Lessons Learned from Texas Two Step

The Texas Two Step election system for the Democratic Presidential Nomination has provided us with a very interesting experiment, whereby, we can actually compare and contrast results between primaries and caucuses from the same election in a staunchly republican voting state.

I have been puzzled by the dramatic difference between Texas’ primary and caucus results. To this day, I cannot find anybody who has gone on to talk about this dramatic discrepancy in much detail (if you find one let me know). Perhaps since Texas is still counting the caucus results.

The question I have:

Is how is it that Hillary Clinton could win the Texas primary by more than 100,000 votes (winning by 4 points overall) and yet lose in the Texas caucuses by what is currently a 12 point lead)?

After trying to reconcile these differences (and there are a number of explanations which I would encourage feedback on) you are left wondering if caucuses over represent Obama’s strengths.

In my mind this is a legitimate question for two reasons. Firstly, because in the general election we will not be utilizing caucuses and instead we will use a secret ballot system, (where one vote per person decides the election in each state - instead of the diluted caucus system where one vote is supposed to be representative of many people)

Secondly, if it is true that caucuses are not representative of the will of the people (which I suppose it is true) than this also undercuts the argument that whosoever has the higher pledged delegate lead should automatically be supported by the party establishment (i.e. supers). This is especially relevant question considering that Obama has amassed his pledged delegate lead by taking staunchly core republican voting states (WY, ID, NE, KS, ND) via caucuses.

So, while his pledged delegate leads may be impressive its relative importance is diminished if it turns out that the caucus systems over represent his strength amongst democrats in these conservative states - similar to what happened in Texas.

Caucuses are a Joke

From a mailing list I’m on, another example of why the Texas two-step hybrid system is FUBAR:

6:00 pm Caucus-goers begin to arrive

7:00 pm Polling location closes, there is an estimated 1,000 voters still in line waiting to vote (eight precincts and three poll workers equals one really long wait)

1:00 am Last voter votes and polls close

1:30 am We receive our precinct convention packets and begin the sign in process

2:27 am My precinct convention (0342) begins by electing a permanent chair

3:11 am My precinct convention officially adjourns

4:35 am The permanent secretary and I finish our paperwork and leave the caucus location

So voters who showed up at the caucuses as 6:30, as prescribed had to wait for 7 hours before even starting the process, and didn’t get finished until after 3 am, more than 9 hours after the first caucus goers arrived. I wish I could say that this was atypical.

Are they trying to make it as hard as possible for people’s votes to count, or what?

Path to the White House

Given the contentiousness of this issue I decided to highlight a fairly straightforward analysis that summarizes how Hillary or Obama could win the nomination.Let me just remind everyone, as well, that either way we are choosing from the greater of two greats! Here it is:

via the NYT:

Do Overs in Michigan and Florida

Apparently governors of Michigan and Florida are willing to pony up the money for redo of their respective primary elections. Just today Yahoo News is reporting that DNC Chairman Howard Dean is ready to give them their way.

“All they have to do is come before us with rules that fit into what they agreed to a year and a half ago, and then they’ll be seated,” says Dean, who has come to realize that the party’s dysfunctional process now threatens to become a major issue in a close race for the nomination between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Given the fact that neither Obama or Clinton will be able to lock up 2025 delegates before the convention it will be very interesting if MI and FL are thrown back into mix.

Hillary’s “Darkened” Ad

This is making the frontpage everywhere all day, so I’m compelled to drop in my two cents.

Youtube turns video to shit. You give it nice source material, it gives you garbage. In fact, it will happen to any video you stuff through a youtube-sized pipe.

Most flash-video sites use a very low bitrate (contrast quality there to digital cable TV, a DVD, or a high definition disc format — all which use increasing orders of magnitude more bandwidth) compression. This kind of lossy compression prioritizes the image data and throws out as much lower-priority information that is necessary to fit inside a bandwidth envelope. First to go is color information. Our eyes mostly care about ‘luminescence,’ the overall intensity of parts of the image. Any gaps or incorrect color we’re able to fill in subconsciously. So, first the depth of the color palette is reduced, and second, color resolution is squashed.

In addition, color correction of images and video across different display types is a huge amount of work, even for professionals. Production quality monitors that have accurate, standardized color and profile correction tools are very expensive. It’s difficult to even create something with a color consistent pipeline. Once it’s out the door, all bets are off. The average computer and monitor setup is shit. If you could find me ten random laptops that had anything close to consistent color, I’d convert to a faith of your choosing. Even if you have carefully color corrected your entire production workflow, and send things out with correct color profiles, youtube will eat it and turn it to shit. It doesn’t care. In fact, people who had TiVo’d the actual commercial are coming back and reporting that… yes, the actual aid aired on tv looked “right.” This is not a surprise — TV tends to have high production values, and stations have staff whose entire purpose in life is to care about things like color profiles, aspect ratios, bitrate, etc.

Second, part of the youtube magic is taking your source material and hammering it into their containers. Aspect ratios will get stretched unless you take extreme care to properly letterbox your source. I’m not surprised at all something thrown up on youtube would be stretched significantly, as the Hillary ad is.

As others have pointed out, the absurdity of the situation is painfully evident if you go to MSNBC’s own page and view their streaming version of the source material. Anyway, enough. I came up with the above answers within a few microseconds of hearing about the ‘controversy’ and seeing the ’smoking guns.’ Thanks goes out to FactCheck for putting additional background together and posting the only sane conclusion to this situation.

I’ve generally expected our party — in particular the bloggers fanning these flames — to be tech savvy enough to understand the above intuitively, natively, without any second thought. In the future, let’s try to keep things reality based before we set our tin beanies spinning.

Other Texas Races

• Rick Noriega won the primary last night, and will be looking to take John Cornyn’s Senate seat in November. Noriega is well known, has an impeccable military record and is starting to build some grassroots support. Cornyn currently has a net-negative approval rating, and should be quite vulnerable, due to his support of Bush’s failed policies.
• Ron Paul also won his primary battle, and will likely hold on to his House seat this fall. I’m just mad because I didn’t get to see the blimp.

The Numbers

Wow - just saw this: Imagine a best case scenario, where Clinton wins every remaining congressional district by almost 25%.

Her gain? Only 110 delegates. Obama would still lead by 50 pledged delegates.

Now do you wonder why she’s fighting so hard for MI and FL to count?

Simple Math

After Hillary’s surprise (for some not me) victories in Ohio and Texas there has been a lot of post-shock spinning going on. After Hillary was out advertised and out spent in Texas and Ohio by more than 2 to 1, Hillary still pulled out a double digit victory in OH and a huge upset in the Texas primaries. I have noticed a lot of spinning on the Obama side trying to minimize the implications of these upsets and even heard claims that there was no damage done (that it’s all psychological).

In fact the minute OH and TX were called for Hillary I could hear Obama enthusiasts dizzyingly punching away on their delegate math calculators trying to reassure themselves that Obama is unbeatable and that nothing in the world has changed. All of this spinning is based on what the media and Obama fans are calling delegate math. The Obama campaign and fans are running for their delegate math calculators in order to take refuge from a plain and simple reality, brought to them by the voters. The reality of course is that Hillary is still viable and she can still win the Democratic nomination.

I don’t care how many ways you analyze the math. The point is Hillary is in and she can still win the nomination. Now, I am no math genius, but the simple reality is that it takes 2025 to clench the nomination (at the moment) and neither one of them has it. End of story and simple as pie.

Delegate Update

With 40% of caucus returns in, Obama is still up 12% in Texas. It looks like both CNN and Burnt Orange have given her a 4-delegate lead from the primaries. At best, I’d say she may be able to squeak out a one-or two delegate margin, if everything goes her way in the caucus returns. (What’s taking so long, anyway?)

I still think Obama has a better-than even chance of winning the delegate count here in TX.

When all is said and done, it looks like Hillary picked up about 13 delegates on the night, despite winning 3 of the 4 states. To put that in perspective, it’s only slightly more than the 10 delegate lead that Obama picked up from Wisconsin alone. She needed the win to stay alive, and in that sense it was a good night for Hillary. Clinton still faces some daunting math though, where she’s down about 140 pledged delegates, and about 100 delegates total (including supers).

With Obama looking to win Wyoming and Mississippi easily in the upcoming weeks, this 14-delegate gain may very well be erased by the time they hit PA, on April 22. Clinton will need huge wins in PA and the subsequent states in order to build any kind of momentum that might lead her to collect more supers than Obama. That’s her only shot, as it’s almost impossible for her to catch him in pledged delegates at this point.

One thing is for sure, though: it’ll be interesting (and possibly exhausting) to watch these two battle it out for at least another month. As long as this race stays overwhelmingly positive, it keeps both candidates, and their Democratic ideals at the top of the news cycles, while McCain can only sit back and wait. The revitalization of party infrastructure in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, can also only be a good thing as we look ahead to a Democratic victory in November.

The Caucus Experience

After voting in the morning at 7am, and a long day that followed, my girlfriend and I returned to the polling place a bit before 7pm. The last voters finished up around 7:30, and the disorder that followed seemed to be the rule for the inexperienced Texas caucusgoers — with some caucuses lasting well into the AM as reader Bibi reported.

Several precincts shared our polling location, perhaps about 400 people altogether. At the beginning of the caucus, we broke into precinct groups and started individual conferences. My precinct was the largest, but also appeared to be the least experienced and familiar with the rules. By the time we had finished registering our names and preferences, an adjacent caucus — led by someone clearly experienced with the process — was already wrapping up. Registration was divided into separate lines for Clinton, Obama, and Other. This contributed to the wait, as it was clearly shaping up to be a lopsided victory and one of the lines remained empty with the other wrapping around the back of the room. As a result, the lines were consolidated, and began to proceed more quickly.

To expedite the caucus process, votes for Chair and Secretary were taken during registration. The person with ‘the packet’ initializing the caucus did not have a strong enough voice to carry across the noisy room, however, resulting in confusion, break of procedure, and incorrect votes. In response, the crowd moved towards the front of the room, and restarted using someone with a much stronger voice. Even then, though, the inexperience resulted in repeated checking of the rules packet.

After registration was completed and officials elected, potential county delegates each made a short speech announcing their intentions and affiliation. The votes were tallied, and to no one’s surprise, Obama won our precinct on a 3-to-1 margin. This resulted in a 11-4 delegate break. About 1.5 hours into the process, we finally broke into candidate conferences to select our county delegates. In the Obama camp, 13 people had volunteered. The group discussed the option that, instead of holding individual votes, 2 people could retract their candidacy. Two of the candidates sat down, and the remaining 11 delegate candidates were unanimously confirmed.At this point, we were getting a bit tired and hungry and decided to go have dinner. At the time I left, the Hillary group was debating which 4 delegates they would select.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the hybrid caucus system and believe it is a good method of balancing the need for a candidate who is not only popular but also organized at a grassroots level. It clearly would have been better if it had been more organized and more efficient, but it was still a worthwhile experience.