ScienceDebate 2008 Update: 3/8/08

From an email sent by the ScienceDebate 2008 folks:

All three remaining campaigns have now contacted us and are considering our invitation.  They’re starting to consider what you knew all along:

Any credible vision for a sustainable and prosperous, secure national future depends on a President’s ability to capture the public’s imagination on the major policy questions, questions like climate change and economic competitiveness in a global low-cost science and technology economy, like clean energy and education and healthcare and biodiversity and scientific integrity and the recently released Grand Challenges from our friends at the NAE.  These questions are of great concern to the American public, and debating them will be an important way to win the moderate swing voters that will determine the outcome of this election.

Please take a moment and do everything you can to encourage the candidates to attend Science Debate 2008, and to tell others about our initiative.

• Email, call the Obama campaign at (866) 675-2008, and write to Obama for America P.O. Box 8102 Chicago, IL 60680
• Email, call the Clinton campaign at (703) 469-2008 and write to Hillary Clinton for President 4420 North Fairfax Drive Arlington, VA 22203
• Email, call the McCain campaign at (703) 418-2008 and write to John McCain 2008 P.O. Box 16118 Arlington, VA 22215

TX, OH, RI, VT Results

So Hillary eeked out a narrow TX primary victory, a solid Ohio and RI victory and lost in Vermont (not RI, as I said earlier).

Not only will this contest now continue with both Democratic candidates, but these results validate things that worry me.

First, they validate that running on fear, lies and innuendo generates wins. The 3 a.m. phone call commercial and the lies about Clinton’s NAFTA support are disgusting examples of running a negative campaign. The lack of refusing the premise about the Obama picture and his religious beliefs was simply wrong. Imagine if the tables were turned and Obama didn’t actively deny that Hillary wasn’t a Muslim plant.

Which leads to an underlying problem that I see: Democrats can be darned hypocritical. Democrats have complained for years now about how Bush and Rove used the exact same tactics to smear their opponents and transfer the media coverage from issues to imagery. Democrats weren’t okay with it then, but they’re okay with it once Hillary runs? That’s not cool.

Hillary Clinton is not running her campaign from a (d)emocratic standpoint. Certain states and rules don’t matter to her as long as she gets elected. How is that standing up for the least among us? I think it’s highly likely Obama will eventually be the nominee. What will happen then? There is no credible way that Hillary could help him campaign, at least in my mind. Forget healing rifts and coming together: she’s already advocated to throw that out the window. How can she support his candidacy after she’s told America for months that he doesn’t have the qualifications to be President?

And mark my words: if by some ridiculous set of circumstances she gets the nomination, she’ll continue to campaign like this and run her administration like this. No quarter, no diplomacy. Just more of ‘my way or the highway’ type politics. I thought Democrats didn’t want that in a president. At least, that’s what they’ve been whining about for seven years now.

*****

Here’s one big difference between the candidates and their campaigns: during Clinton’s speech, her supporters started chanting “Yes, She Will,” clearly challenging Obama’s campaign slogan of “Yes, We Can”. Notice the important difference between these two: “She” vs “We”. That’s the way they’ll govern: Hillary wants the presidency for herself and no one else and Obama wants the presidency to be an extension of the people. We already have a president who governs for only himself. Some people apparently think the same mentality is alright as long as a Democrat has it.

*****

Update:

Chris Bowers has a different but important take on something I said above: “This is a bit of a mess. One thing I will say is if Clinton wants to imply that she will pick Obama to be Vice-President, she should stop implying that Obama couldn’t handle a national emergency. That is just disingenuous, since usually vice-Presidents become presidents in the case of a national emergency. If Clinton really wants Obama to be her VP, then she stop offering reasons why he would not be a good VP.”

Hillary likes having things both ways, but in this case is greatly hurting her own efforts to reach out to Obama supporters.  If he’s not ready to be President, he’s not ready to be Vice President either.  She needs to stop insulting him one minute and sucking up to him the next minute.

Wisconsin and Hawaii Prediction

Hawaii is easy: Obama 70% – Clinton 30%

Wisconsin is harder, but I think Obama 58% – Clinton 42%

Results later.

ScienceDebate 2008 Update

A couple of months back, I wrote about an effort to get a debate about science policy scheduled.

There’s been some progress on the idea. A date and location has been officially announced. Now all it needs are the candidates to show up and amaze us with their handle on science policy.

More below.

Virginia, D.C., Maryland Results

Virginia Update 5 (10:44 MST) w/ 98% reporting:

Obama 619,515 64%

Clinton 343,177 35%

Wow.

D.C. (98% reporting):

Obama 85,534 75%

Clinton 27,326 24%

Oh my.

Maryland (60% reporting):

Obama 325,432 60%

Clinton 199,634 37%

Not quite as overwhelming in Maryland. It also looks like McCain swept tonight. How long will Huckabee stay in and stall the Republican machine from attacking the Democrats en masse?

*****

Maryland Update (10:59P) with 69% reporting:

Obama 329,358 60%

Clinton 201,883 37%

With these set of results, Clinton is clearly in trouble. She has lost two major members of her staff, she hasn’t won a significant state in a couple of weeks, her fundraising isn’t the clear advantage it was expected to be. People are looking for change and she doesn’t represent it. Fortunately for Democrats, neither does John McCain. So called independents might have a hard time making up their minds, but Obama is energizing a base the establishment Democrats haven’t tried to energize in a generation. Which is why we have such extensive corporate control of our government and policies. If Obama wins the nomination and the election, I hope he begins to challenge that power structure.

*****

Maryland Update (11:39P) with 81% reporting:

Obama 391,302 61%

Clinton 235,285 36%

It gets better and better. Another question: will the Obama camp let the Clinton camp control the message on these results? “He was expected to win, there’s nothing to see here…” Additionally, will CNN and the rest of the corporate stenographers finally acknowledge the actual results as they stand, not as they want them to stand?

*****

Virginia Update 6 (9:05 MST) w/ 99% reporting:

Obama 623,141 64%

Clinton 347,252 35%

D.C. (98% reporting):

Obama 85,534 75%

Clinton 27,326 24%

Maryland (95% reporting):

Obama 457,053 60%

Clinton 277,941 37%

Early Virginia Results

CNN has already called it for Obama. Actually, it looks like they called it right after the polls closed. I wish they’d stop doing that. It sets a bad precedent come November. Some media outlet will make a stupid call that will have to be reversed later on. It doesn’t do anybody any good.

Anyway, here’s where things stand with 5% reporting:

Obama 63%

Clinton 36%

*****

Update 1 (5:47 MST) w/ 13% reporting:

Obama 52,116 60%

Clinton 33,351 39%

FYI – Polls close in D.C. and Maryland in about 10 minutes.

*****

Update 2 (6:02 MST) w/ 26% reporting:

Obama 123,767 63%

Clinton 74,570 37%

The polls in Maryland might not close for another half-an-hour.

*****

Update 3 (6:32 MST) w/ 60% reporting:

Obama 251,337 62%

Clinton 152,673 37%

Looks like this one is pretty much done. No results from Maryland yet – polls open until 7:30MST. D.C. results are starting to be processed.

*****

Update 4 (6:52 MST) w/ 75% reporting:

Obama 352,081 64%

Clinton 191,160 35%

These are amazing numbers when you consider McCain leads the Republican vote with 106,010 and Huckabee is currently second with 98,586 votes.  Combined, they have more than Clinton.  Which side is motivated?

Still no word from D.C.  Not sure if their polls are being kept open longer to allow those in line to vote.

With that, I’m going to step away for a couple of hours.  I have a hockey game to watch and there’s no internet access.    I’ll post more when I get back.

D.C., Maryland, Virginia contests today

• D.C. (15 pledged delegates): Obama 63%–27% Clinton, according to the only poll.
• Maryland (70 pledged delegates): Obama 54.2%–34.0% Clinton, across six polls.
• Virginia (83 pledged delegates): Obama 54.5%–36.8% Clinton, across six polls.

The current pledged delegate count (no unpledged!) stands at Obama 1,019, Clinton 937.

Earlier, I predicted the following:

Maryland – Obama (2-1)

D.C. – Obama (2-1)

Virginia – Obama (2-1)

I’m ready to adjust those initial guesses.

Maryland: O-59%, C-41%.

D.C.: O-64%, C-36%.

Virginia: O-57%, C-43%.

If these contests are anything like the most recent batch, Obama will continue to do very well, better than my predictions. How will the Clinton’s camp assault on MSNBC’s David Shuster play into this?

Obama does well in Maine

Caucus-goers in Maine came out in support of Barack Obama this weekend. Numbers-wise, I guess I’m not the greatest at predicting which Democratic candidate will win. Although in my defense, I knew absolutely nothing about the Virgin Islands. But I did predict Clinton would win in Maine and that has not happened.

Instead, Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton by about 59% – 41%. The delegate count ended up something like 16-9. With the updated numbers I had this morning from yesterday’s results, this weekend shaped up like this:

Obama swept Washington, Louisiana, Nebraska, the Virgin Islands and Maine. Probable delegate numbers? Obama 116 – Clinton 67. Not too shabby.

In related news, Hillary Clinton has let go of her campaign manager Patii Solis Doyle and replaced her with Maggie Williams. The Clinton camp is also trying to tamp down expectations of Obama’s predicted performance the remainder of this month. They are trying to build expectations for Clinton’s performance in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.

I think the narrative on the Democratic side is changing. Barack definitely has the momentum right now. Positive results should translate into additional fund-raising and more headlines. His campaign can of course stop itself if he or a staffer does something stupid.

A big question mark is the economy, I think. Does Barack do well with his change meme? Or does Hillary do well because of the perceived good times of the 1990′s? Both of them do well versus McCain or Huckabee, of course. Conservative economics brought us to this point – I can’t imagine too many people outside of the 30% dead-ender crowd are too excited about continuing their failing policies.

2/9/08 Caucus/Primary results

The following were my predictions on Friday and how they candidates fared (as of this morning):

Washington – Obama, not 2-1; Obama 68% – Clinton 31%, which was 2-1

Louisiana – Obama, 2-1; Obama 57% -Clinton 36 %, which was not 2-1

Nebraska – Obama, 2-1; Obama 68% -Clinton 32%, which was 2-1

Virgin Islands – Clinton (not 2-1); Obama 90% – Clinton 10%, which was way more than 2-1

*****So how’s my rough estimate of delegates holding up (since I didn’t do any more analysis or guessing after the initial post)?

Predicted Obama: 52+37+16=105

Predicted Clinton: 26+19+8=53

Estimated actual Obama: 35+33+16=84

Estimated actual Clinton: 15+22+8=45

Note all the delegates haven’t been assigned yet, but the broader pattern seems to agree with my predictions.

So what about the rest of the predicted states? I’m going to shift some numbers. My original guesses:

Maine – Clinton (not 2-1)

Maryland – Obama (2-1)

D.C. – Obama (2-1)

Virginia – Obama (2-1)

I think Clinton will likely win Maine, but by 53-46. Obama will carry Maryland 65-35, D.C. by 70-30 and Virginia 68-32. Let’s see how these pan out.

*****

Update: A few internet sources have delegate counts like this:

Washington– Obama 52, Clinton 26 (different than the 35-15 I listed above)

Nebraska– Obama 16, Clinton 8

Louisiana– Obama 32, Clinton 24

Thus the totals from yesterday could be: Obama 100 – Clinton 58

Obama’s take in Louisiana could be larger.  Official results will be available later this week.

Next set of caucuses/primaries

Chris Bowers at OpenLeft has a set of predictions for the next week’s worth of contests.

My predictions:

Washington – Obama (not 2-1)

Louisiana – Obama (2-1)

Nebraska – Obama (2-1)

Virgin Islands – Clinton (not 2-1)

Maine – Clinton (not 2-1)

Maryland – Obama (2-1)

D.C. – Obama (2-1)

Virginia – Obama (2-1)

*****

Here’s my first, rough estimate of possible delegate splits:

Obama: 52+37+16+3+8+47+10+55=278

Clinton: 26+19+8+6+16+23+5+28=131

These are 2-1 splits, so the numbers are off some.  I wanted to get something written down that I can work from as we move forward.