Trade Wind Tumult

In keeping with this fascinating Primary marathon, there are some interesting currents blowing across South Caroline which threaten to disrupt the neatly predictable primary trade winds of surfed by the Established media. These winds steadily blow from Iowa to New Hampshire and then down to South Carolina before sweeping the nation with news of an ordained front runner.

Not so this year. And especially not so in South Carolina today. Consider:

Snow in the Upstate

All avid followers of politics know the importance that weather plays in turning out voters. On a good day, voters participate in Primaries in much lower numbers than they do in general election contests. Those who do vote enact this right of citizenship due to some strongly felt conviction about the system, a candidate or an issue.

Snow is not unheard of in Upstate SC, where I went to college, but three inches on the ground and icing up the many bridges is a definite hindrance to the less than zealous. It will be interesting to see how this affects Huckabee's run. While polling well around the entire state, his base of support is indeed in this growing evangelical expanse. As we saw in Iowa, Huck's supporters tend more toward the side of zeal. This is good for Huck and should dampen down the negative affect of the weather on him. Verse other candidates in this region, he should fair better. But verse the rest of the state where the weather is merely annoying rain (McCain's stronghold), not deadly ice, Huck risks the loss of critical numbers in this tied for first race.

My guess. My sad, dejected and weeping guess is that the weather, on total, will help McCain. But there is hope . .

Shifting Support: Thompson or Romney Surprise?

SC may just upset the GOP apple cart in a fashion similar to Hillary's amazing upset over Obama in New Hampshire. There, the girl wonder somehow wooed record numbers of voters. In SC, the voters are proving to be reluctant dates. Scott Rasmussen - widely regarded to be the most accurate political pollster in the business - reports:

Perhaps the most significant finding of the survey was that, as of Wednesday night, 41% of voters indicated that they might change their mind. That includes 7% who have not decided on anyone, 10% who said there’s a good chance they could change their mind, and another 24% who said they could change their mind. Such uncertainty just three days before an election is extraordinary.

What could these numbers mean:

1. First, keeping with the law of motivation, I suspect the weather will dampen these numbers. If so, perhaps only half of these undecided voters (20% of the statewide turnout) will vote in today's weather - even though these were all "likely voters".

2. Second, if they break in a distribution mirroring the current polling - and considering the likely lower turnout for Huck in the Upstate - McCain stands to inch ahead quite convincingly. :(
   

• Currently Polling: McCain and Huckabee around 25% / Romney and Thompson around 18%.
  

• Undecided Voters: 20% of turnout = McCain and Huckabee +5% each / Romney and Thompson +3% each.
  

• Considering Weather: Inclement weather skews this distribution a bit more toward McCain and:
  
• McCain +5% (30% total) / Huckabee +2-3% (27-28%) / Romney and Thompson +2 - 3% (around 20%)

3. Third, Thompson has been gaining in the polls consistently for the last 1 - 2 weeks. As such, it is possible, just possible, Thompson could be in the running for 1st or 2nd place suddenly:

• Undecided Voters: 20% turnout due to inclement weather =
  
• McCain +3 (28%) / Huckabee +2 (27%) / Romney +3 (21%) / Thompson +12 (28%) - an amazingly tight race with McCain.

4. Fourth, McCain, Huckabee and Thompson have all been campaigning hard in SC for weeks. If 41% of likely voters (assuming 20% of actual turnout) still aren't decided, only a small number are likely to break for them now. Keeping the above numbers, but skewing for Romney and the other candidates and assuming a small "surge" for Romney from Michigan and his recent campaign adds we may see something like:

• McCain +2 (27%) / Huckabee +2 (27%) / Thompson +4 (20%) / Romney +10 (28%) / Others +2 - a close Romney win or convincing 2nd.
  

Nevada News - Romney's Ace?

The weather may have brought one more wild card into the race, a card which may just be Romney's "Trump" card.

Folks are more likely to stay home today. When folks stay home, they watch TV. Romney's win in NV was called 6 -7 hours before polls closed in SC. This win will get at least some airtime during those 6 - 7 hours.

Some of those undecided voters - or even week supporters for other candidates - may have been influenced by news of Romney's 3rd state win, his 2 "silver medals" and his commanding lead in the Delegate count.

Frankly, I think this is a VERY, VERY long shot.

I think things look good for McCain today. But, if this NV win factors in on top of the shifting support out outlined above, it could break just enough for Romney or Thompson to squeak out a 2nd place finish. Either way, Romney's win certainly helps insulate him from losing the expectations game out of SC.

On Principle,

CBass

Under Reporting the Primaries

Yes, really! I contend that Primaries have been vastly under reported. Consider. . .

It is still amazing to me that in a world of 24hr news cycles, 7 days a week, on multiple channels; with 25 million viewers of the 3 legacy news casts; along with declining but still pervasive newspaper distributions, supplemented further by the websites, blogs, RSS feeds, news aggregators and email distributions of "new media" - that the same stories get repeated, ad nauseum (heard enough of Britney and Jamie-Lynne Spears?), while information of real importance is seeming lost in the sea of pabulum.


In this environment, news casters, supposed journalists, pundits and other members of the "chattering class" glom onto the most easily digestible news sound bites. This coalescence forms an informational black hole conveniently known as, "Conventional wisdom". Important information must fight against the pervasive pull of this media monolith.

Submitted for your approval:

Debate Audience:
Conventional wisdom, repeated nearly nightly for the last year has well anchored an assumed distaste into the collective American mind against the "too-long" primary process. Yet, with a little digging from a obscure tool called "Google", one can find out all sorts of interesting information whereby to gauge voter distaste for the "too long" primary campaign.

Early Debates generated 2 million viewers each. This is about what Fox News, the leading cable channel by nearly all measures, generates nightly for "Special Report" with Brit Hume.

The most recent debates hosted by ABC and Fox News attracted: 16.7million and 2.6 million viewers respectively. When rebroadcast on CNN, the ABC debates captured 2.4million viewers.

That's 16.7million on a Saturday night (for Democrat and Republican debates) and 5million on Sunday night for just the Republicans (since Dems are still lurking in the shadows from arch-conservative, Chris Wallace.

Let's add a bit of perspective to this. The Allstate BCS National Championship Bowl Game generated an audience of 16.2million.



Audience of Primary Debates = National Championship in College Football.



Somehow I’m just not convinced the American electorate is backing down from the responsibility to seriously vet candidates for Commander in Chief.




Wyoming:
Conventional wisdom, myopically obsesses over the entrenched, exalted importance of Iowa and New Hampshire in rocketing candidates into the stratosphere of popularity and inevitable party Nomination. Yet, the citizens of Wyoming dared to hold their GOP caucuses dangerously early. In fact, they had the audacity to actually hold their votes PRIOR to New Hampshire.


Wyoming Republicans voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney. How much media time was invested in covering this clear and sizable win? Absent conservative bloggers, this was the victory heard around the Romney home and that's about as far as it reverberated.


Interestingly, Wyoming could have sourced some interesting facts for further analysis of the Primary process. For instance:

Wyoming's electorate is 62% Republican. Provides a very different electorate for analysis of the GOP field from the electorates of Iowa (30%) and New Hampshire (30%).

How did voters from this Republican electorate express themselves?
67% Romney, 25% Thompson and 8% Hunter.

Some alternative analysis I would expect to have heard - but didn’t:

1. Mitt Romney: Wins a convincing Majority of the vote 67% - even with a packed field of 6 candidates. This is HUGE in Presidential Primaries, but I heard hardly a peep.
2. Fred Thompson: When being evaluated by a deeply Red electorate, Thompson takes a solid 2nd place.
3. Mike Huckabee: Despite the promised Iowa surge (just 2 days prior), Mike Huckabee's zeal for political converts doesn't touch the more secular Republicans of WY.
4. McCain and Giuliani: Both presumed at some time by conventional wisdom to be GOP front-runners, both fail to even register on the vote board in a solid conservative state.

Delegate Counts:
Conventional wisdom equates 2nd place in the early primaries with a loss - unless, of course, one was polling in 4th place or worse. Finish early primaries in a disappointing 2nd or 3rd place and the despairing candidate must withdraw from the race or face certain humiliation and presumed personal ruin (queue music from a Lifetime movie and pass a Kleenex). Missing from this analysis, however, is the fact that party nominees will be selected by delegates won, not states won. In many cases, the two are partially mutually exclusive and delegates votes trump state ballots every day.


Granted, the occult workings of Party delegate rules defy explanation within a 1-minute news segment, but let's face it, the general concept of a delegate vote rather than a winner takes all system, even without the wonkish nuances, could make for understandable broadcast journalism. I dare propose that our highly literate populace could grasp the general concept. Yet, conventional wisdom continues to harp incessantly about the important of "winning" Iowa and New Hampshire - not the importance of building a coalition of delegates.


Would it be nice to win states? Absolutely! But just look at most other democracies in the world? They all deal with Parliamentary systems where no candidates or parties win a decisive majority. Do they curl up in the corner and lament their loss? No. They build a coalition through the power bestowed upon through their PLURALITY of the vote.


The GOP field officially has 5 assumed "First-Tier" candidates. The notion of particular candidates having to win all early states is moot. In this crowded field, candidates must win enough to keep excitement among supporters and, in a larger context, attract enough votes (2nd and 3rd place finishes) to coble together a decisive coalition of GOP Delegates.


This is how the entire world does elections. Seriously. I dare think that at least one of our media mega-houses could figure out a graphic, jingle and banner scroll to get this point across.


I recently proposed, half jokingly, to a politically savvy friend that purhaps someone like Romney could come in 2nd in more states than he does 1st and yet build the largest coalition of delegates. The folks RedState have done the hard math.


What's key here is that in terms of the Delegate count, there's good reason to forecast a Romney victory and a convincing path for the other 4 front-runners. It turns out this is the simple wisdom of Karl Rove as well:

At the end of Super Tuesday, it won't be just who won the most states, but who has the most delegates.

Absentee Balloting:
Conventional wisdom, in an incredibly tight and turbulent race, explores how the results from one race will affect the next race - one successive race at a time. Missing from this elementary perspective, is the fact that early balloting has begun in states which may vote much later. Absentee ballots in Florida, for instance, equate the totality of voters in Iowa caucuses.


The fact that absentee balloting often predates prior primaries is "pert near" completely missing from most news coverage. This is why possessing an organization and funding prior to the Iowa caucuses was so important this year. Romney's organization has been mobilizing absentee voting in New Hampshire and Michigan since December. Giuliani has been pursuing absentee, pre-balloting in Florida for all of January. The preferences of these early voters is captured around dynamics when these candidates were ahead in the polls.


How often have you witnessed this fact being clearly explained and intelligently pursued in primary news coverage?

To put the importance of absentee voting in Florida into perspective, consider that the more than 325,000 Democrats and Republicans who have requested ballots comes close to the number of Iowa voters last week who -- with hundreds of media outlets recording their every move -- trooped to schools, libraries and churches to support their favorite candidates.

Conventional Wisdom is a gapping maw form which little light emerges. I hope these thoughts help shine a bit light into the Twilight Zone of established media.

On Principle,
CBass

Iowa's Homecoming Queen

Any reading of the "Entrance Polls" (**see below for definition) for the Iowa GOP Caucuses uncovers a glaring, blaring, disturbingly adolescent quality to the vote reminiscent of the vote for High School Homecoming Queen. No matter what you may think of Mike Huckabee, the insights these poll numbers provide into the GOP electorate of Iowa are down right frightening in an age of terror, balance of power on the Supreme Court and a teetering economy.

As can be seen from the chart above, courtesy of CNN, Huckabee was ushered into his commanding victory by folks who thought he spoke honestly and thinks like they do. In other words, they voted for the guy they like. Unfortunately, the numbers in the left-hand column demonstrate that 78% of the Iowa GOP caucus goers felt that liking the candidate was the most important qualification for being President.

Excuse me, but WHAT?!?!?!

This isn't a vote for Miss Congeniality. This is the vote for the individual with the qualities necessary to protect the American populace, build coalitions of international allies, maintain vigorous economic growth, shrink government spending, move tough legislation through a hostile and gridlocked Congress and select Judges who will shape culture for the next 40 years - especially through an aging Supreme Court.

I'm not so Pollyannaish as to believe that likability isn't an important factor in a presidential race. It absolutely is. We have to live with the face and droning speeches in our living rooms, from whomever is elected, for the next 4 - 8 years. But, here's what I find interesting in the poll numbers:

1. GOP Caucus goers didn't think that Romney, McCain, Thompson or Giuliani were unlikeable to the point of not being electable. In fact, these Caucus goers all found these candidates to be more electable than Huckabee - so it is not a matter of these candidates having high likability negatives (like Hillary). It is simply that they found Mike Huckabee to be the coolest guy at the party.

2. Disturbingly, 78% of the Iowa GOP voters stated that being cool was the "TOP QUALITY", in other words the most important quality, in selecting a candidate for the Office of President of the United States. This is a fine quality in voting for Homecoming Queen, but the simplicity of "coolness" has always bothered me even in votes as unimportant as "Student Body President" (which I won, so don't read into this).
   

3. What is perhaps more shocking is that Huckabee outperforms the other candidates in the two likability categories, but he doesn't run away with either of these categories. On the other hand, Romney and McCain are 25% points ahead of ALL other candidates in terms of Experience. Romney alone is 35% points ahead of ALL other candidates in terms of Electability.

Translation: Huck doesn't stand a chance of winning an election against Obama or Clinton, but he's a little bit cooler than everyone else.

Answer: Fine. Let's elect him as Homecoming Queen, but not as our nominee for President of the United States, Commander in Chief and Leader of a Super Power in an age of global, violent Jihad.

On Principle, Who knows, maybe Mike looks good in a dress - we've all seen how Rudy sports one!

CBass

**

Special Notes

Entrance polls are a survey of selected voters taken soon before they enter their voting place. Pollsters use this sample information, collected from a small percentage of voters, to track and project how all voters or a specific segments of the voters sided on a particular race or ballot measure. Because of the nature of the Iowa caucuses, these polls are conducted as voters enter a caucus venue and are known as entrance polls. For more on how to read entrance or exit polls, click here

Iowa Mea Culpa

I wrote in my post on Iowa predictions that "I look forward to seeing how my prognostications stand up to the harsh glare of reality."

The base assumption stated in my prediction was that Mitt's ability to mobilize voters through organization would roughly equate to Huck's ability to mobilize supporters via zeal. I stand by my analysis if this assumption had held.

But we now know that Huck's ability to mobilize zeal in Iowa simply blew away everything else.

Huck deserves congratulations and credit for understanding the mood of Iowa, rallying zealous converts, standing firm through multi-front assaults, and for winning a commanding victory.

I'll write more later on my analysis of this vote and my thoughts on Huckabee's continued electability.

On Principle,

CBass

Iowa Predictions

I've been busy with multiple clients and holiday travels, but you'll start to see my posts returning with regularity forthwith.

Because it is what "pundits" do, I feel I must place a prediction for the GOP Iowa caucuses prior to the announcement of winners and losers. So, here I go:

Romney will win. But not for the reason most people cite.

Romney's campaign structure in Iowa is organized, professional, high tech and efficient. This was proven and tested in August for the Straw Poll and has had 5 months and millions of dollars to further gel. No other candidate on the GOP side has as organized a structure to identify and "turn out" voters to the Caucuses. Yet, I don't think Romney will win because of this "get out the vote" effort. He would lose without it, but he won't win just because of it.

While Romney yields the best organization, Huckabee has zeal on the side of his converts. An organized campaign structure alone does not motivate someone to participate in a Caucus - and football - on a cold January night in Iowa. Caucuses are great for the zealous because it requires their engagement. Caucuses are terrible for the majority of voters as it negates the relative ease and anonymity of the polling booth. While Romney can identify and mobilize caucus goers, his issues don't stir zeal. Huckabee, for all his weaknesses on foreign policy, stands on the "side of the angels" on many social issues. His backers are likely to be more zealous, and being church goers, more accustomed to community discussion.

Lacking any sort of actual quantitative data on this side of the vote, I will lazily predict that these two dynamics (Romney's organization and Huckabee's zealous supporters) will cancel each other out.

Why Will Romney Win?

Romney will win because of another aspect of his organization.

1. Romney supports tend to be more politically experienced and are being professionally educated on HOW to caucus. Caucusing is not a sport for the novice or weak willed. It is a sport which can be dominated by the well trained.

Thus:

2. In a caucus environment, the trained supporters of Romney will know how to persuade and will have command of "talking points" at their finger tips. By nature and experience, they will be seeking to dissuade Huckabee supporters from their often unfounded zeal. This won't work for all (in fact it will offend many Huckabee diehards), but it will work on some. By stark contract, I don't think Huck supporters will voters leaning toward Romney. Romney supporters aren't such due to zeal. They have reached this decisions through some form of decisive judgment. Thus, in a close election, Romney stands to gain some support from the Huckabee camp - and that could make ALL the difference.

And:

3. What few "undecided voters" turn out in the winter cold (and who deny themselves Orange Bowl viewing) are waiting to be swayed by the caucus discussion. This is intrinsic to their nature as being "undecided" voters. In this context, experienced or trained operators will probably carry more weight of influence than the merely zealous - notice, undecided voters haven't yet caught onto the Huckabee band wagon, so a bit of zeal probably won't be enough to do so. But voters well trained, educated and informed by Romney's campaign will likely carry more weight.

And:

4. The GOP caucuses in Iowa feature a single vote, so there is less dealing for "secondary" support as in the Democratic caucuses. However, it is possible that some supporters of "lower tier" candidates (Thompson, McCain, Paul, Hunter) may opt to vote for one of the two candidates battling it out for 1st place. If so, Thompson, Hunter and McCain supporters are VERY unlikely to vote for Huckabee due to his widely published animus toward the Bush Administration's foreign policy. This leave Huck only a few Ron Paul supporters - another VERY zealous group. They are unlickly to vote for anyone, but if they do, they will likely vote for Huck BECAUSE of his animus toward Bush's foreign policy. The bleeding of support from these other candidates won't be much, but bleeding from 3 candidates (for Romney) is better than bleeding from 1 (for Huckabee). In a close race, this slight swing in support may make all the difference.

Close elections are like golf, slight swings in votes - due to a slightly more masterful execution of strategy - can make the entire difference. It normally isn't due to one candidate being LEAGUES better than another.

I must caveat with all the rest of the political community that no one can predict Iowa tonight. But since the only fun is in trying, I look forward to seeing how my prognostications stand up to the harsh glare of reality.

On Principle,

CBass