Barack Obama, King of Democrats

To paraphrase Shelley's Ozymandias:
My name is Barack Obama, king of Democrats.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

What should not be overlooked is how truly amazing Barack Obama's victory is. Leaving aside issues of race and gender, what Obama did as a campaigner is truly amazing. He has proven himself a force to be feared.

Although Hillary Clinton did make several mistakes during the primary, she did not lose-- she was beaten. In almost every state, there was record turnout. Hillary Clinton raised more money and received substantially more votes than any other primary candidate before her. Hillary Clinton is like an Olympic hurdler who set a new world record but loses the gold when Barack Obama beats her record only minutes later during the next heat.

Countless Republican pundits, candidates, lawyers, special investigators, and congressmen have spent decades trying to best the Clintons. Yet over the years, they won election after election. After spending millions investigating the Clinton's questionable business dealings, the Republican party was only ever able to prove that Clinton lied under oath. A highly charged impeachment failed to remove Bill Clinton from office or even dramatically affect their popularity. What the whole Republican establishment failed to do has just been accomplished by a one-term African-American Senator.

The Clinton Campaign is a Spoiled Child

Recently a lot of praise has been used to describe Hillary Clinton and her campaign. She has been called tough, strong, a fighter, a brawler, tenacious, determined, and gritty. Since May 6th she has continued to fight on, even though it is nearly impossible for her to win. And while she done some commendable things during this race, I have another way to describe her campaign's behavior: It is acting like a spoiled child.

Most pundits would be shocked and embarrassed if their children were acting like members of the Clinton campaign. What must not be forgotten is that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are supposed to be on the same team. They both should have the same goal: electing a Democrat in November (a goal Hillary Clinton seems to have forgotten).

Picture, if you will, the primary contest as a game of soccer and the Clinton Campaign as your child. They start the game with the attitude that they are entitled to win. When they starting losing they try to unfairly get the rules changed (wants Michigan and Florida to now count). With the game almost over, your child again and again attempts to claim victory even though they are down 4-7. They claim they should win because they had longer ball possession, blocked more penalty kicks, or scored more goals in the second half. They complain endlessly how the referees (the press) are being unfair. They lie repeatedly and use dirty ticks. With the game over, they ask their coach (the superdelegates) to overturn the score and declare them the winner anyway. And finally, they refuse to get off the field and shake hands with their opponents.

Hillary Clinton is not fighting for her life. She is not engaged in a suicidal last defense of the Maginot line to keep out the Nazis. She is in a contest against a member of her own party, a person who shares her ideology and goals for this country. There is nothing commendable about waging a scoured earth campaign against your own teammate. What we have been watching is not a tenacious fighter, but a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum after losing fair and square.

Beat the Pollsters (NC: Obama wins 54% to 46%, IN: Clinton wins 53% to 47%)

Given that Democratic primary has been more about demographics than policy, I'm going to use past exit polls and demographic data to predict what will happen tomorrow. I suspect that my simple analysis could easily beat the large polling companies.

Let's start with North Carolina:

NC is 22% African American. In the rest of the south, the percentage of the Democratic electorate that is African American tends to be between 135%-196% greater than their overall share of the population. The average is 166%. If the trend holds I would suspect African-Americans will make up 36.5% of the electorate tomorrow.

State	AA% of Population	AA% of Electorate	Percent Increase
Georgia	30	51	170%
Virginia	20	30	150%
Louisiana	32	48	150%
Alabama	26	51	196%
Mississippi	37	50	135%
Tennessee	17	29	171%
South Carolina	29	55	190%

It has been reported that 40% of all early voting has been by African American. I read that the Obama campaign has made early voting a large part of their campaign efforts so I suspect the overall AA percentage of the Democratic electorate will be slightly less than 40%.

North Carolina is better educated and wealthier than Mississippi and Alabama but slightly less educated and poorer than Georgia. Obama got 26% of the white vote in Mississippi and Alabama but received 43% of the white vote in Georgia. Given the current tone of the campaign and the election trends, I suspect Obama should receive about 34% of the white vote in North Carolina. So here is my breakdown of how North Carolina will look tomorrow:

Vote	Overall	Clinton	Obama
Africian American	36%	10%	90%
White (and Others)	63%	66%	34%
Overall	100%	46%	54%

Headline: Obama Wins 54% to 46%

Next let's look at Indiana:

Indiana should be very similar to Pennsylvania and Ohio, which Clinton won by 10 points. All three are rust belt states and in all three Hillary Clinton has been endorsed by the most prominent statewide Democratic office holder.

Indiana is less educated than Ohio and Pennsylvania and has few African Americans. This is good for Hillary Clinton. The only positive demographic figure for Obama is that Indiana has fewer citizens over 65. I'm assuming these slight differences will balance out. Given all this, Hillary Clinton should win Indiana by about 10 points.

The wild card element is how much the Chicago's media market overlap into Northern Indiana should help Obama. I think the effect will be noticeable but not game changing. While Indianans should as a result "know" Obama better, Obama should be very recognizable figure to most voters after this long primary battle. I would be surprised if the proximity factor helped Obama pick up more than an extra 2-4% of the vote.

Headline: Clinton Wins Indiana 53% to 47%

The Gas Tax is Great

John McCain's and Hillary Clinton's plan to suspend the gas tax has been called everything from a "political ploy" to the "dumbest thing ever." The only thing it has not been called is a good idea. Why? Because the gas tax is great. It is shocking to hear a Republican attack the best and fairest tax in the country.

The gas tax is used to pay for the building and upkeep of our nation's roads and highways. If you don't drive a car, you are not using our highways; therefore, you aren't made to pay for something you don't use. If you drive a lot, creating a lot of wear and tear on our roads, you are made to pay your fair share.

For years this is how Republicans have been telling us they want taxes to work. The gas tax is fair, because the amount you pay is based on the amount to use. The gas tax is universal; no one-- not even criminals, drug dealers, or tax dodgers-- can get out of paying the gas tax. The gas tax is good because it discourages you from doing something which is bad for the air we breathe and bad for our health. And finally, the gas tax is simple. You don't need some huge IRS bureaucracy to monitor the gas tax. Instead of talking about suspending the gas tax we should be talking about how to make all our taxes more like the gas tax.

Collective Amnesia

On Tuesday night I witnessed one of the most bizarre and amazing events on TV: All the cable news pundits were stricken with complete and total amnesia at exactly 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

I do not mean to demean Hillary Clinton's victory in the Pennsylvania primary. She needed to win, and she pulled off a strong victory. But this should not have been a surprise to anyone. Hillary Clinton was expected to win; the demographics of the state were favorable to her, she had the endorsement of the popular governor, and all the polls showed her winning. As we can see from the image at Pollster.com, the polls indicated that she was expected to win by about 8 points.


Pennsylvania's demographics are nearly identical to Ohio where Clinton won by almost exactly the same spread. In fact, Pennsylvania is older, has more female, and less black people than Ohio. And in both states she also had the endorsement of the popular governor.

Hillary Clinton's win in Pennsylvania was neither something special nor surprising. It did not "raise new issues about Obama"-- all it did was demonstrate that the same patterns which have defined this race held steady. It will be fascinating to see in two weeks if the pundits are equally "shocked" when Obama wins by a large margin in North Carolina like he is expected to.

A Bit of Comedy – Possible VP Picks (Clinton edition)

Clinton/Gore

Hillary Clinton and Al Gore
Vote Nostalgia
(On the plus side, they finally have a use for that storage unit full of old Clinton/Gore '92 merchandise)

Clinton/Bloomberg

Hillary Clinton and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg
I Heart NY ticket

Clinton/Pelosi

Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
The Screw Everything Between San Francisco and NYC Ticket

Clinton/Byrd

Hillary Clinton and 90 year old West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd
A Century of Experience