Team of Rivals or the Hundred Days?

Much time has passed since our last posting. The students from Caterham, in Surrey England, came to Reserve for their annual two-week stay at the end of October. The seemingly never-ending election actually did conclude – decisively – on November 4.

Since the election, the political buzz has centered on President-elect Obama’s cabinet selections. The emerging theme, encouraged by Obama and his closest aides, focuses on his appointment of a “team of rivals” to key positions in his administration. The term comes, of course, from the hit work of history with that exact title, written by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Goodwin’s book examines Lincoln’s appointment of William Seward as Secretary of State, Salmon Chase as Secretary of Treasury, and Edward Bates to Attorney General. All of these politicians had contested the 1860 Republican Party presidential nomination – all thought they were more qualified than the country-lawyer from Illinois.

Similarly, Obama has appointed Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State (by the way, how about this for historical irony – Obama is from Illinois, as was Lincoln; Clinton is from New York, as was Seward). As well, former presidential contender Bill Richardson has been named to head up the Commerce Department and, earlier, another candidate, Joe Biden, was tapped by Obama as his running mate.

So, there’s much to be said for the “team of rivals” idea. But, given the economic and political problems faced by the country and the incoming administration, a more apt analogy, I think, is to Franklin Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office. Roosevelt took over as President on March 4, 1933, four months after defeating the Republican incumbent, Herbert Hoover. FDR faced the worst economic crisis ever seen in the country – the Great Depression. Largely because of the lengthy delay from Roosevelt’s election to inauguration, the nation enacted for future presidencies the 20th Amendment, moving the inauguration date up from March 4th to January 20th. Obama’s challenges will be manifold – many will center on the severe current economic conditions: over a half million jobs lost in November, the “big three” Detroit automakers teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the ongoing crisis in the housing industry.

Roosevelt responded to the country’s economic woes in the spring of 1933 with a raft of government sponsored programs – a four-day “bank holiday” immediately after his inauguration followed by creation of “alphabet soup” agencies such as the CCC, the PWA, the FDIC, and the TVA. Some of these programs worked; some did not. But in Roosevelt’s view, the key point was psychological – to show the country that the government was aware of and attempting to resolve the economic crisis.

Will Obama embark on a similar “100 Days” approach? Time will tell. And, of course, in some ways the country’s challenges in 2008 are more comprehensive than 75 years ago. Back then, the foreign policy problems of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan were on the horizon but not immediate. Now, the United States is involved in two ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as embroiled in crises with Iran, North Korea, and the unending Israeli-Palestinian standoff.

So...imagine yourself as a key player in the incoming Obama administration. What are your priorities going to be? Will they center on the domestic economy or foreign policy? What should be done quickly and what do you think will take more time? Here’s one prediction: the Guantanamo Bay terrorism detention camp will be announced for closure (note: that’s different than actually closed), within days of the inauguration. What do you think will happen in the first weeks of the Obama presidency? Click on the “comment” button at the bottom of the blog and we’ll post your response.

Good Grief--a Tie???

One of the most fascinating and contentious presidential elections in modern memory comes to an end in less than three weeks. The polling remains relatively close; the candidates remain combative. The magic number in the all-important Electoral College is 270. The last two elections have been extremely close, both in the popular vote and the electoral vote. George Bush, as we know, lost the popular vote to then Vice President Al Gore but won the electoral vote and thus the presidency, by a margin of 272 to 266. Four years ago President Bush narrowly won the popular vote over Senator John Kerry and increased his winning total slightly in the Electoral College – the electoral vote was 286 to 252 in favor of Bush.

Notice anything interesting about the Electoral College numbers? That’s right; they add up to 538, an even number, thus allowing, at least hypothetically, for the possibility of a 269-269 tie in the electoral vote. After much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth, the question would rapidly become: Now what? For the answer, we’re forced into the deep recesses of Article II of the Constitution. To begin, we can say this – the new President will be chosen by the House of Representatives. In fact, the newly elected House (as of November 4), would make the call. But, here’s where it gets really arcane. According to Article II, “in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote.” This means, among other things, that the 53 representatives from California would get together and decide between Senator McCain and Senator Obama. The one representative from Wyoming gets together with herself and similarly decides. California and Wyoming’s votes are then counted equally!

Still with me? OK, good. Let’s take a state like Ohio, with an even number (18) of representatives. If they divide their votes 9-9, Ohio can’t cast a vote and would be forced to pass. Other states with an even number of representatives may find themselves in the same predicament. Let’s move ahead with the Constitutional language: “a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice”. With 50 states, that means a candidate would need 26 states to secure the election. To illustrate, suppose this occurs: McCain wins 25 states, Obama gets 21, and four deadlock. McCain has not won. The House would need to vote again (and possibly again and again) until either McCain or Obama got to 26.

How likely to occur is the above-described scenario? Not very, but certainly possible. Here’s an example: McCain wins all the Bush states from 2004 except Iowa (7 electoral votes), New Mexico (5), and Nevada (also 5). Obama wins all the Kerry states plus the three just mentioned. That’s 269 to 269. And there are several other combinations that lead to the same result. Politicians being politicians, they will tend to vote for the candidate of their party. That favors Obama; the House is presently controlled by the Democrats and indications are they will increase their majority in next month’s election. But let’s concoct one or two more political fantasies. Suppose there’s not only an Electoral College tie but a McCain victory in the popular vote. Would that result pressure Obama leaning Democrats to vote the other way? We’ll probably never know because an electoral tie remains highly unlikely. But, to come close to putting a cap on this, how many highly unlikely events have we seen already in this election? And, for those metaphysically politically wonky, think about this. How does the 23rd Amendment, giving three electoral votes to Washington, D.C., mesh with Article II? Does the one D.C. delegate to the House of Representatives have a vote in the event of a tie? Or not? That’s enough for now – I’m giving myself a headache. Congratulations on your perseverance if you have made it all the way here to the finish line.

The View from Caterham

This is my first contribution to our joint blog, and perhaps an appropriate place to start my part of this venture is with a few comments on Anglo-American relations. The ‘special relationship’ is certainly very much alive and well as far as Caterham and the WRA are concerned, and the next chapter in our ongoing exchange begins in just four weeks time. Those of us who are coming over met last week, and we are, understandably, very excited. Of course it’s even better this time because we have an American Presidential election in full swing; our only regret is that we have to get back just before November 4th and will miss the voting and the result.

You’d expect us to be excited because we’re all students of American Politics and we have a real academic interest in what’s going on the other side of the pond. You might be surprised, though, by how much interest there is among our general public in your election. Until very recently when it’s been dwarfed by the monumental upheaval in the financial markets, the US election has regularly been making headlines. I don’t think that’s just because America is so important in the world, or because the next President can claim with some justification to be a ‘World Leader’; it’s largely a reflection of the fact that your politics is just much more interesting than ours. Those of you who know me are well aware that I’m no great fan of Gordon Brown, our beleaguered PM, but it has been excruciating to watch him in recent weeks. He’s like an exhausted boxer, clinging on for dear life in the vain hope that he might survive until the final bell without being knocked out. His goal, of course, is 2010, when he will have to call an election, although I have no idea what he thinks will happen by then to improve his chances of a victory in our next general election. He cuts a sad shambling figure, overwhelmed by circumstances, undermined from within by his colleagues and increasingly incapable of doing anything to stem the tide flowing against him. In that sense he reminds me very much of George W Bush. They both have a zombie-like appearance at the moment; they are in charge, but only in name; they have lost the confidence of those around them and the general public, and the spotlight in which they once revelled has long since passed them by. The big difference is that you don’t have to focus on George Bush; he can to some extent suffer in silence; the spotlight really has moved on to Barack and John (and Sarah!). We have another two years of agony before someone else can have a go. We could, of course, replace the unelected Brown, or at least the Labour Party could, but don’t hold your breath, no one really wants the job. The big-hitters are keeping their powder dry until after the next election because they know Labour has no chance of winning in 2010 whoever is leader. If he is replaced it will be because he’s plumbed new depths in incompetence and has become not just a failure but a laughing-stock. Over there, you know from the start that the worst you can have with Obama or McCain is eight years, and if they really mess up you can kick them out after four years without having to change the Party ruling Congress. That’s a real advantage that we don’t have.

So- it’s at least in part to take our minds of our own suffering that we are revelling in your race at the moment. It’s revealing that we stand for office, but you run for it; there’s just so much more pace about US elections. Sarah Palin has appeared in a whirlwind from nowhere; that could never happen over here. If McCain loses she will presumably disappear again into relative obscurity (the career prospects of failed Vice-Presidential candidates is pretty grim; when you’re bored one evening see how many of them you can name…). Win or lose, though, she’s certainly interesting! Contrast her with Harriet Harman, Gordon Brown’s Deputy, or Jacqui Smith, who holds one of the top three jobs in UK Politics. You’ve probably never heard of them. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed much!

I recently played some clips of US & UK Party conferences to my students. The American version resembles a soccer play-off match; raucous, exciting, full of passion and commitment. Our Party Conferences resemble a County Cricket match; polite, restrained, well organised and guaranteed to put even the faithful to sleep. There’s probably more quality on display in our Conferences (who can forget Jenna Bush’s extraordinary display in 2004 at the Republican Convention?). But who cares? They bore the pants off us. Our elections are marked by daily Press Conferences when the same issues are discussed ad nauseam. Yours are punctuated by outrageous revelations and personal attacks that would make Rupert Murdoch blush. And, of course, yours really matter; at least this one does. For once we know that it will make a difference who wins. If McCain wins he will have little chance of getting much done at home, with hostile majorities in both Houses of Congress. He will focus on foreign policy and the war on terror; he’ll need to do something abroad to make his mark. Obama will be under enormous pressure to get out of Iraq quickly, and to do something useful at home. Interestingly, neither Obama nor McCain seems to have a coherent strategy for dealing with the Credit Crunch and the mountain of debt. The debates will be fascinating watching when this topic comes up!

So: who’s going to win? I’ve been teaching ever since I can remember that the polls a week after the Party Conventions accurately predict the winner. On that basis it’s McCain, just. I wonder though. There are dark rumours here of worse news to come on Sarah Palin. Her approval rating has plunged from +15 to +1 in just two weeks. Will she yet prove to be a liability rather than an asset to McCain? But when it comes to the crunch, will the South really vote for Obama in sufficient numbers to give him the crucial States he needs there? I have never been less sure of the outcome. If I were a betting man I’d be keeping my wallet tightly closed on this one. I hope Obama wins. Not because I’m a Democrat, or even because I think he’ll be a better President, but because America needs Obama to improve its image in a hostile world. It’ll be much harder for the anti-American propagandists to rubbish Obama than McCain. They can portray McCain as more of the same, but they can’t do that with Obama. I’m afraid, though, that while my heart says Obama, my head says McCain. Just. But I’m really not confident. It is exciting, though, isn’t it? If it all gets too much for you and you need to calm down, spare a thought for us, with two more years of Gordon Brown, and be glad you’re American!

Posted by Jim Bunting for Tom Murphy.

CHANGE? -- WHAT CHANGE?

Throughout this lengthy presidential campaign, the word most frequently used by the various candidates almost certainly is “change.” Barack Obama soared onto the political scene in January with “change we can believe in.” Thereafter, all the other Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton, rushed to wrap themselves in the change mantle.

John McCain, after running initially on national security and experience, has pivoted of late. Now, he and Governor Palin are the twin mavericks, offering reform and “real change” in Washington. The battle, for the next seven weeks, likely will focus on which campaign’s “change” message most resonates with the public.

But, despite the constant change mantra, what hasn’t changed is the shape of the American electorate. In fact, if anything, the last few weeks have produced both a Republican bounce and an increasingly ossified electoral battleground. Taking my data from the hyper-statistical http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/, here’s where things stand. If the election were held right now, in mid-September, Obama would win every state Senator Kerry carried in 2004. Similarly, McCain leads in all but two of the states President Bush secured in the last election. The Bush states in which Obama leads, Iowa, (fairly comfortably) and New Mexico, (narrowly) are two of only three states – New Hampshire is the other – that changed party allegiance from the 2000 election to 2004.


So, what does all of this mean? With the crucial caveat that many states remain close, the bottom line is this: as of now, we could have a situation where 47 states (and the District of Columbia) vote exactly the same way in three consecutive elections. Subject to confirmation through some research (note to my dear readers: help me out here and see what you find), this development -- if it does occur -- is quite astonishing and probably unheard of. A reasonable expectation, I think, is for five or six states to switch parties from one election to the next. Apparently the newness of the candidates (the first time in over half a century when not one of the four presidential and vice presidential contenders isn’t an incumbent), is making scant difference in the shape of the electoral map. Typical blue states are either solidly or slightly for the Democratic ticket and, with the two minor exceptions noted above, all of the red states look likely to vote Republican.

By the way, the scenario I have described results in McCain winning with 274 electoral votes; Obama receives 264. Stay tuned.

Starting Up

Well, the last couple of weeks, from a political perspective, have seen a whirlwind of activity.

As promised in my last post (June 13), we are re-starting the politics blog. And, as mentioned earlier, we’ll have expert commentary on the American political scene from “across the pond.” Look for frequent postings here from my good friend and a real expert on American politics, the Caterham School’s Deputy Headmaster, Tom Murphy. Speaking of that last blog, I’m still indulging in some smirky satisfaction at having picked the Sarah Palin rabbit out of the hat as John McCain’s Vice Presidential nominee. Whether her enthusiastic but still untested candidacy actually helps him, of course, remains to be seen.

Picking up where we left off in June, here’s my sense of where we are, less than 60 days from the election. Despite the enormous excitement and many twists and turns the race has provided to date, it’s likely the final result will look a lot like the last two presidential elections. What this means, I think, is that only about ten states will be hotly contested. If Senator Obama wins all the states John Kerry won four years ago, he’ll be at 252 electoral votes. Similarly, if McCain wins the Bush states from 2004, he’ll have 286, with 270 needed to win. (I should add that there’s a very slight chance the electoral vote ends in a 269-269 dead heat. In that unlikely eventuality, Obama probably wins -- we’ll discuss why this is so in a future blog.)

Two of the ten states “in play” – Michigan and New Hampshire – are blue states that McCain has a chance (but, I think, less than a 50-50 chance) to turn red. Two states, Iowa and New Mexico, are states Bush won last time but, as of now, appear ready to flip to Obama. If that happens and Obama holds Michigan and New Hampshire, he’ll be at 264 electoral votes. Then, well have to see what happens in the half dozen Bush states where Obama either trails closely or is narrowly ahead: Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, and Nevada. An Obama win in any of the first five puts him over 270; a Nevada victory, coupled with the other assumptions mentioned above, gives us a 269-269 tie. All that can be said at this point is – stay tuned, it should be entertaining and exciting.

On a trial basis, we’re instituting a comment thread for Tom’s and my postings this year. We want to hear your observations, insights and questions. We’ll monitor the comments and publish many of them. More soon!

See You in September

As promised, here’s the last posting of the 2007-08 academic year. With Barack Obama now the presumptive Democratic nominee, the questions floating around have no immediate answer: will the November election be close? Or will it be a blow-out? Will John McCain’s gritty tenacity and “maverick” status win over independents and anti-Obama Democrats? Will Obama make history as the first African-American president? Who will emerge from the welter of names being tossed about as running mates for McCain and Obama?

I’m going to steer away from most of these questions although I’ll take a stab at the last one at the end of this posting. Instead, let’s look briefly at how the election is likely to sort out based on past historical precedents. We know, of course, that both of the last two presidential elections were extremely close. If we assume the same pattern holds this time -- say a percentage differential between the candidates that’s no greater than 52-48% -- certain realities become immediately apparent.

First and foremost, assuming a close national popular vote, most states already can be counted for either Obama or McCain. There’s likely to be slightly more than a dozen states that will be “in play” over the course of the fall campaign. Here they are, with their electoral votes and the winning candidate last time listed in parentheses: Florida (27-Bush); Pennsylvania (21-Kerry); Ohio (20-Bush); Michigan (17-Kerry); Virginia (13-Bush); Wisconsin (10- Kerry); Washington (11-Kerry); Missouri (11-Bush); Minnesota (10-Kerry); Colorado (9-Bush); Iowa (7-Bush); Oregon (7-Kerry); Nevada (5 –Bush); New Mexico (5-Bush); New Hampshire (4 –Kerry).

In 2004, Bush beat Kerry in the Electoral College 287 to 251. That means Obama needs to pick up a net of 19 over Kerry's total. Similarly, McCain can afford a net loss of 17 and still win, 270 to 268. (We’ll avoid, at least for now, the fascinating implications of an 18 vote Obama pick up, resulting in a 269-269 Electoral College tie.) As of now, the only state listed above that seems almost certain to switch party allegiance is Iowa. That reduces Obama’s pick up requirement to 12. Watch, in particular, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. If everything else stays the same (a very big “if”), Obama would need to win three of these four; McCain only two. Three months from now we’ll see where things stand and, at the same time, look back on these numbers.

As for vice-presidential candidates, here are my suggested picks for Senators McCain and Obama. For McCain, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. She’s young (44), highly regarded, fiscally and socially conservative, and causes real problems for Obama if he doesn’t pick Hillary Clinton or another woman as a running mate (and I don’t believe he will). For Obama, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel. He’s a Republican, thereby solidifying Obama’s “post-partisan change” message. Hagel’s a decorated Vietnam combat veteran with substantial national security “gravitas” who has opposed, from the beginning, the Iraq war. For those of you who have hung in there with me on the blog, send me your VP picks over the summer and I’ll post them when we resume in September.

Finally!

Well, I’m back in the States from St. Andrews and had the chance to observe, up close, the denouement of the Democratic nominating process. And, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, it ended not with a bang but with a whimper. Maybe not even a whimper – it was more like a muddle.

Barack Obama moved past the new delegate threshold of 2118 (as a result of the Michigan/Florida rules committee compromise), Tuesday evening. Then Hillary Clinton won the South Dakota primary and followed it up with a rousing non-concession speech to her supporters in New York. Then Obama won the Montana primary and, from St. Paul Minnesota, announced that he had secured the party’s nomination. The next couple of days buzzed with questions such as: What was Clinton going to do? Would she take the vice presidential slot if it were offered? Would it in fact be offered?

Somewhat (fortunately not completely), lost in the static was the historic nature of Obama’s accomplishment. A little more than a half-century after Brown v. Board of Education, 40 some years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, an African-American has been nominated by a major party for the presidency of the United States. That’s the real story of this remarkable nominating process that began in Iowa back on January 3 and continued uninterrupted for the next five months. The American public now faces one of the most interesting presidential elections in years – two candidates, Obama and Senator John McCain, with very different personalities and sharply contrasting political agendas.

We’ll have one more blog, probably next week, on the way the November election looks as of now. Then I’ll be signing off for the summer and resuming in September, with my friend and colleague, Tom Murphy of the Caterham School in Surrey, England. He’ll be giving us his expert opinion and perspective from Britain before his visit to the States in mid-October. We’ll both be reporting on the fall campaign – it should be quite a show!

Leaving St. Andrews

My stay in this beautiful and historic city by the bay is nearly over. This final posting looks back on the many experiences enjoyed and memories formed in my two months here. As I get ready to depart, it has become noticeably warmer – the first week here I was jogging in a snow storm! Now, although it continues to be breezy, the locals are out in shirtsleeves and shorts. And, of course, there’s the phenomenon in the far north in late spring and summer, of daylight past 10 p.m.

I owe much to both WRA for allowing me this sabbatical and the University of St Andrews for selecting me for one of their Schoolteacher Fellowships. My contact points with the University – the Admissions people – have been just great. I have assured them that, upon my return to Reserve, I will be an enthusiastic St. Andrews advocate for any and all who might listen. While here, I attended classes on American Foreign Policy and Constitutionalism in International Politics, as well as doing some important (and much needed) work on my golf game. On a separate note, thanks to introductions provided by my colleagues at Caterham School, I was able to contact Dr. Anthony Bennett, the author of the US Politics textbook used in the classes I taught this past fall. We engaged in a nice e-mail exchange and, as well, I wrote up some suggested additions for possible inclusion in the next revision of his widely-used text.

Travel adventures (some of which were mentioned in previous blogs), provided another great sabbatical benefit. Northern Ireland, Amsterdam, and any number of places in Scotland – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glencoe, Loch Ness, Pennan – to name just a few, have found a permanent place in my memory bank. The people encountered during these travels were nearly always helpful and interesting, including, for example, the waitress in Portballintrae Northern Ireland. She was from the Philippines and listened politely to my recollections of two years spent there at the American naval base at Subic Bay. We even engaged in a brief (very brief on my part) conversation in Tagalog.

Other friendly folks included the hotel manager in Amsterdam who had spent many years in New York City and couldn’t wait to go back and Julie, a young woman who runs a small juice and coffee shop here in town. She’ll be starting her career as a primary school teacher in St. Andrews in the fall, a long way from where she grew up in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. She chuckled at my telling her of driving through Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway with my daughter Rebecca some two decades ago. Rebecca and I saw the classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, in the Whitehorse theatre which, I suspect, is the only one to be found for more than three hundred miles in either direction.

While sad to leave this special place, I’m at the same time anxious to get back to the States. And speaking of “special,” that certainly applies to the upcoming WRA graduation ceremonies. I’m excited to be presenting the first University of St Andrews Book Award to a deserving senior at Prize Day. But, even more significantly, I’ll be in town to say good-bye (in an official context) to my good friend Skip Flanagan, Reserve’s Headmaster for well over two decades. It should be quite an occasion.

Finally, looking very briefly at the Democratic nominating marathon, the results of Tuesday’s Kentucky and Oregon primaries were sufficiently predictable that the dynamics of the race were barely affected. Barring any dramatic, unexpected development, Barack Obama’s got the nomination despite much hand-wringing coming up in the next week or two over what to do about Michigan and Florida.

We’ll let that flavorful stew simmer a little while and pick back up with one or two more blogs from the States before signing off for the summer.

In the meantime, I’m off to say good-bye to the Old Course (getting ready for the Curtis Cup between outstanding women golfers from America, Ireland and Britain), the West Sands beach (where the introduction to Chariots of Fire was filmed), and the oldest University in Scotland and the town whose name it bears.

Northern Ireland

Over a decade ago, my wife and daughter and I got to spend about a week in the republic of Ireland. Arriving in Dublin, we rented a car and drove through the gorgeous green countryside. Our tour took us to the Dingle peninsula in the south-western part of the country, the Cliffs of Moher, Tralee, Galway, other towns and cities, and then back to Dublin, spending our last night there in a dorm room at the city’s venerable Trinity College.

The people we met throughout our journey were invariably friendly, animated conversationalists, humorous and helpful. Many, in response to our inquiries, suggested we absolutely had to go to Northern Ireland – to Ulster. A lack of time and some apprehension on our part prevented that from happening. “The Troubles” – the ongoing violence involving the Catholic Irish Republican Army, Protestant militia groups, and the British military, continued to dominate our outsider’s view of the North. (As an aside, don’t you just love the use to which we can put euphemisms? The phrase “The Troubles” reminds me, indirectly, of an acutely painful medical situation I encountered a few years ago. In checking with my doctor to find out what was going on, he responded, somewhat less than helpfully, that I had “irritable symptoms.” Wow! Thanks a lot for that medical insight!)

But, back to Northern Ireland. With a power-sharing arrangement now in place brokered by, among others, former Senator George Mitchell, the Irish Republic’s leader Bertie Ahern, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the region is a much different place than it was in the past. And this time, thanks to Ryan Airlines, I wasn’t going to be denied. Ryan Air, as you may know, is an Irish-based discount carrier that flies throughout Europe, sometimes at ridiculously low fares. I was able to fly from Glasgow to Belfast and back for the grand total of 10£ -- about 20 dollars! How they can make money with those rates is beyond my comprehension. Driving a rented car from Belfast, I headed northwest along the Causeway Coastal route to my destination, a little town called Portballintrae. The 60-mile drive twisted and turned along the coast – a truly spectacular setting. The road wound around bright-green cliffs that hung precariously over the crashing Atlantic. The only nervousness I felt occurred when trucks and buses, large, unconcerned, and speeding, came barrelling by me as I squeezed my tiny car against the rock wall bordering the road.

The day after getting to Portballintrae, I drove to the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh. For a history buff, the park was just great fun. I spent about four hours there, in both the museum and outside exhibits. The Park was really interesting, with exhibits tracing the emigrant experience from Ulster to the New World. It reminded me of a miniature Williamsburg. My visit reinforced the importance of the role played by the Scotch-Irish in American history. For example, the parents of Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun, two of the dominant figures of early 19th century America, were from Ulster. In fact, Jackson’s parents lived in a cottage near Carrickfergus (a few miles from Belfast), before moving in 1765 to the South Carolina up-country where the future seventh president was born two years later.

The boyhood home of John Joseph Hughes, the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, is located in the Folk Park, as is the birthplace of Thomas Mellon, who at the age of five, emigrated with his parents to western Pennsylvania. Mellon went on to found what is now one of the largest banks in the United States; his children and grandchildren became Cabinet secretaries, Ambassadors, corporate executives and philanthropists (as in Carnegie-Mellon University).

My Northern Ireland adventure left me excited -- no troubles and no irritable symptoms. I was extremely pleased to have made it there, and I was pleased as well that its warm, delightful people are finally at peace. After devastation and famine in the 19th century, followed by violence and bloodshed in the 20th, they deserve it.

It's Over -- Almost

Last Tuesday, your faithful blog poster headed off from St. Andrews to Northern Ireland. I spent a couple of days there and was struck by the natural beauty of the countryside; more details on Northern Ireland in a subsequent blog.

But, while there, the seemingly endless Democratic party presidential nominating process effectively came to an end. Barack Obama’s bigger than expected victory margin in North Carolina (57-43%), coupled with Hillary Clinton’s narrow (51-49%) win in Indiana effectively wrapped up the nomination for Obama. Let’s put this in sports terms that students on both sides of the Atlantic can understand. So, we will avoid, for now, baseball, cricket, or rugby – instead, let’s take basketball. Before the two primaries last Tuesday, Clinton was down ten points with two minutes to go – daunting but not insurmountable. Now, she’s down 15 with 60 seconds left on the clock.

So, while the remaining six primaries will play themselves out over the next three weeks, the Democrats have a nominee – almost. Although Clinton is likely to win overwhelmingly in West Virginia tomorrow and Kentucky next week, she’s too far behind Obama to catch him in the pledged delegate race. Meanwhile, according to the highly reliable www.realclearpolitics.com website, Obama has now edged ahead of her in the superdelegate count. Clinton’s last remaining hope rests on two slender possibilities. One, a catastrophe of major proportions hits the Obama campaign (greater, say, than the Reverend Jeremiah Wright issue of a while back). Second, her campaign will try, probably without success but you never know, to raise the nettlesome, as yet uncounted, Michigan and Florida results. Switching briefly back to sports, this time to American football, Senator Clinton needs a Hail Mary touchdown, followed by a successfully recovered on-side kick, followed by another Hail Mary score. Those are very long odds.

Meanwhile, to wrap up the blog’s pledged delegate contest associated with Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Indiana. Remember, Obama led Clinton by 166 pledged delegates before Pennsylvania. She picked up twelve there, to cut his lead to 154 and gained an additional four from her win in Indiana. But, his landslide success in North Carolina netted him fifteen so, headed into tomorrow, his pre-Pennsylvania lead has been reduced by a grand total of one, to 165. His likely pledged delegate lead when all is said and done is likely to be in the vicinity of 135 to 140. By the way, the winner of the blog contest was Rebecca B., who came very close, predicting things would remain unchanged at 166. More soon on Northern Ireland.

The Perils of Incumbency

Bear with me here – I’m skating on thin ice as far as my knowledge base goes. But, nonetheless, let me offer a few words on the British election results from this past Thursday.

Fundamentally, they amounted to a major disaster for Gordon Brown and his ruling Labor Party. (By the way, the spellchecker insists on “Labour” but I’m holding onto my Americanism, even in Scotland.) The elections were local, for community council seats; for reasons I don’t fully understand, they occurred only in England and Wales, not in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

But, in any event, Labor went down like the proverbial free drink. The Conservatives, led by David Cameron, garnered 44% of the votes cast. Remarkably, the somewhat marginalized third party, the Liberal Democrats, came in ahead – 25% to 24% -- of the Labor Party. To cap off an all-round miserable performance, in by far the most important local election the two-term incumbent mayor of London, Labor’s Ken Livingstone, lost to the Conservative media celebrity and political maverick Boris Johnson. Exit interviews and political experts attributed Labor’s wipe out to economic concerns: the credit crunch, falling home prices, rising gasoline prices. Sound familiar? And, speaking of high gas prices, those of you who read the last blog, on my journey to Pennan, consider this. The price for regular unleaded is, right now, about 1.10£ per litre. That amounts, if I’m doing the multiple math conversions correctly, to about $8.30 per gallon in U.S. dollars! Maybe we Americans should quit whining.

OK, back to American politics for a couple of brief points. Those of you (I’m sure you are legion), interested in the Democratic presidential caucus in Guam, here’s an early Sunday morning headline: Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton by a grand total of 7 (!) votes – 2264 to 2257. I doubt that either side, no matter how hard they try, will be able to discern any notable trends from those results.

And, reaching back into American history, I have had a wonderful time here at St. Andrews reading through the latest installment in the Oxford University History of the United States series. The book, written by Daniel Walker Howe, is entitled What Hath God Wrought:the Transformation of America, 1815-1848. At one point Howe discusses the hotly contested election of 1828 between Andrew Jackson and the incumbent, John Quincy Adams. The Jackson campaign made much of the president’s putting a billiard table in the White House; in addition, many of Old Hickory’s supporters attacked Adams’s Unitarian religious beliefs as "heresy.” In sum, Howe writes, “the accusations against Adams were designed to show him as aristocratic, intellectual, and un-American.” Does this have a familiar ring? Like not wearing an American flag pin in one’s lapel, having a fairly unhinged pastor for a number of years, or asserting that, in tough economic times, less-well-off Americans “cling” to guns and religion? The names have changed but, nearly 200 years later, some political constants remain: tagging your opponent as elitist and potentially unpatriotic may top the list as the best possible sure-fire vote-getter.

Where's Your Local Hero?

One of the great benefits of my Schoolteacher Fellowship at the University of St. Andrews is the opportunity it presents to see the spectacular natural beauty of Scotland. This past weekend I set out in my rental car (driving on the “wrong” side of the road) on a mission I have wanted to accomplish for many years.

One of my favorite movies – this dates me but so what – called Local Hero, came out in the early '80s and is set primarily in Scotland. In one of his last appearances, Burt Lancaster co-stars as an eccentric Houston-based oil company CEO. The whimsical plot involves a fast-rising junior executive type named Mac (played by Peter Riegert) who is sent to Scotland by Lancaster’s company. Mac is supposed to buy up an entire town for the company’s new refinery. But…instead, he completely falls for the town, the people, the innkeeper/accountant with whom he is negotiating, and even the innkeeper’s wife. For example, toward the end of the movie, after some drunken celebrating as the sale nears completion, Mac tells his counterpart, Gordon Urquhart, that he wants to swap lives: Gordon can go to Houston, live in Mac’s expensive high-rise and drive his big bucks Porsche. Mac wants to stay in the little fishing village (with Gordon’s wife, of course), memorably telling the befuddled innkeeper: “I’d be a good Gordon, Gordon.”

I’ll leave the rest of the movie to you. My idea this weekend was to actually get to Pennan, the tiny place where much of the movie was filmed. My present time here in St. Andrews actually represents my third visit to Scotland. On both other occasions I had thought of getting to Pennan but failed to do so. This time I made it. Not surprisingly, the town is in a very remote spot on the northeast coast of Scotland between Banff and Fraserburgh. I spent Saturday night near Inverness – the capital of the Scottish Highlands – and got to Pennan early Sunday afternoon. If you are interested in checking out the town on line, go to, among other sites, www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/pennan/pennan/index.html.

The last mile or so to the town is essentially straight down, on a one-car only path that passes for a road. The town itself consists of about 20 houses on one street; the houses face out to the water and back up to the sheer, green cliff I had just descended. It was a glorious, sunny day. The locals were out talking and strolling on the street. The Pennan Inn, the site of much of the action in the film, was closed. The townsfolk were hoping for a new buyer soon. Other than the shuttered inn, there were no commercial establishments (in the typical sense) whatsoever. A poster board with some painted postcards sat on a bench by a house – each card cost about two pounds. Payment was on the honor system – you placed your coins in a glass bowl beside the cards. I bought a couple, looked out again at the harbour, and headed back to St. Andrews.

The drive back took about five hours. On the way, I thought of what I had heard and seen. One woman told me that visitors had come from as far away as the Falkland Islands! I think everyone has their own Pennan – a place to visualize frequently and maybe, just maybe, get to at least once. I was there no more than 30 minutes but the visit will stick with me a long time. And, yes, for those of you who have seen the movie, the red phone booth is still there.

What's Next?

Well, the recently concluded Pennsylvania primary played right to form. Hillary Clinton’s 9.4% victory over Barack Obama was impressive. But, the question continues to be, as it has for several weeks: did it change the trajectory of the nominating contest?

The answer depends on the analytical tool used to address the question. Mathematically, the win produced an imperceptible reduction in Obama’s pledged delegate lead over Clinton. She picked up a net gain of about ten, so she now trails Obama by 156. He’s likely to regain (and perhaps increase) those ten by the time the Indiana and North Carolina primaries conclude eleven days from now. On the popular vote front, Clinton won Pennsylvania by about 220,000 votes, reducing Obama’s lead there (not counting, as the Democratic National Committee is not counting, Michigan and Florida), to about 500,000. Again, expect that number to go back up after May 6.

Psychologically -- perhaps also pragmatically -- Clinton’s win reinforces her best line of argument with the superdelegates; that is, her claim to be the better candidate in the big, “battleground” states in the November election. She and her supporters can point to wins in New York (admittedly her home state), New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas (in the primary if not in the caucus,) California, and the disputed contests in Michigan and Florida.

How and when will the Democratic superdelegates evaluate the competing data and perspectives and render a verdict? The best answer is yet another question: Who Knows? But, given the present state of play, and with nine contests remaining between now and June 3, don’t expect major movement from the supers until then. An Obama double victory in Indiana and North Carolina would, I believe, effectively seal the nomination for him but…West Virginia votes the following week and some prognosticators are predicting a 40 point! victory there for Clinton. Kentucky on May 20 and Puerto Rico on June 1 will likely give her big wins as well. On the other hand, it looks like Obama will come out on top in Oregon, South Dakota, and Montana. So, stay tuned.

Meanwhile, more anecdotally, I can provide the following from yesterday’s walking around St. Andrews on a beautiful spring day. I sighted an Obama ’08 bumper sticker, giving him what may very well be a potentially insurmountable 1-0 lead here over Senator Clinton. Also sighted (not on the same car, however), this bumper sticker: “ex-husband in boot.” Boot, as you may or may not know, is “trunk” for us Yanks. I have no further details to report but it doesn’t sound good.

The Ten-Percent Solution

Well, after six weeks without a vote, the biggest remaining primary occurs tomorrow. Pennsylvania’s Democratic voters will allocate 158 delegates between the Clinton and Obama candidacies and, as well, provide extensive talking points for the next couple of weeks.

Here’s a simplified way of analyzing tomorrow’s results, taking into account both the state of the race between the two candidates and the polling data that provides the background for the “expectations” game. Pennsylvania is viewed by many “experts” as demographically similar to its neighbor, Ohio. Clinton won Ohio last month by 10 points (54-44). Therefore, to eat substantially into Obama’s overall popular vote lead (in excess of 800,000), and really make an impression with the superdelegates, Clinton needs a 10-point or greater victory. A win by less than 10 (especially 5 or less), will be viewed as expected and not particularly helpful. But, of course, even a narrow win gives Clinton enough oxygen to move to the next two big events, North Carolina and Indiana, two weeks from tomorrow. A surprise Obama win, even by the narrowest of margins, will essentially give him the nomination.

Here’s another interesting mind-game to play before tomorrow’s vote. Right now, according to realclearpolitics, Obama has a 164 vote lead over Clinton in the pledged delegate category. (This is just pledged delegates; Clinton now has a 20-some super- delegate lead -- a lead that has been shrinking for the last several weeks.) Take a guess as to what Obama’s pledged delegate lead will be by Wednesday morning, May 7, after Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, and – we mustn’t forget – Guam. Guam, for my Caterham students, is an American territory located in the same ocean as Pitcairn Island, a tiny British possession from the days of Mutiny on the Bounty. Guam, whose license plate motto proudly reads “where America’s day begins”, will proudly provide 4 delegates to the Democratic funfest/convention in late August.

YOUR TASK: whether a student at Caterham or another interested reader, is to predict the extent of the Obama lead (yes, he will still be ahead, that’s a certainty), as of May 7. To play, send me an e-mail with your prediction, as in, “Obama’s lead will be 140 (or 180), (or ___)” Deadline for submittal is midnight tomorrow night, British time; 7 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow. The winner will get prominent mention in the blog and maybe even a prize if I can scrounge one up. Cheers to all.

The Old Course

Let's set aside for the moment American politics and the continuing saga of the Democratic presidential nominating process. We can all take a deep breath, slowly exhale, think of something else, and return to the fray soon.

In that spirit, here’s an on-the-ground report from St. Andrews. This past weekend, I and other golf enthusiasts watched the annual coming of spring ritual – the Masters, from Augusta, Georgia. Thanks to the ubiquitous BBC, I saw live coverage (with no commercials) from my flat here in St. Andrews.

But, in addition to watching the final round of the Masters on Sunday, I had another golf-related opportunity that day. As many of you know, the Masters is the first of the four golfing “majors” held each year. Two of the others (the U.S. Open and the PGA tournament) also are held in the States. The other, held every July, is called (back home) the British Open and (here), simply the Open Championship. The acknowledged home of golf, and frequent site for the British Open is right here in St. Andrews – the Old Course.

In fact, legend has it that golf first got started here, sometime in the 1400s, about the same time St. Andrews University was founded (1413). Golf has been played here continuously since then – two years from now the Old Course will once again host the British Open. Despite its elite status, there’s an air of egalitarianism and openness about the Old Course.

The Old Course closes down every Sunday to, among other things, allow the locals to picnic on it, fly kites, or generally just walk around the grounds. Which is exactly what I did. I started on the first tee, made my way up the fairway to the green, proceeded to the second tee, and so on right through to the finishing hole, number 18. It took about two hours but was well worth it. After seeing a few folks on the first fairway, I was alone with the course and (for many holes) the North Sea. The course was awe-inspiring in a rugged, wind-blown fashion. I got to see the numerous (and lethal) pot bunkers as well as the famous “road” hole – number 17, where, if your ball ends up on the road, too bad – you play it from there.

After walking up number 18, I headed back to watch the final round of the Masters from my flat, a ten minute walk from the course. As I did, I couldn’t help comparing the Old Course with Augusta. In terms of sheer beauty, with every magnolia, flowering cherry, rose, and dogwood immaculately groomed, the Masters course wins out.

But, for history, tradition, and access, there’s much to be said for the Old Course. Golf enthusiasts the world over come to play it (42,000 rounds are played annually). All you need is a decent handicap and a willingness to endure some potentially nasty weather. Not so with Augusta – its exclusivity precludes all but a chosen few amateurs from playing there. And, I think we’re a long way away from the members opening the course on a weekly basis for any and everyone to tromp over it. Augusta is great but I’ll take the Old Course.

Meta-themes

Analyzing the American political scene, and more particularly the Democratic presidential contest, from 3000 miles away offers some challenges as well as benefits. A big benefit, for example: no 24/7 bombardment by CNN, Fox, MSNBC, on each and every minor matter remotely related to the campaign. The challenge is really just the opposite side of the benefit coin; that is, trying to make sense out of unfiltered information available through the internet. The basic “facts” are still available but the sorting and sifting of what’s important to the political “chattering class” and what’s important to the people (by no means the same thing), are entirely up to me, your faithful blog poster.

Which leads me to a brief commentary on the latest rumblings in the increasingly contentious battle between Senators Clinton and Obama. As you probably know by now, Obama, in response to a question as to why white working-class voters are not embracing his vision of hope and change, offered the following: “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And it’s not surprising then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

When I first read Obama’s comment and the ferocious attacks on it by both Clinton and McCain spokespersons, my immediate reaction was: this is no big deal -- Obama’s opponents are really overreaching. Now I’m not so sure. Here’s why.

Political experts have concluded, probably correctly, that the vast majority of the American public pays attention only infrequently to the minutiae of the country’s increasingly long and complicated presidential nomination/election process. Instead, the average American citizen, with lots of other more immediately important things on his or her mind, forms an impression based on a candidate’s meta-theme. To be successful, of course, a politician’s positive meta-theme needs to win out in the electorate’s collective thinking over the opposition’s negative meta-theme directed at that particular candidate.

To be a little more specific, let’s take Obama. His meta-theme, we can agree, is based on hope, change, and unity. Both Clinton and McCain, coming from different perspectives, seek to portray Obama through a negative meta-theme as ultra-liberal, elitist, and inexperienced. And here’s where they hope to (and may) succeed. Most people who “cling to their guns” do so because they like to hunt, most believers “cling to religion” because of a deep-seated faith. In neither case do they do so out of “bitterness.” Very few Americans will spend the time or energy sifting through each and every word of what Obama said or what he really meant. Clinton and McCain know that and are betting their negative meta-theme trumps (or at the least blurs) Obama’s positive one.

The fact that he made the comment in San Francisco (not exactly small town) only days before the Pennsylvania primary where Obama is working feverishly to win over working class whites in the small towns and countryside between the big metropolitan areas of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on either end of the state, doesn’t help. A counterattack by Obama, directed against both his Democratic opponent and the presumptive Republican nominee asserting that the country is angry (maybe even bitter), with government and Washington insiders (Clinton and McCain more so than Obama) and that that was the real point of his comments, is already underway. The battle of the meta-themes continues.

St. Andrews

Well, it's been a long time (and many miles) since the last posting. My daughter, Rebecca, niece Kimberly, and I flew into Manchester airport a little more than a week ago. We then rented a car for what I had (stupidly) thought to be a four-hour drive to St. Andrews. Four hours got us a little more than half way but we arrived only slightly worse for wear.

We spent a week driving around Scotland and northern England before I dropped them back at Manchester for their return to the States. The scenary in Scotland is absolutely spectacular. Our stops included the Highlands, Fort William, Glencoe, Loch Ness (no monster sightings, unfortunately), Dunnottar Castle near Aberdeen, and a quick trip through Edinburgh. And, of course, there's the stunning beauty of St. Andrews, but more on that in another blog.

It will be challenging providing a running commentary on the political goings-on in the States for my Caterham students in Surrey from my sea-side apartment in St. Andrews. Nonetheless, we'll give it a try. The last posting noted the lengthy interval from the Mississippi primary on March 10 to the biggest remaining contest in Pennsylvania, now only 12 days away. Although the Democratic nomination battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clintion may continue to drag on until the final primaries on June 3 and thereafter, I offer here a simplified way of looking at the Obama-Clinton contest. Obama is clearly ahead. The next three contests, Pennsylvania and then North Carolina and Indiana, both on May 6, each provide more pledged delegates than any of the primaries or caucuses that follow them. Given Obama's lead, if he wins two of these three, he will effectively wrap up the nomination. On the other hand, if Clinton wins all three, it will be an entirely different ballgame. She might not catch Obama in the delegate count but will surely argue, with some persuasiveness, that momentum is on her side.

What happens if Clinton wins two out of three (probably Pennsylvania and Indiana) and Obama just North Carolina? The answer in all likelihood: the hand-to-hand combat will continue for quite a while longer.

Friends and Family

This may be my last blog from the States before I leave for the University of St. Andrews this coming weekend. I hope I’ll be back in the blog game early next week, after getting settled in Scotland.

I haven’t had a posting in a while because, although there’s been much sound and fury the last couple of weeks, not much has really changed on the Democratic presidential nominating front. Barack Obama continues to lead Hillary Clinton by a small but significant amount in the pledged delegate column. In fact, Obama’s lead, according to www.realclearpolitics.com, is actually greater (168 compared to 155) than it was before Clinton’s big wins in Texas and here in Ohio earlier this month.

With no contests until the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, each campaign has spent a lot of time and effort ripping the patriotism, loyalty, electability, and veracity of their opponent. Take, for example, the events of the last few days. Former President Clinton opined (I’m paraphrasing here) that it would be really good for the country if the presidential election could be between John McCain and Senator Clinton because both of them would be perceived as unquestionably patriotic, thereby allowing the race to focus on more substantive issues. This seemingly back-handed jab at Obama drew a vociferous response from his campaign. Former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak, an Obama senior military advisor, likened Clinton’s remarks to the red-baiting antics of the 1950s demagogue Joe McCarthy.

But that’s not all. After New Mexico Governor (and former presidential candidate and Clinton administration official), Bill Richardson endorsed Obama late last week, Clinton surrogate James Carville swung into action. Writing in the New York Times on Easter weekend, Carville compared Richardson’s embrace of Obama to Judas’s betrayal of Jesus! Notice that none of this mud-slinging comes from the candidates themselves but rather from friends and family. Notice also (as mentioned in earlier blogs) that, because of the closeness of the race and the ideological similarity between Obama and Clinton, this type of stuff is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, John McCain and the Republicans wait patiently on the sidelines, cheering on the interminable Democratic Party civil war. And, blessedly, I’m heading to Scotland, where the incessant feuding can be viewed from a distance.

A Modest Proposal

A few days after Super Tuesday II provides an opportunity for some reflection on the increasingly murky Democratic nominating process.

The first and most important conclusion to draw is that the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is, fundamentally, in stasis. Obama bounced back yesterday and won the tiny Wyoming caucus. He’s likely to win big again in a couple of days in the Mississippi primary. After Mississippi, there are no primaries for six weeks, until Pennsylvania on April 22. Absent some big change in dynamics, Clinton is likely to win there substantially but not overwhelmingly (55-45% or less). Thereafter, you can go through the remaining nine events, stretching to June 7 and, in almost every instance, predict the winner right now with considerable certainty.

The end result, when all is said and done? Obama will hold onto a modest lead in the pledged delegate count. That lead is likely to be around 150 delegates, plus or minus. Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about. Right before last Tuesday, according to www.realclearpolitics.com, Obama led Clinton by 155 pledged delegates. Now, five days later, after Clinton’s “big” wins in Ohio, Texas (the primary), and Rhode Island and Obama’s victories in Vermont, Texas (the caucus), and Wyoming, the Obama lead, according to the same source, stands at – you guessed it – 155.

So? The battle drones on, becoming increasingly nasty and vicious. Clinton’s a “monster,” Obama’s “acting like Ken Starr.” Absent an unexpected knockout blow, the whole mess (including the Michigan and Florida controversy) gets dumped on the super delegates at the Denver convention at the end of August. Meanwhile, John McCain and the Republicans cheer on the madness from the sidelines, throwing, whenever they can, fuel on the Democratic fire. The longer the internecine knife fight continues, the more the Democrats may succeed at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Which ever side loses at Denver – African Americans and young, previously uninterested young voters on the one hand, women, working class white males on the other -- walks away embittered at the entire process.

Therefore, let me offer a modest proposal. Others have hinted, vaguely, at this general concept but these specific details are presented (again, modestly) here for the first time.
OK, here goes. The Clinton and Obama camps meet and agree (binding, written, legally enforceable language that subsequently gets published for the world to see) on the following:

Clinton gets the Democratic presidential nomination; Obama agrees to run as her Vice-President. Yikes! What’s in it for Obama? Why, given that he’s the front-runner, would he ever agree to such an arrangement? The answer…

Clinton agrees irrevocably, on a thousand Bibles, to NOT run for President in 2012 and, if Obama does run that year, wins, and runs for re-election four years later, to not run in 2016 either.

In other words, Clinton agrees to serve, if elected, as a one-term President. Would she ever agree to this? Probably not. Obama agrees potentially to serve for four long and no doubt painful years, in the same White House as Hillary Rodham and William Jefferson Clinton, building up his supposedly thin foreign policy quals and getting ready, whether the Democratic ticket is elected this year or not, for 2012. Would Obama agree to this? Probably not, at least not until after Pennsylvania, his last real opportunity to sew things up before the convention.

Does this modest proposal have any legs in the cutthroat world of Democratic Party politics, circa March 2008? Almost certainly not. John McCain, for one, definitely hopes not. And so the blood letting among Democrats is likely to continue through the last days of winter, all of spring, and a good bit of summer. What do you think?

And, Along With Everything Else, Now There's Michigan and Florida

First of all, hats off to Samir; he was the first Caterham student with the right answer on the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. He correctly identified the three (and only three!) states that switched their vote from one party to the other in these two elections. New Hampshire voted for Bush in 2000 but went for John Kerry in the following election; Iowa and New Mexico voted for Al Gore in 2000 but switched to Bush in 2004.

And now to more recent events. Hillary Clinton’s impressive wins Tuesday in Ohio and Texas have further complicated (assuming that’s possible) the Democratic Party’s nominating process. And, ironically, the increasing murkiness on the Democratic side occurred on the same night that the more orderly Republicans wrapped things up for John McCain. With Ohio and Texas (as well as Rhode Island and Vermont) behind them, Obama still leads Clinton by a small but significant count in the pledged delegate category. The same holds true in the national popular vote.

Looming closer to the political surface now is the long-suppressed question: what to do about Michigan and Florida? You will remember that both states had their delegates stripped by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for “jumping the queue.” Caterham students can relate to this – queue jumping (cutting in line) stands out as a major social no-no in the U.K. Essentially, both states moved their primaries up ahead of Super Tuesday in defiance of DNC rules. No Democratic candidates campaigned in either state and, in Michigan, Barack Obama’s name wasn’t even on the ballot. Now, with still no clear nominee in sight, the clamor is increasing to do something about these two large and important states with, between them, a combined delegate count of over 300. The question of course is: what exactly to do?

The options are essentially three in number. The first, stick with the DNC’s decision and not allow delegates from either state to be seated. (A variation of this would allow the delegates into the convention hall without being able to vote.) Second, the delegates selected in the Michigan and Florida primaries held in January could be seated and allowed to vote. The third option involves some type of “do-over,” either a caucus or primary to be held probably sometime in June.

None of these options are particularly palatable – Obama would favor the first and Clinton the second. The third, the do-over option, might be a possible compromise but, as is often the case, the devil would be in the details. These would include, first and foremost, who would pay for gearing up the voting stations, election workers, security requirements, etc. Estimates put the re-do option at about $20 million for Florida and $8-12 for Michigan. The questions quickly will become – is any re-do worth it and, if so, who will pay for it ?

Discussion Question:

What do you think the Democrats should do about Michigan and Florida? Tell us your reasoning and we will post it soon in a future blog.

The General

We’re three days away from primaries in two big states – Texas and right here in Ohio. As we await the results of Tuesday’s voting, let’s take a little time to think ahead to the general election in November.

For starters, especially if you are one of my students at Caterham, remember that the American presidential election involves a complicated concept called the Electoral College. This constitutionally mandated process usually -- but not always...see the 2000 election -- produces the same winner as the candidate that gets the most popular votes cast on Election Day. And, as we remember, each state gets an electoral vote total equal to its number of Senators and Representatives. Hence, each state (and Washington D.C. too,) gets at least three electoral votes.

In beginning to think what the 2008 electoral map might look like, it’s instructive to look back to the 2000 and the 2004 presidential elections. As we know, both elections were extremely close and both were won by Republican George W. Bush – in 2000 over the then Vice President Al Gore, and in 2004 over Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. To get us started, blog readers, think about and get back to me on the following question: How many states switched their electoral allegiance from 2000 to 2004, and which ones were they? We’ll recognize the first correct respondent in the next blog. HINT: There aren’t many. Once we have a good idea of states that appear solidly red (Republican), solidly blue (Democratic), and somewhere in between, we can begin to make some guesses as to what lies ahead in November.

Where Things Stand

Nine days to go before the crucial primaries in Texas and right here in Ohio. Two smaller states, Rhode Island and Vermont, also vote on March 4.

Most of the action and excitement continues to center on the Democratic contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Although the polls for these two states show either a draw (Texas) or a modest lead for Clinton (Ohio), the political smart money figures Obama’s 11 straight victories since Super Tuesday give him valuable momentum to win one, if not both, of these two biggies. Further, the developing collective wisdom says that, unless Clinton wins both Texas and Ohio, her campaign will be effectively over. I’m not so sure. Losing both will, I agree, definitely knock her out. But, a victory in either Texas or, more likely here, could provide an argument to continue on to the next (and last) really big prize, Pennsylvania on April 22. One good way, Caterham students, to keep up with all the day-to-day developments on the ground over here is to check the following link: www.realclearpolitics.com. It’s got everything you could want – delegate counts; editorials; excellent analysis. Be sure to get back to me with your comments on what I’m saying or anything that captures your interest on the realclear web-site.

Meanwhile, not discussed as much because it’s essentially over, the Republican race heated up over the last few days. That occurred not because anyone really thinks Mike Huckabee can wrest the nomination from the now-prohibitive favorite John McCain. Rather, the fireworks began when Thursday’s New York Times ran a front-page story intimating that McCain, nine years ago, had a “romantic relationship” with a Washington lobbyist thirty years his junior. Both McCain and the woman lobbyist have denied they were anything other than friends. And, in a perverse, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” mode, many conservatives in the Republican party, initially luke-warm at best to McCain, have now rallied to his side. As a final, ironic point, it was only a few weeks ago that the Times endorsed for the Republican nomination – you guessed it – John McCain! Does the phrase “politics makes strange bedfellows” have some applicability here?

Discussion Questions:

1. What are your predictions for the Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio? Why do you think so?

2. What do you think of the New York Times story on McCain? If you were the editor, would you have printed the story? Why or why not?

Wisconsin's Over - Now Texas and Ohio

In the wake of Barack Obama’s convincing win over Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin last night, we can identify some important issues and answer some good questions. First, let’s take a look at Samir’s e-mail comments, sent before we knew the results of the Wisconsin primary:

Comment by Samir D.:
I thought I'd give my opinion on a few issues for the blog- I really enjoy looking at it!

I think that the Democrat nominating process is fair because every senator, representative and governor should have the right to endorse a candidate and play a part in getting them elected. I can however see the "unfair arguments". Maybe, I'm just a bit biased because Hillary Clinton needs every superdelegate she can get. I also feel that Michigan and Florida should have their delegates counted at the National Convention because it wasn't the fault of the ordinary Florida voter - 2 million people (I think)'s votes counted for nothing- that's unfair and undemocratic. Michigan/Florida Democrats broke the rules but not the citizens of Michigan/Florida.

I wanted to ask you-
What is the situation in Ohio like? Have the candidates visited the areas near Hudson? Do you think that a lot of independents will vote in the Democratic primary either to vote against Clinton because they hate her or for Clinton because they feel that McCain has a better chance of beating her than Obama?

I personally think Ohio will be her comeback state but think that Wisconsin is going to be closer than we think!

Hope all is well- look forward to seeing the next blog post!

Thanks for your comments, Samir.

For today, let’s focus on one important and often overlooked topic: the type of primary conducted in Wisconsin. In that state, they run an open primary, which means that any registered voter can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary. (Many states, such as Maryland, have a closed primary – you can only vote in your party’s primary; if you are registered as an independent, you can’t vote in EITHER primary.)

Exit polls from Wisconsin showed Obama and Clinton splitting the vote of registered Democrats nearly 50-50. Where Obama won big was with independents and Republicans who voted in the Democratic primary. He won those voters (about a quarter of the total vote in the primary), by a huge margin (65-35 or so). That explains the lopsided 17 point victory he scored over Senator Clinton.

What happened in Wisconsin gets me to Samir’s question about Ohio. Our state (and Texas too, for that matter) also has an open primary. Most observers think that, as in Wisconsin, a substantial number of independents and Republicans will cast ballots in the Democratic primary. And Wisconsin is likely to be a good indicator of how those folks will vote in Ohio and Texas. Whether Senator Clinton has enough traditional Democratic party support in Ohio to stave off this likely independent/Republican tilt toward Obama and make it, as Samir says, “her comeback state” is, of course, the big question to be answered over the next two weeks. What do the rest of you think about Samir’s point? What about your general thoughts on the American presidential nominating process?

Let me leave you with this thought: Remember, upper 6th students, when we went to the American Politics seminar at the British Library in early November? We had four “experts” (two former Congresswomen and two University instructors) give us their presidential picks.

Here’s what they said: for the Republicans, Giuliani 3, Romney 1, McCain, 0. For the Democrats, Clinton 4, Obama nada. Que pasa?

Superdelegates – The Impending Democratic Train Wreck?

A few entries ago, I promised to address the thorny topic of superdelegates to the Democratic Party’s National Convention. As they are attracting increasing attention, I guess I should follow up now.

Essentially, 20% or so of the party’s convention delegates fall into this superdelegate category. They are, typically, senators, representatives, governors, and other party poobahs, at both the state and Federal level. (Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman was recently stripped of his superdelegate status for endorsing John McCain – a major no-no – for President.)

The other 80% of the convention delegates are the so-called “pledged delegates” chosen through the nominating process that began with Iowa and New Hampshire, continued through Super Tuesday, and will finally culminate in early June. As mentioned earlier, pledged delegates, whether chosen in a primary or caucus, are allocated by the Democrats through proportional representation. (Contrast this with the Republicans, who, in many states, award their delegates on a “winner-take-all” basis. As a result, the Republicans, not surprisingly, are a lot closer to crowning a nominee than are the Democrats.)

As we know, both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton are neck and neck in the pledged delegate count. With about 2/3 of the caucuses and primaries now concluded, and keeping in mind the proportionality concept, it’s becoming increasingly likely that neither candidate can secure the nomination based just on pledged delegates. So, as time passes, the importance of the superdelegates increases. And, because these delegates are not chosen in the primaries or caucuses, they can vote for whomever they choose. Thus, it could happen that a candidate behind in the pledged delegate count (and in the popular vote totals for that matter), could nonetheless win the nomination if she (or he) got enough support from the superdelegates. Many leading superdelegates assert it will never come to this but, all we can say at this point is: We’ll see. By the way, lurking as the next arcane but contentious issue, what to do with the previously disqualified delegates from Michigan and Florida? But that’s a topic for a future blog.

Meanwhile, and more immediately, today brings a primary in Wisconsin and a caucus in Hawaii. These may (but probably won’t) make things a little clearer.

Discussion Questions:

What do you think of the Democratic Party’s nominating process? In particular, do you think it is fair or unfair?

How (if at all) would you change the process? For example, would you keep proportional representation? Would you keep superdelegates without any restrictions on how they cast their votes?