Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Why the popular vote doesn't matter

By Brendan Loy

A Politico reader makes an interesting point about Hillary Clinton's reliance on the "popular vote" as a reliable, and perhaps even dispositive, metric of public support:

I wonder whether the technical difficulties in counting the popular vote obscure a more fundamental reason why it's an uninformative metric for the strength of the candidates - namely, it was never contested. Both campaigns were (or should have been, anyway) focussed on accumulating delegates. To do this they developed very specific strategies. Obama invested resources in caucus states, a place he could garner many delegates but not much of the popular vote, for instance. Even in primary states, the candidates focussed much of their efforts on certain (odd-number-of-delegate or otherwise mathematically interesting) districts over others. So although the popular vote might appear like it should be a good measure of overall preference, it seems to me more of a coincidental consequence of how delegate strategies played out.

That's absolutely true. Of course, it's equally true, if not moreso, in the November election, when candidates focus on the Electoral College, not on general popular-vote turnout. Would Al Gore have "won" the popular vote by 0.5% in 2000 if Bush's campaign had invested more resources in "running up the score," if you will, in the red states? Would Bush have "won" by 2.5% in 2004 if Kerry's people had been mounting truly intensive (because potentially decisive) get-out-the-vote efforts in places like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago? The broader lesson is that the process matters, and you really shouldn't try to judge an election by a metric other than the intended one. You gotta follow the process, or you get results of very limited utility.

Somewhat relatedly, I would direct your attention to my recently revised article defending the Electoral College. Among other things, I've revised my hypothetical 2012 scenario: Mike Huckabee, instead of Jeb Bush, is now President Obama's opponent. :) Let it be known, by the way, that in the original version of article, I pegged Obama as the hypothetical 2012 incumbent, way back in April 2007 -- heh!

R.I.P., Pug

By Brendan Loy

It is my sad duty to report that Pug, my goldfish, has passed away.

Pug had been showing increasing signs of listlessness in recent days, so it's probably fair to say that it was "his time." We think he probably died sometime this morning or early afternoon; he was discovered floating amidst his fake plants this evening when I tried to feed him.

He was given the traditional burial at sea, and afterwards we played Confutatis (from Mozart's Requiem) in his honor.

Shortly after Pug's nautical burial, Becky, Loyette and I were walking Robbie on this pleasant spring evening, and we (well, Becky and I, at least) found ourselves musing about what an eventful time in our lives Pug witnessed. When we first got him, way back on May 30, 2007, I was a brand new law-school graduate, just starting to think about the daunting prospect of studying for the bar. Becky, meanwhile, was a mere nine weeks pregnant -- and we'd only known that she was pregnant for less than a month. Loyette, for her part, was not quite an inch long, about the size of a grape. Oh yes, and our apartment was still full of unpacked boxes from our big move to Knoxville a mere nine days earlier.

Flash forward to today: Loyette is 3 months old, and a true master at the fine art of grabbing things and putting them in her mouth. Becky's a mom, and a damn fine one. I'm a dad, an experienced law clerk, and an honest-to-goodness lawyer. (Is that an oxymoron?) Our once box-filled apartment has become a comfy home, as, more broadly, has the once unfamiliar city of Knoxville. And Becky and I are both way more "domestic" than we ever could have imagined back then, having settled very comfortably into our roles as parents.

From inside his watery home, atop the side table next to our couch, Pug saw all these changes in our lives. And he saw them while braving the hungry stares of frustrated cats who could never quite figure out how to pry open that darn tank. Pug may have been a neurotic fish (thanks to those cats), but he was a good fish, and we bid him a fond farewell. Swim in peace, Pug. May you find comfort in that great fishy palace in the sky sea.

Can ManBearPig be far behind?

By Brendan Loy

Remember back in 2006, when Wonkette made fun of President Bush for randomly condemning "human-animal hybrids" in his State of the Union address? ("OMG HUMAN-ANIMAL HYBRIDS! BUSH SAYS NO TO WEREWOLVES. HEAR THAT CONGRESS? The man is taking a stand. To repeat: Hybrid cars: Good. Hybrid human-animals: Bad.")

Well, maybe ol' Dubya was on to something. If you missed the headline earlier this evening Drudge...

Here's the story:

A team has grown hybrid embryos after injecting human DNA into eggs taken from cows' ovaries, which had most of their genetic material removed.

The embryos survived for three days and are intended to provide a limitless supply of stem cells to develop therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and spinal cord injuries, overcoming a worldwide shortfall in human embryos.

Opponents decry the hybrid embryos as "monstrous." Hmm. Half man, half cow, half monster? It's ManCowHilldog!

And the CBS Orchestra?

By Brendan Loy

Éire PM Ahern to resign May 6

By Joe Loy

No more the Teflon Taoiseach: bid a long farewell to Bertie ~

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will resign next month after presiding over the euro region's fastest-growing economy for 10 years and helping broker peace in Northern Ireland. He quit under pressure from lawmakers over his failure to explain gifts and cash he got in the 1990s.

``I believe it's in the best interests of the government, my party and the people of Ireland to set out a timetable for my departure,'' Ahern, 56, told reporters in Dublin today.

A Dublin-based tribunal is investigating Ahern's personal finances as part of a probe into illegal payments to politicians. The prime minister, leader of the Fianna Fail party, gave evidence for eight days at the tribunal and is scheduled to appear again next month.

...During Ahern's time as premier, or taoiseach in Irish, the size of the economy more than doubled to $280 billion and the number of people with jobs increased 40 percent to a record 2.1 million. His government cut income, corporation and capital taxes and still ran budget surpluses in every year of his tenure except one.

...With then U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Ahern helped bring about a Northern Ireland peace deal between unionists and republicans in the divided province. The climax came in May 2007, when Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley agreed to become first minister in a government with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, signaling the end of more than three decades of conflict.

Once known as the ``Teflon Taoiseach,'' Ahern had previously escaped the taint of corruption scandals of the sort that destroyed the reputations of a number of Irish politicians, winning a third term in May 2007.

...``There's still a huge amount of people in Ireland who 100 percent support Bertie,'' said Nial Ring, 48, a pub owner from the Ballybough area of north Dublin, who was standing outside government buildings holding a banner saying ``Ballybough Loves Bertie.''

Ahern's announcement of his timetable for leaving office means he will still be able to take up an invitation to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress in Washington on April 30...

Something tells me that the Congress's applause will be a cheering rousing chorus of appreciation for yer man notwithstanding any possible peccadilloes, and a grand Sendoff.

WNIT + CBI = OMG excitement!

By Brendan Loy

With the NIT title game not until tomorrow, and both the men's and women's NCAA Tournaments on hold until Saturday and Sunday, respectively, you might think there's no college basketball tonight. But you'd be wrong! Try to contain your excitement, but tonight features the WNIT semifinals (N.C. State vs. Michigan State, Marquette vs. Colorado) and Game 2 of the best-of-three CBI championship series (Bradley vs. Tulsa). Tulsa won the first game, 73-68 on its home floor, but now the series moves to Peoria, where Bradley will try to tie it up and earn a return trip to Tulsa for a decisive Game 3 on Friday. WOOO!!!! :) And, best of all, you can watch tonight's thrilling CBI action live online for the low, low price of $6.95, which is only $6.95 more than CBS charges to watch the entire NCAA Touranment online!

Obama gaining ground in Pennsylvania

By Brendan Loy

Something strange is happening en route to Hillary Clinton's presumed Reverend Wright-fueled romp in Ed Rendell's not-ready-to-vote-for-a-black-guy Keystone State: Barack Obama is gaining ground, again.

Yesterday, a new Rasmussen poll showed Hillary's lead in Pennsylvania down to 5 points, from 10% a week ago in the same poll. I held off posting anything, because one shouldn't put too much stock in a single poll. But later yesterday, SurveyUSA showed Hillary's lead shrinking from 19% three weeks ago to 12% now. Today, Quinnipiac has her lead at 9%, down from 12% two weeks ago.

And then, of course, there's a one labeled by Drudge as a "SHOCK POLL," the Public Policy Polling survey that shows Obama ahead by 2%. The same poll had Hillary leading by 26 points just over two weeks ago -- a 28-point swing in 16 days!

According to TPM, PPP "has had a solid record this year." Still, TPM says, and I agree, that this Obama-by-2 poll "has to be seen as an outlier, though it is important to note that [it] is the most recent survey." It should also be noted that the RCP average now has Clinton up just 6%.

Relatedly, Mark Halperin looks at What Hillary Clinton Has to Do to Really “Win” Pennsylvania.

Oh, and here are some interesting Electoral College maps, again showing Hillary and Obama having very different strengths (and weaknesses). They appear to confirm something my dad said, way back before Super Tuesday, which I initially questioned but now whole-heartedly agree with: that Obama, electorally, has "both more upside and more downside potential."

Finally, on a totally unrelated note, it looks like Washington state is headed for another Gregoire-Rossi barnburner.

UPDATE: Commenter "yea" writes:

who could have predicted this would happen? obama is trailing by a huge amount in a state he's never been to. he shows up in the state and the margin starts to decrease slowly. all of a sudden he surges and even takes the lead in a few polls. things stabilze as the election gets closer, and then there is a natural drift back to hillary that allows her to win the state. she wins the state be a smaller margin than anyone thought possible 4-5 weeks ago, yet by a bigger margin than most of the late polls indicated. hillary then claims the momentum.

Heh. Indeed.

I'm not sure, though, if the Clintons will be able to get the media to buy that load of bull this time around. I'm not totally putting it past them (or rather, past the media to be that dumb, again), but at some point, the reality of, well, reality, as opposed to spin-based unreality, has to take hold, doesn't it?

Look, the following is a fact: whatever barely plausible case Hillary might currently, arguably have that she can still catch up and win the nomination, she will have no such case when April 23 dawns, unless she won Pennsylvania the previous day in a massive blowout (like 15+ points) and thus earns a huge delegate edge there. The delegates to make up Obama's lead have to come from somewhere -- they can't all be uncommitted superdelegates, there aren't enough of those -- and she's running out of chances. She can't beat Obama by running out the clock with a series of delegate draws and claiming "momentum." Momentum is meaningless unless, at some point, it gets her delegates.

I think this is a case of fool me once (New Hampshire), shame on me; fool me twice (Super Tuesday), shame on me; fool me thrice (Texas & Ohio), shame on me; but I'll be damned if you're going to fool me a fourth time. :)

More unintentional comedy

By Brendan Loy

From the makers of that godawful "Hillary for you and me" video, here comes the sequel -- "Hillary in the House" -- in which they, um, rap:

Commentary would be superfluous.

In other news, Bill Clinton went on a tirade last weekend, attacking, among others, Bill "Judas" Richardson for his alleged disloyalty. (Loyalty! It's always about loyalty with these wretched buffoons!) Speaking of Richardson, he responded to his attackers in yesterday's Washington Post:

I do not believe that the truth will keep Carville and others from attacking me. I can only say that we need to move on from the politics of personal insult and attacks. That era, personified by Carville and his ilk, has passed and I believe we must end the rancor and partisanship that has mired Washington in gridlock. In my view, Sen. Obama represents our best hope of replacing division with unity. That is why, out of loyalty to my country, I endorse him for president.

It seems as if the Clintons truly do not understand that their behavior vis a vis Richardson, among many other things in this campaign, solidifies and confirms every negative impression that people have of them. Like the people who make those hilarious (in the "laughing at you" sense) YouTube videos, Billary and their surrogates appear to entirely lack self-awareness.