March 4 Primaries

Caucus results from Texas are not in yet, but we can draw a few conclusions already.

The first, and most important, is that Clinton survives and this thing is almost certainly going to the convention (which will make it an unconventional convention).

Good news for Obama is that Hillary did not win very big. She won Ohio by about ten points, and, based on the numbers I ran last night, looks to pick up 77 of the 141 delegates that were at stake there, for a net gain of 13 (UPDATE: it looks like I had initially reversed the results of one congressional district and Obama made barely enough late gains in another (12 and 19, respectively, I believe) that Hillary only received 75 out of 141 for a net gain of 9). Earlier in the night, people were talking about a gain in the 22-24 range. Hillary won the Texas primary, but not by a huge margin, and the delegate breakdown appears to be 65-61. It looks like Obama will win the caucus, and there's a good chance that his delegate margin will cancel out Hillary's margin from the primary (and possibly the net benefit for Hillary that came from her winning Rhode Island and Obama winning Vermont). So, final breakdown, Hillary gains about those 13 from Ohio, which is not much of a gain at all.

All the news sources will report that Obama still leads the delegate count, and especially the pledged delegate count. However, they neglect to mention that this is only if Michigan and Florida are not counted. When they are counted, Hillary leads in delegates, and she still leads in delegates when all the "uncommitted" delegates from Michigan are added to Obama's column (and it does not strike me as unlikely that at least a few of those will go Hillary's way). True, the current rules bar the entire delegations of Florida and Michigan from the convention, but that would be, shall we say, messy.

The way I see it, the nomination hinges on what happens with Florida and Michigan. If they are seated in full with the results of their respective January primaries, Hillary wins. If they're barred, Obama wins, and wins ugly (and to think of all the talk about Hillary winning ugly). A revote is something of a wild card. I could see Florida shaking out similarly to how it did, but Michigan seems likely to swing Obama's way, or at least move a bit in his direction, unless voters there are disgruntled about him removing his name from the ballot. Moreover, in Michigan, crossover voting is allowed, so a revote could allow people to vote in both the Republican primary (in January) and the Democrat one whenever the do-over is held. I heard about a DNC offer to pay for a new primary or caucus in Florida (I forget which), but the money offered would only cover a fraction of the normal number of precincts.

Once again, the democrats got themselves into this mess by crafting a stupid rule to bar delegations from states that selected delegates before Super Tuesday, except for a few privileged states that were not penalized at all (New Hampshire and South Carolina; I forget if Iowa and Nevada were granted exceptions or if the caucus system allowed them an end-run around the rule). Republicans had a more sensible policy of penalizing every state that selected delegates before Super Tuesday (except that it allowed that caucus loophole) by cutting the size of its delegation in half. Under the Republican rule, states were not denied representation, and were penalized equally (except for that dumb caucus loophole). Under the Democrats' rule, well, to be Orwellian about it, all states are equal, but some are more equal than others. It's part of the rank hypocrisy of the party -- they purport to stand for equality, but they're really the party of privilege.