Primary (And Secondary) Confusion - Part 6
Barack Me Amadeus
Obama swept the primaries this weekend, taking the Louisiana primary and the caucuses in Nebraska, Washington, Maine, and the Virgin Islands. Don't knock the Islands. They get 9 delegates and 6 are for Obama (3 uncommitted). Obama scored big margins of victory, over 20% in the primary and over 30% in the caucuses. I would remind, however, that caucuses do tend to grant larger margins of victory. That said, the coveted momentum is clearly on Obama's side, and with that momentum, he is picking up more superdelegates.
But despite these wins, Clinton's share of the superdelegates puts her slightly ahead of Obama, leading by 27 delegates. It is a very narrow margin, representing less than seven tenths of one percent of the available delegates. And the more time passes, the more Clinton's lead narrows as pledged delegates keep going for Obama and superdelegates keep siding, in gradually decreasing numbers, with Clinton. Tomorrow Virginia, Washington D.C., and Maryland vote in their own primaries. Reports are showing Obama ahead in Virginia and Maryland and with Clinton doing poorly among blacks things don't look good for her going into tomorrow's primary.
RECAP: Superdelegates, who vote independent of primaries and caucuses, make up 20% of the total delegates at stake and, subsequently, 40% of the delegates necessary to win the nomination.
TRIVIA: Obama also won his second Grammy this weekend for the spoken word version of his latest book, The Audacity of Hope. Once again, he beat out Bill Clinton for the award.
Turning to the national arena, according to a new AP/Ipsos poll, Barack Obama now leads McCain nationally 48% to 42%. While this is good news for Obama, with a 3.1% margin of error and 7.8% in the Undecided category it is still anyone's game. The same poll had Clinton at 46% to 45% for McCain. Of course speculating on the national race at this point is a bit premature. Numbers tend to chance drastically when someone drops out of the race.
What Did We Do Last Night?
Take, for example, Mike Huckabee, whose numbers have jumped since Mitt Romney dropped out of the race. While he's still behind McCain by a substantial margin from around 18-20% to up around 30-34% (with only one poll putting him at 24%). In Kansas, Huckabee won big this past weekend coming in at 60% over 24% for McCain. It should be noted that Kansas has caucuses rather than primaries so there are no early votes lost on candidates that dropped out. I wish I could give you something on what Kansans were thinking prior to the caucus, what opinion polls had prior to Romney's announcement, but I can't. There are no numbers. The last time someone polled in Kansas was May of 2007. In case you're wondering, Sam Brownback was in the lead by one point over Romney, 18% to 17%.
In Louisiana, Huckabee won by a narrow margin, but since neither he nor McCain got more than the 50% mandated by the state party's rules, the delegates from that state will not be awarded for a while yet. Behold! The state party gremlins swing into action!
This brings us to Washington, which, on the Republican side, is fucking crazy. There are 40 delegates at stake, 3 of which are unpledged. Of the remaining delegates, 18 are tied to caucuses held on February 9th. The other 19 are determined based on a primary held on the 19th. I'll say that again. They have a caucus, and a primary. And in case Washington didn't seem crazy enough, McCain narrowly beat out Huckabee 26% to 24% with a big chunk going to (drum roll) RON PAUL! 20% of voters in Washington chose Ron Paul. And all these good people will be voting again on the 19th. I wish I could tell you it gets better, but I'd hate to lie to the half-dozen of you fine people who read this.
Look Out Behind You!...Kindof
I don't think this necessarily makes Huckabee a major threat to McCain. These are states where Huckabee had a demographic advantage in terms of religion and economic status. His populist message wins him points with lower income voters and the Evangelical mojo is a big fat seller in big flat Kansas. Jesus, jobs, and jabs at McCain take you a long way in this man's army. That said, McCain is far from dead. He's still very likely to be the nominee, but as I've mentioned before, his base of support is tepid at best, his public speaking is nothing that really fires up the crowd, and self-titled conservatives really, really, really hate him.
That said, he's only 468 delegates shy of what he needs to take the nomination. With only 1,138 pledged delegates left, McCain needs just over 40% of the available delegates to take the nomination (1,191). By comparison Huckabee (assuming Romney doesn't throw his delegates over to him) needs 85% of the remaining delegates to take the nomination. Can you say seriously heavy lifting kids?
Rich Bastards
It will be interesting to see where the corporatists go now. With Romney out, they've got McCain, who's too "left" for their tastes (be it because of his support for campaign finance reform, his opposition to torture, or his rescinded opposition to the Bush tax cuts), Huckabee, who actually came from a poor family and subsequently believes in helping poor people, or Ron Paul, who thinks we should end the war. All of these are Republican deal-breakers for the corporatists who regularly genuflect and kiss the bronze feet of the Ronald Reagan idol they keep in their front halls and to which they regularly make offerings of tiny bowls filled with brightly colored jelly beans.