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