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Earlier today, a Nevada district judge rejected the lawsuit trying to shut down the “at-large” caucuses that will take place in Vegas hotels this Saturday.
(Quick background: The suit was filed by the Nevada State Education Association, whose leadership includes some prominent Hillary supporters. The Obama campaign questioned the timing of the suit, given that most people expected to participate in the at-large caucuses are culinary workers whose union endorsed Obama last week. More here.)
Hillary’s camp responded to today’s decision: “Make no mistake—the current system that inhibits some shift workers from being able to participate, while allowing others to do so, would seem to benefit other campaigns. More importantly it is unfair.”
But is it? Lots of observers have tried to parse through what, exactly, these at-large caucuses mean for the election. Some say that at-large caucus-goers there will have 10 times the influence of anyone else. Others, Bill Clinton included, say it’s five times the influence. Or do they have more influence at all?
To answer these questions, I had Bill Buck from the Nevada Democratic Party walk me through the math.
According to Buck, the notion that at-large caucus-goers will have more power than statewide caucus-goers is wrong, except in the example advanced in the lawsuit, which assumes extremely high turnout in the regular precincts and almost no one showing up in the at-large precincts.
The perceived disparity arises because of how delegates are allocated. Statewide, precincts are given one delegate for every 50 registered Democrats. So, no matter how many people turn out, the number of Democratic delegates statewide will be about 10,000.
In the at-large precincts, the number of delegates allotted depends on turnout: If turnout is lower than 400, divide the number of people who show up by five to get the number of delegates. If 401 to 600 show up, divide it by eight. If 601 to 800 show up, divide it by 10. And so on, until you get to more than 4,000 people, in which case you divide by 50. No matter what, the number of delegates will hover around 80, with a maximum of 93.
Presuming only 400 people show up to an at-large caucus—an extremely low turnout, Buck says—then that precinct will get 80 delegates, or one delegate for every five people.
Statewide, meanwhile, say 70,000 people turn out—a high estimate, but very possible, given that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire turned out in such high numbers. Remember that there are about 10,000 delegates to be allotted statewide (not including at-large precincts). That means there would be about one delegate for every six or seven caucus-goers.
Even in this extreme case of high turnout statewide and low turnout in at-large caucuses, the disparity between the caucus-goers’ influence—5-to-1 as opposed to 7-to-1—isn’t huge. In all likelihood, the reality will be somewhere in between. Either way, the at-large caucus system doesn't seem to merit the alarmist response it's received. (That said, it's true that the at-large caucuses could give Obama a 5 percent or 6 percent advantage in delegates if turnout there is overwhelmingly pro-Obama.)
So, why does Bill Clinton say that at-large caucus-goers would have five times as much influence as others? My guess is he’s comparing the 5-to-1 ratio (calculated above) with the 50-to-1 ratio among other precincts. But this doesn’t take into account the fact that not all registered Democrats turn out for caucuses. In fact, very few do. (Some Iowa estimates predicted 17 percent turnout among eligible caucus-goers.) That means that while there's only one delegate per 50 registered Democratic voters, the ratio of delegates to actual caucus-goers will be much higher.
Better at math than me? All feedback welcome.
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In a rare occurrence, I visited Duncan Hunter's Web site today to see if it still hadn't been updated in months. Surprisingly, it had. By a hacker.
In the scrolling news marquee, a team of hackers who go by the handles clientcode, undertaker, and theghost left a message for all of Hunter's American fans: "Kiss You Babyyy yeahhh (:"
Is that the best they could come up with? How about, "Duncan Hunter is a one-delegate farce," "Duncan Hunter supports an Iraq war that's killed hundreds of thousands of people," or "Duncan Hunter, you're a God-fearing slimeball. Drop out of the race." If you're going to hack the man's site, at least do it with a little panache.
This isn't the first time Hunter's site has been hacked, according to campaign manager Roy Tyler. He told me that a few days ago, Turkish hackers got into the site and left a message in Arabic that blasted Hunter for his pro-Iraq record. It was also hacked about a year ago. Tyler said the campaign expected to be a hacker target, so they took extra security precautions, but to no avail. When I called, Tyler said the campaign was unaware of the latest hack, but I later found out his tech team was already on it, and it was fixed it a few minutes later.
Trailhead found people on the Internet bragging about the hack that occurred earlier this week. A hacker congregation site, Turk-h.org, seems to suggest that someone going by "ayyildiz" attacked the site because of "politik sebepler" or "political causes" (according to a Turkish-English translation done by a friend). But it looks like different hackers (clientcode, undertaker, and theghost) got into the site this time. If my very uneducated assumptions are correct, it looks like ayyildiz is a prolific hacker, defacing over a thousand sites according to his profile on turk-h.org. The names "clientcode" and "undertaker" also appear frequently on various hacker forums.
But of all the sites on the Internet, ayyildiz picked Hunter's to defame. He now joins the illustrious ranks of topsexxxlinks.com and turtle-pictures.de. But look on the brightside, at least somebody somebody cares about Hunter's political beliefs.
With Chris Wilson.
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At times during Sen. Patrick Leahy's endorsement of Barack Obama today, he sounded like he was endorsing Hillary Clinton. Leahy focused much of his praise on Obama's ability to restore America's reputation around the world, which is a usual talking point for Obama endorsers. But one of Leahy's lines evoked Clinton's brand of change as much as Obama's. From the press release:
Barack Obama represents the America we once were and want to be again. ... Barack Obama will be a President who once again believes, "Yes, we can."
Note Leahy's word choice here. We're not creating a new America, we're returning to the America we used to be, presumably before President Bush took office. Obama won't be a new kind of president, he'll be the kind of president we used to have, like, say, back in the Clinton years. That sounds pretty similar to the kind of change Hillary Clinton markets.
As much as Obama needs support from the Senate establishment, he also runs the risk of dooming his change message. The always snappy and candid Leahy is a great pick-up for Obama, but his mind-set seems to be stuck in the '90s, which would be fine if Obama weren't running against the ‘90s' first lady.
But there's a trade-off. Leahy also has the political savvy to offer one-liners that eloquently encompass entire candidacies. From the conference call:
We need a president who can reintroduce America to the world and also reintroduce America to ourselves.
A "reintroduction to ourselves" is about as Obama-esque as it gets.
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Should Mike Huckabee really be talking about eating fried
squirrels when his son once faced allegations for hanging a dog?
You don’t want PETA on your case, Mike. They make the Club
for Growth look like amateurs.
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With the results from Michigan tallied, Trailhead reader Audrey Provenzano has caught up with front-runner Larry Krajeski to tie for the lead with 17 of a possible 21 points in our Primary Pool. Provenzano was one of 14 contestants to correctly predict the top three Republican finishers in the Michigan primary in the correct order.
“I knew he had a lot of family ties there,” Provenzano says of Romney’s win in Michigan. But make no mistake: Romney's success has not changed her opinion of the former Massachusetts governor. “He’s a complete schmuck and I really dislike him. The only thing consistent about him is his egotism and ambition.”
Provenzano, an Obama supporter and Wellesley graduate (like Hillary Clinton) who is now in medical school at Yale, predicts that Mike Huckabee’s make-or-break moment will be in South Carolina. While she now expects that McCain will win the state—though she originally chose Huckabee—she says the former Arkansas governor needs a strong second-place finish to propel him through Super Duper Tuesday on Feb. 5.
As for the Nevada caucus this Saturday, Provenzano predicts Obama will win the state, followed by Clinton and then Edwards. But as she says, “Nevada is kind of dicey. No one knows what will happen.”
While many readers have 16 points, the honorable mention goes to Paul Stenbjorn, the only entrant who has a perfect record in the Republican primary. Stenbjorn currently has 15 points.
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We knew the Clintons would make him do it. BET founder Bob Johnson finally sent Barack Obama an apology for his comments alluding to Obama’s past drug use. According to someone familiar with the matter, the media got its hands on the letter before the campaign even received it:
Dear Barack,
I'm writing to apologize to you and your family personally for the un-called-for comments I made at a recent Clinton event. In my zeal to support Senator Clinton, I made some very inappropriate remarks for which I am truly sorry. I hope that you will accept this apology. Good luck on the campaign trail.
Warm regards,
Bob Johnson
Slate staff writer and friend of the blog Tim Noah sends along an earlier draft he came across while digging through Johnson's trash on an unrelated assignment:
Dear Sidney Barack,
I'm writing to apologize to you and your family personally for the un-called-for comments I made at a recent Clinton event--you know, the ones I made about your drug use, as documented in YOUR OWN DAMN BOOK. In my zeal to support Senator Clinton, I made some very inappropriate remarks about your ingestion of WEED and BLOW for which I am truly sorry. I hope that you will accept this apology. Good luck on the campaign trail, and good luck staying clean and sober.
One day at a time, baby,
Bob Johnson
P.S. Now, shouldn't Johnson also apologize for his mendacious claim that he was talking about Obama's days as a community organizer? Because if that's actually what he was referring to, why should he need to apologize in the first place?
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Lynn Sweet makes a scene over Barack “transparency” Obama not releasing more info in his public schedule:
Last week, after I and some other reporters raised a fuss, the Obama campaign decided to disclose events held in places they deemed "public" and let a pool reporter in to cover. That is laudable. But not enough. For example, today Obama is going to Pacific Palisades--near Los Angeles--for a high dollar elite donor fund-raising event, and the campaign did not deem it worth to put on his "public schedule."
As Sweet has pointed out before, Obama has no problems announcing low-dollar events—it’s the big bucks shindigs that don’t quite fit his man-of-the-people image. In everybody’s favorite formulation: If he won’t disclose his fund-raising events, how can we expect him to disclose his shady White House dealings?
Raising a fuss is what Sweet does best. The first time I saw her, she was berating a Hillary advance person at a sheet metal factory in Las Vegas for refusing to hold a press availability. It was marvelous. The other journalists shrank while Sweet chewed out the staffer. It was like good reporter/bad reporter. (Other, better accounts of this moment here and here.) There was no avail in the end, but not for lack of badgering.