GOP Reminder:

This is just a reminder to all those who backed candidates who never beat Obama, or struggled to even get a few points ahead, even when they were called the 'front-runner' in the nationwide polls leading up to the primaries and caucuses:

Paul Beats Obama Head-to-Head
Forbes:"CBS Poll: Ron Paul beats Obama among Independents"
Rasmussen Poll: Paul beats Obama in General Election
Harris Poll: Paul beats Obama
Paul beats Obama... again!
Paul would Beat Obama
Paul most Electable Republican... could beat Obama
Paul Polls Strong Against Obama

If you want to blame anyone for Obama remaining in office after November, and you don't feel comfortable blaming yourself for voting for someone in the primaries who never consistently polled ahead of Obama, go ahead and blame the party hacks and elitists in the GOP who railroaded the Paul campaign from day one. With bad press, disparagement, and outright fraud in the primaries and a kangaroo convention, they are the ones who truly need to be held accountable. You're just someone who follows their lead.

Pointing your finger at the die-hard conservatives who worked tirelessly for Paul does nothing but point the other 3 fingers and a thumb back at yourself.

Electoral Math

Back around June, I really didn't think President Obama had a chance of being re-elected.  Boy, how 3 months can really change things.  At this point, I don't think the Republican Party has a chance to unseat him.

The main issue is the GOP nominee.  As I mentioned in the previous blog, Mitt Romney has practically no chance of winning either of his home states.  This got me to thinking about how the electoral map could be modified to make him win. 

I started by giving all of the South to Romney.  Even Florida.  I gave him North Carolina and Virginia, in spite of poor polling there. I just gave him the whole South.  Free 29 electoral votes from Florida, included.

I threw in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, for good measure. 
Next, I gave him the Mountain-West.  Montana, the Dakotas, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah.  Toss Alaska in there, to boot.

Finally, I gave him Indiana and, stretching logic and being very, very generous, I gave him the coveted Ohio.  Ohio is the swing state that has made many elections.  I just gave it to Romney without any indication that he could possibly win it.  A free 18 electoral votes.

To Obama, I gave the Northeast, D.C., and the West Coast.  The Mid-West I couldn't give to either candidate as a whole, so, after assigning Indiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas and Ohio to Romney, I allowed Obama to take his home state, Illinois, which he is dominating, anyway.  I also gave him Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, all of which have low electoral numbers, and are leaning toward Obama in the polls. 

Colorado and New Mexico, with low electoral numbers and pro-Obama polling numbers, I awarded to the President, as well. 

Last of all, and the nail in the coffin, is Michigan.  It is leaning precariously towards Obama.  Awarding Michigan to Obama gives him the win with 272 electoral votes, even with Romney winning both of the usual swing states.

The verdict is pretty clear:  Romney can't win.  Even if he did appeal to swing voters enough to carry the big swing states, it seems highly unlikely that he might pull off the total win.  I'm not going to say it is impossible, but the Northeast, D.C., and the West Coast already puts Obama over 200 electoral votes, a number very hard to overcome without winning almost every other state. 

If conservatives want to get Obama out of office, they need to look elsewhere.  It is simple math.

The two gray states are the 'swing' states.  I gave them both to Romney in my count.  The total in my most optimistic projection for Romney is: OBAMA:272, ROMNEY:266.

History: Third Party More Likely Than Romney

Mitt Romney will probably not win either of his 'home' states in the 2012 General Presidential election.  Romney counts Michigan as his birth home, and Massachusetts as his resident home state.  He is impossibly behind his Democratic opponent in both of them.  Historically, this makes it extremely unlikely that he will win the overall Electoral College vote.

Only one President has ever won the race without winning either his home or adopted home state.  It happened almost 170 years ago.  James Polk won the 1844 Presidential Race without winning either state.  The Liberty Party candidate shaved off just enough percentage points from the Whig Party candidate to give Polk the win, even though he couldn't manage to win his home or resident state. 
Romney doesn't really have this going for him.

Romney will need to win not only all of the southern states and mid-west, but he'll need to win the swing states of Florida and Ohio.  Currently, he is almost 10 points behind in these key swing states.  More surprisingly, he barely leads in some of the traditional GOP stronghold states.  Winning the populous Michigan electors would make up for some of this, but that doesn't look plausible.

Those who are against going to a third party candidate because "they want to back a winner" would have to back Obama in this race, unless they believe they can somehow overcome presidential election history.  A third party candidate has been elected more recently than a candidate who couldn't win his home states.  His name was Abraham Lincoln and he was elected as the 3rd party candidate to a fledgling political organization called the Republican Party sixteen years after Polk was elected.

Vote Your Conscience, or your vote is WASTED!

I want to clarify things for those of you who believe that voting in the State of Alabama for someone other that Mitt Romney equals a vote for Barack Obama. First off, Alabama only has 9 electoral votes.  Second, you should be more concerned about the party structures than electing one of their hacks.  Lastly, voting for someone is, by definition, voting for that person, not for someone else.

To start, as I mentioned, Alabama only has 9 votes in the Electoral College.  Alabama is so blindly GOP that if every person who identifies as Democrat or independent combined to vote for one candidate, Romney would still win the state.  If, by some miracle, someone other than Romney won, it would still only contribute 9 Electoral College votes to their total.  That is not much when there are 539 votes to be cast.

Matter of fact, most states are already decided by the large difference in party preference. The election will be decided by the few states where people who are NOT Paul supporters represent the swing vote.  These people want to hear that government will continue to give liberally to all the liberal social programs.  They will vote for which ever one gives them the most.  These are the people you need to go after.

The reason you have become so concerned about the 'other' side winning is because you've allowed 2 political parties to write all the laws, which now heavily favor them and allows the government to financially support them!  The primary elections and caucuses are merely for show, as we've seen, because the party elite simply reverse your vote.  They make sure their buddies are nominated, and then fund their party with government money and slant ballot laws to keep anyone else out.  If you had any sense of what is going on, you'd never contribute to them again, and be very wary of voting for any candidate from the 2 parties which control almost everything, now.

Last off, when you cast your vote for someone, you are casting your vote for that person, not for someone else.  It is that simple.  Now, that doesn't mean that the voting apparatus isn't rigged to give your vote to someone else... but that is a different argument altogether.  Check out the documentary Hacking Democracy to see what I mean.

There is definitely a need to reform our election process.  Instant run-offs would be good but we first need to remove any reference to party or other political advertisements from the ballot.  Allowing the people to select a second choice for the office being elected would stop these elections where we have 2 choices who are supported by a tiny minority.

To put it bluntly, if you are trying to bully someone into voting against their conscience, for whatever reason, you are making a huge mistake.  Saying that their vote will be counted for someone they diametrically oppose is intellectually dishonest, especially in the State of Alabama.  Make things better by being constructive, forcing people to make lesser-of-two-evils choices is just not the answer.

STAND FOR LIBERTY!!!

NOT OUT

If your 'trusted' news source is reporting that Ron Paul has dropped out of the 2012 GOP Presidential race, you might reconsider trusting anything else they say.
Take a look at the official Ron Paul 2012 website:

Ron Paul is NOT suspending his campaign, and he's NOT out, he's NOT even DOWN.  The spin comes from the fact that, with success in several state conventions, the money seems to be best spent in hiring parliamentarians instead of advertising and hosting events.  An email yesterday morning went out indicating that money will now be spent on these direct tactics, instead of the 'throw money at the TV and radio' tactics of old.
Anxious to do as much damage as possible, your 'friends' in the media have begun spinning.  I call it lying.

Marriage is NOT Controversial

Contrary to what has been implied in the news lately, it is not politically dangerous to come out for or against the legalization of any form of marriage.  Either opinion you take on the subject is a pro-state, big government opinion.  Whether you believe government should make a law allowing same-sex unions or whether you believe government should make a law banning them, you still believe government knows best.  This is the safest political move a bureaucrat can make. 

The politicians who take a left vs. right opinion on this subject are just following political trends and reinforcing the belief that government knows what's best for you.  Basically, they let the political wind form their opinions and set precedent after dangerous precedent based on this flighty and flakey foundation.  That's very safe for them, but potentially catastrophic for the country.

My religion dictates that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and this is what I believe.  It is the height of government arrogance and a violation of my right to freedom of religion, protected by the 1st Amendment, to proclaim that government can dictate anything about marriage.  Marriage is not a crime to be controlled or regulated.  It does not directly threaten your life, liberty or property.  It is a contract based almost completely in religious belief. 

To come out against government control of marriage is the truly American position.  The American people don't need a nanny.  We don't need some bureaucrat making laws that affect our religious beliefs.  We need government to stay out of our personal lives.  The sole and only legitimate purpose of government is to protect life, liberty and property.

The problem we face today is that our government has built too many unconstitutional institutions that rely on government's definition of marriage.  This affects the structure of almost every agency.  Those that deal with revenue collection or distribution, from the IRS to entitlements, depend heavily on government interference in marriage. 

Government should not define marriage; your church should.  Marriage is a religious institution.  It is not a crime.  Government has no more right to regulate who you marry than it does in who you choose to have as a friend.

Front Runners

Mitt Romney's delegate strength, even after winning two states in one day, is still only 2%. 100% is needed to become the inevitable nominee. Romney's delegate strength is the highest but by such a small margin that it is insignificant. The only thing keeping him high is the media coverage of him as the front runner.

CNN is reporting that 250 delegates have been awarded, or are predicted to be awarded. That leaves over 2000 up for grabs. You only need 1144 to win, and all of the candidates are around 5-10% of the way there, now. If tomorrow the media were to begin pushing Gingrich again, or Santorum, or, heaven forbid, they start to push Ron Paul, any one of them would could have their delegate strength boosted enough to win.

The media (and by media I mean everyone from CNN to Limbaugh) won't push Paul, however, and will continue to report that everyone but Ron Paul is the front-runner. They'll also continue to steal every point, argument and complaint the Paul campaign makes. When the Paul camp complained of getting no coverage, the media reported complaints of Paul getting too much coverage. When Paul railed on the FED, the media reported the other candidates railing on the FED. When Paul called for a return to a gold standard, the media reported on the other candidates returning to a gold standard. When Paul supporters complained about RINOs, the media stole it and spun it.

There has been one mention of Ron Paul's delegate strength in this election. After the last debate, a reporter stated, in passing, that Ron Paul was second in the delegate count. That is the extent of Ron Paul's front-runner status coverage.

The convoluted GOP primary system is ripe for abuse by media. They can spin so many different aspects of it. How the delegates are awarded, the popular vote count, the decisions of the individual state part officials are just a few of the ways we've already seen it spin.

Why do we pay for party elections, anyway? Party's shouldn't be able to advertise on ballots at taxpayer expense, anyway. Party names on ballots causes bias just by existing. What if every party had to be awarded the same amount of money the current big two get through government funding of their elections?

Digressing...

This election is going to be a long one. Unless the GOP wises up to the only chance they have of beating Obama, that being Ron Paul, it will be a fruitless one for the Republican Party. Say hello to four more years of someone other than a Republican in the White House.

Primary Math

Many people seem confused about the process for selecting a presidential candidate to go on the ballot in November. Every four years, as long as anyone alive today can remember, either one or both of the parties that currently control our government has gone through the process. So how do they select a candidate?

To start, when the political parties meet, they not only decide their platforms, but how the selection of candidates will be handled. Political parties are not a part of government, therefore the rules of who can be nominated are not decided by elected representation to government, other than the basic qualifications for the office. A lot of power is vested in state party leadership. The process they decide upon will vary from state to state, but will include either a primary, a caucus or both.

Primaries typically allow voters to select delegates which have pledged support for a candidate by selecting their name from a ballot. Caucuses are similar, but are typically an open forum where voters are sometimes required to make their selection publicly. In both, delegates are selected, sometimes as part of the first vote, sometimes as part of a second selection process.

Each state is allotted a number of delegates by the national party. This number is three times the number of representatives to Congress from that state, plus some 'bonus' delegates, typically having to do with rewarding a state for electing Republicans. For example, Alabama has 50 GOP delegates, based on 7 Representatives to the House of Representatives (21), 10 at-large, 3 party, and 16 bonus delegates. 47 of these will be selected on the ballot and 3 go to prescribed elected Republicans, who typically vote with the majority of the state.

Some states award all delegates to the candidate with the largest number of votes. Others award them in different ways. Alabama, for example, awards delegates by district. The candidate with the most votes in the district over 20% is awarded 2 delegates for the district. If the winning candidate has over 50%, the candidate is awarded all 3 delegates. If the winning candidate does not have 50% of the vote, and the second place candidate has over 20%, the 2nd place candidate is awarded 1 delegate. If not, the remaining delegate goes to the winning candidate.

The candidates will receive a proportion of the 26 at-large and bonus delegates using statewide totals if no candidate receives more than 50% of the statewide vote. If a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote statewide, that candidate is awarded all of the at-large and bonus delegates.

Alabama State Party 2012 Presidential Primary Rules

There are a total of 2286 delegates to the GOP convention. 1144 delegates (50%+1) are required to win. If at any point during the race, three candidates obtain 572 delegates, it will become a near impossibility to win the 1144 delegates. The same results if 2 two candidates get 572 delegates and the remaining two split 572 delegates between them.

When a delegate is elected, they are bound to vote for the candidate at the national convention. If no candidate has 1144 delegates, the delegates are released to vote for other candidates after the first vote. Superdelegates would most likely cast their vote with their state on the first ballot but coalesce around the candidate with the highest delegate total for the second. For example: If the candidate with the most delegates has received at least 1012 regular delegates, the 132 superdelegates would most likely vote for candidate A on the second ballot to give the candidate 1144 delegates, which is enough to win.

If the first place candidate has less than 1012 regular delegates, however, deals would then be made to capture the delegates of other candidates on the next ballot. It is also possible that the superdelegates might not coalesce on the second ballot. Either way, if a third ballot is reached, regular delegates will begin brokering.

From CNN: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2012/i/delegate.strength.overview.pdf

There are two basic components to calculating the delegate strength score -- how close the frontrunner is to winning a majority of the delegates, and the gap between the frontrunner's delegates and his or her closest rival. That gap is measured in terms of how many "outstanding delegates" remain. Finally, a factor is applied that essentially creates a range of scores from zero to 100, which makes the score a little easier to comprehend. For the math junkies, the calculation is:

Delegate Strength = (((C1-C2)/O) * (C1/L) * 333)

where...
C1 = Number of delegates the leading candidate has won
C2 = Number of delegates the candidate with the second-highest number of delegates has won
O = Number of delegates that have not been chosen
L = Number of delegates needed to win the nomination

To give an example of how this works, Gingrich currently has a delegate strength of .03, based on the races so far in South Carolina, New Hampshire and estimates of the Iowa delegate apportionment. Remember: A delegate strength of 100 or more is required to win. Gingrich, with the current delegate lead, doesn't even have a tenth of a percent in delegate strength. If Mitt Romney wins Florida, he will have a whopping .34 delegate strength, which is still 99.66% shy of enough delegate strength to win, barely one third of a percent.

If you do the math, this race is still wide open.