Obama 338 - 163 McCain

As you can see from the result above, the Illinois Senator Barack Obama was elected to be the next President of the United States. He will start that job on January 20th, 2009.

Results breakdown
Here is a graphical representation of who won each state:

Here is a simple breakdown of the numbers

Choice	No. states
Democrat	28
GOP	21
Incomplete	2

The result above is about electoral college votes and that's what decided who won the states. Remember that the votes of the people don't count in the US, although it's expected that the members of the Electoral College assigned to each state will vote the way the people do. It hasn't always happened like that though (have a look at the results from the 2000 Gore vs. Bush election).

Big switch
One of the most interesting facts from this result is that nine states switched there support and in all cases it was from GOP (the Republicans) to Democrat. Those states included Florida, an important state in 2000 and has been Republican for a number of years. It was an area that Rudy Giuliani concentrated on heavily when he was campaigning.

What reasons could there be for the big switch in those nine states? Well, there are several possibilities. A campaign theme for McCain was based around fear (because of the terrorist attacks). Maybe Obama's message of hope was more appealing. The VP picks have been frequently analysed and maybe the gaffes of Sarah Palin were a factor.

Exit poll analysis
The exit polls on CNN reveal some interesting information about the way people voted. Some of it is stating the obvoius, but it's better when it's confirmed with numerical data.

It seems a large proportion of John McCain's votes came from the older white population. Obama dominated the young and non-white demographics. As an example, 55% of the white population voted for McCain and a spectacular 94% of African-Americans went for Obama. Another example is that McCain got 53% of the 65 and older demographic.

This goes to confirm that age and race still play a major part in the election. It's worrying, but not unexpected.

Speeches
The following is Barack Obama's victory speech:



This is the sort of speech that Obama has been giving throughout the camapign. Although it is full of inspirational talk and essentially a message of hope and change, it doesn't give us anything new.

Lack of detail in speech
He doesn't go into specifics about all his policies either. A criticism of him has been that he hasn't done that thorughout his campaign. However, I believe he has - for example, he has a plan for improving national security freely available on his website and it contains budget figures, military numbers and deadlines. Also, he can give us more detail when he actually gets into the Whitehouse because then he'll have access to more information.

GOP defeat
John McCain was gracious in defeat, saying that he now hopes that America can move forward:

"This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and the special pride that must be theirs tonight"

"These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face."

International recognition
There were many leaders who congratulated Obama on his victory - but then that's to be expected. They want to have good relationships with one of the most powerful nations on earth. It's something that's been done over many years. Here is what Gordon Brown had to say:

"I hope to be able to work with Senator Obama to bring the world together so that we can face these difficult times with more coordination and more unity than we've seen before."

Problems
It seemed to be a relatively smooth election day. The only problems that were reported mainly focused on long queues and faulty e-voting systems. The queues are unavoidable, but they could be minimised if more polling stations and voting booths were made available. It's a simple formula. The availability of voting machines cannot be based on the turnout of a previous election because it doesn't take into account the candidates and the current public feeling towards politics and other current affairs.

E-voting was something heavily criticised in previous elections and it is something that I've blogged about before, but providing more research and development is done, it can work.

Summary and conclusion
It has been a very long election process. Most people will agree that it has been too long. There needs to be some reform in this area soon. The scheduling of primaries needs to be worked on too - entire states were robbed of the delegates that would normally go to the party conventions where the presidential candidates are announced.

It has also been heavily money-driven. There were several stories in the media about campaign funding. Several people support the idea of a funding cap. It's something I agree with because if everyone has the same amount of money, it shifts the focus from finances and onto the important politics.

Despite all that, I believe a high calibre candidate has been elected as President and hopefully his promise of change will be reality during his tenure (whether it's four or eight years).

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: Politics, US Election, John McCain, Barack Obama, Government,

The '08 primaries - not many left

On May 6th we had the primaries for Indiana and North Carolina. These states were incredibly important for Hillary as it was a chance to build up more late momentum (after her win in Pennsylvania). For Barack Obama, they were a chance to get an even bigger lead in the delegate count prior to the Democratic National Convention in June. As for John McCain, he was able to do more profiling and preparation for the general election portion of the election season.

Here are the Democrat results for the primaries that took place on May 6th:

North Carolina

Candidate	Vote %age	Delegates
Barack Obama	56	58
Hillary Clinton	42	42

Indiana

Candidate	Vote %age	Delegates
Hillary Clinton	51	37
Barack Obama	49	33

If you just look at who won, you would think it's 1-1. However, it's a bit more complicated than that. Obama won North Carolina by a significant margin (in terms of votes and delegates) and only narrowly missed out on a win in Indiana (2% behind Clinton in votes and a difference of four between the two delegate counts). In reality, this was a good night for Obama because he takes 91 delegates and Clinton only takes 79.

Naturally, Hillary tried to put a positive spin on the results by saying:

"Not too long ago, my opponent made a prediction. He said I would probably win Pennsylvania, he would win North Carolina, and Indiana would be the tiebreaker.

Well, tonight we've come from behind, we've broken the tie, and, thanks to you, it's full speed onto the White House."

This is a clever thing to say because the voters who aren't necessarily interested in the finer details may think she's still got a really strong chance of winning and then go and vote for her. The truth is that she has a chance, but it's far from strong.

This is what Obama had to say:

"You know, there are those who were saying that North Carolina would be a game changer in this election. But today what North Carolina decided is that the only game that needs changing is the one in Washington, D.C.

I want to start by congratulating Senator Clinton on what appears to be her victory in the great state of Indiana."

This was also a clever things to say. He is getting the people of North Carolina on his side and also pandering to the Hillary Clinton supporters. This will become increasingly important if he wins the nomination because he'll need all the votes he can get when he goes against McCain, who's had solid GOP backing for a while.

So, how can Hillary win? Well, according to the CNN Election Center, Obama has 1,836 delegates and superdelegates. Clinton has 1,681 (which means there is a difference of 155). In the remaining primaries, there are 217 delegates available. This is one of the reasons why I said Clinton didn't have a strong chance earlier. She would have to win nearly all the remaining primaries by significant margins.

Of course, it would be easier for her if some of the undecided superdelegates pledged their allegiance to her (270 available), but they might just go with the popular vote if they haven't made their minds up yet.

Michael Tomasky has an interesting point in this article. Even though he believes Obama has the advantage, he thinks that Obama has had multiple opportunities to "close the deal" and hasn't done that so far. He wonders if that is an indicator of what may happen.

Obama, like any candidate, can theoretically have a runaway victory providing there's enough positive publicity and decent early results. Obama certainly had that (e.g. Iowa). However, John McCain has proved that you can come from behind and finish strongly. Tomasky cites New Hampshire, California, Texas or Ohio and Pennsylvania as points where he could have won. I agree with Pennsylvania because of the significant number of delegates, but the others aren't good choices as they are too early on in the process (especially new Hampshire - that was the second primary/caucus).

This article states that some of Clinton's aides are now saying it's nearly impossible. That is something very important. If the people in your campaign team are losing faith in your chances, what hope do you have?

It gets even worse for Clinton because Obama seems to have survived the problematic issue of Jeremiah Wright - his former pastor. That could have (quite easily) turned into a public relations nightmare, but it hasn't.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: USA, Elections, Politics, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton,

Pennsylvania Wars: Clinton Strikes Back

Photo taken by Barbara Kinney

Before the voting day in Pennsylvania, many people felt that Obama would lose in that state. He was behind in the polls and the citizens are people who fall into the categories that typically vote for Clinton. However, I'm always skeptical about polls - especially after the surprise in Iowa earlier on this year.

Anyway, as the results show, the polls were correct:

Candidate	Vote %age	Delegates
Hillary Clinton	55	52
Barack Obama	45	46

This is undoubtedly a good result for her as it's a big state with plenty of delegates and it will give her a certain amount of momentum. However, it's not as big a margin as everyone thinks.

It seems that even after all this time, the media still doesn't undertand how the election process works in the US. They are all reporting the "big" 10% gap and forgetting that the vote percentage counts for absolutely nothing. The important statistic is the relatively small difference between the two in terms of delegates (six). That doesn't prove there's a huge swing towards Hillary (which is why I said 'a certain amount of momentum').

This is what Hillary had to say after the results were announced:

"You know, some people counted me out and said to drop out. But the American people don't quit, and they deserve a president who doesn't quit, either"

It's true - she hasn't quit. It would have been easy to do that earlier on because Obama continually won primaries and got to the point where he went past her delegate count. However, she realises that there is still time to overtake him because there are 9 Democrat primaries/caucuses and numerous delegates left before the the party's convention.

As a side note, it seems that Mike Gravel dropped out a few weeks ago. It shows how effective his campaign was when the media barely report it. I was thinking that he decided to remain in the race because he wanted to do some profiling before a run as an independent. However, due to the lack of media coverage I doubt that many people will know about him when the general election starts.

So, what about John McCain? I haven't heard much from this guy lately. It's possible that he could be pleased that the Democrat race is still going on. It means that there is still indecisiveness among the party and that could give him an advantage. It also means he has a bit more time to prepare his general election campaign. However, the continuing Democrat contest gives more media coverage to that party. It means that the voting population know more about the candidates and what they stand for. To stop this from being a problem, I think McCain needs to start doing a lot more.

According to the polls, the presumptive GOP nominee is way behind Obama and Clinton. As an example, here are the fundraising totals for March:

Candidate	Money ($)
Barack Obama	40m
Hillary Clinton	20m
John McCain	15m

It's amazing that Obama is able to raise twice as much as Hillary and 25m more than McCain in just one month. It'll give him a great advantage interms of creating publicity if he becomes his party's candidate.

It's interesting that, despite all that Obama momentum and the total dominance of McCain on the Republican side, there are still some sections of the media that have a bias towards Clinton. Take this article in the Telegraph as an example. All it mentions is Hillary. It's almost as if nobody else was running. I wonder if this is still the case on some of the US media networks aswell.

Another thing that hasn't changed is the ability of each candidate to use tired clichés. On Monday's episode of WWE RAW, each candidate made a short speech about why they should be the President. Each speech contained a healthy dose of clichés that were (presumably) included so that they would appear to be in touch with the people that they are talking to. There were classics such as "the election is like the King of the Ring" and "Can you smell what Barack is cookin'?". Oh dear. I'm sorry, but if they wanted to appear 'in touch', they should have avoided those and respected the intelligence of the fans by just talking about policies.

Anyway, the race to the Whitehouse carries on and the conventions to decide the candidates are getting closer (I say that because McCain is only presumptive and, technically, the delegates still have to cast their votes). There will be many people who will be glad when this lengthy process is over, but I have found it both interesting and enlightening.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: USA, Election, Politics, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama

Two Democrats and a Republican

The following is the results from the Democrat primaries which took place on March 4th:

State	Candidate	Vote %age	Delegates
Texas	Hillary Clinton	51	16
	Barack Obama	48	10
Ohio	Hillary Clinton	54	62
	Barack Obama	44	46
Vermont	Hillary Clinton	60	9
	Barack Obama	38	6
Rhode Island	Hillary Clinton	58	12
	Barack Obama	40	8
	Uncommitted	1	0

N.B.Texas seems to have a caucus and a primary, which is something I've not seen before. I'm not showing the result of the caucus because at the time of typing, the results are still being processed.

This table shows the GOP results for the primaries on March 4th:

State	Candidate	Vote %age	Delegates
Texas	John McCain	51	70
	Mike Huckabee	38	0
	Ron Paul	5	0
	Uncommitted	1	0
Ohio	John McCain	60	79
	Mike Huckabee	31	0
	Ron Paul	5	0
Vermont	John McCain	72	17
	Mike Huckabee	14	0
	Ron Paul	7	0
Rhode Island	John McCain	65	13
	Mike Huckabee	22	4
	Ron Paul	7	0
	Uncommitted	2	0

The wins for Hillary Clinton were very important. It meant she secured a significant number of delegates and gained some much needed momentum after losing Barack Obama in eight primaries in a row. However, it should be noted that Obama also increased his delegate count and that meant the victories weren't so spectacular. As a result, Obama still leads the overall delegate count (1451 vs. 1365).

The Washington Post has an interesting viewpoint:

"For months before his victory in Iowa, doubters questioned whether Obama had the stomach to deliver the blows necessary to wear down Clinton's advantages. Now, the question is whether he can take a punch..."

I don't understand why they think Obama is struggling. He's still in the lead - look at the statistics! He's won 25 primaries/caucuses, Hillary's won 16 and two of those had no delegates up for grabs. How on earth could that be considered 'struggling'?

According to CNN, the delegate count that's needed to secure the Republican nomination is 1191 and John McCain 1226, so he will become the GOP candidate at convention time. It's quite a comeback considering he was short of money early on and Mitt Romney was taking some big victories. Losing the first caucus (Iowa) was also a blow. However, McCain ended up winning in the places that had the most delegates and, as we all know by now, delegates are the most important thing in a US election.After the results were announced, Mike Huckabee dropped out of the race which means the only other active GOP candidate is Ron Paul, but his total is comparitively minor (21).

What McCain doesn't want to see is:

"...another tired debate of false promises, empty sound bites, or useless arguments from the past that address not a single of America’s concerns for their family’s security."

The following picture is from this article:

Yes - that's right. John McCain has now received the dreaded 'Kiss of Death'™. George W. Bush has officially endorsed him. You might see him smiling in that picture, but now McCain will struggle to attract the anti-Bush crowd.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: USA, Election, Politics, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, USA

Texas - did we need the debate?

I started watching the Texas Democrat debate on YouTube (one which, like many of the others before, ignored Mike Gravel) and I started wondering if this was going to give information about the candidates that I haven't heard before in the other debates.

The opening statements from Obama and Clinton were interesting. It didn't take long for the former First Lady to mention her successes with healthcare for kids. This is almost getting like Giuliani's 9/11 tourettes! She mentions an old policy numerous times and fails to talk about anything that could be considered recent. She also namechecked two Texans - a former governor (Ann Richards) and Barbara Jordan, who was an ex-President of the Texas state legislature and an ex-US congresswoman:

"And among the people whom I got to know, who became not only friends, but heroes, were Barbara Jordan, who taught me a lot about courage, and today would actually be her birthday. I remember all the time about how she got up every single morning, facing almost insurmountable odds, to do what she did. And another was my great friend Ann Richards, who taught me so much about determination. Ann was a great champion for the people of Texas. She also reminded us that every so often it is good to have a laugh about what it is we're engaged in."

Sure, these two women were clearly great people, but if they were important figures in Clinton's life, why has she only started talking about them now? It's a clear attempt to get applause from the audience. However, I think it would have been better if she talked about policies that would benefit Texas and the whole country.

Obama made a slightly different statement. He concentrated on policy and didn't bother namechecking people. He didn't mention anything that was as old as Hillary's healthcare policy. This made is speech the better one of the two.

One of the first topics that was dicussed was possible negotiations with Cuba. This was raised because of Fidel Castro's recent announcement that he would not be continuing with his job as President of the country. Yes, this was new - but only because Castro's announcement was recent.

It's an interesting subject because it's well-known that the USA have consistently believed that the Cuban people are oppressed. Obama and Clinton agree with that notion, but now that the leadership is going to change, they mentioned negotiations. Hillary wanted talks with Raul Castro, Fidel's brother and heir - but only if they show signs that they want to shift to a democracy. Obama wants unconditional talks. They both agree that there has to be a lot of preparation before any talks happen though and human rights would have to be at the top of any agenda. Obama made the point that the United States should have diplomatic relations with both their enemies and allies. This is a good point because you don't make any progress by only talking to your friends. For this reason, I thought that Obama won that part of the debate.

Despite all that it's important to remember that Cuba is not part of the United States - it is a completely separate country. Why does the US think they should be the ones implementing regime change in a place that they do not control? Also, Castro ended the corrupt second term of Fulgencio Batista that was supported by the United States for six years. Castro has also decided to step down when he is ill, instead of foolishly trying to hold on to something that requires a good level of health. The travel embargo was enforced by the United States, not Cuba. If that wasn't in place, innocent people would still be free to move. Yes, Cuba is under Communist leadership, but it's not exactly the same as the situation in the former Soviet Union.

The next topic was immigration. I can understand it being mentioned because Texas has a border with another country (Mexico) and there is a high number of illegal immigrants getting through. Both felt that there needed to be a significant policy change. They felt that legalisation needed to be an option that was available to all and that there needed to be an end to the hate crime that hispanics suffer from. They both felt that the United States should help it's neighbour improve it's employment opportunities aswell. It was hard to see the differences, so I thought it was a draw.

The economy was discussed (yet again) and that was added to the list of topics that have be mentioned ad nauseum. What is the point of having all these debates if we are just going to hear the same old material? The only people that benefit from them at the moment are some of the audience at the venue, because they will probably only go to one of them. The TV and internet audience have this pushed down their throats repeatedly.

There are two possible solutions. One would be to have a single debate. Another idea would be to have multiple debates, with each one having a different focus. The advantage of the former is that the whole process would be shorter. The benefit of the latter is that there is a reason for people to view all the debates. The first option could be difficult though - television networks would be constantly battling for the chance to host the debate.

It will be interesting to see what happens after the Democrat and GOP conventions. There will be debates featuring candidates from both major parties. The same subjects will probably be discussed, but there will be a different dynamic. I can only hope that there won't be as many debates at that stage.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: USA, Politics, Election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

The Potomac primaries

Barack Obama is building up a lot of momentum, especially after his successes in the Potomac primaries. John McCain solidified his lead by winning in all three of the states that were voting (this happened on February 12th). The tables below are the results.

Democrats

State	Candidate	Vote %	Delegates
Columbia	Barack Obama	75	9
	Hillary Clinton	24	2
	Uncommitted	1	0
Maryland	Barack Obama	60	11
	Hillary Clinton	37	5
	Uncommitted	1	0
Virginia	Barack Obama	64	50
	Hillary Clinton	35	26

Republicans

State	Candidate	Vote %	Delegates
Columbia	John McCain	68	16
	Mike Huckabee	17	0
	Ron Paul	8	0
Maryland	John McCain	55	13
	Mike Huckabee	29	0
	Ron Paul	6	0
Virginia	John McCain	50	60
	Mike Huckabee	41	0
	Ron Paul	5	0

N.B. - Mitt Romney was on the ballot papers and received some vote (strange). However, I've not included him in these tables as he is out of the race.

For the Republicans, Maryland was the smallest of the three primaries, but Ron Paul must have been unhappy with his result there because he finished below Mitt Romney (in terms of vote percentage) and Romney isn't even in the race! However, there is no chance of Paul getting the nomination anyway. It's more about making a statement and raising important issues now. Any profiling he does will help him if he wants to run as an independent.

Mike Huckabee didn't get any delegates, but that's because the GOP have a system where all the delegates go to the winner. The important thing for him will be the vote percentage and, unfortunately, that doesn't look too good. I'm not sure if Huckabee will stay in the race until the end now. After 'Super Tuesday' I thought he would, but these results have made things more difficult for him. He's still a possible VP pick though.

This is what John McCain had to say after the results were announced:

"We do not yet know for certain who will have the honor of being the Democratic Party's nominee for president. But we know where either of their candidates will lead this country, and we dare not let them. They will promise a new approach to governing but offer only the policies of a political orthodoxy that insists the solution to government's failures is to simply make it bigger."

He also said:

"I seek the presidency with the humility of a man who cannot forget that my country saved me"

I think it's interesting that most of McCain's quotes are either inspirational or negative. In a victory speech, making inspirational statements is fine - in fact, it's almost expected. However, I would have mentioned something about the next primaries/caucuses and (possibly) something brief about policies (instead of criticising candidates). That sort of behaviour has occurred since the start of the process though.

On the Democrat side, Barack Obama improved his position, although there weren't too many delegates up for grabs. However, his momentum will mean he is more likely to gain large amounts of delegates from the remaining states. This is what Obama had to say:

"Today the change we seek swept through the Chesapeake and over the Potomac. We won the state of Maryland. We won the commonwealth of Virginia. And though we won in Washington, D.C., this movement won't stop until there's change in Washington, D.C., and tonight we're on our way. Tonight we're on our way, but we know how much further we have to go. We know it takes more than one night or even one election to overcome decades of money and the influence, the bitter partisanship and petty bickering that shut you out, let you down, told you to settle."

This was a typical Obama speech - plenty of inspiration and calls for the arguments to stop. Some people say his policies aren't detailed enough, but he included plenty of detail in the debates (see 'Obama vs. Clinton - the CNN debate' and 'South Carolina - not on topic, not much detail').

For Hillary Clinton, her losses in the Potomac primaries weren't the only problems. Her deputy campaign manager, Mike Henry, has resigned. He was expected to leave because the person who recruited him - Patti Solis Doyle - also stepped down recently. Some of the US public will see this as a loss of faith in Hillary and her chances of winning.

According to this article, Clinton now sees herself as the 'underdog', which is a huge change for her. ever since the early stages of her campaign, she has mentioned how she has the advantage in terms of experience and policy detail. If she's losing confidence then it confirms that there's a serious problem.

CNN's total delegate estimate is:

1. Obama - 1215
2. Clinton - 1190
3. McCain - 812
4. Huckabee - 217
5. Paul - 16

It's interesting how Clinton (second place for the Democrats) has more delegates than the combined total of all the remaining GOP candidates.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: USA, Election, Potomac, Primaries

Mitt Romney drops out of the race

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massechusetts, dropped out of the race to be the GOP nomination for the presidency yesterday. I'm surprised he didn't stay until the end of the race, even though it looked even more likely that John McCain would win. He said this on the night of Super Tuesday:

"We're going to battle, go all the way to the convention, win this thing, and get to the White House"

So you can understand why I'm surprised!

At the Conservative Political Action Conference, he made the following statement:

"This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters – many of you right here in this room – have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country.

I will continue to stand for conservative principles. I will fight alongside you for all the things we believe in. And one of those things is that we cannot allow the next President of the United States to retreat in the face evil extremism."

So, he will continue to be active in campaigning for what he thinks is right - fair enough. This could mean that he goes for another term as governor of Massechusetts. He might even end up trying to get a place at Capitol Hill (either the House of Representatives or the Senate).

What is interesting is that he didn't explicitly endorse anyone. At the moment, the remaining GOP candidates are John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. It's clear that he won't support McCain (see my last post), so it's likely that if he were to actively support someone, it would be Huckabee (there's an evangelical connection). Romney's endorsement could be a big boost for the campaign.

Romney's performance in the primaries

State	Place	Vote %	Delegates
Arizona	2	34	0
Arkansas	3	14	1
California	2	34	6
Illinois	2	29	2
New York	2	28	0
New Jersey	2	28	0
Georgia	3	30	0
Alabama	3	18	0
Tennessee	3	24	8
Oklahoma	3	25	0
Massechusetts	1	51	22
Conneticut	2	33	0
Missouri	3	29	0
Utah	1	90	36
Delaware	2	33	0
Florida	2	31	0
South Carolina	4	15	0
Michigan	1	39	24
New Hampshire	2	32	4

Romney's performance in the caucuses

State	Place	Vote %	Delegates
Minnesota	1	41	38
Alaska	1	44	12
Colorado	1	60	43
Montana	1	38	25
North Dakota	1	36	8
West Virginia	2	47	0
Maine	1	52	18
Nevada	1	51	18
Wyoming	1	67	9
Iowa	2	25	12

As you can tell, he did do well (especially in the caucuses) and won in some areas where there are a substantial number of delegates available. The reason he is so far behind John McCain is because he didn't win in the states where it was possible to get 50 or more.

So, why didn't he do better? One reason is that some people found it difficult to believe him as some of his stances have changed over the years. People said that he was only doing this to attract 'social conservatives'. The other candidates called him 'inconsistent':

"Romney, in his appeals to voters, never overcame charges that he had flip-flopped his way through his political career -- on abortion, gay rights and other issues of importance to those he was hoping to win over."

A lot of people didn't like his negative campaigning either:

I've always thought you should focus on your policies, why they would be good for the country and also why they would improve the current situation. If a candidate is asked to comment on the differences between him/her and any others in the running, that should be the only time where you go negative.

Anyway, now that he's out of the picture, the winner of the Republican nomination will be in a stronger position. That can only be a good thing for them at general election time.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: Mitt Romney, Election, USA, Politics

Super Tuesday

This is possibly the biggest event in the races to decide the GOP and Democrat nominations for the presidency. Twenty four states have been holding primaries or caucuses (a lot have had these for both parties).

The table below shows the winners and the delegates they gained:

State	Democrats(Del)	GOP(Del)
Alabama	Obama(20)	Huckabee(14)
Alaska	Obama(29)	Romney(12)
Arizona	Clinton(26)	McCain(50)
Arkansas	Clinton(23)	Huckabee(25)
California	Clinton(42)	McCain(56)
Colorado	Obama(13)	Romney(22)
Conneticut	Obama(26)	McCain(27)
Delaware	Obama(9)	McCain(18)
Georgia	Obama(27)	Huckabee(45)
Idaho	Obama(15)	n/a*
Illinois	Obama(62)	McCain(54)
Kansas	Obama(23)	n/a
Massechusetts	Clinton(54)	Romney(21)
Minnesota	Obama(48)	Romney(36)
Missouri	Obama(30)	McCain(58)
Montana	n/a	Romney(25)
New Jersey	Clinton(51)	McCain(52)
New Mexico	rp**	n/a
New York	Clinton(127)	McCain(101)
North Dakota	Obama(8)	Romney(8)
Oklahoma	Clinton(24)	McCain(32)
Tennessee	Clinton(34)	Huckabee(21)
Utah	Obama(14)	Romney(36)
West Virginia	n/a	Huckabee(18)

* - This means that the primary/caucus hasn't happened yet in that state for that party.
** - This means that the results were still being processed while this blog post was being typed.

I didn't include the voting percentages this time because it would make the table too cumbersome. If you're interested in those details, you can go here.

The Delegates
I noticed a few strange things when looking at the results. The first is the amount of delegates that New York got from both parties (the Democrats had 214, the GOP had 101). Those are - by far - the biggest numbers in a state. It's strange because California has a larger population, larger voter turnout and is physically bigger (in terms of square miles). Under the current US system, I would have thought there'd be more delegates for the bigger states. Clinton won New York with 57% of the vote (Barack Obama got 40%), which was to be expected as it was her home state. You could almost say the large number of NY delegates gave Clinton an unfair advantage.

Alabama and Missouri also had strange results. Despite finishing second in Alabama, Hillary Clinton got one more delegate (she was 14% behind Obama too). I thought the Democrats distributed delegates based on vote percentages. In Missouri, both Clinton and Obama got 30 delegates, even though Obama won by 1%. Those two results make no sense at all!

In other non-standard news, California, Illinois, Georgia and Massachusetts were the only states where the Republicans didn't operate a winner-takes-all-the-delegates system. I think it would be better if all states used the same system and it would be even better if that system was used by both parties. It would make the results much easier to analyse.

The candidates - Democrats
While it's true that Hillary Clinton got more delegates than Barack Obama on Super Tuesday (just under 60 more - this doesn't include New Mexico as the final results haven't been processed), there are still many states left and her overall total could be overtaken. Obama has to be pleased with the fact that he won more states.

The candidates - Republicans
John McCain is getting further ahead of the competition after winning nine states. Even though Mike Huckabee won five, his chances of getting the GOP nomination are getting even more distant. Mitt Romney did well winning seven. However, as we all should know by now, it's delegates that are the most important thing and John McCain managed to win in the states where there were the most delegates. It's not impossible for Romney to win, but it's unlikely that it'll happen.

Vice-presidential choices
Ever since John Edwards dropped out, I felt that he would be the VP pick for either Clinton or Obama. In my previous post about the CNN debate, I noted that they both constantly mentioned the former Senator's policies and congratulated him on agood campaign.

There are many people who think that Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton would be the best for the Democrats. It's true that some of their policies are similar and their combined support would be tremendous, but could they ever work together? There have been a number of occasions where they have had lengthy arguments. Obama did recently say that Clinton would be an asset for anyone and Clinton replied with a similar statement, but that could just be for the media and may not be what they actually think.

It's even more dificult to think who the pick would be for the Republicans. If John McCain was the GOP pick, I can see him choosing Rudy Giuliani because the former Mayor of New York dropped out of the race, he gave McCain a glowing reference. The Arizona Senator could also choose Mike Huckabee because it would mean he's more likely to attract the large evangelical section of the US population.

One certainty is that he wouldn't pick Mitt Romney, even though for former Massechusetts governor is currently in second place overall. This is because McCain has accused him of changing his stance on a number of issues and has also been critical of Romney's negative ad campaigns (he should be critical - Romney should be focusing on his own policies).

If Romney, made a late surge and won the nomination, I can see him picking Mike Huckabee to attract the religious vote.

Ron Paul
It's certain that he won't be the GOP nomination for the presidency. It's also unlikely he'll be the VP pick for any of the top three because only has 16 delegates and has a comparitively minimal number of votes. He also hasn't won a state yet. So, what is he going to do? Will he drop out before the GOP convention? It's becoming more likely, although I can't be 100% certain.

According to this article, 29% of US voters believe that he will run as an independent candidate. It's theoretically possible because some of his views don't match with the majority of the Republican party. The same article states the 15% of those voters would vote for either him or Michael Bloomberg (another independent possiblity). With a percentage like that, Paul wouldn't become President, but he could influence the result (something that Ralph Nader did in 2000). However, Paul has said in the past it's either the GOP nomination or nothing at all.

Mike Gravel
Remember him? When the Florida primary results were announced, I noticed Gravel wasn't mentioned on CNN, however he was still on the results page on a Florida local government site (remember that candidates can still be on ballot papers after they withdraw because of reprinting costs). Apparently he's still going and there's a possiblity of him being an independent candidate. However, if he did go down that route I doubt he'd make an impact - have a look at his results in the primaries and caucuses so far.

Summary
It was a big day in the US and for the Democrats, it didn't really make it any easier to predict who would finish with the most delegates. For the Republicans, things became a lot clearer and McCain's momentum has grown substantially.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: USA, Election, Super Tuesday, Democrats, Republicans

Obama vs Clinton - the CNN debate

You can see the first part of the debate here. There are links to the other parts here.

The has to have been the tightest debate I've seen so far. There were so many of the topics where both of the candidates were even, but I think Obama was the overall winner. He won more of the topic discussions and also appeared more natural. Hillary did well, but everything seemed rehearsed and not from the heart. I think it's important that the leader of a country should know what they are saying and also believe in it.

It's also important to note that, early on, both of the candidates made frequent references to John Edwards in terms of campaign strategy and policies. Both of them saying things like that makes me think that it's even more likely that he'll be a VP pick. If he isn't (some people think a good VP pick would be Bill Richardson because of the hispanic vote), then I think he'll have a place on the cabinet - possibly in a role where he can work on his central issue - poverty.

One of the first topics that was discussed was the policy differences between Clinton and Obama. It's an important question because if none of the voters can tell the difference, they won't know who's best for the job. There's no guarantee that both people will be involved with the cabinet.

Healthcare
One of the differences is on healthcare. Clinton wants to introduce caps on healthcare premiums so that it can become more affordable for everyone. She also wants a tailor-made system where those who are satisfied with their healthcare aren't affected, but the people who benefit are those who aren't happy. After that she went on to talk about her past achievements (neatly moving past her failures and focusing on how she got her kids healthcare proposal approved).

Obama disputes a well-used statistic about there being 15m people who don't want healthcare. He thinks that the 15m are actually people who can't afford it. Obama also disputes Hillary's details about healthcare subsidies. He thinks that they do work, but doesn't explain why.

I think Obama won this section because cuts on premiums will appeal to a lot of people and he also offered more statistical analysis. I think that Hillary's approach to universal healthcare is flawed because she wants to provide for illegal immigrants - they aren't legitimate citizens and they don't pay anything. Why should they benefit?

Immigration
Obama answered first and said that the USA needs to control it's borders (obvious statement, but I guess it needed to be mentioned). Obama also felt that there needs to be a crackdown on those employers who exploit the immigrants and don't charge them the minimum wage. A lot of these people won't necessarily have the confidence to speak up for themselves, so it's definitely a positive statement. He also suggested that there should be opportunities for them to become US citizens and learn English. These ideas have been suggested/implemented in Britain and providing they are properly implemented, they are good policies.

When Hillary answered this question she offered nothing new. In other parts of this debate she has said she agrees with Obama if there's no difference between the two. However, this time she said the same things with a different word order - therefore trying to make people think it's something better. This was a bad move in my opinion, but unfortunately I don't think everybody will notice what she did.

I think this part of the debate was won by Obama.

'Tax and spend Democrats'
This wasn't exactly a tough question to answer. Under the Bush administration, the US economy has gone down the toilet - partially because of the huge amounts of spending on the war in Iraq. John McCain said in the past that it was irresponsible to cut taxes when going into war (although now he approves of Bush's extensions to those tax cuts). Both of them took full advantage of the opportunity, so I think that this round was even.

The War in Iraq
It has been clear from the beginning that they both want to withdraw the troops. However, you'll notice that in a previous blog post I mentioned that Obama has offered more specific details (going into timelines about e.g. removing brigades). All Clinton has done is say that she wants the troops out quickly and she will start that process within the first 60 days of her term in office.

In this particular debate, we finally heard some more details about her plans. She also felt that it had to be planned properly. This statement would go towards explaining why she hasn't been specific in the past. However, Iraq and the war on terror is such a hot topic, so I would have thought it'd be better to sort out your plans early on.

There was a point about her initially approving the President's decision to go into Iraq without Congressional approval. She was asked if she felt that was a naiive decision. It's stupid to ask that - Hillary would never say that she was naiive on national TV. She said she was acting on all the information that she had at the time.

However, I feel that Congress is there for a reason. Without Congress there would be a dictatorship. Such a major decision should always go through a body like Congress. Obama seems to feel that way because he repeatedly said he has been consistent from the beginning on this issue (he disapproved of the invasion both then and now).

Due to him highlighting his consistency and Hillary trying to avoid questions, I feel that Obama won this round.

Other issues
The above issues have been covered in many of the previous debates, so it was refreshing to hear a new question - it was about the levels of sex and violence in Hollywood. Obama won this round because he was the only one to answer. He felt that censorship was partly the responsibility of the parents and he also said that adverts for things like horror films should not be shown in the middle of family programming (this was basically a swipe at the television networks that allow this to happen).

Summary
As I said earlier, it was one of the closest debates, but I felt that Obama won.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: USA, Election, Politics, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama

More dropouts during election season

Yesterday we found out that both Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards dropped out of the race to be the nomination for their respective parties. I wasn't particularly surprised about Rudy going - as I mentioned in my last post, he put an awful lot of work into winning Florida and he only finished third. That and he has failed to win any primaries or caucuses so far.

Here is a list of Giuliani's performance in all the primaries and caucuses that have happened so far:

State	Vote %	Delegates
Iowa	4	0
Wyoming	0	0
New Hampshire	9	0
Michigan	3	0
Nevada	4	1
South Carolina	2	0
Florida	15	0

After deciding to drop out, he announced that he is going to be supporting John McCain, who recently went ahead of Mitt Romney in terms of delegates:

"John McCain is the most qualified candidate to be the next commander in chief of the United States"

In response to Giuliani's speech, McCain said:

"I want to thank my dear friend, my dear friend Rudy Giuliani, who invested his heart and soul in this primary and who conducted himself with all the qualities of the exceptional American leader he truly is"

After the mutual back-slapping was over with, they shook hands. Now that McCain has been endorsed by Giuliani, it must give McCain even more momentum and could influence the way a lot of people vote on Super Tuesday.

(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

John Edwards leaving was more of a surprise. Although he hadn't got as many delegates as Obama and Clinton, he still had a few and with Super Tuesday coming up there was still an outside chance. Even though it wasn't a certainty that he'd get the most delegates, I thought he'd stay until all the states have finished voting.

Here's Edwards's performance in the primaries and caucuses:

State	Vote %	Delegates
Iowa	30	14
New Hampshire	17	4
Nevada	4	0
South Carolina	18	8
Florida	14	0

Remember that Wyoming hasn't happened yet for the Democrats and Edwards boycotted Michigan because of the controversy over there.

"With our convictions and a little backbone, we will take back the White House in November"

So, even though he's out of the race, he still makes an appeal to the nation in an attempt to get the Democrats back into the Whitehouse.

It will be interesting to see who Edwards endorses. As he has built up quite a following, whoever he decides to support will have a massive advantage. He might also be a viable vice-presidential pick - he'll definitely be in a better situation than he was with John Kerry in 2004. If he doesn't get picked I can see him campaigning to make a return to the Senate - he's young enough to be able to do that and stay there for a few years.

Alfred Thompson made this comment on my blog entry about South Carolina:

"If he is elected VP there is time for him to still be president some day. And I think he'd be a good one."

So, I'm not the only one who thinks he'd be a good VP pick! I'm not sure whether he'd go for President again though. I guess nobody will know for sure until the next President's term in office is over.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama congratulated him for a well-run campaign and thanked him for the hard work that he's done highlighting poverty, which was his central campaign issue. They obviously want to be really nice to him because they realise how important his support could be.

Apparently he is able to 'release' the delegates who supported him, so they would be free to vote for whoever they wanted. If they are released, it would make the convention even more interesting.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, USA, Election, Politics

The Florida Primary - it's Michigan (the remix)

This state has plenty of election history attached to it. In 2000, there was the famous Florida recount, which turned into one of the most important factors in deciding the presidency. You will probably remember that Al Gore won the popular vote (which, in my opinion is the most important thing because you will be represeting those people), but George W. Bush got into the Whitehouse because of the Electoral College system.

These are the results for the 2008 Democrat and GOP primaries in Florida:
Republicans

Candidate	Vote %age	Delegates
John McCain	36	57
Mitt Romney	31	0
Rudy Giuliani	15	0
Mike Huckabee	14	0
Ron Paul	3	0
Fred Thompson	1	0
Duncan Hunter	0	0

Democrats

Candidate	Vote %age	Delegates
Hillary Clinton	50	0
Barack Obama	33	0
John Edwards	14	0
Dennis Kucinich	1	0

This was a terrific victory for John McCain. In terms of voting percentages it looks quite close between him and Mitt Romney, but because it's the delegates that matter, the difference was actually massive. The gains in Florida mean that McCain is now ahead of Romney overall. He will be hoping that the momentum can continue into Super Tuesday. If he does well in that, it would almost certainly mean that he'll become the GOP nominee for President. This is what McCain had to say after the victory:

"Thank you, Florida Republicans, for bringing a former Florida resident across the finish line first in - as I have been repeatedly reminded lately - an all Republican primary.

My friends, in one week we will have as close to a national primary as we have ever had in this country. I intend to win it, and be the nominee of our party."

Even though he got no delegates, it was one of Rudy Giuliani's best performances so far. The bad news is that he put a lot of work into winning this primary and ignored some of the states that have already voted. He felt that winning that state would show the rest of the US public that he can win the tough contests. As he finished third, there will be even more doubts about his credibility. He didn't say that he'd withdraw from the race, but he referred to his campaign in the past tense:

"I ran a campaign that was uplifting."

Apart from ignoring the early states, it didn't help that he was one-dimensional (frequently mentioning 9/11).

Mike Huckabee seems to be slipping down the results tables, which doesn't look too good. However, there is still Super-Tuesday where everything could change and he has shown the US population that he's capable of winning a primary. Even before the results were released in Florida, he knew that he wasn't going to win in the state, but he won't stop campaigning:

"Thank you folks for being here. God bless every one of you. Pray hard, work hard, get the votes out. Remember this -- if they're going to vote for me, make sure they come. If they're not, don't let them out of their driveway."

At the bottom of the results table for the GOP you'll notice that there's Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson. I mentioned in a previous post that Hunter withdrew from the race and I assume that his name was left on the ballot papers because there wasn't enough time to produce a new batch. Apparently Fred Thompson has also quit the race and this actually happened a few days ago. It was such a quiet withdrawal and I don't think many people noticed (despite this, he still managed to get a small percentage of the vote - how strange). He said the following in a prepared statement:

"Today, I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort"

The South Carolina result had sealed his fate.

It was a very different story for the Democrats. As you can see from the table near the top of this post, there were no delegates on offer (like Michigan). This was because they had brought their primary forward, but had not followed the rules. None of the leading candidates bothered to campaign in the state as a result of this, so you have to wonder why they bothered to have a vote. All it did was give Hillary Clinton - the 'winner' - a bit of extra press coverage (like Michigan).

You'll notice that Mike Gravel wasn't in the results table (that you can also see on the CNN website). This intrigues me, because he is still running (apparently) and this was confirmed when I looked at this. Do CNN not like him for some reason? Did they decide that he was no longer credible enough? I don't think it's for them to say. He was the only Democrat who campaigned in Florida. I didn't expect him to still be in the race at this stage because he's behind Dennis Kucinich overall and he doesn't have much chance of winning either. I suppose it's theoretically possible that he could do well in Super Tuesday, but it's highly unlikely that will happen.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: Election, USA, Politics, Florida, Rudy Giuliani, Republicans

State of the Union - it sounds familiar

The State of the Union address is a big deal in the USA. It's a chance for the President to tell the Congress and the public what the situation is and how the country should move forward. The 2008 address was the final one for George W. Bush and I bet the Democrats were glad.

Anyway, my thoughts on the speech are below. You can find the complete speech here.

Subject - The War on Terror™ and Iraq

"We gave our troops a new mission - work with the Iraqi forces to protect the Iraqi people."

He said this when he was talking about the 'surge'. What was the mission before the surge then? Were they not ordered to protect the Iraqi people? Supposedly, one of the reasons that the US went into Iraq was to liberate the Iraqi citizens from the likes of Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups. Saying something like that was a serious mistake.

After that he mentioned that the Iraqi people were "worried" that the US troops would abandon them, but instead of doing that, the troops would stay until the terrorists were gone. That is a huge, steaming pile of cra....erm, rubbish. I don't hear of a large number of Iraqis worrying about that. Also, if the troops stayed behind that is more lives at risk and many have died (needlessly) already. If the troops stayed it would also mean that the Iraqi government is undermined and that US forces would be stretched if they got involved in any other international conflicts.

At one point he mentioned that the troops have the "gratitude of the entire nation". This is totally true, but I couldn't help but feel this was purely done for TV because he knew both the Democrats and Republicans would give standing ovations for that - it was an attempt to make him look good, although he was only stating the obvious. There should be more detail in what he says.

"The American and Iraqi surges have achieved results few of us could have imagined just one year ago."

Ok, they have achieved results, but are they the results that he wanted? This statement was a cue for more clapping and then a standing ovation from the Republican supporters/members in the room. During this period, the Democrats remained remained seated and didn't clap at all. It shows that they (quite obviously) disagreed with what he was saying. It's not just the Democrats in the room that disagree with him - remember that his national approval rating has been below 40% for a while (the most recent poll showing him at 31%). Further evidence of that is shown in these statistics:

• Over 60% of Americans want all troops out of Iraq withdrawn within one year.
• 41% of Americans think that President Bush is "definitely worst than most" past presidents.

Anyway, back to the speech:

"Some may deny that the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt - Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq and this enemy will be defeated."

Time for another round of clapping (another standing ovation with cheers). Again, he states the obvious and it was another obvious move to get the Democrats to applaud and therefore make him look good on TV. He's also got his terrorists mixed up again. I have no doubt that there's an Al-Qaeda presence there, but Osama Bin-Laden won't be there (way too risky) and it's mostly Iraqi citizens who are attacking US forces.

"You will have all you need to protect our nation"

He said this when talking about the US forces. He also mentions that some of them are returning home. This is yet more stating the obvious and boring, repetitive rhetoric. The current withdrawal of troops is slow. A huge chunk of the US population sees that - I've already shown you the statistics that prove that.

"We will stay on the offence, we will keep up the pressure and we will deliver justice to our enemies."

This was said when talking about the War On Terror™, and this section had a focus on liberty and independence. This was another opportunity for Dick Cheney to get out of his chair and clap. He could be employed as a cheerleading coach after he leaves office! I wonder if anybody's worked out if he spends more time standing up and clapping than he does sitting in the chair. This whole section was another exampled of rhetoric recycled from previous speeches. It contained no detail at all - totally pointless!

He mentioned that there was one thing that the US and the terrorists agree on - ending tyranny. I think this was a bad move. Ok, each side wants to end what they perceive as tyranny, but he said that we agree with the terrorists. That statement could easily be taken out of context and twisted by several groups.

The Democratic response
The response was delivered by Kathleen Sebelius, who is the Governor of Kansas. She was calling for action that is more reflective of America as a whole - a more balanced approach. She also stated that even though the withdrawal of troops were a good start, it's too slow and there is more work to be done. Here's a response from another Democrat - Russ Feingold:

"Perhaps most troubling was the President's steadfast commitment to an Iraq policy that has led to the deaths of nearly 4,000 American troops, continues to cost this country billions of dollars per month, and fails to make us safer in the global fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates. The president's policies are keeping nearly 160,000 American troops stuck in Iraq and sapping our ability to address the global terrorist threat presented by al Qaeda."

Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi
It was funny watching these two and they were a true contrast. Cheney was frequently smiling and gave a lot of standing ovations, whereas Pelosi looked uncomfortable, hardly smiled while Bush was talking and was less prepared to clap. She hardly gave any standing ovations either. Pelosi's attitude was reflective of the entire of the entire Democratic part of the room. The same can be said for Cheney and the GOP part.

The thoughts of the audience
Below are two of the reactions after the speech from the politicians in Congress. The first is from Barack Obama:

"Tonight was President Bush's last State of the Union, and I do not believe history will judge his administration kindly. But I also believe the failures of the last seven years stem not just from any single policy, but from a broken politics in Washington."

This quote is from John McCain:

"I applaud the president's efforts to reduce earmarks and their influence on federal government spending. Earmarks and pork-barrel spending steal valuable taxpayer dollars from national priorities, skew the budget process, and have led to corruption among lawmakers."

Those two quotes are further examples of how President Bush failed to unite Congress in his final State of the Union. It was a truly awful performance which had no detail and used far to much tired rhetoric.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: George W. Bush, State of the Union, USA, Politics

South Carolina - not on topic, not much detail.

A few days ago I heard about a debate on CNN between John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I recently watched it on Youtube and made numerous observations.

The Withdrawal
The first observation was the absence of Dennis Kucinich, the person who seems to be forgotten frequently during this campaign. What was the reason for him not being there? Apparently, he has withdrawn from the race after several poor performances in the states who have already voted:

"Kucinich, speaking at a union hall, told supporters who chanted "Dennis, Dennis," that he would work to keep his campaign promises, not as president, but as a member of the U.S. House."

So, he'll continue his work in politics and will stay consistent with his policies. I expect him to get into Congress again.

The Debate
The first part of this televised debate was about fiscal responsibility (which has to be one of the most important topics at the moment) and employment. Hillary Clinton started off strongly, talking a lot about her policies. However, she didn't explain how these policies would be feasibile. The usually eloquent Obama started off shakily and stuttered through the first part of his speech. However, later on he became more analytical. As for John Edwards, it took a long time for him to get involved in this part of the debate, which can't be considered positive. He needs to keep himself in the limelight. He criticised Bush for some of his fiscal decisions, but not as much as Hillary did. He didn't say much about his own policies though. One good point is that he took control when the presenter tried to interrupt him, which gave him a chance to get more of his views across. This part (the first 10 minutes) was won by Hillary in my opinion due to her confidence and concetration on policies.

Clinton then decided to go way off topic and say that Barack Obama's speeches in the US Senate about Iraq did not match his voting decisions. John Edwards talked negatively about Obama and seemed to ignore Clinton, then went to to mention his family history, to give people the impression he understood what they were going through. Obama said the talk should be about policies they should employ, not personbal attacks. However, when he responded to reported criticism that said his policies were feasible, he didn't actually say how they'd work - which was disappointing. He still won this section though as he did try to get the debate back on topic and didn't mention irrelevant family history too much.

The next period was interesting because John Edwards started off extremely weakly. He was clearly sidelined during an argument between Clinton and Obama, who are seen by many to be the top two Democratic candidates. However, when forced into the debate by the presenter he took control and made an extremely strong speech. He felt that the arguments "would not move America forward" and cleverly pushed the debate back on topic. He also explained that he was the candidate who was first with ideas about things such as how to end poverty (this was something he repeated constantly through the entire debate).

The next few sections of the debate were dominated by Obama. The subjects covered included healthcare, voting records in Congress and Iraq. Healthcare was interesting because all three had different policies, but Obama was the only one who didn't want to provide for illegal immigrants. He felt this was necessary due to the country's lack of resources. Clinton and Edwards argued with him about this, but why should you immediately benefit from a system if you didn't enter the country using the appropriate methods? If you then apply for asylum later on and are successful, you should be allowed to benefit though.

I'm surprised Iraq wasn't discussed earlier on as it has been such a hot topic recently. I think Barack Obama was better in this area as he actually got into some detail about the removal of troops and bases. Edwards and Clinton said they wanted to remove troops quickly - but didn't mention how quickly.

Other topics covered included sources of campaign funding, their respective advocates and the voting patterns of African-Americans. It was interesting seeing the arguments between Edwards and Clinton at this stage. Edwards felt that it was wrong to take money from lobbyist groups, but Clinton said that Edwards also did that. However, she failed to realise that there's a big difference between taking money from lobbyist groups and taking money from individuals who work for or are affiliated with those groups.

The questions about African-American voters seemed tailor-made for Obama and gave him a bit more of a platform. It's unfortunate, but as South Carolina has a large African-American population, it was unavoidable. Obama said that it was important to focus on policies, not race or gender (obviosuly the gender issue was focused at Hillary).

There was even time during this debate for several jokes (some at the expense of John Edwards). For example, Obama said it was "a race where you've got a woman, an african-american and John". When asked about whether he thinks Bill Clinton was the first black President, he said that he "has to investigate Bill's dancing abilities before he decides whether Bill was a brother or not".

Towards the end of the debate, Hillary started to get more defensive, Obama appeared even more relaxed and confident and Edwards seemed weaker as he ignored policies and focused on family history. Overall, I believe Barack Obama won with an extremely strong performance. I think it would have been better if all the candidates stuck to the topics though.

The vote
These are the results from the South Carolina primary:

Candidate	Vote %age	Delegates
Barack Obama	55	25
Hillary Clinton	27	12
John Edwards	18	8

According to the Daily Kos, Obama received more votes than all Democrats in the 2004 South Carolina Democratic Primary (292,383) and had more in this primary than George W. Bush received in 2000 when he beat John McCain (Bush won 293,652 votes). It was disappointing for John Edwards as he grew up in this state and won it when he went for election as the Democratic candidate in 2004. Click here to read his post-primary speech.

Anyway, Obama got the most delegates and that's crucial for him. It might give him momentum going before 'Super Tuesday', but pundits and polls have been proved wrong before (Iowa, New Hampshire).

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: Election, Democrats, USA, Politics, South Carolina

US election process confuses the media

After I found about about the results in Nevada and South Carolina and read some of the analysis on the internet, I ended up thinking the following:

Does the mainstream media in the US understand their country's election process?

At the moment I don't think they do. Recently Nevada had their caucus and the following is the results for the Democrats:

Candidate	Votes (%)	Delegates
Hillary Clinton	51	12
Barack Obama	45	13
John Edwards	4	0
Uncommitted	0	0
Dennis Kucinich	0	0
Bill Richardson	0	0

You'll notice that even though Clinton got more votes, Obama got the most delegates. It seems that most of the time getting the majority of the votes means you'll get the most delegates, but as you can see from this, it doesn't always happen (another example of this would be the election in 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush won because more people in the Electoral College voted for him).

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, delegates mean more than actual voters in the US because it's those people who go to the conventions and decide who will be the presidential candidate for their party.

This article in the New York Times is a perfect example of how the media is reporting the result:

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, capturing strong support from women voters and adding a fresh boost of momentum to her campaign as the Democratic presidential race heads to South Carolina, where she is engaged in a fierce battle with her rival, Senator Barack Obama."

Yes, she won the popular vote, but as I've just mentioned, that means nothing. Obama got more delegates in that state and has the most overall on the Democrat side - so he's the real winner. The likes of the NY Times seem to forget that.

There was a poor result for John Edwards, but there is still time for his prospects to improve. There's always the possiblity that Super Tuesday (an event when multiple primaries happen on the same day) could make him the front runner. Uncommitted - that mysterious candidate who did so well in Michigan, managed to finish ahead of Dennis Kucinich, but both got 0 delegates, so they both must be disappointed. I noticed that Bill Richardson was on the results table, which is strange because he's withdrawn from the race. I noticed that same thing happening with Chris Dodd and one or two others in some states - I wonder why their names aren't removed?

On the Republican side, more candidates got delegates, but it was Mitt Romney who won by a signifcant margin in terms of delegates (18) and votes (51%). Surprisingly, Ron Paul finished second in terms of votes and joint second with John McCain (both candidates got four delegates). As usual it was a poor performance for Rudy Giuliani and as each state vote passes by, it looks even less likely that he will become the GOP candidate for President - but there is still time for things to change.

According to this Los Angeles Times article, only Romney and Paul were the active campaigners in Nevada though. I still think it's disgraceful when candidates don't treat every state with respect.

In South Carolina, the GOP primary also took place (the Democrat primary happens on January 26th) and there was a big win for John McCain, which makes him look more and more like a top contender. Even though he only beat Mike Huckabee by 3% in terms of votes, but he gained significantly more delegates (McCain got 19, Huckabee got 5). Ron Paul didn't perform as well getting 4% and 0 delegates (others to get 0 delegates were Mitt Romney - surprising, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Duncan Hunter).

It's worth pointing out at this point that Duncan Hunter has now dropped out of the race:

"I ran the campaign exactly the way I wanted to, and at this point not being able to gain traction in conservative states of Nevada and South Carolina, it's time to allow our volunteers and supporters to focus on the campaigns that remain viable."

The media isn't the only people who are confused at the moment. Recently, USAToday mentioned the following in this article:

"The former president trumpeted New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's accomplishments while painting Obama as the "establishment" candidate who would bring only the "feeling of change.""

Obviously, this is heavily biased given that Bill is Hillary's husband and also part of her campaign team, but the former President seems to forget that Hillary is the one with the Whitehouse experience (as she was the former First Lady).

It was also implied in this article that Bill questioned Obama's opposition to the war in Iraq. I seem to remember in some of the debates that Obama, like most of the other candidates felt that a withdrawal was needed. I also decided to look at US Senate records and I found the following:

IRAQ -- (Senate - January 30, 2007)

"The American people have waited. The American people have been patient. We have given chance after chance for a resolution that has not come and, more importantly, watched with horror and grief at the tragic loss of thousands of brave young American soldiers.

The time for waiting in Iraq is over. The days of our open-ended commitment must come to a close. The need to bring this war to an end is here.

That is why today I am introducing the Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007. This plan would not only place a cap on the number of troops in Iraq and stop the escalation; more importantly, it would begin a phased redeployment of United States forces with the goal of removing all United States combat forces from Iraq by March 31, 2008, consistent with the expectations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group that the President has so assiduously ignored."

EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE CONGRESS ON IRAQ--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - February 17, 2007)

"I will vote today to bring up a resolution for debate that would disapprove of the President's policy of escalation in Iraq."

It seems that the President doesn't have a knowledge of recent senate activities or his wife's CV. It's amazing what bias does to a person.

So, what do you think?

Democrats, Republicans, Elections, USA, Politics

Wyoming and Michigan - controversy reigns

Everyone seems to have ignored the result in Wyoming. This is possibly because only the Republicans had their vote - the vote for the Democrats comes later on in the year. Only three candidates got delegates. Mitt Romney did well and got eight, Fred Thompson got three and the surprise was Duncan Hunter who got one. It was surprising because he's normally bottom of the results table and this time there were no delegates for the likes of Ron Paul, John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani. As there is such a lack of reporting on the GOP Wyoming caucus, it's highly likely that this won't have any influence on the people who are waiting to vote.

So, why did Romney get so many delegates compared to the other candidates? This seems to give a good reason:

"One thing to note is that about 10 percent of Wyoming’s population is Mormon. That being a significant number, it may have given Romney an edge."

If you remember the Iowa caucus, you'll know that religion can have a big influence in United States politics.

Why was Wyoming virtually ignored? According to this article in the Kansas City Star, 14 of the 28 delegates were removed by the GOP. As there were fewer delegates up for grabs, perhaps some of the candidates felt it would be worth campaigning. There's also the fact that the cacus was done much earlier this time. Perhaps some felt they couldn't give necessary time. I hope that some of the candidates didn't ignore it because they felt it was an unimportant state. That sort of message could affect future performances.

This AP article gives the reason why the state was punished:

"RNC rules require the punishment for states that hold their nominating contests earlier than Feb. 5. Iowa, which held caucuses on Thursday, will not be penalized because, technically, the caucuses are not binding on convention delegates. Nevada, which plans to hold its caucuses on Jan. 19, will not be penalized for the same reason."

The states know the rules and they know what happens if they break them. I'd like to know who thought it would be sensible to organise the caucus so early.

I'm interested in seeing how the Democrats handle Wyoming. They've seen what happened to the Republicans. Surely they will do things differently.

Another rule breaker was Michigan, but this time it was on the side of the Democrats:

"...the DNC revoked the state's delegates to the national convention for moving the state's primary to Jan. 15 in violation of DNC rules."

Here are the Democrat results for that primary:

1. Hillary Clinton - 55%
2. Uncommitted - 40%
3. Dennis Kucinich - 4%
4. Chris Dodd - 1%
5. Mike Gravel - 0%

It seems the success story of that particular vote was a mysterious candidate called 'Uncommitted'! Seriously though, the that category had such a high percentage was that John Edwards and Barack Obama withdrew from that state due to the rule breaking. As the Democrats removed their delegates from the state, Hillary Clinton's win meant nothing anyway.

I still don't think that Hillary has performed very well so far, despite her winning two primaries, compared to Barack Obama's one caucus victory. New Hampshire was a narrow victory and Obama finished second, whereas in Iowa Obama won and Clinton was way back in third. If Clinton was seen as credible in Michigan, then she would have got more of the votes from the people who would have gone for Obama and Edwards. I also have to remind everyone that there are still many states left, so she could still lose the race.

As there seems to be so much controversy over delegates in both Wyoming and Michigan, some of you may be wondering what the delegates do. I must admit that that aspect of the US elections was confusing me for a while. Well, it's a similar principle to the US Electoral College. If you were to e.g. vote for Hillary Clinton in a primary, you would also vote for the delegates that support her in that state. When it's time for the democratic National Convention, all the delegates vote for the candidate that they support. Theoretically, you should get a party candidate after that. However, if they don't get a certain majority, it goes to a second ballot and then the delegates could change their support. That second ballot rarely happens though. Usually the person with the most delegates gets to be the party's candidate.

This means that the popular vote means absolutely nothing. Supporters of the delegate system say that it's better because then the bigger states don't always get to control who becomes the party candidate. However, I feel a major disadvantage is that you could have a situation where e.g. Mike Gravel only has one delegate at the time of the party convention and if it goes to the second ballot he could then get all the delegates. This may be highly unlikely, but it's still possible and would reflect the views of the US population because not many people have voted for him (so far). You could also have 'faithless electors', who are people that are supposed to vote for one person, but actually choose someone else. It would be much better to let the people decide - at the moment the popular vote has no legal binding.

So, we have learned that some states aren't capable of following long-standing rules and regulations. We've also learned Mitt Romney can take advantage of candidates failing to campaign in certain states. We also know that Hillary Clinton is willing to stay in a primary just to get a perceived victory, when it actually means nothing to win it.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: Democrats, Republicans, Election, USA, Politics