Mi-ssi-ssi-ppi

Last night the 20th state to join the Union and the second state to join the Confederacy, a state that held436,631 men women and children in bondage in 1860, a state famous for its river, fried chicken, corn bread, breath taking views, mockingbirds, magnolias, honey bees, Grand Opera House, crawfish, folk dance, and large mouth bass, the home of John Grisham, Thomas Harris, Oprah, Morgan Freeman, Brett Favre, Jerry Rice, Walter Payton, Kermit T. Frog, William Faulkner, B.B. King, James Earl Jones, Elvis Presley, Tennessee Williams and Parker Posey, a state still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, the one, the only, the Great State of Mississippi, held a presidential primary.

The result? With 99% of precincts reporting, askhodder.com is comfortable calling the state for Senator Barack Obama. Mr. Obama has taken 61% to Senator Clinton's 37%, 19 delegates to 14. Here is a county by county break down with my apologies for the coloring, I had to make the map myself, counties carried by Obama are in blue, Clinton in brown.

By its self, this is likely not that interesting, but let's look at the same map, except we'll color the counties that President Bush won by at least 70% in yellow. If you noticed, the Clinton Campaign won all of them. Now let's take the same map and color the counties that the Kerry Campaign won in green. If you noticed, Mrs. Clinton only took one county carried by Mr. Kerry. See all three of these maps on the same page

What does this tell us? I talked this morning with a couple different Clinton Campaign staffers who argue that it shows she can win over conservative Democrats, and that Republicans are showing up for Mrs. Clinton. I think they are right about the second part, but not for the same reasons they do.

There are a dozen different polls out there that preview head-to-head match ups, in every Obama v McCain, Obama wins by double digits, and in every Clinton v McCain, it's very close, a statistical tie. I've said it before, national polls tell very little about how a presidential election will turn out, I'm not going to argue the merits of those polls, but rather the perception they give people who read them, the wikiality is that if Mr. Obama is the nominee, game over, if Mrs. Clinton is the nominee, game on (this is generally more true among Republicans, Democrats who support Mrs. Clinton think that she can pull it off and ignore those polls).

It's my contention that last night Republicans in Mississippi voted for Senator Clinton to try and give Senator McCain an easier opponent come November. Possibly even taking the advice of Rush Limbaugh and trying to "bloody up Obama ", of the mindset that the longer the primary goes on the better it is for the Republicans.

I don't think it's going to work though. I think that Mr. Obama has a lock on the nomination at this point, and really the longer the primary season goes on the better it is for the Democrats, it keeps them in the news. But also I think Mrs. Clinton's initial strength is part of what has pushed Mr. Obama to be the powerhouse candidate that he has become, the longer she stays in the better for him. With no opponent the McCain campaign has been relegated irrelevant until the Democrats have a nominee, which might just make Mr. McCain irrelevant until August, while people stay excited about the Democrats.

For more on how the race is shaping up, check out my next post on post Mississippi math.

The Iowa caucus

Senator Obama has opened an impressive lead in the state wide Iowa polls, and though the Clinton campaign is sinking quickly she has somehow managed to hold onto second place with Mr. Edwards consistently showing up in third, just ahead of Governor Richardson. Don’t believe the hype. Former Senator John Edwards will win the Iowa caucus on Thursday. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

In order to understand what I’m saying you have to first understand what a caucus is and how it differs from a primary. In a primary the states votes like in any election and the candidates are ranked from first to last by virtue of the number of votes received. In an Iowa Democratic caucus, the candidates are still ranked from first to last, but each county gets one list, and each list is waited equally. Confused? You should be, it’s a stupid system. Let’s look at some mach Results:

New Hampshire primary
1 Sen. Edwards 32%
2 Gov. Richardson 30%
3 Sen. Obama 20%
4 Sen. Biden 10%
5 Sen. Clinton 5%
6 Sen. Dodd 1%
7 Rep. Kucinich 1%
8 Sen. Gravel > 1%

Nevada Primary
1 Gov. Richardson 40%
2 Sen. Edwards 25%
3 Sen. Obama 20%
4 Sen. Biden 10%
5 Sen. Clinton 4%
6 Sen. Dodd 1%
7 Rep. Kucinich 1%
8 Sen. Gravel > 1%
Vs

Polk County Iowa (population 408,888)
1 Obama
2 Richardson
3 Edwards
4 Clinton
5 Biden
6 Dodd
7 Kucinich
8 Gravel



Adams Iowa (population 4,482)
1 Edwards
2 Richardson
3 Obama
4 Biden
5 Dodd
6 Clinton
7 Kucinich
8 Gravel



In primaries the rankings are done by percentage of the vote from the whole state, but in the Iowa caucus it is the percentage of the vote with in the county, then all the county scores are added together, regardless of the number of votes cast, or the county’s population. Think of it like this, eight points for finishing first in a county, seven for second and so on. Using the example above it would be a three way tie for first place if Iowa had only two counties.

Why does this matter? because in the small rural counties like Adams, with 1% the population of Polk county, the individual votes count much more. John Edwards is much more popular than his rivals in the smaller more rural counties so he is likely to clean up there where votes count more, as we see sometimes as much as 100:1, this little quirk in the system skews polling done on a statewide, rather than on a county by county basis. In fact if we look at the example above, it would be entirely possible for Obama and Richardson to have staggeringly higher vote totals than Edwards but still come out tied.

Got all that? I hope so, because it gets more complicated. To this point in our discussion the rules for the Democrats and the Republicans are the same. The major difference between the two is the 15% “legitimacy threshold”. In the Republican caucuses the voters vote by secret ballot and the rankings are done from there. For the Democrats the process is much more open, because, if a candidate fails to get 15% of the vote, their county is considered illegitimate and its votes are not counted. In this likely event, the voters discuss and revote until someone is able to break 15%. Supporters of the bottom tier candidates are wooed by the contenders to switch their votes. Since the voters are intimately familiar with all eight candidates, and their peers are not in a position to offer rewards, those changing their votes will instead vote for their “second favorite”. Statewide, John Edwards consistently rates as Iowa’s second favorite, followed by Bill Richardson and Joe Biden, this will give all three candidates a large boost that is not noted in the polls. It should be noted that John Kerry was in 6th place in some polls going into the caucus four years ago, but was the number one second choice.

You know what the bitch of the whole thing is, only about 120,000 people in each party will actually show up and vote. That’s it, and less if it snows. Less than ¼ of million people, less than 1/100th of the population of LA will take the most important step in determining the 2008 contenders. Mitt Romney figures to finish second or third, he’ll be lucky if he is able to get 15,000 votes, even though he has spent in the neighborhood of 30 million dollars, or about $2000 per vote.