U.S. Republican Primary

[Diadem]

Yes, so they are unbound delegates. I get that. They are officially free to chose whoever. But they must have come out in favour of one candidate or another right? And they will have been elected on the basis of what candidate they promised to vote for. They may vote someone else, but that generally won't happen.

So just counting bound delegates is a bit stupid. Unbound delegates count just as well.

[Ghostbear]

No, it's not an unbound vs. bound delegate bit, it's that the people that they voted for today weren't the delegates at all. They're the delegates for the delegates, in a sense; they voted for the people that will pick the actual delegates. It's really convoluted and fucked up, but it is what it is. Actually, I guess it's kinda like the electoral college (which is also convoluted and fucked up).

[Diadem]

So they are voting for people who will vote for people who will vote for people to decide who is candidate in an election where more people will vote for people to vote for those candidates?

Makes sense.

[Ghostbear]

Exactly! Isn't it intuitive?

[Diadem]

very.

Even so though, isn't it possible to, assuming everyone of those delegate-delegates votes for said they were going to vote for, to calculate how many delegates Sanatorum and Romney will end up getting? Or at the least if it's a winner-takes-all or proportional system? I mean we must be able to do better than pretending those states have no effect all in in each candidate's outlook.

[Ghostbear]

I would expect the same (they were able to do so for Iowa), but it might depend on the system they use. If the delegate-delegates aren't bound, then it might just be a way for the state to officially hop on the bandwagon of whoever is winning later, so they can say "but we were totes your friend all along" or whatever. Colorado will be a very important state for the general election, Missouri and Minnesota probably won't be, but even then there will probably be competitive house elections in those states, and the state party will want to be on the best side they can of the eventual nominee (looking back to 2008, Obama eventually let Florida and Michigan seat their delegates at the convention; they were all local officials, and he wanted to be able to call on them to be local surrogates if need be).

Also, you can definitely see why the US loves exporting democracy so much from that little bit: we keep hoping someone else will give us a better system to use (just we then proceed to ignore every single one of those systems).

[sardia]

very.

Even so though, isn't it possible to, assuming everyone of those delegate-delegates votes for said they were going to vote for, to calculate how many delegates Sanatorum and Romney will end up getting? Or at the least if it's a winner-takes-all or proportional system? I mean we must be able to do better than pretending those states have no effect all in in each candidate's outlook.

It matters the most to Santorum and Gingrich because their fundraising depends on how viable they appear. More victories, beauty contest or not, boosts the life of their campaigns. It matters to Romney because if he swept all 3 states, that means Romney has dominance over the coastal regions, the south and Midwest. If he did, then he can force everyone else to pack up and go home.

[Zamfir]

So they are voting for people who will vote for people who will vote for people to decide who is candidate in an election where more people will vote for people to vote for those candidates?

Makes sense.

Hmm, is that so much more convoluted from other systems? In the Dutch system, party members usually vote for a party board that appoints a committee that makes a candidate list for an election after which the elected candidates will appoint negotiators to try and form a cabinet.

[Tirian]

So they are voting for people who will vote for people who will vote for people to decide who is candidate in an election where more people will vote for people to vote for those candidates?

Makes sense.

Don't sell yourself short. The delegates to the national convention will be selected at the state convention; what happened yesterday was appointing the local delegates to the state convention and a straw poll on the candidate that the voters favored to offer some direction to those delegates. I personally don't find that difficult or counter-intuitive.

I'm a little boggled at what Missouri decided to spend their tax dollars on and even more boggled that it received any coverage at all, but never mind.

[Diadem]

I'm a little boggled at what Missouri decided to spend their tax dollars on and even more boggled that it received any coverage at all, but never mind.

Wait, tax dollars? Are party primaries not paid for by the party?

[Webzter]

I'm a little boggled at what Missouri decided to spend their tax dollars on and even more boggled that it received any coverage at all, but never mind.

Wait, tax dollars? Are party primaries not paid for by the party?

Looks like, sort of yes kindof maybe in SC
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/stephen-colb ... onditions/

and no in Missouri
http://www.komu.com/news/missouri-spend ... g-primary/

My uneducated guess would be that, generally, states that caucus are paid by the political parties and states which hold primaries have the primary funded by the state
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... d_caucuses

[sardia]

Don't worry too much about it, the campaign season draws millions of dollars that are fed into the media markets. Maybe the Reagonomics/trickledown/supply side theory will start working, and the people will see some of that money in some form or another.

[Ghostbear]

Don't worry too much about it, the campaign season draws millions of dollars that are fed into the media markets. Maybe the Reagonomics/trickledown/supply side theory will start working, and the people will see some of that money in some form or another.

That's only true for some states. This cycle has seen relatively minimal state-focused spending however, with the exception of Florida. One of the commonly assumed reasons Santorum did so well in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri is because Romney didn't invest much of his money at all into those states.

[Jahoclave]

I'm a little boggled at what Missouri decided to spend their tax dollars on and even more boggled that it received any coverage at all, but never mind.

Wait, tax dollars? Are party primaries not paid for by the party?

Looks like, sort of yes kindof maybe in SC
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/stephen-colb ... onditions/

and no in Missouri
http://www.komu.com/news/missouri-spend ... g-primary/

My uneducated guess would be that, generally, states that caucus are paid by the political parties and states which hold primaries have the primary funded by the state
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... d_caucuses

I really love that they don't mention that the reason Nixon vetoed the bill was because those extra provisions were basically stripping the governship of a massive amount of power to appoint officials to certain boards just so that they could make them completely republican controlled. For a party that is against wasteful government spending, they sure put dickery in front of not wasting a lot of government money in a state that doesn't really have money to spare.

[Ghostbear]

So, all signs point to the nomination still being Romney's to lose. If he does lose it, however, it seems his most likely (at the moment) usurper is Santorum; how do people think it'd play out for him in the general election? His big focus is social issues, which doesn't seem to be much of a fit for the current political climate, but at the same time, it's wonderful at getting the bases out (and the conservative base is larger than the liberal base). The few polls I saw had him consistently losing to Obama by 5-8 points, so it'd seem to be he wouldn't have much of a chance, but maybe someone else has some more interesting insight.

[sardia]

5-8 points is within the margin of error, and definitely within any minor gaffes or missteps that either side make make. i.e Birth control controversy

[Ghostbear]

The margin of error I usually see is 2-3, and that only applies for individual polls- when you analyze them in aggregate, the margin of error plays in differently. I'm not well versed enough in statistics* to say how exactly, but if say, 5 polls come out, and they each have a margin of error of +5 points, and all of them show somebody up by 5 points, then that isn't the same as them being at 0-10. The collection of the polls is going to eat away at some of that margin of error- at least assuming they all use different polling methodologies (if it's the same methodology, they might just be repeating the same error every time).

* As per that, if anything I said is full of shit, then those that are better at statistics feel free to tell me how stupid I am.

[Diadem]

The margin of error I usually see is 2-3, and that only applies for individual polls- when you analyze them in aggregate, the margin of error plays in differently. I'm not well versed enough in statistics* to say how exactly, but if say, 5 polls come out, and they each have a margin of error of +5 points, and all of them show somebody up by 5 points, then that isn't the same as them being at 0-10. The collection of the polls is going to eat away at some of that margin of error- at least assuming they all use different polling methodologies (if it's the same methodology, they might just be repeating the same error every time).

You are right, the error goes down. In fact it does down as the square root of the number of data points you have. So if you compare 5 polls, the error becomes 2.24 times smaller. Assuming the data is independent.

(
The math behind this is pretty simple. If you add two results A and B with error s_A and s_B the sum is A+B (obviously) with error Sqrt(s_A² + s_B². If s_A = s_B this becomes Sqrt(2) * s_A. Add n results (with the same error s) and you get that the new error is Sqrt(n) * s. Calculating the mean is adding all the data points and dividing by how many you have. So the error of the mean is Sqrt(n) * s / n = s / Sqrt(n).
)

[buddy431]

The margin of error I usually see is 2-3, and that only applies for individual polls- when you analyze them in aggregate, the margin of error plays in differently. I'm not well versed enough in statistics* to say how exactly, but if say, 5 polls come out, and they each have a margin of error of +5 points, and all of them show somebody up by 5 points, then that isn't the same as them being at 0-10. The collection of the polls is going to eat away at some of that margin of error- at least assuming they all use different polling methodologies (if it's the same methodology, they might just be repeating the same error every time).

You are right, the error goes down. In fact it does down as the square root of the number of data points you have. So if you compare 5 polls, the error becomes 2.24 times smaller. Assuming the data is independent.

(
The math behind this is pretty simple. If you add two results A and B with error s_A and s_B the sum is A+B (obviously) with error Sqrt(s_A² + s_B². If s_A = s_B this becomes Sqrt(2) * s_A. Add n results (with the same error s) and you get that the new error is Sqrt(n) * s. Calculating the mean is adding all the data points and dividing by how many you have. So the error of the mean is Sqrt(n) * s / n = s / Sqrt(n).
)

The trouble with Margin of Error cited in polls is that is assumes only random (statistical) errors, and discounts systematic errors. Polling practices have gotten better since the infamous Literary Digest fiasco, but political polling is still less accurate than the reported margin of error would tend to indicate (though I would agree that 5-8 % is a pretty significant difference in a well conducted poll).

In any case, this early the bigger issue is people changing their mind, not the error in the poll itself.

(Incidentily, there are a number of good books about how mathematics, especially statistics, is often abused, in large part in relation to politics. I recommend both Innumeracy, by Paulos, and more recently, Proofiness, by Seife)

[Diadem]

The trouble with Margin of Error cited in polls is that is assumes only random (statistical) errors, and discounts systematic errors.

While true, this is standard practice. The problem with systematic errors is that you can't really quantify them. Or rather, if you know about a systematic error, you can compensate for it, and it stops being a systematic error at all.

And political polling has the additional problem that even if you could somehow make a perfect poll, that still wouldn't necessarily be a good predictor of the elections, because voter preferences are not static. And in fact the act of polling changes the outcome, as people switch away from candidates whose changes look hopeless (and several other effects).

Even if, right now, we could say with perfect certainty that if there were elections right now, that candidate A would beat candidate B, that still doesn't say everything about an election in November.

[Qaanol]

Well, the Maine caucuses were today, and the non-binding straw poll has Romney at 39%, Paul at 36%, for a difference of less than 200 votes. And Washington County canceled its caucus because of snow.

I participated, casting my voice on the side of obeying the constitution, ending warrantless searches at airports, ending warrantless wiretaps, ending government-sponsored assassinations, ending indefinite detentions without trial, ending the failed, liberty-curtailing, for-profit-prison-filling war on drugs, and cutting out military budget so it will no longer be more than double the combined total of the next five countries—China, UK, France, Russia, and Japan—put together.

I don’t agree with all of Dr. Paul’s policy positions, but he is a lot less wrong than any other Republican in this contest.

[Giant Speck]

I think it's strange that the Maine caucuses were spread out over seven days.

I also think it's strange that the results in each individual county were not released.

[Jahoclave]

Also, it's a poll taken before Obama has really stepped up campaigning. So it's more of, the general idea of Obama versus the highly publicized images of the guys taking all the news stories because they're actually campaigning. It'll be interesting to see how those polls shift once it's Obama v the actual Nominee. And to be honest, I don't see Santorum getting the nom. Unless the midwest and south really carry that many delegates to put somebody over the top, or the rest of the country really gets behind him...

[Garm]

I agree with Jahoclave that a lot of the comparison polling between potential GOP candidate and Obama is kind of pointless right now.

What the recent results in this primary are tell us (well, me anyway) is that Romney has no traction in the middle of the country. Anecdotally, there's not a lot of love for Mormons here in Colorado (and, imo, some of the surround states as well) but there's also a low tolerance for wishy-washy bullshit. We like guys like Tom Tancredo or Jake Jabbs. Crazy as fuck but totally honest about it (/tongue-in-cheek).

In the news, we see that Romney is down by a significant margin in Michigan: http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/13/10397245-what-if-santorum-wins-michigan

Also we see that the GOP has decided to jam their head up their ass regarding contraception (didn't someone admonish me about saying the GOP were waging a war on women?). I don't see how this hurts Obama, I just don't. In fact, I think it does the exact opposite. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/mcconnell-gop-will-push-to-let-any-employer-deny-contraception-coverage.php

Also, too: Mitch McConnell looks kind of like a hamster.

[Ghostbear]

Also, too: Mitch McConnell looks kind of like a hamster.

I always saw a bit of a chicken/turkey-ish look to him myself.

[Dauric]

Also we see that the GOP has decided to jam their head up their ass regarding contraception (didn't someone admonish me about saying the GOP were waging a war on women?). I don't see how this hurts Obama, I just don't. In fact, I think it does the exact opposite. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/mcconnell-gop-will-push-to-let-any-employer-deny-contraception-coverage.php

Re the parenthetical:

1) I'm not a fan of "War on <Blank> rhetoric. 'Cause 'yknow it's done so much good for the "War on Drugs", the "War on Terrorism" or the "War on Poverty". It's oversimplified and misses what's really going on.

2)The GOP as a whole doesn't give a shit about women in pursuit of other agendas, this is the problem, not that the GOP is actively targeting women. Contraceptives are a challenge to the documentation that proscribes their (stated) worldview, and especially to the idea that the act of physical coupling is supposed to accompany a permanent matrimonial status. Contraceptives allow both men and women to pursue 'sinful' acts without the consequences that would have come with it in biblical times. That contraceptives (to some measurements) help more women than men is consequential to GOP aims.

Also, that the bible goes easier on men than women isn't the core of the GOP agenda, maintaining the cultural concepts proscribed by that document is the central point, that women are harmed more than men is just a factor of the blast radius. The GOP is advocating for maintenance of tradition, giving voice to 'fear of the new', they don't -care- who that tradition harms in light of modern alternatives.

3)The Catholic issues with U.S. employment regs are a grab-bag of GOP talking points, laced with a supportive actor that carries an appeal to authority. That the GOP has jumped on it and started humping furiously is not surprising for reasons that have nothing to do with attacking women's rights.

3a) It's anti-Obama, being his administration had to publicly declare how they intended to enforce regulations. Point out that the regulations are the same as those in place for the last three decades, and upheld twice in the last decade during a GOP administration and those GOP speakers will ignore you lest their heads explode.

3b) It attacks the Democratic medical insurance reform bill. Where 3a attacks the current administration in an election year, this point attacks the rest of the Democratic party. It's not like this got as much traction when the courts were deciding similar issues in BushII's term, or in the 30ish-years that the laws have been on the books.

3c) It appeals to the party base with an Appeal to Authority. Catholics and Protestants may not be on the same side of numerous doctrinal issues, but if you couch it as "those Godless Heathens making us do shit against our shared outrages" then it's one big happy team. Play to the Christian victim complex how the rest of the world is out to get them (despite the rest of the world being the minority), threaten their privileged status that most of the GOP probably have never had to consider that they had that status in the first place, and it riles the base and gets them voting.

---

Throw around shit like "war on women" and your accusations are going to be brushed aside and do nothing to actually expose the issues. You may get sympathy from those who agree, but they're going to throw the same arguments to the same lack of effect. It's better to clearly expose what's really going on, not that the GOP is out to destroy women's rights, but that in pursuit of other issues women's rights are as battlefield grass to the tank commanders gunning for other targets. Honestly, I'm of the opinion that the latter is worse.

[Garm]

@Dauric: Good points, all. Thanks. I really ought to be more careful with my language, it's altogether too easy to slip into reducing these complex issues to sounds bites that cover up the complexity of the underlying problem. Saying that the GOP wage a war on women is lazy. Sigh.

I disagree that conservatives are "giving voice to the past" but that's probably fodder for another thread.

[Dauric]

@Dauric: Good points, all. Thanks. I really ought to be more careful with my language, it's altogether too easy to slip into reducing these complex issues to sounds bites that cover up the complexity of the underlying problem. Saying that the GOP wage a war on women is lazy. Sigh.

I disagree that conservatives are "giving voice to the past" but that's probably fodder for another thread.

That line wasn't one I was terribly happy with when I was writing it, I wanted more emphasis on 'fear' in 'fear of the new'. Look at the way the GOP is couching the gay-marriage issue for example, from some of their rhetoric you'd think that teams of 'fabulously' equipped LGBT special-operatives were waiting on the "Go" command to rappel down the sides of every building and.. I dunno their victim-fantasy gets incoherent at this point but.. rewriting existing marriage licenses, bursting in to high-school auditoriums during prom to rearrange all the couples to be same-sex, force heterosexuals in to reeducation camps where they're made to fuck others of the same sex at gunpoint....

It's not like they're actually arguing that the past was actually 'good' per say, but the current crop of GOP strikes me as victims of... I'm sure I'm using the wrong term here, but "Stockholm Syndrome" is the only one that comes to mind. It's like they've been locked in a basement for so long that it's become their entire world, and they've been told how the outside is scary and dangerous so much that when child services finally shows up to take them away from the abuse they fight tooth-and-nail to stay in the familiar basement no matter how dank and horrid it is.

I'm not saying that the GOP has always been this way, nor that Democrats haven't been this way at times themselves, but in my experience as a voting American (about 18 years now), their rhetoric in the last decade strikes me as being built on increasingly absurdist fear scenarios.

[EsotericWombat]

The uproar over the birth control decision didn't happen in a vacuum. The GOP platform has very recently become openly hostile to birth control. The failed personhood amendments in Mississippi and Colorado, the threat to shut down the government over Title X... This is quite clearly a sustained assault on women's health, whether we call it one or not. We might as well call it one.

[Garm]

The uproar over the birth control decision didn't happen in a vacuum. The GOP platform has very recently become openly hostile to birth control. The failed personhood amendments in Mississippi and Colorado, the threat to shut down the government over Title X... This is quite clearly a sustained assault on women's health, whether we call it one or not. We might as well call it one.

I'm not saying that this isn't happening. Dauric was pointing out that using rhetoric like "the war on women" allows people to focus on and criticize that statement rather than what's actually happening (the attempt to limit access to birth control, abortions, mammograms, etc...). I get so angry sometimes that I find myself using lazy terms like "war on women" or "trickle down economics" and the argument devolves into one of semantics instead of policy (not so much here but certainly elsewhere). It's a matter of deflection is all.

[Malice]

Look at the way the GOP is couching the gay-marriage issue for example, from some of their rhetoric you'd think that teams of 'fabulously' equipped LGBT special-operatives were waiting on the "Go" command to rappel down the sides of every building and.. I dunno their victim-fantasy gets incoherent at this point but.. rewriting existing marriage licenses, bursting in to high-school auditoriums during prom to rearrange all the couples to be same-sex, force heterosexuals in to reeducation camps where they're made to fuck others of the same sex at gunpoint....

Probably even further off topic, but I really don't think this is what the anti-gay-marriage crowd has in mind. Their real fears are basically:

-Gay marriage will lead to more gays having children, and more importantly, teaching those children that being gay isn't wrong and influencing them to turn out gay.
-Schools will teach children that being gay isn't wrong.
-Government approval of gay marriage will help spread the idea that homosexuality isn't wrong.

These are perfectly legitimate and sensible fears, assuming you believe homosexuality is a sin, and are watching with horror as your side slowly loses the culture war.

I find it helps in understanding their views to substitute in something that I actually do find morally reprehensible, like murder, or enjoying Michael Bay movies. I don't think people who enjoy Michael Bay movies should be allowed to marry, as they're likely to show Michael Bay movies to their children, who will then grow up enjoying those movies as if there's nothing wrong with that. I shudder to think of an authority figure like a teacher telling children that it's perfectly natural to enjoy Michael Bay movies, or even showing them Pearl Harbor, which doesn't belong in a history class. And I find the rising tide of public acceptance of MIchael Bay movies, as indicated by increased box office returns, to be really scary and upsetting. Frankly if one of the presidential candidates promised to use his influence to work against America's spreading tolerance for Michael Bay's movies, I'd be much more inclined to vote for him.

Unfortunately I believe all the Republican candidates are for Michael Bay's movies, and Obama refuses to take a strong public stand one way or the other. Although I know he does like The Wire, so I'm going to vote for him in the hope that he secretly feels as I do about this important issue.

[Роберт]

Probably even further off topic....

Actually that was a pretty awesome post.

But I think your analogy could have been stronger if the act of letting people who like Micheal Bay movies get legally married somehow seemed to legally legitimize Micheal Bay movies.

I mean, right now, homosexual people can get married in any state, but allowing homosexual people to marry someone of the SAME SEX seems to "legitimize" homosexuality, in addition to allowing them to spread the normality of homosexuality... I unfortunately can't quite think of a better analogy though.

[Malice]

I think allowing Michael Bay fans to marry one another does serve to legitimize a form of entertainment I find reprehensible as something perfectly normal. Frankly the traditional definition of marriage has always been "two people with good taste in cinema" and for the government (or activist judges) to come in and change that would be like putting a stamp of approval on this rising tide of sinful explosions.

[LaserGuy]

I think allowing Michael Bay fans to marry one another does serve to legitimize a form of entertainment I find reprehensible as something perfectly normal. Frankly the traditional definition of marriage has always been "two people with good taste in cinema" and for the government (or activist judges) to come in and change that would be like putting a stamp of approval on this rising tide of sinful explosions.

Wouldn't it be better to have people who enjoy Michael Bay movies to marry each other, though, rather than having someone who enjoys Michael Bay marry someone who does not, and thus risk inflicting their passtime on people who have no interest in sinful explosions? Or worse, marry people who do not enjoy Michael Bay movies and then convince them that they actually do?

The Rock does not count as a Michael Bay movie, just for the record.

[Dauric]

Wouldn't it be better to have people who enjoy Michael Bay movies to marry each other, though, rather than having someone who enjoys Michael Bay marry someone who does not, and thus risk inflicting their passtime on people who have no interest in sinful explosions? Or worse, marry people who do not enjoy Michael Bay movies and then convince them that they actually do?

The Rock does not count as a Michael Bay movie, just for the record.

... to bring that out of the analogy... encouraging gays to get married to contain 'the gay'... but that would encourage the GOP to find ways to go identifying people with 'the gay'...

I don't see that line of thought ending well.

(Post badly worded, cold meds wearing off, sinuses packed with concrete, brains made of cotton).

[Роберт]

I think allowing Michael Bay fans to marry one another does serve to legitimize a form of entertainment I find reprehensible as something perfectly normal. Frankly the traditional definition of marriage has always been "two people with good taste in cinema" and for the government (or activist judges) to come in and change that would be like putting a stamp of approval on this rising tide of sinful explosions.

More like if the government allowed Micheal Bay fans to work in the film industry.

[Garm]

So apparently Grover Norquist came out at CPAC and talked about how they want the GOP president to act as a rubber stamp for an extremely conservative congress. I understand that he doesn't care, but is a puppet president really going to help the U.S? Politics aside, puppet rulers general seem to lose a lot of the ties built up with the rest of the world. Seeing how increasingly globalized the US economy is (the world economy is) isolationism seems to be a damaging policy to rich and poor alike.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/13/grover-norquist-speech-cpac.html

[Ibid]

I'm going to guess you meant CSPAN, CPAC is the Canadian version. I mix them up all the time.

Back on topic, Romney is down in Michigan, but has two weeks to go. Michigan is Romney's backyard, where his father was a very popular governor. Not a good sign. On the other hand, Romney has done very well in states he's put money and time into, and Santorum has yet to face the might of Romney's campaign machine in a real fashion, where he is severely outmatched in funding. The question then is whether Romney will pull his head out his ass and stop being so complacent, or if he'll keep up with the assuming he's going to win no matter what.

[Dark567]

I'm going to guess you meant CSPAN, CPAC is the Canadian version. I mix them up all the time.

I am not sure if this is a joke, but Garm means this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservati ... Conference

[Ibid]

Nah, it wasn't a joke. Wasn't familiar with that version of the acronym. I really do mix them up pretty much constantly, trying to follow both American and Canadian politics and remembering two major sources of news that start with C-hard-P is a pain.