MiLog

Okay, so Scott McClellan is no Mr. Smith going to Washington.  He could have nobly resigned when he realized he was being asked to lie.  But is his conversion to confessor self-serving?  Maybe, but I’m inclined to say not so much.  After all, no one blames the press secretary.  Ari Fleischer was a much more fervent liar and he hasn’t really been vilified for it.  Plus, Scott McClellan is really no Mr. Smith.

M–, you needn’t be bewildered by those that would be unsatisfied with their own candidate. Your very own co-blogger is amongst them. However, your posited explanation of the phenomenon does not capture me. I am not a member of the wishy-washy center. Dissatisfaction with one candidate does not indicate satisfaction with the opposing candidate. I can’t say I would be satisfied with either of my choices, but I strongly prefer one over the other. Before you dismiss me as impossible to please, please think of the hapless Kerry voter who never really liked Kerry but was quite certain she opposed Bush.

This all raises a broader point about independents. “Independent” is rampantly equated with “centrist” or a “swing-voter”. I am an independent, but I am not a centrist or a swing-voter. This fallacy is the result, I suspect, of a lack of imagination. There are at least two ways to be an independent without being a centrist or a swing-voter. (1) Ideology that falls outside of either party not because it’s in the middle but because it lies at either extreme. (2) A lack of party loyality. My hunch is that some decent polling would show (2) to be especially important (and I am thinking especially of the “youth” vote … just because they don’t call themselves Democrats does not mean they might vote Republican, it just means they don’t want Democrat to be part of their identity).

Not sure that the line “I fought as a lawyer the way John Edwards did” is really so great a selling point.

Rather remarkable moment in Obama’s live speech on CNN at the rally in which John Edwards just endorsed him.  A person in the audience fainted.  Obama paused his speech to direct the rescue effort.  Called the EMTs over, made sure the person has space, and tossed his water bottle from the podium.  Wonder if anyone in the audience has cancer.  Might the time for them to mention it.

How about:

“There are two Americas - and it’s not a black America and a white America.  There are two Americas - one America that does the work and another that reaps the reward.  One America that … <insert the rest of his standard spiel.>  I’ve seen what John McCain promises to do for those two Americas.  He promises to make permanent the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, he promises to <etc. and so forth>.  I’ve also see what Barack Obama has done his whole life and what he’ll do when he’s president.  He went to Chicago and fought for those who lost their jobs, he <did and will do various things for the middle class and (hint, hint) I mean the white middle-class too>.  So now is the time for us to unite to end the Bush era <this that and the other> and that is why I endorse Barack Obama to be the next president of the United (emphasis on united) States of America.  Thank you.”

Clinton appears to have just thanked a woman in South Dakota who voted for her by absentee ballot shortly before passing away. I suspect this is an attempt to shore up the recently-deceased vote before the upcoming primary there.

Listening to Hillary Clinton’s speech on the radio. Thinking this might be a tricky argument:

According to the rules of our party 2,209 delegates are required to become the nominee and neither of us have that number yet.

(Slightly paraphrased, since I’m still listening.) The problem is that it’s the rules of that same party that nixed Florida and Michigan and made the new number 2025.

Also from the exit polls, 75% of Clinton voters think that suspending the gas tax for the summer is a good idea.  So do an impressive 44% of Obama voters.  In other news, economists reportedly make up only a small percentage of the electorate in West Virginia.

One set of the West Virginia exit poll numbers that will doubtless be scrutinized for signs of party division is how satisfied each candidate’s supporters would be if the other candidate becomes the party’s nominee. Here are the numbers so far:

If Obama were to become the nominee, 24% of Clinton supporters would be satisfied and 76% dissatisfied. If Clinton were to become the nominee, 39% of Obama supporters would be satisfied and 61% would be dissatisfied.

But here are the numbers I like. If Obama were to become the nominee, 91.3% of Obama supporters would be satisfied and 8.6% would not. If Clinton becomes the nominee, 92.6% of her supporters would be satisfies and 7.4% would not.

Are these (7-9% of) people just impossible to please, or are they having regrets not thirty seconds after casting their vote?

(One plausible answer is that this is a measure of the uncertainty in an exit poll. This may be roughly the number of people who either answer questions wrong by accident or don’t care and just answer at random. That should be an important caveat in reading the other numbers too, then.)

Clinton is going to win West Virginia.  By a lot.  So what can Obama possibly say?  Not much, really, but how about this:

Republicans elected two-thirds of their delegates in West Virgina at the state convention on Feb. 5th.  John McCain got 1% of the vote.  So, hey, Obama did better than John McCain…