Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Yes He Can: Obama wins again

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CNN is calling the Maine caucuses for Obama.  With 70% of precincts reporting, the vote stands at 58% for Obama to 41% for Clinton. (Update: the margin is holding up.  With 87% of precincts reporting, it’s 59% to 41%.)

In other news, Obama’s audiobook of The Audacity of Hope won a Grammy, beating among other entrants, Bill Clinton’s audio version of his book Giving.

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  1. what are the demographics/reasonings behind obama doing better in caucuses and clinton doing better in primaries?  

    • Strong ground game?  I would have expected Maine to be prime territory for Clinton – low minority population; I’d assume lots of the lower-income, lunch bucket democrats and seniors who have been tending towards Clinton.

      • going to the polls shows commitment too.  one might say that caucusing shows more commitment because it takes longer and happens at a specific time, but that only works if everyone meets the day with the same set of challenges (work schedule,  kids to manage, etc.).

    • The best explanation I have seen is:
      Caucuses are attended by people who are more politicaly involved .. people who could conduct issue level conversations about candidates ..
      Primaries are more the general public, the people who get their worldview in 15 minutes with Brian Williams and whos civic responsibilites begin and end with filling in an oval …
      Thus candidates with more intense supporters win caucuses while those with more oatmealish support do better in primaries ..
      On the gOP side you will see McCain never doing well in caucuses while he fares better in primaries. If you look at the exit polls it becomes obvious that those that voted for him in primaries did so for reasons that guarentee they should have voted against him if they did their own research.

      • more of the supporters of obama and huckabee are more likely to be political junkies than supporters of clinton and mccain?

        • Actualy I would have said that supporters of Obama and the candidate formerly known as Mitt were more likely to be political junkies than those of McCain or Hillary.
          I havent really been able to evaluate Huckabee’s support as of yet. 🙂

      • the Ron Paul banner (good for you), you might find this interesting. I read this guys economics blog regularly because he covers a lot of the trends of finance in a way that I can understand. I always took him to be fairly liberterian in his politics, and knew that he was a Ron Paul devotee.

        <

        p>I was shocked today to see this on the front page of his blog today. Mish is falling hard for Obama. (Warning: Not safe for ardent Hillary supporters)

        • As the field narrows the making of choices does become a more involved process. I do understnd this bloggers perspective. Fortunatly for me, since my vote is already cast and my candidate is not withdrawing from the race, I will need to consider no such compromising positions until at least the summer … 🙂

    • it’s a big enough difference in the primary states that any demographic will explain it.

      <

      p>By my rough count, HRC has won 11 primary contests to date (including FL & MI), while Obama has won 9 primaries. Pretty even, slight edge to Hillary.

      <

      p>On the caucus side, Obama has won 10, and Hillary 2. Pretty one sided.

      <

      p>So I guess I’d ask the question differently: Why has Hillary fared so poorly in caucuses?  

      • thanks, i was going on my impressions about the primary outcomes, and didn’t check actual numbers.  shame on me, but interesting that that was my impression…

        <

        p>anyway, you’re right.  the bettter question is, what explains the big difference in outcome for obama and clinton in caucus states?

      • It’s demographics.

        <

        p>People who are low-income, work more than one job (meaning on night and weekends), tend to vote Hillary.

        <

        p>People who are elderly, and are more likely to have limited mobility, tend to vote Hillary.

        <

        p>Those are two categories of people who can’t make it to appointment voting and stand around for two hours.

        <

        p>The virtue of this argument is that it makes sense, the weakness is that it doesn’t confirm Obama’s awesomeness.  Decide for yourselves….

        • Going just on my experience with our caucuses here, more seniors show up than younger people – they’re more connected to the town and they have the time.

          <

          p>Of course, I also think Obama deserves credit for some awesomeness 🙂

          • …because I can only find caucus entrance polls for Iowa and Nevada.  Nothing for ME, NE, WA, ID…the caucuses that weren’t driven by blanket hype.  I’ll update if I find any.

            <

            p>But I do think ti stands to reason that these mob scenes at specific times are not particularly accessible to people with such schedules.  That was my experience when in Iowa four years ago…I’d have dozens of people per day telling me that they were working on that day.

            • It’s true that there are seniors who are fragile or frail, and an hours long caucus surrounded by lots of people isn’t in their cards.

              <

              p>But, it’s also true that there are oodles of seniors who are more than fit enough physically and mentally to caucus.  Furthermore, they’ve got the time to do it, and I’m sure they could get a ride from a campaign if needed.

              <

              p>So… while I agree that it’s tougher to caucus if you don’t work a sole M-F 9-5 job, I still don’t see the connection between HRC’s senior support and her under performance at caucuses.

              • ambulatory seniors, or 17-25 year olds?

                <

                p>there certainly were kick-ass oldsters at my caucus.  but not many.  most participants were in their 30s-50s.  There was only 1 family with kids in tow.  sample size of 1 i know, but it’s all i got. 🙂

        • as any demographic explanation that I’ve heard, but the whole situation seems pretty fluid to this lapsed Edwards supporter, so I remain unconvinced.

          <

          p>The one point I would also raise is that in the lower income/ two jobs group (which I’ve seen ceded to HRC in many assumptions), I’d guess that there would be a high number of African American voters, who have trended towards Obama.

          <

          p>But still, I’m humbled by the awesomeness of your argument 😉

          • Every election I speak to as many people around my school (outside of work hours, don’t worry) as I can.  I talked two of them into voting, and they did.  And yes, they voted for Hillary.

            <

            p>If Massachusetts had a caucus, those voices are struck silent.

    • Due to the viability aspect of caucuses, perhaps Barack is more people’s #2 candidate. In a caucus, it seems like if you were a supporter of John Edwards’s suspended campaign, you could get the satisfaction of showing up and making your voice heard for John Edwards while at the same time making your vote count for Obama. Whereas in a primary, you only get one shot and if you strongly prefer Edwards, you’re going to submit your one vote for Edwards. If I lived in Iowa on January 3, I probably would have caucused for Edwards, but if he wasn’t viable in my precinct, I may have switched to Obama.

      <

      p>I’m not saying that’s a complete explanation, but I bet it accounts for some percentage of votes. It may not explain the win so much as the margin of victory. But I have no numbers and this is just a guess.  

      • this doesn’t fit my experience yesterday, or reports to newspaper blogs from numerous other precincts around washington.  if such reports are to be believed, the vast majority of obama votes walked in the door that way.  the edwards/undecided percentages were never or rarely enough to flip a delegate.  also, no indication that clinton 1st choicers changed to obama on the 2nd choice.

  2. Is that Maine apparently had absentee ballots for its caucuses.  How in the world does that work?

    <

    p>If any state is running a caucus in 2012, it basically indicates that the state is uninterested in democracy.

    • Or have you just decided it’s undemocratic now that it has favored a candidate you don’t like?

      • Since 2004, when I saw it up close in Iowa.  The 2008 edition, with Maine’s snowbound two-day extravaganzas, Nevada’s at-large districts chaired by unprepared neophytes, New Mexico’s caucuses that are still being counted up, Washington’s caucuses that have a meaningless primary element thrown in, have only exacerbated my opinion.  

        • I’m attracted to the option to go for a second choice, if your first doesn’t turn out to be viable, but there are ways to get that without requiring people to show up in a room at a specific time.

          • …with some form of instant run-off voting, a system in which the voter ranks preferences right on the ballot. If the people in caucus states want to transition to primary systems but are still attached to the second-choice aspect, IRV might be a good compromise.  

      • That said, the more I learn about the caucus system, the more undemocratic I think it is.

        <

        p>Before this year I did not know the difference between a caucus and a primary, I figured they were roughly equivalent. I was also surprised to learn how many states were actually caucus states.  

        • both the caucuses and the caucasus.

          Instead I propose that we implement something called the coccyx system (from the Greek, meaning cuckoo).

          <

          p>It will work like this. Everyone shows up in the auditorium, and remains standing. All turn left, and kick the person next to you in the coccyx, while yelling the name of your candidate. Winner
          take all.

            • But that’s in the old world model. In our new world, we’ll simply replace them with one of our shiny new pillars: Hope!

              <

              p>Note, under the coccyx system, you may also yell “Hope” as you boot your neighbor in the tail, but only if your candidate is Obama.

      • and I was never against them before this year. Does that somehow make my opinion invalid? I have always lived in primary states, and never paid much attention to caucuses. Do you think it’s possible that the disparity in results between caucuses and primaries may be the reason people are paying more attention to them this year? I don’t see how anyone can dispute that it is inherently undemocratic to force voters to publicly declare who they are voting for.

        <

        p>The issue of the lawsuit aside, the Nevada caucus was a perfect example of the downside of caucuses, as you had minimum wage casino workers standing up in front of their bosses and union stewards to declare their preference. Who can deny the element of intimidation in that scenario?

        <

        p>As far as who’s more committed, I don’t care if you select your nominee based on hairstyle. Every voter’s preference should carry the same weight. I think Obama’s supporters tend to be somewhat more enthusiastic, which is good for his campaign. The downside being the cult aspect, and the willingness to overlook any of his faults while totally demonizing his opponent. I mean really, who cries during a candidate’s speech? Enthudsiasm and engagment are great, but I see plenty of commenters on blogs who do nothing but pontificate about politics all day, and their opinions are worth shit.

        • People who feel moved.  I’ve found myself tearing up a couple of times during Obama’s speeches.  So has my girlfriend.  So has my father, a grizzled old career military officer who voted Republican in every election until 2004.  

    • The only difference to being there is you don’t have the opportunity to change your mind if your candidate is not viable.

      <

      p>There were some reports from Portland caucuses that they were allowing people to fill in their preferences on ballots and leave before the caucus was over.

      • the same was allowed in WA caucuses.  i’m certain it was a nod towards recognizing that not everyone can afford to be there 2 hours.  

          • you could change your initial vote if you were still there after the debate go-round, but there was no way to indicate your 2nd choice should your 1st be a gonner and you didn’t stick around to choose a new preference.

  3. ….ignore the fact that according to the article you linked that HRC won a grammy in 1997 for It Takes a Village.

    <

    p>Been there, done that, has the t-shirt.

    <

    p>Hillary is the one with eleven years of experience of knowing what it feels like to be a grammy winner.  She’s the clear choice!!!

      • Obama’s blaming Hillary for what happened while her husband was president.  As if somehow she was identical to her husband.  A deliberate error.  

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