THE MAGIC NUMBER SAYS THAT THE BERN IS DONE

I’ve known all this for some time now.  Hillary Clinton has it in the bag.  Sanders does NOT have a path to victory.

It is my opinion that Sanders is well aware of it, but refuses to let his people know how bad it is.

Here is the MAGIC NUMBER 639.

WHY? She now has 1744 delegates, INCLUDING the superdelegates that Sanders is humping for RIGHT NOW.  He is humping for them because he knows those votes of those delegates COUNT.  He will be lucky to flip 5.  Out of Hillary’s 475.  WHOOP DE DOO.

So, when Hillary gets 639 more delegates, she will have 2383. When she DOES, she will have won.  CAN SHE?

A piece of cake.  Based on the latest polls, she will get about 789 from WI-NY-CA-PA-NJ-CT-MD-RI-DE-NM-PR-DC, and there ain’t a lot Sanders can do about that.

Can he cut it down by 100? Maybe.  But too little, too late.

For those who can’t count it up, 789 is 150 MORE than the 639 she needs to clinch. So if she gets that many (as it seems) she will have 150 more than the 2383.  That makes 2533.

CLINCH!

When she CLINCHES, IT’S OVER.  BERNIE LOSES.

And those 789 aren’t all.

There are another 288 or so for her in not-so-friendly states like ND-SD-WY-MT-IN-OR-GU-WV-KY-VI. She will get those because of the proportional primaries that the Democrats run.

She will then have 2821, more or less.

And THOSE aren’t all, either. THEN there are the 217 uncommitted SUPERDELEGATES, who, once she gets really close (like after PA) will start committing to Hillary. Expect 200 of those for her. She will THEN have 3021 give or take a few.

WE’RE #6, HEY! WE’RE #6! — Voter Turnout Rates – Again

Politifact did a puff piece on Bernie Sanders today, Mostly True: Bernie Sanders’ claim about America’s ‘lowest on earth’ voter turnout.

“Today, the United States has, sadly, one of the lowest voter turnouts of any major country on earth,” Sanders claimed.

Of all the claims candidates make during a primary season about the least controversial is voter turnout rates, but Politifact chose that to focus on.  I suppose that ones that are data-based are the easiest to tackle, and with a puff piece they maybe didn’t want to work very hard.

But they didn’t get it right.  The only source for their data can be the census.gov website, and I have that data myself, having written about it twice recently.  THE BIG LIE ABOUT VOTER TURNOUT (I MEAN IT), There it is again: In 2012 86.8% of registered voters DID vote, but. . ., and The Golden Ballot Award for 2012 – Who Will Win in 2016?

AMAZINGLY, Politifact says this:

“Last May, the Pew Research Center ranked the United States 31st among 34 developed countries in voting turnout. The center examined votes cast as a percentage of countries’ estimated voting-age population.”

Now, what is wrong with this statement?  Say someone is 25, a legal immigrant, and living in New York City. Is that person voting-age population”?  Yes.  Is there ANY legal chance he can vote?  No.

YOU CANNOT USE VOTING-AGE POPULATION TO DERIVE THESE VOTING RATES, POLITIFACT!

Delegate math says. . .

Okay, let’s do a little delegate math…

Democratic primaries…

What Does Clinton Need to Close It Out?

She’s closer to winning it then the News Media is telling us.

Hillary Clinton has 1,160 pledged delegates plus 465 PLEOs (superdelegates) for a total of 1,625 total delegates. Ignore the Sanders people who think the superdelegates will switch en masse.  They are misunderstanding both delegates math and human nature.  They REASLLY don’t know who those superdelegats are.  Which is really dumb, because it is even on Wiki, right down to their names – all of them.  A simple google turns it up.  How lazy can so many people BE?

So to get to the required 2,383, she needs 758 more pledged delegates. Once she gets there no superdelegate who prefers her (467 right now) will possibly change his/her mind.  To do so would be political suicide – pun intended.

So, she needs 758, and there are a total of 2,278 delegates of all sorts remaining. Of those, 2,053 are pledged delegates available in the primaries and caucuses.

Let’s see what she needs to do to get her 758 out of those 2,053 pledged delegates available in the upcoming 29 contests.

That 758 is 36.92% of the 2,053. That certainly sounds damned doable and, frankly, EASY.  She is now pulling 58.5% of ALL votes thus far cast.

There is no need to look at what Sanders needs. If SHE gets those 758 delegates, it’s all over, period.

Democratic Primaries – It’s All Over But the Shouting

It’s Over.  As good of a campaign Bernie Sanders has run – principled, sticking to the issues, mostly very respective of his opponents, and inspiring to a high degree – it is going to end up short of winning the Democratic nomination.

There were certainly moments when it seemed possible.  But in the end, no.  No cigar, no coronation, no brass ring, and no chance to battle a Republican in the fall.

Throwing a Scare Into Clinton

Before I started looking at the numbers – the state polls – it seemed like the upstart, brand new Democrat  Bernie Sanders was going to give Hillary Clinton a real tussle.  The scuttle on the street was that Sanders had a huge surge of new hyper-active participants and was going to have a huge wave behind them.

I have thought all along the Clinton was the strongest nominee possible, and in this year of anticipated Tea Party vs GOP bigwigs civil war on the other side of the aisle, it seemed that if the Democrats were going to have a relative outsider come in and get the nod, a real chance to take advantage of the chaos on the other side would be lost.

I Had to Go See What the Score Was

So, fretfully, I started looking up what the polls were saying.  How strong WAS the Sanders Surge?

The numbers are available in at least two convenient places.  One is at Real Clear Politics, here. The other is at Wikipedia, here.

Immediately I was surprised by how WIDE the margins were for Hillary over Sanders.  Scrolling down, in state after state, Sanders was, apparently, getting his butt kicked, to put it mildly.  For every state Sanders led, Hillary was leading in 3 or 4.  In addition, knowing the lay of the politics of Presidential campaigns, I knew which were swing states and which were BIG states.  At that time Sanders was not leading in any of those – except New Hampshire.  NH IS a swing state; it’s not a big state.

So, a picture came into focus of Sanders leading in lily white rural states. Eventually, what I affectionately call Kumbayah states joined Sanders’ stable of rural white states – CO, WA, OR, MN.   That was about it.

So, even before Iowa and New Hampshire opened up the primary season, it was apparent that Clinton was going to pull ahead with South Carolina and keep pulling ahead.

In a Week, the Lead Will Be Over 370

Now, about half an hour before the polls close in Michigan, all of that has come to pass.  In one week 5 good sized states – FL, IL, MO, OH, and NC – will vote, with all but one of those in the bag for Clinton.  Missouri might go for Sanders.  With no polls since last August, who knows?  But I currently show Clinton on net picking up about 74 delegates in FL, 72 in IL, 33 in OH, and 13 in NC.  NS has a fairly old ‘latest’ poll, and if that goes either way, I’d guess more toward Clinton. That is a gain of about 192 more delegates.  Added to the 180 or so she is ahead already, that would give her a legitimate lead of about 372 delegates.  And that is before the superdelegates.

They Say That Catching Up Is Hard To Do

372 may not sound like  much, but ask Sanders’ numbers guys – that is NOT easy to overcome in a proportional voting primary system.  Sanders so far has only 3 state wins with margins of over 10 delegates.  The largest is only 16.  Even at 16 per state in the future, that would take 23 states to catch up.

I LOVE the Smell of Napalm in the GOP Mourning

From a DailyKos post yesterday:

As Michael Grunwald pointed out in an incisive Twitter rant Tuesday, it’s exactly this type of blind partisan crusade absent a shred of intellectual honesty that primed the GOP base for an ideological wild card like Trump.

“My basic critique of the GOP was that it wasn’t on the level. It wasn’t about conservatism. It was about politics and power,”

How can so many students of all of this miss the history and not understand that this — NONE of this — is by accident or spur of the moment, or congress by congress decision making?

This all began with the Powell Memo in 1971, a list sent to the President of the US Chamber of Commerce by Lewis Powell VERY shortly before Nixon nominated him to the Supreme Court.  (Does that or does that not give ANY kind of hint how actually political the SCOTUS is?)

In the memo was a manifesto for “taking back the country from the Liberals”, in all — ALL — aspects of control.  They included  the White House, the Congress, the judges at all levels, the university professorships, and most decidedly, the news media.  All of it was in recognition of the fact that all those since the New Deal had been centers of power and information — and teaching — and interpretations of the laws, as well as simply controlling what legislation occurred – Liberal legislation, Democratic legislation.

Since 1933, the Democrats had controlled Congress for all but 4 years – 34 out of 38 years.  The majorities were often filibuster-proof, so the conservatives had NO influence.  And when they DID, they went crazy with people like Joe McCarthy and the McCarthy hearings.  That gave voters strong incentive to not make the mistake very often of voting in Republicans.

When Bernie Fails, What Are the College Kids Going to Do?

Who are the college kids going to vote for, between Hillary and Trump?

Anyone who thinks Trump gets their votes is out of his batshit crazy mind.

So, 50% stay home? Wow, that would be a shocker. They are going to throw a temper tantrum and hold their breath till they are purple, with the craziest GOP candidate ever looming out there and Scalia’s replacement on the line? Great citizens there.

There are TWO reasons for voting.  One is FOR something.  The other is AGAINST someone and something.  (I know, brilliant. . . No one has ever thought of that before…)

They will NEVER get their free tuition if the Dems don’t win. This election is THE turning point.

They want more Liberal.  Fine.  Not now, but it’s coming.  “PATIENCE, my Pretties!”

More Liberal (eventually) probably means one step at a time, Hillary now, and build a Democratic sanity back into government. The government isn’t dysfunctional BECAUSE of the Dems, but in spite of the Dems’ best efforts to STOP the idiocy and criminality and deregulation.

Eight years of Hillary will mark 24 out of the last 32 years that we had a Dem in the WH. ONLY that and the years we had Dem majorities in Congress were sane years. Not perfect, but not insane.

The Repugs are self-immolating before our eyes. This is a GREAT opportunity to make BIG inroads into the majorities in Congress. The Senate is more or less a lock for 51 or better. The House – in the House we need 30 wins. That’s tough.

Which is why we need COATTAILS.

It might be worth noting that in 2006, Bush’s last off-year election, when the GOP brand lost credibility, the Dems won 32 and took over. The GOoPer brand isn’t any more popular today than then. And if Trump really DOES have a ceiling of 35-40%, and if the establishment Repugs are talking LOUD about bailing on this election (if not the party), this is a royal opportunity.

Democratic Race Update Feb 16th

I found out today that Wikipedia seems to be keeping tabs on state polls.  I found at least one that was up to Feb 15th, yesterday.   The atest ones for each state seemed to be in the last 20-25 days, so it seems like a fairly good source.  With Wikipedia, it can be a little dodgy on some things because of the open-source editing, but I have no idea what anyone would have to gain by editing in bad information on this.

A surprise was that it looked like Hillary Clinton was leading an awful lot of them. Bernie Sanders, in fact, was only leading in 4 states, including one just past, New Hampshire.  The other three states are his home state of New Hampshire, Maine,  and Alaska.  Those are really small states, delegate-wise.

How Good Does it Look for Bernie?

Bernie is within 5 points in 6 states and within 10 points in 2 others.  The <=5 states are Nevada (0 points – tied), Missouri (5), Ohio (5), Oregon (5), Virginia (3), and Wisconsin (2 points).  The 5-10 point deficits for Bernie are Massachusetts (6 points) and Utah (10).  Basically, Hillary is REALLY kicking his butt in 26 states of the 40 listed, and leading in 10 others – 36 out of 40. For 10 states there were no state polls listed.

How bad?  In 1 state 50 points bad.  In 2 others over 40 points.  In 3 others by over 30 points. In NINE states by over 20 points.  And in 11 states by over 10 points.  It is conceivable that Bernie could surge in some states, especially ones where he can visit frequently.  He seems to have momentum at the moment, but after Super Tuesday will that still be the case?

Bernie will need to budget his visits almost like they were swing states – to go after the ones he can win and forget the others.  Will that be enough?  He has no margin for error.

Right now it looks like the primaries being proportional will give Bernie several hundred delegates that he would not have gotten at all in the old winner-take-all system.  If that system were still in place he would have to think about dropping out in two weeks.  If it were winner-take-all in Super Tuesday states, the only delegates Bernie would win are the 26 from his home state of Vermont. The other 979 from the  other 10 states would go to Hillary.  And it would be all over.

Current Delegate Count So Far

With only Iowa and NH completed, the regular delegate count sits at 36-30, in favor of Bernie Sanders.

Superdelegates So Far

Superdelegates are a slaughter at the moment, too.  Hillary has 395 superdelegates to Bernie’s 14.  These are real delegates with real voting power at the Convention (which opens July 25th).  These delegates are NOT pledged firmly to any candidate, though, so Bernie does have SOME chance of purloining them, if he gets on a tear and it looks like he will win the nomination. That happened in 2008, when many superdelegates switched from Hillary to Barack Obama after he won something like 11 primaries in a row.  This possibiity happening this year is discounted, but you never know.  At this point 8 years ago, most poeple thought Hillary would still take the nomination.

The Running Total, Maestro. . .

So, adding up those really early returns with superdelegates, Hillary has a 415 to 50 lead on Bernie.  With the total needed at 4763, there is a LONG way to go.  But Hillary leading in 45 of the 49 states with polls (Wyoming and DC don’t have any polls listed), AND a 365 overall delegate lead at the moment, Bernie’s outlook is fair to moderately poor.  He’s closing fast in some states, but with the primaries and caucuses coming fast and furious very soon, his ability to get results like Iowa and New Hampshire are not really great.

Nevada this Saturday s a caucus and, though that is a 45-45 tie at the moment, my information is that no one has a clue about what is really going on in Nevada. Like the caucuses in Iowa, no one knows WHO will show up, or how people will vote with everyone looking on.  Caucuses are NOT secret ballots.

Super Tuesday Is Coming Up

Super Tuesday is March 1st, only 3 days after the South Carolina primary, which is a week from Saturday.  (Nevada’s caucuses are this Saturday.)  So, it being Wednesday the 17th today, Super Tuesday is only 13 days away.  Wow!

I did some numbers on the Super Tuesday states, with rules and delegate information gleaned from a site called The Green Papers.

What did I find?   Well, that was when I found out that polling information was being updated pretty well on Wikipedia.  And from the numbers I put together from the latest state polling percentages, I came up with the following for Super Tuesday.  In doing it, I went all the way down to the Congressional District (CD) level and followed the rules for winning delegates proportionately.  Most CDs have 4 to 6 delegates, with a range in Super Tuesday states of 2 to 10.  Most delegates are won at that level.  And those are pledged delegates.

So, my projected count:

Hillary – 610 delegates, of which 525  would be solid, pledged delegates.  85 are what is called PLEOs – un-pledged delegates, but IMHO probable for Hillary (based on MY projecting the polling percentages for those as well as the Congressional District delegates).  PLEOs are “Party Leaders and Elected Officers.”

Bernie – 395 delegates, of which 334 are pledged.  61 are un-pledged PLEOs.

Super Tuesday, then, looks at this time to be a boon for Hillary and a bane for Bernie’s chances.  Ignoring the Nevada and South Carolina events for the moment, Hillary looks like she will have about 1,069 total delegates. Bernie minus NV ad SC would have about 445.

Prognosis

Let’s call Nevada a wash and give 23 of its overall delegates to Hillary and 20 to Bernie.  13 of the 43 are PLEOs, 5 pledged and 8 un-pledged. hose being party officials, one has to give the edge there to Hillary.  We will give her 8 to Bernie’s 5. Don’t holler – it’s more likely 9 or 10 for Hillary – maybe even all 13.  It’s a political party, after all, and people who pay their dues get benefits.  Bernie has been in the Democratic Party only since last year.  Hillary has been in it for over 40 years.

Let’s also call South Carolina for Hillary, and of their 59 overall delegates, and with Hillary having a 17-point lead, she will take probably about 35 of the 59 total delegates.  So, Hillary will come out of the next 2 events no worse than even, but likely about 14 delegates to the good.

Hillary figures to be taking about 60% of the delegates on Super Tuesday PLUS she is currently leading by more than 10 points in about 40 states, so one MUST consider the probability that Hillary is going to pull away and keep on pulling away.

At this point I’d have to figure Hillary is a 90% lock.

“We will make it so a Democrat can not govern as a Democrat.”

I ran across this quote by Grover Norquist, from 2003:

“We will make it so a Democrat can not govern as a Democrat.”

THAT was decided on high, in the Right-wing think tanks that dictate everything on the Right. The whole thing began back in 1971 (but that is a story for another day).

When the GOP is in the WH, they declare a Unitary Presidency”, claiming all sorts of King George III powers. When a Dem is in the WH, they “make it so a Democrat cannot govern as a Democrat.” EVERY DAY is obstruction and one day closer to “the next President” who they ASSUME will be their boy.

That is what McConnell is thinking with the Scalia replacement – they can stall until January, and then their guy gets in and not only gets to replace Scalia, but then the liberal Breyer (who wants to retire), and the liberal Bader-Ginsburg (83), and moderate conservative Kennedy (79). They think they get the next FOUR appointments. McConnell is an idiot.

Except that there is a thing called the electoral vote Blue Wall. The Dems have electoral votes from 18 states which have ALL voted Democrat in the last SIX elections, totaling 242 electoral votes. A Dem candidate only needs to get 28 more electoral votes to win the WH. Which is Florida. The GOP needs to get 168. But there are only 226 in play. The Dems have the WH locked up for the next generation. McConnell is an idiot.

If it goes till January, the Dems are taking back the Senate. Now at 46-54, the Dems have SEVEN takeaways, which will give them 53-47. McConnell is an idiot.

The Golden Ballot Award for 2012 – Who Will Win in 2016?

I’ve noted in two posts about the 86.8% USA national voting percentage of REGISTERED voters.

I suppose it would be a good thing to give some kind of recognition to the top states in Registered Voting Percentage. And let’s call the recognition The 2012 Golden Ballot Award.

Ten states turned out more than 90.0%, folks!   Ten states n all did better than 90%, and this blog post is to recognize their great achievement of getting at least 9 out of every 10 voters to the polls.  WELL DONE!

And The Winner IS….

The top percentage and The 2012 Golden Ballot Award goes to Colorado, with 94.69% registered voters who cast a ballot in 2012.   Way to freaking GO! They have some seriously committed citizens in the Rockies.

Wisconsin came in a close second, at 94.24%.  Wisconsin thus wins The 2012 Silver Ballot Award.  Close but no cigar – but maybe in 2016.  A tip of the hat to Wisconsin.

Minnesota, with 92.67% won The 2012 Bronze Ballot Award.  92% is fabulous. Let’s see what Minnesotans can do in 2016!

I am color-coding the states here as to Red, Blue , or Swing states.

The other states with over 90.0% were Wyoming (92.16%), Delaware (91.70%), New Hampshire (91.49%), Idaho (91.40%), Oregon (90.94%), Washington DC (90.91%), and Maryland (90.34%).

Those are ALL seriously good numbers, folks.  Registered voter apathy?  I don’t think it exists in those ten states.

And those aren’t ALL.  NINE other states topped the 89% mark!  Six of them are even over 89.5%.  Those nine states include Massachusetts which just BARELY missed the 90.0% mark with 89.97%.  After Massachusetts came Utah (89.81%), Washington (89.752%), New Mexico (89.775%), Virginia (89.74%), Montana (89.51%), Nevada (89.12%), Connecticut (89.09%), and Florida (89.07%).

No registered voter apathy in any of those states, either.

Think of THAT folks, NINETEEN states turned out better than 89% of their registered voters.

Gun Control in the Post-Scalia Era

I didn’t see any mention of gun control today.

But I am sure it will occur to everyone pretty damned soon.

With the SCOTUS changing we can expect to see gun control cases going to the court that wouldn’t have before.

When Kennedy also retires, the balance goes 6-3 the other way.

The current Senate can only forestall so long.  Once November comes and the Blue Wall kicks in and the Senate goes Democratic, only the House stands between the GOP and Götterdämerung.

Obama won’t get gun control, but it’s coming.