwing columnist George Will criticized that one. (It would be interesting to know why.)

Forget the sense of honor and of patriotism that used to keep even lunatic-fringers from attacking a president on foreign policy, on the campaign trail, while he was in the midst of delicate and tense negotiations. Can Romney, Gingrich and Santorum honestly be oblivious to the fact that their own super-fatted rhetoric—figuratively the equivalent of pouring grease on a kitchen fire—contributes to the tension of disagreements over Iran, and thus to spiking oil prices?

If so, they may be the only ones oblivious. Donor lookup is key. The oil and gas industry so far has contributed far less in 2012 than has the finance sector. Oil and gas are obviously holding back to see who their 2012 standard bearer will be, rather than picking one. But contributions from the energy industry are going—not surprisingly—overwhelmingly to Republican candidates (not including Ron Paul). Six to one, they’re donating to GOPers rather than to Dems. Now that Rick Perry is out of the race, they’re donating mostly to Romney. Predictions are silly, but it’s still hard to see Santorum as having a chance.

more later

[update 10:45 a.m.]

“It’s important not to be afraid to stand up for what you believe in.” –heard from a registered Democrat who voted for Santorum in the GOP primary. Also said he was not trying to make trouble; he voted for Obama in 2008 and is not sure, he said, whether he would vote for Obama again in 2012.

There is more than one quick, efficient, on-the-nose lesson here. For one, it nutshells what is  most damaging to Mitt Romney as a candidate: that he comes across as consistently afraid, depending on audience, to stand up for what he believes in. Second, that anyone with this perception would gravitate toward Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich–as though their loathesome fulminations were courage–testifies again to the poor political analysis and weak political reporting most of the public gets.

Third, something about this reminds me of David Plouffe’s epically stupid remark when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head. Plouffe’s response? –to warn against blaming violence in any way on violent rhetoric. (In other words, propaganda doesn’t work? If it doesn’t work, why does the lobbying-candidate cabal use it?) This voter’s comment should be a reminder. The White House would be mistaken to fall into the same hole. The president cannot afford to come across as afraid to stand up for what he believes in.  To do him justice, I think Obama is in fact able to stand up for what he believes in. And he has brought about tremendous change, most of which he has not been given credit for.

But the Rahm Emanuel wing of the party–what they stand for is them, as the saying goes in Texas–has influenced too much of the discussion coming out of media outlets (especially since AOL bought the supposedly progressive Huffington Post).

For the record, I oppose voting in the other party’s primary. No one should be voting for the policies espoused by Romney or Santorum, which boil down quite simply to rich-get-richer and at the expense of the general good. That’s the message to send.

[update]

9:44 p.m. The networks/channels are still calling Michigan too close to call, even though it does not in fact look too close, let alone too close to call. Romney won Arizona, as expected, and looks set to pick up Michigan too–also as expected, though not in the most recent hours. Something like 43 percent Romney to 35+ percent Santorum, with Ron Paul and Gingrich finishing at 11 percent and single digits respectively.

Back to that note on oil prices: legal cases on oil-gas speculation are working their way through the judicial system. I wonder whether something might be accomplished by executive order of a president.

Speaking of legal cases, it is funny that Arianna Huffington and Huffington Post are still being characterized as having “credibility” after selling to AOL without repaying the millions of dollars’ worth of value contributed to HuffPost by unpaid bloggers. With whom does HuffPost still have credibility as a progressive outlet?

Florida primary, 2012

Florida primary 2012, yesterday and today

In other news, Florida held its 2012 Republican primary Tuesday. Newt Romney defeated Mitt Gingrich, 46 percent to 32 percent.

For perspective on the hullabaloo over the GOP primary, Republicans constitute 36 percent of registered voters in Florida. Total Florida voters: 11,053,664. Democrats: 4,604,373. Republicans: 3,962,406.

 

Florida law suppresses vote

The former fact was mentioned on MSNBC, not live-voice but in a banner on screen. John King on CNN soon afterward said that the primary was open to “more than four million Republican voters” in Florida.

 

Turnout was 1,663,698 as of recent numbers linked above, or 42 percent of registered GOPers. Down from the 2008 primary, as noted elsewhere, including at TPM, but better than the gubernatorial primary of 2010.

 

Probably commentators will rush en masse to blame the lower (than 2008) turnout on Romney’s “carpet bombing” ad campaign.

History shows primary turnout low for Florida, of course, as in other states generally, so it would be a mistake to read too much into it. Nonetheless, two sizable factors each reduce turnout in a GOP primary in Florida. Only one has been much discussed on air.

  • So many of the in-the-minority-and-they-know-it Obama haters are so content to have any GOP candidate, any at all, that they are content to stay on the sidelines in the primary. Generally they’d rather just know as little about their nominee as possible. They don’t want to be informed of any good reason they have to vote against him.
  • With a foreclosure rate among the highest in the nation, the economy dwarfs every other concern. Even the large media outlets cited exit polls showing economic concerns outweighing social issues, religion, hate-Obama-ism (dignified as ‘electability’), etc., in the Florida primary.

 

And it’s on to the Nevada caucuses.

 

The unfolding primary season is providing a useful punch list of reforms and small election improvements needed, state by state.

 

  • Iowa needed more oversight for careful counting of the vote at its highly respected caucuses. In 2012, some watchful Ron Paul supporters happened to provide the assistance that would better be built into the process. Even though some of them raised the alarm at the time, Romney was still mistakenly declared (more or less) the winner in Iowa.
  • Florida began reporting early returns—broadcast on national television—before all of the state’s polls had closed. This is what the Baptists used to call backsliding.

 

Cable channels, after all, are careful to reassure viewers repeatedly that they will not announce exit polls results on how people voted until the polls have closed. That cable hosts and pundits MSNBC and CNN drop heavy hints of the outcome beforehand, and that the channels jump to announce projected results a few seconds after the much-built-up top of the hour, is beside the point. Clearly the networks understand that it is anti-democratic-process to start announcing results before all citizens have had a chance to vote. Florida earliest returns showed Romney running ahead almost 2-to-1, too. That could not have been heartening for other people voting after work, in the Panhandle.

 

Gingrich

Obviously the smaller corrections are dwarfed by larger problems. Since the moment of Obama’s election, the GOP nationwide has engaged in a campaign of vote suppression on a scale unprecedented since the era of legal segregation. But that issue needs fuller detail.

Ad wars in Florida not just money, ads

Ad wars in Florida not just money, ads

 They couldn’t work without an element of verite.

Talking Points Memo runs this piece on Florida today, reporting that Romney forces are outspending Gingrich forces there five-to-one.

“The Dems think these figures suggest something else: that it’s not Romney who’s winning votes in Florida, but the size of his wallet. ”

Point taken. However, these trend lines should not be over-simplified.

Certainly money has a devastatingly corrosive effect in politics. So do infamous ad campaigns–Willie Horton, the Osama bin Laden attacks on Max Cleland in Georgia, etc. This writer opposes on constitutional grounds any notion that a) money is speech, or b) corporations are persons.  The effect of the unanswered ads against Gingrich in Iowa is now part of the history of election 2012.

But the success of that ad campaign went beyond money. The ads were devastating because they showed Gingrich in live and still footage doing things he actually did, because they revived press accounts of Gingrich’s actual deeds.

Romney ads are not the only ones playing in Florida. As another local source points out, pro-Gingrich ads are running every ten minutes in Miami, in rush hour–in Spanish. The line is always the same. The ads attack not Romney but Obama.

“Same ad.  The ad attacked only Obama–the theme was broken promises–jobs, housing. ”

At a guess, it is aimed at Hispanics facing either foreclosure or pink slips, or who know someone who does face either one, betting the farm that the voters will blame the president and will see Gingrich as the GOPer best poised to oppose the White House.

Gingrich

It is hard to imagine Gingrich flying high in the Latino demographic. This has less to do with Cuba than with how he comes across–as disrespectful and presumptuous. Aiming over Romney’s head at the Rose Garden is liable to look much the same way, as far as I can tell.

‘Broken promises’ looks to be the line against Obama in the general election, at this point. They must be hoping for an awful lot of amnesia, even more than usual, given the state of the economy at the end of the GWBush administration and the GOP opposition to every improvement since.

One big question about election 2012 right now is whether the amnesia will be facilitated, or how much, by news media predisposed to a ‘close election’.

Revisiting the 2004 election, part 7: Florida

2004 election revisited, part 7: Florida further

Following up previous posts

Obama at SOTU

President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night demonstrated again the greater quality of this president over the loon rhetoric coming from our current GOP debates. The quality gap is huge, and growing larger.

Mitt Romney

As written before, the guys coming out of the GOP field are going to need all the help they can get at election time, and previous elections involve some warning signs. Forewarned is forearmed.

In the 2000 election, 25 Florida counties used the maligned punch-card ballots, 41 used op-scan, and one county used paper ballots counted manually. Seventeen counties switched to optical scanners for the 2004 election.

Florida

Counties that switched from punch-card to op-scan did not necessarily show the biggest swings to Bush, but there was a distinct difference—in Bush’s favor–between op-scan counties and other counties. The picture over-all:

  • Total registered voters in the 15 counties using touch-screens:  5,576,264
  • Total registered voters in the 52 counties using op-scan ballots:  4,725,026
  • Outcome in the touch-screen counties:  Kerry 1,983,210 to Bush 1,845,876
  • Outcome in the op-scan counties:  Bush 2,110,414 to Kerry 1,591,790

Statistics come from election results and from election researcher Kathy Dopp’s analysis of touch-screen machines versus optical-scan paper voting in 2004.

There were further differences between op-scan voting results and touch-screen results, Florida 2004:

  • 15 Florida counties used touch-screen voting machines. Only 3 of these counties showed a 100+ percent jump in Republican votes, and 3 others showed a 100+ percent jump in Democratic votes. Neither party jumped more than 120 percent.
  • 52 counties used op-scan ballots. Of these, 43 showed a triple-digit jump for Republicans, two for Democrats. One had a whopping 602 percent jump in votes for Repubs, one over 400 percent, and two over 300 percent. Another ten op-scan counties had an over 200 percent jump in votes for Repubs. Nothing equivalent for Dems.

Leaving the eye-blearing numbers aside, think about the larger context of the 2004 election. Was John Kerry two or three times less popular in Florida in 2004 than Al Gore in 2000? Was GWBush—after the escape of Osama bin Laden, the invasion of Iraq, the war profiteering, the tax cuts for the rich—two or three times more appealing?

Back to those voting machines

Only three counties using op-scan machines had larger jumps for Democrats than for Republicans. The percentages below are vote gains, 2000 to 2004:

 (Dem Senate candidate Betty Kastor won Flagler County over Mel Martinez.)

Only four counties using op-scan had balanced percentage jumps in party voting:

Note that where the jump in voting by party was balanced, the outcomes were also reasonably divided. No one party or candidate (Bush) won all the time.

Turnout always matters.

Ten Florida counties with biggest turnout by number, in 2004:

  • Miami-Dade:  772,743
  • Broward:  707,202
  • Palm Beach:  547,340
  • Hillsborough:  464,253
  • Pinellas:  457,426
  • Orange:  388,095
  • Duval:  379,257
  • Brevard:  265,764
  • Lee:  242,434
  • Volusia:  229,098

Of these, Brevard, Duval, Orange, and Volusia used op-scan voting.

Ten Florida counties with highest turnout by percentage of registered voters, in 2004:

  • Flagler:  81.9% –jump gap only 102 to 103, Bush won, but close
  • Sarasota:  81.6%
  • Jefferson:  80.7% –jump gap 171 to 61, Kerry won
  • Leon:  79.8% –jump gap 105 to 81, Kerry won
  • Lee:  79.5%
  • Nassau:  79.2%
  • St Johns:  79% –jump gap 100 to 84, Bush won
  • Sumter:  79%
  • Brevard:  78.6% –jump gap 101 to 89, Bush won
  • Gadsden:  78.5% –jump gap 207 to 66, Kerry won

Of these, Brevard, Flagler, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon and St Johns used op-scan voting. Nobody flipped the elections in Gadsden or Jefferson and Leon counties.

Ten Florida counties with lowest turnout by percentage of registered voters:

  • Hendry 57.2%
  • Osceola 63.3%
  • DeSoto 64% –jump gap 146 to 44, Bush won
  • Okeechobee 65.7% –jump gap 126 to 47, Bush won
  • Union 66.7% –jump gap 263 to 23, Bush won
  • Broward 66.8%
  • Dixie 66.9% –jump gap 305 to 26, Bush won
  • Hamilton 67.1% –jump gap 244 to 37, Bush won
  • Putnam 68.5% –jump gap 144 to 47, Bush won
  • Highlands 69.6% –jump gap 77 to 44, Bush won

Of these, DeSoto, Dixie, Hamilton, Highlands, Okeechobee, Putnam and Union all used op-scan voting. Low turnout, discouraged voters, unappealing voting technology—Bush swept.

The pattern held in the ten counties with lowest voter turnout by number, in 2004. Numbers are local turnout as reported:

  • Liberty 3,051 –Bush won
  • Lafayette 3,352 –Bush won
  • Glades 4,204 –Bush won
  • Union 4,714 –Bush won
  • Hamilton 5,131 –Bush won
  • Franklin 5,973 –Bush won
  • Calhoun 6,006 –Bush won
  • Dixie 6,472 –Bush won
  • Gilchrist 7,047 –Bush won
  • Hardee 7,281 –Bush won

Of these, all used op-scanned paper ballots, and all went for Bush. We have a winner.  Were they Florida’s ten smallest counties? Not quite: A list of the state’s ten smallest counties would bump Hardee, Gilchrist, Dixie, and Union. Baker, Bradford, Gulf, Holmes, Jefferson, Madison, Taylor, Wakulla and Washington all had populations in the twenty-something thousand range. The smallest counties also all used op-scan ballots, so we have another winner: Of these, only Jefferson went for Kerry, and Madison was close.

On a brighter note, in all these counties but Hardee, about half the total population (2000 census) turned out to vote–not too shabby for the lowest numerical turnout in the state. It was a high-interest election.

The middle

Continuing the test of brain-strain, let’s look at some middling turnout. Since the highest turnout ran 82% and the lowest percentage about 57%, midpoint would be about 70%.

Ten Florida counties with mid-range turnout, 2004:

  • Charlotte:  70.4%
  • Glades:  70.5% –jump gap 134 to 37, Bush won
  • Hardee:  70% –jump gap 182 to 32, Bush won
  • Okaloosa:  70.5% –jump gap 95 to 61, Bush crushed
  • Calhoun:  71.9% –jump gap 381 to 30, Bush won
  • Highlands:  69.6% –jump gap 77 to 54, Bush won
  • Pasco:  72.1%
  • Santa Rosa:  69.9% –jump gap 97 to 54, Bush won
  • Putnam:  68.5% –jump gap 144 to 47, Bush won
  • Polk:  71.5% –jump gap 107 to 68, Bush won

Of these, all but Charlotte and Pasco counties used op-scan. Charlotte and Pasco had predictable results, in line with voter registration and with voter turnout, with some crossover (Dem for Charlotte, Repub for Pasco).

I wrote on this material at the time.

A similar analysis can be found here. The author further pursues similar anomalies in the rural areas of other southern states. The author sums up:

“I started this page when I first saw the breakdown by voting machine of the results in Florida. Since the way people vote shouldn’t depend on the machines they use, it seemed to signal cheating. A careful examination of the voting patterns in Florida in 2000 and in Louisiana in 2000, however, has led me to conclude that the difference was due to the lopsided use of the opscan machines in rural northern Florida counties where there is a preponderance of “Dixiecrats”. A statistical analysis of the data from the 1996 election also supports this conclusion. The remainder of this page contains my analysis and reasoning in detail.”

 

Why did Freddie Mac have to hire more lobbyists post-Gingrich?

Why did Freddie Mac need more lobbyists after Gingrich departed?

 

Newt Gingrich’s 2006 contract with Freddie Mac offers little direct information. The contract runs 15 pages. Services to be provided by Gingrich appear in “Exhibit 2.”

Here is the text from the page headed “Exhibit 2,” in its entirety:

Exhibit 2

“Consultant will provide consulting and related services as requested by Freddie Mac’s Director, Public Policy in exchange for which Freddie Mac will pay Consultant $25,000 per each full calendar month during which Consultant provides Services.”

 

The $25K-a-month question, of course, is what Gingrich did for Freddie Mac, and in particular whether his “consulting and related services” included lobbying. Gingrich has denied being a lobbyist. In Monday night’s GOP debate in Tampa he said he has “never” done any lobbying, repeating the “never.”

Tampa debate stage

When direct information on such questions is limited, one must find indirect information. Lobbying Disclosure, U.S. Clerk’s office, House of Representatives, confirms indirectly that the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) needed a bunch more lobbyists after it no longer had Gingrich Group as a consultancy.

Short chronology: The Gingrich Group worked for Freddie Mac from 1999 into 2007. The original contract from 1999, renewed through 2002, reportedly cannot be found, although one would think congressional investigation of Freddie and Fannie would turn it up. (Where is Issa when we really need him?) The now available Gingrich Group contract was signed in 2006 and reportedly was renewed in 2007.

Searching the U.S. House Disclosure site for registered lobbyists and their clients does not turn up the name Gingrich or the names of Gingrich’s companies.

Not much new there.

However, checking the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation as a lobbying client yields a few hard numbers.

  • Freddie Mac filed client forms on its lobbying 81 times from 2004 to 2008, only once in 2004, most often in 2008
  • Freddie Mac filings increased in 2007 to 19, only mid-year and year-end
  • Freddie Mac filings increased in 2008 to 30, all quarters, with more individual lobbyists—new and former*

Thus for what it’s worth, Freddie needed significantly more lobbyists and more lobbying activity from some point in 2007. Freddie Mac had one lobbyist registered in 2004. In 2005, 2006 and 2007 it had respectively 8, 10 and 9 lobbyists. In 2008 it had 12 lobbyists, filing quarterly reports, which is a lot of activity.

As mentioned above, the 2007 filings for individual lobbyists for Freddie Mac are only for mid-year and year-end. It might be illuminating to know exactly when in 2007 Gingrich Group stopped working for Freddie Mac. The question, emailed to Gingrich’s campaign, has not yet been answered.

While I await response

The arguments here are obvious. Freddie Mac was in hot water getting hotter, and had a track record of poor document handling and of hiring more high-paid hired guns to get it out of trouble. So its growing contingent of lobbyists is explainable without reference to Gingrich.

On the other hand, it looks as though a gap opened up when the Gingrich Group and Freddie Mac parted ways. If the gap could be filled only by lobbyists, then Gingrich looks like a lobbyist.

 

This, be it noted, is the overwhelming probability anyway.

She said it too

 

Another search can be done on the lobbyist disclosure site, though only back to 2008. One can look up entities in the database by “Contribution.” Checking Freddie Mac in the Lobbying Contributions Search yields 22 filings for 2008: Again, significant activity. Nine individual lobbyists contributed services to Freddie Mac in 2008, some of the same names as on the other lobbying filings, plus a few additional.** Again, it looks as though Freddie Mac needed some extra lobbying in 2008.

Regrettably, we do not have documentation on lobbying ‘contributions’ before 2008. Regrettably also, the only Gingrich contract available is for 2006.

As with so many scandals, the superficial political scandal–Gingrich’s prevaricating–is dwarfed by the open scandal that a taxpayer-supported entity was hiring lobbyists in the first place. Fortunately, Freddie Mac filings for 2009, 2010, and 2012 are zero. Following its well-publicized difficulties, it was prohibited from lobbying, thus roping off one well-heeled potential client from the white-collar goon squads in Washington. Thus far one waits in vain for GOP debaters to mention this improvement.

None of the above should be construed as saying that Freddie Mac hired more lobbyists than did other megaliths. For comparison/perspective, Verizon company has 1,334 filings under Lobbying Disclosure going back to 2005.

One firm Verizon hired for lobbying is Wiley Rein & Fielding, the firm Gingrich hired to represent him during his unfortunate congressional ethics investigation. Gingrich has since heartily dissed Wiley Rein, faulting the firm’s work in his case.

Baran, Wiley Rein attorney for Gingrich

2006 was the year of most filings for Wiley Rein. Wiley Rein & Fielding is a bigtime lobbying firm every year, but 2006 was especially active. The lobbying database shows 912 filings for Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP:

118 in 2007

153 in 2008

164 in 2009

146 in 2010

148 in 2011

(183 in 2006)

 

btw Freddie Mac obligations can be used as collateral in Florida. Romney’s Freddie Mac-oriented attacks on Gingrich might not play in Florida, after all.

 

*2004 names, Freddie Mac lobbyists: Clarke Camper

2005 names: Rhod Shaw, Doyle Bartlett, Dwight Fettig, James E. Boland, Sarah Dumont, Richard Roberts, Lendell W. Porterfield, Chris Fox (8)

2006 names: Shaw, Boland, Bartlett, Timothy McBride, Fettig, Lawrence Romans, Andrew Lowenthal, Roberts, Dumont, Stephanie Silverman (10)

2007 names: Shaw, Boland, Bartlett, Fettig, Romans, Richard Roberts, Lowenthal, Dumont, Silverman (9)

2008 names: Virgil Griffin, Richard Tarplin, Jack S. Deuser, James E. Smith, Anne Urban, Shaw, Fettig, Romans, Bartlett, Boland, Porterfield, Roberts (12)

 

**Names: Robert Zimmer, Virgil Griffin, Kirsten Johnson-Obey (filed amended form 2009), Timothy McBride, David Lynch, Christopher Young, Brian Smith, Regina Shaw, Lisa Ledbetter (9)

South Carolina primary, live blogging

South Carolina primary day live blog

Time

10:25 p.m.

As previously noted (below), the gender gap in SC voter turnout was men 53 percent; women 47 percent.

The population of South Carolina is 4,625,364 as of 2010, up 15.3% from 2000 to 2010.

Female 51.4%

Registered voters 2,722,344

So somewhat more than half the state is registered to vote. Not registered by party.

Daily Caller emphasizes that Gingrich won the women’s vote in SC, at least with a plurality of 36 percent. Romney came in second with 30 percent of the women’s vote.

However, most women in South Carolina did not vote.

Dems for Gingrich?

The stridently rightwing Examiner offers a further thesis: Gingrich was elected by Democrats.

 “Consider this–unlike most other primaries, South Carolina voters don’t have to register their party affiliation. With no election this time around on the Democratic Party side, it’s a guaranteed bet that a number of South Carolina Democrats voted in today’s primary. As one could assume, some voted because it was an exciting Republican race. Some voted because they had nothing better to do today. And some Democrats voted to help sway the GOP primary toward President Obama’s hopeful opponent–Newt Gingrich.

How much of an effect did the Democrats have on the Republican Party’s South Carolina primary today? It would be almost impossible to quantify. But rest assured, just as former Speaker Gingrich can thank women and evangelicals for his victory today, he can thank Democrats as well.”

There are already copious signs of Republican and conservative discomfort with Gingrich’s win in South Carolina. This is but one of them. David Gergen and others are openly–already–discussing the possibility of a brokered GOP convention, or of a split convention, or of finding someone else to jump into the race if Gingrich and Romney continue in their present courses. The discussion is undoubtedly premature, but it accurately reflects the party’s widespread aversion to Gingrich, who earned it.

So far, the Examiner is the only publication to blame the SC primary outcome on Democrats. Seems a bit far-fetched. I would think that if Democrats or others really wanted to participate constructively in the Republican primary in South Carolina, they would have voted for Herman Cain/Colbert.

But time will tell.

7:45 p.m.

CNN has now joined all the others in projecting SC for Gingrich, who with a whole 4 percent of precincts in has taken the lead over Romney.  Only question remaining for South Carolina, all hands concede, is how big the lead will be. If it’s double digits for Newtie, Florida–what will the campaign be like?

They haven’t said what the effect will be should Gingrich carry South Carolina GOPers by only single digits. The first three races have resulted in a win apiece for three candidates. Somewhat like 1964? —

Speaking of previous decades, a wonderful book is still floating around on the 1972 election, titled The Boys on the Bus. Author, Timothy Crouse.

Here is Crouse with a still-timely passage on George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father. The effect on the campaigns stems from the success of Teddy White’s Making of the President books:

“As recently as 1960, or even 1964, a coalition of party heavies, state conventions, and big-city bosses had chosen the candidate in relatively unviolated privacy, and then presented him to the press to report on.

Now the press screened the candidates, usurping the partys’ old function. By reporting a man’s political strengths, they made him a front runner; by mentioning his weaknesses and liabilities, they cut him down. Teddy White, even in his wildest flights of megalomania, had never allowed imself this kind of power. The press was no longer simply guessing who might run and who might win; the press was in some way determining these things.”

Side note: Much as the old party bosses over-relied on their own ‘power’ and ultimately ruined themselves by overreaching, the insiders in the national political press went on to do the same thing. Hence the millions of members of the public who turned first to cable television and then to the Internet. People got tired of not being able to find out anything by reading the paper. Thus the press got its comeuppance from the Internet.

Back, meanwhile, to George Romney:

“The classic example was George Romney. Romney had opened his campaign almost a year before the first primary, expecting a press contingent of two or three reporters. Instead, twenty or thirty showed up for Romney’s first exploratory trips around the country, and they all reported Romney’s embarrassing inability to give coherent answers to their questions about Vietnam, thus dooming his candidacy. But Romney was the perfect, textbook example. The process was usually more subtle, and more difficult to describe.”

Not that Romney senior was the only one, by a long shot. But the elder Romney’s experience provides a rationale for Mitt Romney’s perceived distance from the press.

Newt Gingrich, in contrast, cultivates the press. Politico reported yesterday that Gingrich pretty much butters reporters like toast, in fact.

It will be mildly interesting to see what face Gingrich turns to Florida. He got South Carolina by being ugly, if the numbers hold up. But Florida has different demographics and not a lot of fondness for being lumped in with South Carolina.

7:24 p.m.

Most of television has called it for Gingrich. No votes reported, no precincts, in unofficial returns on the South Carolina State Election Commission big board yet.

If the elite media jumped the gun for Gingrich, that might be ironic. Or it might suggest that bullying these guys works.

7:19 p.m.

Only CNN, of all the majors, is not calling South Carolina for Gingrich. Out of an abundance of caution, since only two precincts have turned in votes, they’re not saying. Makes sense.

Votes in so far show Gingrich and Romney neck-and-neck (Romney ahead by one, a minute ago). Rather a different tenor from the other media outlets, from which one would think that Newt had almost all the votes, with all the other candidates scrapping for a fourth-place tie.

7:03 p.m.

Sure enough, seconds past 7:00 p.m. when South Carolina polls closed, Fox News calls it for Newt Gingrich. NBC, ABC et al follow suit.

This is linked by the suits on television to exit polls showing that 45 percent of GOPers voting in South Carolina rated ability to beat Obama their top concern.

The concern is understandable from their (heated) perspective, but that led them to vote for Gingrich? Note that they don’t call it ‘electability,’ which would be a stretch as applied to Gingrich. They presumably just feel that Gingrich would say the ugliest and most shameful things on the stump and perhaps on the debate stage.

Women, by the way, did not vote in the same numbers as men in SC. The men had a 53-to-47 percent margin in turnout.

6:41 p.m.

Back to ‘weather’ and ‘turnout’: What is mind-blowing is to hear this kind of discussion about a Republican election, any Republican election, and about a Republican candidate.

Back when, weather-and-turnout was applied to Democrats, and generally with some undertone having to do with either race, poverty, or blue-collar workers, or all three. The line of thought, you see, was that Certain Paople were more easily influenced than others. Stalwart Republican voters would turn out, out of a sense of duty, in this line of thought, rain or shine. The little blue-haired ladies, the white-belt-white-shoes contingent, retired military, etc, they would always vote, with or without enthusiasm, with or without special issues, with or without hot-button topics in the headlines. Those people with little pins in their lapels did not need any special stimulus to go pull the lever for whatever candidate the party establishment threw at them. Plus, they tended to drive better cars–this is the same line of thought–so they were less affected by bad weather anyway. Maybe an extra car wash during the week, but nothing to affect the election.

Turnout and weather, au contraire, were held to be closely entertwined on the Democratic side. Some paople just can’t handle the slightest obstacle. Even the slightest difficulty keeps them from doing what they should.

We’re hearing this last thought, if you call it that, in the Gingrich campaign. Gingrich is doing it more explicitly and with more sharp-edged ugliness than most people have thought tolerable over the last thirty years.

But to hear on the airwaves that Mitt Romney desperately needs good weather?

Mind-boggling.

Ironically, it has been less current as applied to the Dems, ever since Jesse Jackson ran and won the Virginia primary in 1988.

6:18 p.m.

At six-ish the major cable channels began official coverage of the South Carolina primary, as opposed to just talking about it almost nonstop.

The biggest surprise from MSNBC so far: Keith Olbermann‘s name briefly flashed across the screen, in the crawl. Olbermann was named as one of the commentators providing coverage of the primary.

Not so. Just a stutter. Nothing to see here.

Olbermann will be covering the primary, but from newer venue as of last year, at Current TV.

First exit polls indicate that surprisingly 64 percent of GOPers who turned out describe themselves as born-again/evangelicals, 66 percent support the Tea Party, and 69 percent are conservative.

Question is how this preponderance plays among Santorum–who says he’s felt a surge since yesterday–Gingrich and Paul, presumably.

5:05 p.m.

Not a dissentient voice on MSNBC as to Gingrich’s win in South Carolina. Craig Melvin just reported that every politico in SC says it’s not a question of whether Gringrich will win, just by what percentage. Drumbeat for Newt turning into an avalanche, from all signs. The weather is also touted as a sign of things to come, rain depressing turnout–and Mitt Romney, of all candidates in the world, dependent on turnout. So it is said.

This is a twist in itself. Turnout reported to be high in upstate South Carolina,  voters coming out for Gingrich (and Santorum? and Paul?) Turnout light to steady on the coast, and in the midlands, where the votescasters feel that Romney would get more support.

Entertaining piece by James Carville as CNN commentator, taking some easy shots but undeniably good ones. It might be premature to call the GOP field a “disaster” (aside from their core policy, breaking the middle class and destroying everyone but the super-rich). Abysmally unqualified candidates have managed to emerge victorious before. But politically speaking things are not looking too good for them at the moment, except for the humor. Stephen Colbert as Herman Cain is doing a great job, head-and-shoulders above the other candidates. No other candidate even comes close, although at least Ron Paul has remained consistent on his views and stated positions. He can speak understandably, too.

12:13 p.m.

In all the on-air chatter about Romney’s gaffe and Romney as out-of-touch, no one has mentioned how much like legalized bribery, or subornation, speaker fees are to begin with. No one brings up the Koch-brother-funded functions where right-wingers like Charles Krauthammer and George Will prostitute the art of letters in service to war and exploitation. David Brock of Media Matters noted in his after-the-fall book that he was no longer going to receive six-figure speaking gigs and seven-figure book advances. Has anyone pointed out that those six-figure and seven-figure payments are going to propaganda instead of to legitimate publishing and writing, what we used to call arts and letters? Has anyone talked about America’s intellectual infrastructure?

 

Not this week.

 

All the pundits declare this Romney’s worst week ever. These are the pundits who determined three days ago that Romney was the inevitable nominee. The Rominee. True enough, Romney has suffered a downturn–the Santorum win in Iowa, Newt Gingrich surging in the polls, more verbal slips. Thus we have a new overworked word to be sick of, “collapsing.” (Re Romney’s campaign.) First it was “coalesce.” Then “forgiveness.”

I’m all for forgiveness. The one episode of Modern Family I’ve seen did a nice job with it, too. But there is some woolliness about how this concept is being applied in the current commentary. It is pure, and clean, and noble, to forgive someone who has wronged you. It is less noble to forgive someone who has wronged someone else.

Speaking of gagging, some commentators are also taking a new oddly deferential tone about Newt Gingrich. Partly this reflects the newest opinion polls, partly the standing ovation when Gingrich used John King’s question about the Marianne Gingrich interview to vilify “elite media” and their (fancied) protection of Barack Obama. The man is tripping—or rather, lying—but that’s not the main point right here.

The big thorn here is that Gingrich comes across as rather loathesome. He may have boosted himself in South Carolina by out-uglying everyone else, but there is a reckoning ahead. For King not to have asked about the “open marriage” interview at all would have been ridiculous.

It would have been better not to lead off by asking about it, but ignoring it entirely would have looked odd. There is no reason to bend over backward for Newt Gingrich. A couple of things not mentioned on air: When the candidates entered the room for that South Carolina debate, as each name was announced, Gingrich got boos as well as cheers. And when Gingrich got his standing ovation for attacking King, plenty of women remained seated.

10:39 a.m.

Another ongoing theme of discussion, on air at least–how or why Mitt Romney has so much trouble ‘connecting’ with the average person. Maybe eventually they’ll get around to discussing the rich-get-rich economic policy destined to turn the U.S.A. into ColombiaArabia if not redressed.

Not any time soon, though.

That said, there are moments when I feel sorry for Mitt Romney. It happens when Romney’s calling his $374K speaking fees “not very much” comes up in the news media.

 

Romney announces

It is surprising to feel this way about a candidate whose policies as president would in all likelihood be worse than GWBush’s, but even an offshoring robber baron can be misunderstood.

Take that off-the-cuff “not very much” comment:

  • Romney was brought up to act like a gentleman, and good manners forbid a gentleman to brag about how much he is paid for speeches. He does not put himself forward unduly about anything, in fact—making a parade of anything is antithetical to his background. (Mine, too, for that matter.) Needless to say, this ethos makes running for office a hard row to hoe, although Barack Obama has the same one and handles it brilliantly. But then the president has the additional ethos of cool, an attribute Romney does not have and to do him justice—gentlemanly self-deprecating again—does not claim.
  • So when Romney was asked about his income sources aside from capital gains, he ticked them off–the book sales, which he donated to charity; the speaking fees, “but not very much.” He would not bill himself as one of your top speakers getting six figures for a single appearance. Primarily concerned not to brag, Romney played down his status on the speaker circuit. He does the same kind of thing when he says things like “I worried about whether I would get a pink slip,” and when he laughs (self-deprecatingly), “I’m unemployed.” Not acting grandiose is a big part of his moral lexicon for personal behavior.
  • Unfortunately, his acute attention to one part of the radar screen (don’t brag) left his radar completely down on the fact that $374K is actually a lot of money.

That fact has been duly noted, the point made. Income inequality has finally lighted up on the big board.

N.b. Re the question raised earlier about how well Gingrich is doing among women–today’s Washington Post quotes from 15 women interviewed in So. Carolina, most of whom support Gingrich in the exchange with John King at Thursday night’s debate. Several of them seem from the quoted comments to be more siding against Marianne Gingrich, but it works the same way.

9:57 a.m.

It’s Saturday, the non-Tuesday GOP primary in South Carolina–forget religious observance–and the talking heads are going at it. This is not lawn-mowing weather anyhow.

Big question of course is whether Newt Gingrich managed to out-ugly everybody else enough to pull off a South Carolina win that would be considered an upset. The most recent polls put Gingrich ahead of the field including Romney.

Gingrich

“Callista doesn’t care what I do.”

How people judge the content of the Marianne Gingrich interview is up to them. I believe the woman, but many people reportedly believe Gingrich’s denial. Either way, presenting this issue as public-versus-private muddies it.

The issue as applied to Newt Gingrich is not divorce or that Gingrich is thrice-married. The issue is how Gingrich has treated women—asking for a romantic triangle, etc–with some perceivable parallel to how he treats the suffering and unfortunate, the poor, and minorities; his penchant for bullying and for lying; his ethics violations while in office and then denying same; etc. Whether he has a track record of treating people decently is a reasonable question in the circumstances. To present this question as unwarranted intrusion into a public figure’s private life, like someone sneaking photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge, is mistaken at best. Too bad they keep using the vague generality “character” instead of asking, Does the candidate treat people with decency and respect?

The Gingriches, in earlier years

On that question, Barack Obama shows well. He has a track record of having treated the people in his life decently. Maybe that’s why they don’t ask the question on television, during an election year. It would weigh in the president’s favor too much. He hasn’t laid off a bunch of people, either.

Back to Gringrich, what makes the current opinion polls really remarkable is that quoted statement that Callista didn’t care what Gingrich did—i.e. having an ongoing three-way relationship while remaining married to Marianne, for six years. Gingrich is out ahead after that? Maybe: Most times when I have thought one thing and the polls showed another, the polls have been vindicated. But I’ll believe it when I see it.

Forget the overworked and tired terms “Christian right” and “values voters.” Assuming that fundamentalist right-wingers are the only people who care about the conduct in question is like assuming that African-Americans are the only people who care about Gingrich’s misstatements on food stamps. False, but television largely has not caught up with the trends.

Am I the only voter who remembers that right-wing Southern women often disparaged Hillary Clinton for staying with Bill Clinton? Am I the only pop-culture aficionado who remembers Gone with the Wind, that bible of fun-loving white South Carolinians? Remember the laugh the Yankee women got, at the expense of Southern womanhood, when Ashley Wilkes and the guys supposedly got caught drunk in a brothel and their women put up with it?

New Hampshire primary results coming in

New Hampshire primary results coming in, reporting and periodic reactions–

8-oh-not-much-and 30 seconds p.m. New Hampshire polls now officially closed, NBC et al. can pronounce that Mitt Romney is the projected winner in the state’s primaries. Percentages about where they have been, with Romney well ahead of Ron Paul, the latter solidly ahead of everyone else, and Gingrich and Santorum about tied.

Next big hurdle for the political news media: finding enough to say about Newt Gingrich’s ad campaign in South Carolina to eat up or fill up the air waves for the next couple of weeks. As Al Gore pointed out, SC governor Nikki Haley has already endorsed Romney.

More suspenseful is the Virginia legal matter. Plaintiffs’ attorneys argue in their supporting brief that the constitutional question may never have to be considered by the court. That is, the question of whether Virginia’s restrictive rules on ballot access violate the First Amendment and the 14th amendment, among others, may not have to come up at all.

Plaintiffs hold that the Virginia Board of Elections, named defendants, misapplied Virginia statute in the first place. That “may” and “shall” question.

To a non-lawyer, it does look as though that one will have to be answered. But determinations depend on the courts.

7:44 p.m. With 5 percent of the NH vote in, it’s Romney with 36  percent, Ron Paul with 25 percent, Huntsman with 15, Gingrich and Santorum close to tied at 11 percent and 10 percent respectively.

Votes in are those only from polls closing at 7:30 rather than 8:00.

‘Real’ returns to begin flooding in at 8:00.

Rick Perry’s brief and complaint look substantive, in that filing against the Virginia Board of Elections GOPers.

Of particular interest: the difference between “may” and “shall.” Plaintiffs argue, convincingly, that the Virginia statute says candidates “may” file a petition with 10,000+ signatures. Plaintiffs’ attorneys quote the statute at copious length, clarifying that the statute does indeed use “may” at some points and “shall” at others. Turns out there was a Virginia legal case, decided by the Virginia Supreme Court just four months ago, in which the court ruled explicitly that when the law uses “may” in some places and “shall” in others, the wording is to be regarded as intentional.

Funny how little of this is coming out in the ad-infinitum commentary and reporting on the primary process. Virginia is not the biggest state in the union, with the most delegates, but it is not a small state. Furthermore, it has been treated by the national media as a definitively ‘red’ state for twenty years now, notwithstanding any evidence to the contrary.

7:07 p.m. Switching channels to Current TV

Useful reminder from former Vice President Al Gore, re South Carolina as a hotbed of socially conservative et ceteras: the late Lee Atwater constructed the South Carolina primary in the late Seventies as a conservative firewall–i.e. to protect the establishment candidate. It was thought that Ronald Reagan might need some protection against an insurgency by John Connally.

Setting aside any question of how ‘insurgent’ the GOP challengers actually tend to be (aside from Ron Paul), in national elections, the fate of John McCain in 2000 is another memento mori for insurgent candidates. McCain was infamously slandered in a whispering campaign by GWBush’s people, including First Brother Marvin Bush. Thus ever challengers, in South Carolina. Huckabee went down in SC in 2008, too, but more cleanly.

6:07 p.m. First 1 percent of the votes reported, and it’s Romney out front with 37 percent, Ron Paul 26 percent, Huntsman 21 percent. Rick Santorum with zero, tied with Michele Bachmann, no longer in the race. Newt Gingrich so far with 11 percent but looking forward cheerfully to South Carolina, where the super PAC supporting him has bought more million$ worth of television ads than any other campaign including Romney’s.

To do him justice, Gingrich is one of the few candidates who appropriately defended Romney’s famous “I like firing people” comment. Ron Paul also defended Romney today, against the all-sides demagoguing on the off-the-cuff remark. Paul went farther, defending the entire Bain Capital process as capitalism at work.

Romney’s getting vilified for firing people is one thing. His getting vilified for the remark about insurance companies not providing good service is one of those sadly selfish mishaps that drag down the entire political process. It also sheds further light, if any were needed, on GOP party establishment priorities. Romney suggested, after all, that people should have a choice about insurers. He went so far as to suggest that insurers should do right by their customers. He even went so far–and this seems to have been the bridge too far–that customers can exchange an insurance company that does not do well for another one.

These ideas are not popular among GOP candidates for office. It will be little short of miraculous if they are repeated on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, for other GOPers to attack Romney for them is rather like the attacks on Rick Perry for taking a humane line toward immigrants.

Speaking of Bain Capital–

Wouldn’t it be great if the millionaires and billionaires connected with Bain Capital had joined in an enterprise to buy suffering companies and do something good with them? This idea is not to be confused with charity. A consortium could legally act as a private task force–acquire companies and re-engineer them with socially conscious objectives in view. Keep an eye on the situation of the workers, keep an eye on the environment, learn to make a worthwhile product. Is that notion considered on-its-face impossible?

Romney

The Iowa caucuses–still looking for Brand X?

Live-blogging the Iowa caucuses, where participants may or may not be still looking for Brand X.

12:58

Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney have now both given their ending speeches–34 votes out of 120K+ votes cast, separating them–and Santorum spoke more effectively. But he’s still calling the Affordable Care Act fascism. He just does it by speaking tenderly of his Italian grandfather, who left Italy under Mussolini.

Two words you don’t hear from Romney or Santorum on occasions like tonight: “insurance companies.”

Sometimes it is hard to understand these guys. How can they possibly think that having the insurance companies act as gatekeepers to health care, to medical attention, is a good idea?

12:01

One candidate made news in his final speech. Rick Perry is suspending his campaign, reassessing–to return to Texas rather than continuing to South Carolina. Perry has ended up with 10 percent of the vote, with 96 percent of votes in, in Iowa. Plenty of money for staying in the race, according to the conventional wisdom, but not a lot of point in doing so.

Looks as though Perry’s attacks on Mitt Romney had less effect than the returned fire.

With only 4 percent of votes yet to come in, Santorum leads Romney by something over 100 votes. The two are statistically tied at 25 percent each.

11:13

Finally, they (MSNBC) cut away to hear Ron Paul speak to supporters. If the cable channels had done that earlier, as often as they aired clips of other candidates speaking, Paul would probably have gotten better than his 21 percent. Speaking to ebullient volunteers, Paul presses some buttons that the Obama White House needs to be aware of. Not the gold standard. But Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex, yes. “It’s time to get out of Afghanistan,” yes. And most of all, that as Ron Paul remarked, his campaign is bringing into the GOP some ideas it desperately needed, most of all, “the conviction that freedom is popular.”

When was the last time you heard any Republican candidate for office say that? Who else in the GOP could have been capable of enunciating it?

10:49

With votes coming in and 88 percent of votes counted, it’s Santorum with a tiny lead tied with Romney at 25 percent each, Ron Paul with 21 percent. Bachmann loses a point for 5 percent, Rick Perry gains the point for 11 percent, quite close to Gingrich’s 13 percent, a constant for the night so far.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, and the question already shapes itself: What crusade can Newt Gingrich be invited to throw himself into? Can he be induced to spearhead a national drive for a constitutional amendment to throw money out of politics? And if so, who can be found to fund the position?

In short, WHAT’S THE JOB OFFER FOR GINGRICH?

10:16

News flash: NBC will not project the winner of the Iowa caucuses race. We’ll just have to wait and see who the winner is, when–get this–all the votes are counted. Unheard of.

Still effectively a three-way tie, with 45 percent of the vote in. But a gap is widening for now between Santorum-Romney and Ron Paul, who now has 22 percent to Santorum and Romney’s 24 percent apiece.

Update 9:13

With 13 percent counted, it’s Ron Paul 24 percent, Mitt Romney 24 percent, Rick Santorum 23 percent. Numbers Paul 3821, Romney 3650, Santorum 3636. The percentages have been steady among the top three so far, fluctuating only between 24 percent and 23 percent.

All this to choose delegates to attend the county conventions March 10.

Discussion on MSNBC centers mainly on how support will coalesce around Santorum as the anti-Romney candidate. One intriguing interruption: a hoax came in a little while after vote counting began, a bogus news flash that Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is dropping his bid and endorsing Ron Paul instead. Hoax.

Discussion of Santorum’s chances, if any, has hinged so far on suggestion that Gingrich is now going to go after Mitt Romney and will damage him. Santorum himself earlier said that Romney and Gingrich were the contenders in the establishment primary, as opposed to the sui generis Ron Paul primary and the Christian-right primary featuring him, Bachmann and Perry.

Some theorizing is that the GOP nomination might hinge on how angry Gingrich is–whether he’s mad enough to destroy Romney out of revenge.

Maybe so. But it is hard to imagine a Gingrich so angry about campaign ads that he becomes numb to the appeal of money. Surely any effective, well funded behind-the-scenes team could make him forget some of his pain, offering him further well-paid consulting work to throw himself into.

Update 8:44

Second raft of numbers comes floating in–this time it’s Rick Santorum on top with 26 percent, Ron Paul second with 23 percent, Mitt Romney (still) third with 18 percent. Numbers: Santorum 463, Paul 406, Romney 318.

Hmm.

Update 8:32

First numbers actually in–a breathless one percent of caucuses reporting, and the breakdown is –drumroll here– 43 percent Ron Paul, 19 percent Rick Perry, 14 percent Mitt Romney. All that looks a bit less definitive when clarified with numbers: 9 for Paul, 4 for Perry, 3 for Romney.

Still, at least the commentators are finally, realistically, talking about Ron Paul. As commentators point out, Paul’s appeal for young voters–fiscally responsible, socially liberal, anti-war–is something the Obama team could study.

Update 7:30

A good, succinct run-down of the political situation coming out of the caucuses, by Vermont Governor Howard Dean. Also, Rachel Madow presiding, a surprisingly interesting discussion of campaign finance law with Romney attorney Ben Ginsberg. The Rev. Al Sharpton contributed good questions. He elicited the statement from Ginsberg that each candidate could address other candidates’ PACs, just not his own. To ask a supporting PAC to, for example, cease running a negative ad would be coordinating and thus in violation of campaign finance law after Citizens United, according to Ginsberg. Sharpton will have opportunities to follow up on this line of thought, in all probability.

Reminds me of 1950s law-shaped “Brand X” television advertising, see below. This issue needs further clarification, and will get it.

Meanwhile, one must admit that it is not entirely painful to watch Newt Gingrich hoist by his own petard–while claiming that he is damaged because he, he alone, tried to oppose negative advertising.

Signs of the times in Iowa

Some consensus has emerged among discussants on air that a Romney-Santorum-Paul finish is probable if not certain, also that since neither of the non-Romney ‘top’ finishers is Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry, the exact order in which the top three finish is unimportant. Analysts have reminded each other ad infinitum that Romney-supporting ads have been directed against Perry and Gingrich, not against the others. So, Perry and Gingrich are the candidates perceived as having some national capability, as representing some sort of threat.

Q.E.D.

There is a parallel to all this in old anti-trust legislation, back in the earlier days of television. For at least a while, it was illegal for an advertiser to mention any competitor by name, in commercials. The result was that sponsors would tout their products against all others in some vague and sweeping language–“dentists recommend,” etc. Or they would claim that their product outperformed “Brand X.”

This struck a lot of the old comedians as a vein to be mined for humor.

Now, of course, advertisers can specifically mention (inferior) rival products by brand name. They’ve been able to do that for years. So can political ads, including those paid for by interest groups in support of a candidate, without the candidate’s official endorsement. It is beginning to look as though those previous anti-trust laws/regs, designed to prevent combining against a competitor, had a point.

Frustrating for every form of typical primary-season narrative that no Brand X has emerged yet in Iowa. The question topping almost all others, as caucus night heads toward some kind of result, is what t he primary line-up will look like, without one. The question as to how many voters will turn up to participate in the caucuses is almost secondary, if equally hard to answer with a prediction. (This writer has no guess as to how the caucuses will go.)

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum is saying this evening that he will be spending a lot of time in New Hampshire, apparently more than in South Carolina. Guess he figures his Catholicism will be a barrier in SC, more of one than in New England. Still seems an odd game plan, especially for someone so hyped at the moment who was born in Virginia.

Governor Palin’s Ride

Palin on Harley

Governor Palin’s Ride

 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of Palin’s requital for snubs severe

From electable candidates, in 2008:

Hardly a politico can now relate

He remembers that famous time and year.

 

She said to her friends,–“If Romney announce

By land or sea from the town tonight,

Tweet a message, or text, don’t let it bounce,

To me or a fan if we lose the limelight,–

One if by land and two if by sea;

And I on somebody’s Harley will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every sex-messaging village and farm,

For the knuckleheads to be up and to arm.”

 

Then she said good-night, and with muffled oar

Silently rowed to Max Factor’s shore;

Meanwhile, her friends, through alley and street

Wandered and watched with eager ears,

Till in the silence around them they hears

The muster of men at the green-room door,

The clink of mugs, and the tramp of feet,

And the shuffling of photo-grenadiers

Slouching down to their marks on the floor.

 

Palin in greenroom

Beneath, they could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,

The watchful night-wind, as it went

Creeping along from tent to tent,

And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”

A moment only they feel the spell,

For suddenly all their thoughts are bent

On a shadowy something far away,

Where the river widens to meet the bay,–

Like literacy, but it’s still the GOP—

A line of black, that bends and floats

On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and to ride,

 [another “Meanwhile,” Henry, really? Seriously?]

Alarmed that somebody’s boat might be raised by a tide,

Black-jeaned and leathered, with heavy stride,

On a different coast walked Governor Rear

Now she patted the Harley’s side,

Now gazed on the landscape far and near,

But mostly she watched with eager search

The twinkling monitor of the old iPod.

 

Palin and Harley fan

And lo! As she looks, on the menu site,

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

She springs to the back seat, the angle she turns,

But lingers and gazes, till full on her sight

A second light on the monitor burns!

 

A hurry of Harleys in a village-coast,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

Struck out by a Hog that flies fearless and fleet:

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,

The fate of a career was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that hog, in her flight,

Kindled the launching of Romney to toast.

 

Romney launches bid for president

It was one by the village-clock

When she rode into Lexington.

She saw the gilded weathercock

Swim in the moonlight as she passed,

Like a tweety bird already staring aghast.

 

It was two by the village-clock

When she came to the bridge in Concord town.

She heard the bleating of the flock,

And one at the bridge would be first to fall,

Pierced by his own tweeted photo-ball.

 

Former Rep. Weiner

You know the rest. In the books you have read

How the former governor fired and fled,–

How the GOP regulars gave ball for ball,

From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,

Chasing other knuckleheads down the lane,

Then crossing the fields to emerge again,

While Governor Palin denied it all.

 

 

So in the spotlight did not ride Revere;

Through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,–

A cry of defiance, and not of fear,–

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!

As long as people try to get it right,

Through all our history, if we read,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,

And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.

 

 (“The liars are winning! The liars are winning!”)

What Really Happened in New Hampshire?

What Really Happened in New Hampshire?

2008 New Hampshire voter

Serious discrepancies suggest a miscount in the New Hampshire primary. If the ballots counted by hand in part of the state are any indication, then Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may have beaten Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) for top spot in the Democratic primary, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) beat former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney by 13 points rather than by 3 as reported, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani came in just behind Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) instead of just above Paul.

Following the elections of 2000 and 2004, most people are aware of problems with electronic voting machines. But the problems do not all stem from voting electronically. There are also problems in electronic vote counting technology, even when votes themselves are cast on paper ballots.

The problems coming out of the New Hampshire primary are very, very serious. While these results may distress Democrats who support Mrs. Clinton and Republicans who support Mr. Romney or Mr. Giuliani, the vote anomalies in New Hampshire are larger than the interests of any one candidate.

Problems with voting and vote-counting technology

The unofficial vote tallies in the New Hampshire primary can be divided into two categories, votes counted by hand and votes counted by machine. New Hampshire uses paper ballots, but while 20 percent of ballots are counted by hand, the other 80 percent are counted by Diebold Accutron/Premier optical scanning equipment. As election researcher Kathy Dopp of the nonprofit USCountVotes points out, New Hampshire did not audit results manually after the election to verify the machine count accuracy.

In the January 8 primary, on the Democratic side,

  • Where votes were counted by machine, Clinton came out with about 40 percent and Obama with about 35 percent.
  • Where ballots were counted by hand, Clinton averaged 34 percent and Obama 38 percent.

On the Republican side,

  • Where votes were counted by machine, Romney and Giuliani did better than by hand, all the other GOP candidates worse.
  • Where ballots were counted by hand, Romney and Giuliani came out with worse percentages than by machine, all the other GOP candidates better.

The deeper point is that Clinton votes also come out differently from votes for John Edwards, Michael Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, and Bill Richardson.

In a striking pattern for any set of election results, all the anomalies go in one direction:

  • Clinton was the only candidate who always came out a little better with machine counting than with hand counting.
  • With hand counting, all the other Democrats always came out a little better than with machine counting.

New Hampshire Secretary of State William M. Gardner announced Jan. 11 in a press release that Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich and Republican candidate Albert Howard have requested a recount. The recount begins Wednesday, January 16.

Counting votes in NH, 2008

It would have been unconscionable not to check. Nonprofit groups including Citizens for Legitimate Government, Democracy for New Hampshire, Election Defense Alliance, and the National Election Data Archive have already noted that New Hampshire results differed up and down the state in towns using the Diebold Accuvote optical scan election technology from those that counted the ballots by hand.

The statistics are disconcerting, but they are very solid. Where votes were counted by the Diebold Accuvote optical scan technology, Edwards averaged 16.7 percent. Where votes were counted by hand, Edwards averaged 17.6 percent. By machine, Mike Gravel averaged 0.139 percent, and by hand 0.144 percent. By machine, Dennis Kucinich averaged 1.227 percent, and by machine 1.843 percent. By machine, Barack Obama averaged 35.8 percent, and by hand 39.6 percent. By machine, Bill Richardson averaged 4.35 percent, and by hand 5.56 percent.

The point here is not that hand counting would have put Mike Gravel over the top. The point here, again, is that all the anomalies, as statisticians call them, go in one direction.

The same anomaly also emerges in the GOP results. On the Republican side, where votes were tallied by the optical scanning machines, Romney averaged 33 percent of the total and Giuliani 8.64 percent. Giuliani was not a factor in the New Hampshire race. Where votes were tallied by hand, Romney averaged 25.5 percent and Giuliani 8.14 percent.

Again, this factor differentiates Romney and Giuliani from all other candidates on the Republican side. Where votes were counted by op-scan, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee averaged 10 percent. Where votes were counted by hand, Huckabee averaged 13 percent. By machine, Duncan Hunter averaged 0.492 percent, by hand 0.581 percent. By machine, John McCain averaged 36 percent, by hand 39 percent. By machine, Ron Paul averaged 7.23 percent, by hand 9.22 percent. By machine, Fred Thompson averaged 1.171 percent, by hand 1.345 percent.

Had the hand count been the pattern for all GOP votes, headlines would have read that McCain beat Romney by almost 14 points, rather than by 3 points. Also, Ron Paul would have beaten Giuliani by a point rather than ranking just below him by a point. The rankings of all the other candidates would have been unchanged.

On the Democratic side, a vote total in line with the hand counting would have put Obama first in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, and the excessive media furor over New Hampshire would have reversed, although the primary would still have been close. The rankings of the other Democrats would have been unchanged.

But the exact magnitude of difference is not the main concern. The integrity of the election process is the concern.

Human error is a component in any election. The U.S. has a large body of election law, including a large body of law on election recounts. For the right to vote to be protected, recounting has to be protected, and American history includes hundreds of cases on the books, over the years, involving election recounts.

Human error, however, is random. When poor training, carelessness, and fatigue cause mistakes, the mistakes tend to be sloppy. As statisticians know, random error produces random results. Some mistakes benefit one side; other mistakes benefit the other side.

When mistakes all go in one direction, that is an anomaly itself.

Note: The hypothesis that the difference between hand counting and machine counting might stem from different demographics, different places, has already been addressed. The vote rundown is broken down very thoroughly for larger and smaller towns. Smaller towns that used the machines came out differently from small towns using hand count, and larger towns using machines came out differently from larger towns using hand count.

 

In any case, it is unclear what demographic would produce pluses for Clinton, Romney and Giuliani and minuses for all other candidates, Democrat and Republican.

 

The other hypothesis, that the difference between Clinton and Obama is a factor of race, can also be discounted. Again, it must be emphasized that the difference between machine counting and hand counting shows up with all the Democratic candidates, not with just Obama and Clinton. Why would ‘race’ have caused supporters of Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson to switch to Clinton at the last minute? Besides, if race were truly the deciding factor on the Democratic side, surely some other white male candidate would have benefited. No self-respecting bigot goes into the voting booth irresistibly impelled to cast his vote for a woman.

 

Obviously race could not have been a factor separating Romney and Giuliani from the pack on the Republican side.

 

Transparency requires full publication of raw New Hampshire exit polls, the most reliable form of polling. Meanwhile, the vote tallies raise questions. Clinton and Obama, after all, are not the only ones in the picture. The voters are supposed to be in the picture, too.