Posts by Craig Ranapia
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And to bring things full circle, how weird is the American primary system?
Well, if I've read this and this correctly (which I wouldn't bet my immortal soul on), Obama lost by two points and still walks away with a (bare) majority of NH's delegates because he's pledged three of their five superdelegates.
I think I'll come back and look at this the next time I want to bitch about how freaky MMP and the Sainte-Laguë formula is. American electoral calculus has a feral charm - like a pack of wolves.
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Sigh, Craig - as with Ralston's "Labour nuke", come back to us when this actually materialises.
OK, Don, Bill Ralston just made it up. Talking Points Memo - a blog I'd characterise as highly partisan but pretty wingnut-lite and hardly kneejerk anti-Hillary - is running a baseless smear. Give me a call when you've rejoined the reality based community where Matt Drudge and the Exclusive Brethren aren't responsible for everything act of campaign ugliness in the world.
But I think we can both agree that if the Huffington Post has convinced everyone that a 'swift boat'-style smear campaign isn't worth the risk , then they've done political discourse a great service.
Obama apparently had such a massive lead. But HRC showed a consistent lead right thru the voting.
Well, Neil, I'm not entirely convinced there's the data to support it but it seems fair to ask whether the Bradley Effect:
The term Bradley effect or Wilder effect refers to a phenomenon which has led to inaccurate voter opinion polls in some American political campaigns between a white candidate and a non-white candidate.Specifically, there have been instances in which statistically significant numbers of white voters tell pollsters in advance of an election that they are either genuinely undecided, or likely to vote for the non-white candidate, but those voters exhibit a different behavior when actually casting their ballots. White voters who said that they were undecided break in statistically large numbers toward the white candidate, and many of the white voters who said that they were likely to vote for the black candidate ultimately cast their ballot for the white candidate. This reluctance to give accurate polling answers has sometimes extended to post-election exit polls as well.
Researchers who have studied the issue theorize that some white voters give inaccurate responses to polling questions because of a fear that they might appear to others to be racially prejudiced. Some research has suggested that the race of the pollster conducting the interview may factor into that concern. At least one prominent researcher has suggested that with regard to pre-election polls, the discrepancy can be traced in part by the polls' failure to account for general conservative political leanings among late-deciding voters.
I'm not really convinced that this was the case in New Hampshire, and it might have had more to do with the Clinton campaign getting out the base doing a better job of identifying and turning out their supporters. Retail Politics 101.
There's also another factor that might have been important in NH: Independents - who make a pretty large chunk of primary turnout in NH - decided McCain needed their help more than Obama. And while I'm no fan of Clinton, I can't say it's a total loss if Mitt Romney's strategy to gain momentum going into Super-Size Me Tuesday by sweeping Iowa and NH is in tatters. It's going to take the GOP a long time to learn that you can't build a governing majority by pandering to the TheoCon rump with no hint of shame, but this is a start.
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I do think the Dems have run a pretty clean campaign against each other so far. Most mudslinging seems to have come from "other sources" such as Drudge whose interests are not exactly dispassionate.
Oh come on, Don. Can we return from Fantasy Island for a moment, and acknowledge that Democrats are no strangers to gutter politics when needs must. Or are Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post now tool of the vast right wing misogynsitic conspiracy?
This is interesting. The Huffington Post had a blockbuster scoop today reporting that top independent expenditure groups backing Hillary are thinking of creating a massive anti-Obama "527 committee" to go after the Illinois Senator.
But two major players in this world are already moving rapidly to disavow any involvement in any such effort.
I'm sorry, but if you think Clinton and her campaign aren't going to do whatever it takes to win the nomination I'd respectfully suggest your naivety is charming, but not particularly in tune with reality.
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The drama of the primaries looks to continue. With 11% of votes counted HRC is in the lead (probalbly due to early counting of smaller communities more likley to vote HRC). And McCain looks unbeatable.
Well, I don't actually think it says anything more about Edwards than Democrats who felt rather queasy about Elizabeth Edwards' cancer being used as a campaign tool.
In the end, as I said, the primary process is surreal -- I couldn't handle it because I actually need to sleep 4-6 hours a night, eat regularly and well, and don't function well in large crowds. But I feel precisely zero sympathy for people who choose it, then bleat about how hard done by they are. And it's loathsome to play the gender card in Clinton's defense.
And while I'm rather pleased nobody is getting their coronation tonight (and hope the Clinton campaign gets off the pity pot and resists the temptation to gas up the swift boats), I do hope the folks calling the result with 11% of precincts aren't going to live to regret it. You'd think Fox would have learned their lesson... Still, as the old Chinese curse goes, its going to be very interesting times indeed until Super-Size Me Tuesday.
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In a recent TV debate Edwards and Obama decided to gang up on Hillary, apparently she's the "status quo" or something. Edwards did the dirty work while Obama looked more than a little pleased.
Oh, hell, Neil. Bill should have taken Ann Coulter's favorite fagoot and Barak Osama out to the lobby for a good Mallard-ing. where do these patriarchal arseholes get off actually disagreeing with a candidate for their party's presidential nomination in a freaking public debate? Have they no decency!.
And frankly, Neil, I can't really muster any sympathy for the faux outrage from either direction over Blubgate. Sorry, but who exactly has been presenting themselves as 'ready to be President from Day One' and 'the only one who can resist the right wing attack machine' as opposed to the charming but lightweight junior Senator from Illinois?
I think it's fair comment that the modern American campaign season is a pretty fucked up way for any human being to live for weeks and months on end -- and who likes losing? But if Pollitt really thinks Clinton is subject to a misogynistic double standard, I'd like to remind her that losing your temper is a 'feeling' as well. Don't recall Guiliani or McCain getting much sympathy when they lost their shit under pressure on the campaign trail back in Y2K. Nor do I expect a sudden outbreak of chivalry from Democrats if either man wins the GOP nomination.
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Wishart and his tawdry rage
Whoops... for once an accurate typo, because I find it hard to believe Investigate is produced or read by people who are exactly overflowing with joie de vive. :)
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Craig, the last time NP supporters started wittering on about scandals about to be brought up by Labour it was as cover for their own muck racking, conveniently passed through the likes of Wishart and friends.
Graeme: Apologise for the misreading.
Don: Care to put up or shut up - because I keep hearing the claim, but the evidence never seems to follow. Funny, isn't it?
I find it kind of icky that Ralson would be boasting about being fed sleaze by anyone (and if he's making it up. I'm all for APN sacking him after he's written a govelling apology to the Labour caucus). And good luck finding any statement I've ever made regarding Wishart and his tawdry rage that isn't venomously contemptuous.
I brought it up just to make the point that Ralston's columns are seldom read by me, and not taken seriously on the rare occasions I do. Nothing in Sunday's effort has changed my mind.
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But on point - I tried a few comments like this on DPF, but it's about time these inconvenient facts got a little more airplay.
Hum... We might not be talking about the same thing but if Labour wants to reduce the campaign to a Ratshit Galucoma gossip column, go to. If you're thinking of something that's actually marginally substantive, why don't you christen Legal Beagle with some good old fashioned muckraking? Just don't do it on the Labour Party's timetable while pretending you're shocked and appalled by it all.
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And finally, Neil, I have to wonder whether Pollitt gets it when she writes drivel like this:
Obama, the black candidate who never mentions his race, gets to smile his mile-wide smile and be a rock star. [Emphasis added]
Did an alleged progressive writer on a left-wing magazine just go where I think she went? Very odd coming from someone who has, shall we say, had little patience with Clinton getting scolded for 'faux feminism' from the left, and nasty innuendo about her sexuality from the right. Anyone who wants to defend Clinton or discredit Obama should stick to the substantive policy matters and avoid the boggy politics of ethnic and gender 'authenticity'.
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Here's Ralston, not letting the facts get in the way of a good rant,
I don't bother reading (as opposed to skimming) Ralston's columns at the best of times, but caught this rather icky column over the last bagel brunch of '07:
There is, apparently, one niggle for the party leader. Chortling Labour MPs refer to it as their "neutron bomb". It is a rather scandalous tale about a senior National MP timed to detonate when the election campaign begins.
According to your political persuasion, it is a measure of Key's confidence, his humanity or his lack of political experience that he has not taken the MP concerned out and shot him. He seems willing to risk the damage the ancient scandal might cause rather than the fuss a summary caucus execution might cause.
Hum... perhaps Bill could have taken the moral high ground - or his editor exercised some real live editorial judgment - and declined to set the stage for another round of shit-flinging. Anyway, if its the 'neutron bomb' I've heard of, I suspect its just going to blow up in the face of the person who throws it. Might be time to invest in a pair of thigh-high waders.
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