Kentucky and Minnesota Eye 2012

Not content to wait until next year, as one member of the Indiana legislature is, both state legislatures in Kentucky and Minnesota are at various stages of considering presidential primary moves for 2012.

The situation in Kentucky is the much further along. HB 18 began as a bill to alter the state's runoff election provisions. After having passed the House though, amendments were added in the Senate to split the state's presidential and state and local primaries; moving the former to the first Tuesday in February and the later to the first Tuesday after the third Monday in August. During the post-reform era, Kentucky has typically held both sets of primaries simultaneously in late May of presidential election years. And as I've shown in my own research (An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2007 Southern Political Science Association Conference in New Orleans, LA.), those states with split primaries are significantly more likely to be able to frontload their presidential primaries than those states which hold those contests simultaneously with state and local contests. Kentucky has fallen into the latter category up until now. What Kentucky is faced with is basically the cost of holding an all new election in early February (often enough to prevent state legislatures from pulling the trigger on these moves). Having said that, the bill has passed the Senate (see here and here) and has now returned to the House for review. The 23-13 vote in the Senate broke along partisan lines with the Republican majority in the chamber supporting the measure in tandem with the one independent. Thirteen of the fifteen Democrats voted against while the remaining two abstained. Here though is the kicker: Kentucky's legislature is divided. The Senate is controlled by Republicans and the House by Democrats. The amendment concerning the presidential primary was penned by GOP senator, David Williams and with that Senate vote passing along party lines, it is unlikely the Democratic-controlled House will give the bill (with the amendment) much attention; much less pass it. Even if it did manage to pass the House, the bill would then go to the newly elected, Democratic governor, Steve Beshear. These states that have to change multiple laws to move their presidential primaries have a tough row to hoe. The more laws that have to be altered, the more likely partisan conflicts are to arise.

Minnesota offers a completely different set of circumstances (Imagine that, variation from state to state.). The frontloading discussion there only began after the chaotic Super Tuesday caucuses in the North Star state (see this link for more). The discussion may be in its infancy, but a bill has already been introduced to, first of all, establish a presidential primary and to then position it on the first Tuesday in February. That bill, SF2760 (House companion bill HF3045), was introduced in and referred to committee in both chambers on February 18 (this past Monday). In the Senate the bill was introduced by the president of the Senate, James Metzen, a Democrat. On the House side the bill was introduced by a bipartisan group of four (three Democrats and one Republican). Both chambers are controlled by the Democrats. So similar to Kentucky, Minnesota faces the issue of creating an entirely new election. That comes at a cost to taxpayers. Contrary to the Kentucky situation though, the fact that there appears to be some degree of bipartisan support for the bill bodes well. Should either of those bills make it through the Democratic-controlled legislature though, it would face the hurdle of getting past a Republican governor's veto.

What can we take from these situations in Kentucky and Minnesota? Party matters. If one party is opposed to the movement (or establishment) of a presidential primary, the task of moving that primary becomes that much more difficult. Split primaries matter. States that hold their presidential nominating contests in conjunction with their nominating contests for state and local offices have an extra hurdle to overcome; a hurdle that could inflame partisan divisions within the legislature for whatever reason. Those states that don't face the fetters of simultaneous contests have an easier go of it when it comes to frontloading.

The actions in Indiana, Kentucky and Minnesota mark an early start to preparations for the next presidential nominating cycle. By comparison, Arkansas was the first to move their presidential primary (splitting their nominating contests) in anticipation of the 2008 primary season; making their move in 2005. So to look forward to the next round when the current round is still ongoing is a bit of a departure from what we've witnessed in the past.

Florida and Michigan Redux

The idea of Florida and Michigan holding caucuses to come in line with Democratic National Committee rules has come up in the past on this blog--in an earlier post and in the comments last night. But outside of speculation do we have a sense of what is going on here? We do have some pieces to the puzzle that begin to help us construct a picture of the environment. It just may not be a very clear picture.

Here's what we know:
1) The DNC is pressuring both states to hold caucuses as a means of resolving the issue of seating delegates at the convention in Denver this summer. Obama would like that. Clinton wouldn't.

2) This caucus idea keeps coming up. See the links above as well as this one from CNN's Political Ticker blog from yesterday (Rob, you get the assist on this one.). The issue isn't going to go away until it gets resolved.

3) Looking at the state parties' web sites reveals little. But here's what I did find out:

a) Florida has congressional district caucuses planned for March 1 already. Huh? These caucuses were planned in advance so this isn't a new development. They are in place to confirm the results of the January 29 primary and elect the actual delegates that will (hopefully, in their view) attend the national convention. My question is, if this caucus is already in place, why not go ahead and hold a do-over election instead of wasting time with confirming a series of delegates that run the risk of not being seated anyway?

b) Michigan has fewer possibilities (or more possibilities simple because less is known). The issue does keep popping up in the local news there with Michigan Democratic party chair, Mark Brewer, outside of the caucus movement. Things have progressed somewhat far though. T-shirts with "Do Over!" emblazoned across the chest are in production and on sale online. [I'm on the verge of getting one just to commemorate how fun the ride leading up to and into the 2008 cycle has been. Ah, memories. And it's still only February.] All humor aside though, the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee does convene this weekend in Flint, MI. It is hard to imagine this caucus idea not coming up at all during that meeting. In other words, we may know something about the fate of a possible Michigan Democratic caucus after the weekend. It may not even be remotely likely, but again, this is a topic that one would assume would make its way into the discussion of such a group.

The dust will have to settle on the 2008 election before the question of how these two states were ultimately counted can be accurately answered much less analyzed. I'm sure I'll be around to do some of that work though.

Pretty Links in Comments

There has been an issue over links that are being cut and pasted into the comments. There may come a time when I tire of dealing with those sorts of links, but this blog is still in its infancy and it really doesn't present a problem now. More information is good, right? When traffic increases (hopefully) folks may begin to append links that are not of the quality that moderators at FHQ (me) deem acceptable.

So here are the ground rules for avoiding those pesky truncated links. Use html code.
Here's that code:
...
where 1) resumepage.html is the actual address you want to include, and
2) my resume is the text that will be live (clickable) within the comment.

Make sure you put the web address in quotation marks.

That should clear up the issue. Thanks.

It's Your Turn Badger State

My apologies to the good folks in Washington and Hawaii, but even at the level of political addiction that I'm at now won't keep up me up to see results that I know I can find out in the morning. The focus tonight will be on the dual contests in Wisconsin. Here are the particulars:
1) Both parties have open primaries. Independents, independents, independents. Which way will they break? McCain or Obama? The GOP race may appear less consequential to those independents and they may move over to the Obama camp.
2) Same day registration is in effect. New people to the process have been going for Obama since Iowa, so that could be a real boon for him.

9:55pm: I'll be back in the morning with a wrap up on Wisconsin and a discussion of Washington and Hawaii.

9:46pm: This has been a fairly shallow post from an analysis standpoint. However, I'll leave with this one note: Clinton's speech tonight in Ohio is an attempt to cast the Democratic battle as the difference between someone who is more substance than style. As part of that equation, she discusses readiness to be commander-in-chief; that she is the best qualified. Funny then (as The Caucus points out--see their 9:30 post) that Wisconsin exit polls seem to indicate that Badger state voters lean toward Obama on that issue. Clinton has an uphill climb, but the debates renew on Thursday in Ohio for what could be an interesting event.

9:30pm: The counties are lighting up now over at the NYT Election Guide for Wisconsin. The results so far (1% reporting):

Democrats:
Obama 54.3%
Clinton 44.7

Republicans:
McCain 58.7%
Huckabee 33.9

9:26pm: CNN has called Wisconsin for Obama. 2008 is different but this is starting to look like 2000 when Gore and Bush were running up victories in the contests that year. Obama and McCain have had all the fun since last Tuesday.

9:18pm: The AP (via The Drudge Report) has Obama jumping out to a lead against a "fading" Hillary Clinton. Sure, Obama has led in the polls in Wisconsin, but to hit Clinton with fading at the outset hurts. Then again, Obama's ability to cut into Clinton's support among women these last two weeks will do that.

9:07pm: As the McCain link below also indicates, Obama is leading Clinton early on. I'm still waiting on the first counties to be colored in on NYT's Election Guide for Wisconsin.

9:02pm: Ha! Well, McCain is the GOP winner according to ABC. Sp much for that "huge, unexpected" victory for Huckabee.

9:00pm: What? No winners projected?

8:55pm: Here's more analysis of the exit polls from The Caucus.

8:50pm: We are ten minutes away from polls closing in Wisconsin. The exit polls are suggesting that "change" was on the mind of Wisconsin voters. On its face that sounds like advantage Obama. But most of the Democratic voters in Wisconsin were women and/or seniors. There were some cracks in those typical Clinton groups last week in the Potomac primaries, but will Wisconsin follow that lead?

Curiouser and Curiouser: The Fight for...Pledged Delegates?

With each passing day, something new enters the fray in the Democratic nomination race. First it was the race going past Super Tuesday without a presumptive nominee. Then the talk of a brokered convention grew to a fevered pitch (Sure the idea had been out there, but before the Super Tuesday split, no one quite wanted to take it seriously.). The protracted race for each and every delegate then ushered superdelegates into the view as the potentially decisive group. With that came questions of the fairness of having party elites possibly swing the nomination against what the will of the people was in the delegate selection events.

Now though, comes the big kahuna (Yes, Hawaii Democrats are holding their caucuses today, so I thought I'd give them a nod.). Politico is reporting that the Clinton camp has a strategy in place to go after Obama's PLEDGED delegates if she needs them to secure the Democratic nomination (There's no doubt that the Obama camp would follow suit.). Now of all the doomsday scenarios that have surfaced on the Democratic side, this chaotic free-for-all would take the cake. All four thousand plus delegates at stake in a grander scale version of what we witnessed in the televised Iowa caucuses on January 3. Yeah, remember the one woman backing Richardson in the CSPAN-covered Democratic caucus who made you want to vote for anyone else, even if it meant Mike Gravel. Well, that was in a room with around three hundred people. What we're talking about here is four thousand people plus the Clinton and Obama campaigns trying to decipher who the nominee for the party will be. That type of event may actually bring back wall-to-wall coverage of the convention this August in Denver.

I honestly thought that the campaigns may actually campaign in states where second round caucuses were being held before a drastic measure like this was considered.

Well, I've rattled enough cages with this one. I'll be back shortly to discuss what's on the line tonight in Wisconsin, Washington and Hawaii. If last week was convenient with a set of east coast contests, this week is far less hospitable. The action in Hawaii kicks off at midnight in the east and given how difficult the count in the GOP caucus was in Washington on February 9 (They're still stuck on 99.99% of precincts reporting ten days later.), I'm not optimistic that those numbers will surface very soon after polls close there.

Texas: The Ground Rules

As I described in the live discussion group last week, Texas has a quirky set of delegate selection events on the Democratic side. [You can find the rundown of how the delegates are selected at The Green Papers. [I'll repeat them here shortly and then go a bit more in depth as to their potential impact.] The news has been slow to pick up on the intricacies of the Texas system, but as the Democratic primary/caucus approaches on March 4, scrutiny of the Lone Star state's contest increases. The Washington Post had a great article up this morning detailing the ins and outs of the upcoming primary/caucus (the real gem was the inclusion of the Texas Democratic party's delegate selection plan) and Will Lutz at the Dallas Blog seeks to set the record straight with a how-to from a Texan.

Here's the question though: How will these rules affect the race? First the primary. Of the 228 delegates at stake in Texas on the Democratic side, 126 will be allocated in the primary. As both the Post and The Green Papers describe, each of Texas' 31 state senate districts (Here's the map of those districts and here's the Senate's seating chart with partisan breakdown--20R to 11D.) have anywhere from 2 to 7 delegates each based on the number of votes the district provided the Democratic candidate for governor in 2006 and president in 2004 (4 delegates is the mode.). More support equals more delegates. On the upper end, the 13th district is an urban Houston district that is the lone district to receive 7 delegates. The 14th, which encompasses Austin gets 6 delegates as does the Dallas area's 23rd. As we've discussed, Obama tends to do well in population centers (and college towns), so these high end districts seem to be his territory.

The four districts with 5 delegates each is where things get interesting. Now we begin to introduce areas with high populations of Latinos like the 20th and 21st districts in south Texas. The other two 5 delegate districts, the 10th and the 26th represent urban areas; Dallas and San Antonio respectively. Clinton has won the states with the highest Hispanic populations (Arizona, California, Nevada and New Mexico) thus far, so to surmise that she'd do well in those south Texas districts isn't too much of a stretch (She did campaign there last week immediately following the Potomac primaries.). However, with Obama recently securing the endorsements of the SEIU and UFCW, unions with a large number of Hispanic members, he may see increased support among that demographic group. A couple of questions emerge from that:
1) How often do union members fall in line with the endorsements their unions make? Anecdotally, it seems that the timing of the endorsement has an effect (from The Caucus):

"The service employees’ chapters in Nevada and California endorsed Mr. Obama shortly before contests in those states. Nonetheless, Mrs. Clinton won both those states, with the union’s leaders saying that if they had made that endorsement several weeks, rather than several days, before those contests, that might have given them time to mount a campaign that made a big difference."

And that notion is backed up in the political science literature. Dark (1996) finds that the earlier the group endorsement and mobilization efforts are begun, the more successful those groups are in getting their rank and file members to coalesce behind the group's choice. Earlier, Rapoport, Stone and Abramowitz (1991) found that labor endorsements in particular had a significant effect upon union members' vote choices in three of the 1984 Democratic caucuses.

2) Are we beginning to see any differences between different generations of Hispanic voters? What I mean is, are there any differences between those Hispanic who are recently new to the US and those who represent the second or third generation of their family in the country (The difference could also be cast as one between those who are foreign born and those born in the US.)? As Barreto (2005) points out, the literature is rife with examinations of these differences. Further, he notes that those foreign born Hispanic are also poorer and less likely to turnout anyway. This question is a tough one to get at because there are so many cross-cutting issues that are involved in this race. Are these folks more likely to turnout since turnout has set records across the nation during these contests? Do young Latinos lean more towards Obama as they do in other racial groups? Do the US born Hispanics behave as the rest of Democratic voters have (evenly split between the two candidates)?

Back to the primary: The real battle here will be waged in the 17 districts that have four delegates apiece. The potential is there for Obama to again do well in population centers while Clinton does better in the more rural areas (or I suppose less populous areas).

Now what about the caucus? Texas has had this primary/caucus system in place since 1980 when the state held a non-binding primary in conjunction with the customary caucus. Typically Texas has not been in the spotlight (read consequential to the nomination), so the vote more often than not reflects the choice the previous contests had made. In 1988 however, there was a split between these two contests with Dukakis winning the primary and Jesse Jackson taking the caucus (*Note: I need to get a scan of the CQ map that shows this result. I also need to check to see if Jackson just won the first step of the caucus because it seems unlikely that when the Texas state convention was held later--after the nomination had been decided--that it would have gone against Dukakis.). Of course Dukakis got all the press coming out of the primary on that Super Tuesday.

What however, are the rules that govern this contest that is held virtually immediately following the close of polls in the state? The article from the Washington Post linked above is again instructive:

"The caucuses have also given rise to a separate concern, according to several top Texas Democrats interviewed last week. Because the state's Democratic Party has been out of power for years, leaders have struggled to find precinct chairs to oversee all of the 8,000 locations where caucuses will be held.

If it is time for the caucus and there is no precinct chair, party officials decided, the task of overseeing the vote will fall to the first person who collects the packet of materials used to run the caucus.

'The first person in the door picks it up and controls it,' said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, a Clinton supporter who represents the El Paso area. "So the rules are designed to create a race to the packet. You can imagine what that might look like."

Party officials said most of the duties involved in running the events are routine and are clearly spelled out in the rules provided. But there are instances in which the person chairing the event can influence the outcome, party officials said. For instance, the rules say that only people who vote March 4 can attend that evening's caucus events. If a caucusgoer says he voted but does not show up on the rolls, the organizer has the authority to include or dismiss him."

Obama's supporters have shown time and again this cycle that they are extremely disciplined caucus participants. Does that give him and his supporters in the Lone Star state the advantage? Yes and no. One would assume that that caucus success would continue, but on the other hand, the Clinton camp appears to be aware of the rules. As these things tend to do, it will come down to money and organization. Who the 67 delegates from these caucuses are won't be completely settled until the state convention on June 6-7 (by which time there may be another battle in Texas).

[UPDATE: See post on the implications of a Voting Rights Act-based challenges to the Texas delegate selection system.]

The Weekend Wrap Up--The Presidents' Day Edition

Well, this post won't break any new ground, but is simply a selfish attempt to catalog the events of the last several days for my own personal use (Hey, someone else may want to look at it too!). So what has happened to change the landscape? Let's look at the events for each party:

Republicans
--Romney endorses McCain: This move doesn't affect McCain as much as it affects Huckabee. McCain will get the nod (eventually), but Huckabee's time in the race is dependent upon the time it takes McCain to get to the 1191 delegates necessary to secure the GOP nomination. CNN is giving all of Romney's delegates in this story; getting McCain to within 78 delegates of the threshold. There must have been some movement in the unpledged delegate area because those numbers don't jibe well with the cable network's current delegate tally. By the current count (and remember, these things vary) McCain would be within 75 delegates of 1191. Handing all those Romney delegates over though is misguided. Their release is dependent upon the rules in each of the states in which Romney was able to capture delegates. That's seventeen states:

State	Delegates	Contest	Bound?
CA	6	P	B (2nd ballot)
UT	36	P	B (1st ballot)
IL	2	P	NB
AR	1	P	B (1st ballot)
MA	22	P	B (2nd ballot)
TN	8	P	B (2nd ballot)
MI	24	P	B (1st ballot)
NH	4	P	B
MN	38	C	NB
AK	12	C	NB
ND	8	C	B (1st ballot)
MT	25	C	NB
CO	43	C	B (1st ballot)
ME	18	C	NB
NV	18	C	NB
WY	9	C	NB
IA	12	C	NB
Total	286
Key:	P	Primary
	C	Caucus
	B	Bound
	NB	Not Bound

But how many of those delegates can be released to McCain within the rules in each of these states? This may be a less than scientific approach, but applying the rules of the 2004 GOP delegate selection (concerning which states' delegates were bound), 133 of those 286 Romney delegates are not bound. Returning to CNN's delegate count, that would move McCain up to 963, but would keep him 228 away from the mark that would knock Huckabee out. [One thing I should note is that only Utah's delegate binding rules are known of the 17 states above. The language in the bylaws of the other state parties was less than forthcoming.]

UPDATE: The first President Bush has endorsed McCain now. Now if the McCain folks could figure out how to use the current President Bush in their campaign. They face a similar quandary to the one faced by Al Gore during the 2000 election. That balance will go a long way toward determining how successful McCain will be in the general election.

--Huckabee takes a vacation: Here's all you need to know (from The Caucus this morning):

"Meanwhile, as the Democrats were dealing with the snowstorm, Mike Huckabee’s greatest immediate problem was perhaps his reddened face, scorched by the intense Cayman Islands sun, writes Katharine Q. Seelye of The Times. Mr. Huckabee, the G.O.P. candidate, spent the weekend on the resort island while he addressed a crowd and collected a speaker’s fee.

Mr. Huckabee turned the occasion into an opportunity to point out that his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain of Arizona, and the two Democrats seeking their party’s nomination are senators and that unlike them, he did not receive a taxpayer-financed salary while campaigning.

'No taxpayers pay for me to have health insurance, to pay my mortgage, to pay my bills,” Mr. Huckabee said. “And so to me, it’s not just absurd, it’s beyond absurd — it’s insulting — to think that there’s something nefarious about my being here when nobody has raised the question about sitting U.S. senators taking their full paycheck and enjoying all the magnificent perks they get from the U.S. taxpayers.'"

I liked this story and especially Huckabee's response to questions of his means of acquiring necessary campaign funds. One of his marks on this race will not only be how his performance questioned McCain's standing among the very conservative within the party, but his campaign's wit. He's been consistently good at delivering clever one-liners for a while now.


Democrats
--Clinton wins New Mexico: Since this decision came to light after the Super Tuesday vote, some have speculated that this win breaks Obama's streak of recent victories. Possibly. However, what it does do is give the Clinton campaign a break in the slew of negative stories that have hit her campaign of late (personal loan to campaign, losing campaign and deputy campaign managers, losing eight contests in a row). The polls continue to look favorable in Wisconsin and good in both Ohio and Texas.

--SEIU endorses Obama: On the heels of the endorsement of the United Food and Commercial Workers, the SEIU endorsement further bolsters Obama's support among the unions. As the UFCW link on The Caucus points out, there are many Hispanics among the ranks of both unions and that could help Obama in Texas on March 4.

--Wisconsin turns "ugly": It really remains to be seen whether this will help or hurt Clinton in Wisconsin. One thing's for sure, we'll be able to start putting together an answer to that question when tomorrow's results start coming in. Obama has been up to the task thus far though; dispatching Wisconsin governor, Jim Doyle, to counter Clinton's claims. The Obama camp has been very disciplined in responding to attacks.

--The Lewis flip-flop: This has already been discussed in the comments section, but like the Romney delegates' release, it has real ramifications during this cycle.

Political Science Academia and the Nomination Races

Far be it from me to introduce political science into all the fun we've been having here at FHQ since the nomination races commenced, but a couple of blog posts have popped up over the last couple of weeks that have caught my attention...and are rooted in professional political science in one way or another.

The first link comes from poblano, a contributor over at the Daily Kos. Sure, sure that liberal bastion. However, he's put together a rather nice regression analysis of the contest on the Democratic side; isolating a handful of variables that he(?) hypothesizes affect the two candidate vote share between Clinton and Obama. With the ten or so variables included, 95% of the variation in that two candidate vote share has been explained in the contests up to (not through) last weekend's contests in Washington, Nebraska and Louisiana. Check out the link above for the particulars. The interesting part (And you knew we'd get there, right?) is that the results are then taken and used to predict the finishes in the upcoming contests. I like the analogy that Ohio is simply a replay of Missouri with fewer Southern Baptists. I don't know that Ohio will play out like that (a narrow Obama win), but you can't argue with the demographic similarities between the two states. The sense I gathered from the live discussion group last Wednesday was that Obama's chances were better in Texas than Ohio. So it is interesting to see some evidence to the contrary. The polls continue to show healthy leads in both for Clinton (Ohio and Texas via Real Clear Politics).

And speaking of the live discussion group, one topic that was raised this past week was the differences in campaign tactics on both sides if the parties switched delegate selection rules. The second blog post I happened upon this week doesn't address this directly, but it does examine how the delegate count would differ now if the parties employed the delegate allocation rules of the other. The Monkey Cage (Yes, a political science blog from some faculty at George Washington University.) highlights some of these differences (via Michael Franz at Bowdoin) in their post. Obama's lead increases under Republican delegate rules while doubt would be cast on McCain's inevitability had the GOP nomination been waged under Democratic allocation rules.

Let the discussion begin (...on an otherwise slow weekend). I'll be back later with an update on what's been happening in the news during my blogging absence these last two days.

100 is the Magic Number

Being a child of the 70s, I was always taught--by Schoolhouse Rocks--that three was the magic number (Oh fine, I suppose my exposure to SHR was during the 80s when ABC tried to wedge educational material in between my Looney Toons.).

In the race for the Democratic nomination though, a different calculus is emerging. Both campaigns are beginning to cite 100 delegates as the margin to look for as the primary season draws to a close (Yes, it seems weird to talk about the season coming to an end, especially since that end won't come until June. However, things have really slowed down post-Super Tuesday and there are only 16 contests remaining on the Democratic side. It is interesting that there are also 16 weeks left before South Dakota brings up the rear on June 3. That's an average of one contest per week.). The Obama camp is contending that anything over a 100 delegate margin in his favor will be enough to claim the nomination within the court of public opinion. The Clinton folks are hoping to bring that margin under 100 so they can argue that the nomination is still undecided. Even with something as seemingly minuscule as 100 being the magic number, it will be difficult for Clinton to catch up without decisive victories in the states that comprise this stretch run. 51/49 victories in her favor in those primaries (There are only two caucuses left--in Hawaii on Feb. 19 and Wyoming on March 8.) will not allot her enough of a delegate spread to make up that difference or get it under 100 for that matter.

The one wild card, as we've mentioned countless times, is the superdelegate distribution among the two. Obama was out yesterday after his Potomac sweep talking momentum which was no doubt a claim directed at those superdelegates still on the fence. It is a testament to the strength of Clinton's candidacy that, unlike recent cycles, these superdelegates aren't already coalescing behind Obama at this point. And here's where another calculus enters the discussion; the calculus that each of these undecided superdelegates is going through. They have to not only balance their own personal feelings, but must also consider (at least those holding elective office) the feelings/decisions of their constituents in the primaries and caucuses. Of course those "personal feelings" include considerations of their own upward ambition within the party, their perceptions of general election electability and their relationships with the candidate (if they exist).

So what are the knowns and unknowns within that calculus (and further, how do we weight each)?
Knowns:
1) Electability: Well, the head-to-head general election polls conducted recently give us some indication there: that Obama has the edge over Clinton in hypothetical races against McCain (Real Clear Politics: Obama v. McCain; Clinton v. McCain). Obama has a consistent lead over McCain while Clinton and McCain are within the margin of error of each other. On the electability issue, the scale tips toward Obama.

2) Primaries and Caucuses so far: We also know the decisions of voters in 34 states plus DC. In those 35 contests, Obama leads 22-13. Sure that's as misleading as using a predominantly red electoral college map to demonstrate a close election (Remember those maps from 2000? Looking at them, you'd think a person making that claim was crazy.), but these primary/caucus results carry weight with the elected officials in those states. On the one hand you have evenly divided states like Missouri and New Mexico and on the other caucus states that have given Obama between 2:1 and 3:1 level victories. One could argue that a greater proportion of Democratic elected officials in those latter states would break for Obama than the proportion in the contest. Whereas in those evenly divided states, superdelegates could break either way. The bandwagon effect is clearly a resultant factor in these individuals' calculi. So too though is the idea that this segment of the delegates to the convention will be the decisive one. Going against the constituency is generally considered in a negative regard when this issue is raised.

The rest of these factors are less known than the above and fall into the unknown category:
Unknowns:
1) Personal feelings/relationships with the candidates: Look, public officials are, more often than not, going to go public with incendiary remarks concerning another public official (...unless this is a discussion about Dick Cheney and Patrick Leahy inside the Capitol.). So this one is a tough one to get at. We can probably glean some of these feelings from the relationships we know exist. Both Obama and Clinton have some relationship with Democratic senators. Some of those folks have weighed in, others haven't (Here's the full list.). Further, you'd imagine that Obama has some relationship with the Democratic members of the Illinois Senate as well. But for those still undecided, good luck attempting to ascertain these factors.

2) Upward ambition: Well, everyone of these elected officials could be considered upwardly mobile to some extent. But that's the catch, we don't know the extent to which these folks are upwardly ambitious. One thing we do know, is that, on the whole, these folks want to keep the spots they've got if not move up. We also know that all the members of the House, some members of the Senate and some members of state legislatures are up for re-election this fall. And choosing incorrectly in this fight wouldn't necessarily help. Politicians, like elephants (Oops, wrong party. I don't have a sense about how strong donkey memories are.), have long memories and won't soon forget someone who chose incorrectly.

This is where the strength of Clinton's candidacy is most likely to figure in. For starters, she has nearly half of the delegates allocated thus far. Without that and under the circumstances of the typical nomination campaign of the last ten years or so, Obama would have this thing wrapped up. But if 2008 has proven anything, it is that it is not a typical cycle. In other words, until Clinton is out, you can't count her out. Those on the fence then are more likely to remain there if Clinton's bid is still perceived to be legitimate.

This is a lot for these undecided folks to weigh and underscores the potential for division within the Democratic party as it heads toward the Denver convention in August. Both the candidates and these superdelegates are treading a very fine line on this and it is still very much up in the air as to how this whole thing will play out. With all the usual indicators pointing toward a Democratic win this fall, squandering the opportunity would be a real defeat for the Democrats. And I suppose that is another factor to consider.

The State of the Race--Post-Potomac Primary Edition

What did we learn from last night's results in the DC, Maryland and Virginia primaries?

1) Better than expected was not really part of the equation. Clinton was overwhelmed in all three contests and Huckabee, while drawing close to McCain during the vote tally, faded at the end to a near double digit deficit. And it has to hurt that McCain got all 63 delegates. It is difficult to win, much less prevent someone from passing the 1191 delegate threshold if you get nothing out of a 40+% showing.

2) Obama is starting to bring in more groups of people. Last night women broke for him. Population centers are going heavily for Obama too. And if you think back to those general election maps, the ones that break down support by the precinct level, those are areas where Democrats do well. The Missouri map from last week comes to mind. Obama won in Kansas City, St. Louis and Columbia (home to the University of Missouri) while the rest of the state (all but two counties) sided with Clinton. Virginia was like that last night, with the eastern (more urban) half going for Obama. The votes are there, so if Obama continues to out pace Clinton by large margins in urban centers, it will be to his advantage.

3) Good vs. Bad. On the Democratic side, I've had a tally of new stories from the last week or so floating around in my head.

Good: Obama raises $32 million in January.
Bad: Clinton loans her campaign $5 million.
Afterthought: Clinton raises $12 million since Super Tuesday.

Good: Obama sweeps the weekend contests following Super Tuesday.
Bad: Clinton shakes up her internal campaign; bringing in a new campaign manager.

Good: Obama sweeps through the Potomac Primaries.
Bad: Clinton's deputy campaign manager steps down.

This isn't really a good balance for the Clinton folks. And it certainly isn't hurting Obama's ability to begin indirectly using the M word. But all is not lost. Hawaii and Wisconsin are up next. Hawaii is a caucus state and one where Obama lived for a period of his life. Wisconsin however may offer an opening for Clinton. The most recent poll there (via Real Clear Politics) gives Obama only a four point edge. Yes, it is only one poll (the others are outdated--from 2007--and show Clinton in the lead), but it is something. While Clinton may be able to take advantage of the more rural areas of the Dairy State, Obama will surely do well in an open primary that allows independents to participate. The Fix has a checklist of things via a cadre of Democratic strategists that the Clinton campaign can shoot for if they want to regain the delegate lead and the upper hand in the nomination fight.

4) One thing not included on that list is the upcoming series of debates. Those may be key to Clinton shifting the underlying message and course of the campaign. And those will come after next week's contests during that two week lull until Texas-Ohio-Vermont-Rhode Island on March 4. That'll be a good time to attempt to that, but will the media be pushing the Obama momentum story during that time instead?

5) McCain still has some issues to iron out with those voters considering themselves highly conservative. But it doesn't hurt to have one of the Bush team's best fund-raisers on your side. That's a good signal that the party continues to unite behind his candidacy.

6) And what of Texas and Ohio? The first series of polls are up at Real Clear Politics. Again, like the Wisconsin poll above, there is only one recent poll to base things on. However, the first Ohio poll has Clinton up 17 points. Nothing yet has surfaced from Texas. Clinton was there last night and is there today by the looks of the candidate tracker on Slate.com.