CNN/LA Times/Politico statewide poll, the Democratic race for the California primary is:
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Clinton, 47
Obama, 31
Edwards, 10
Kucinich and Gravel are shown as zero, given the media’s assumption that we readers can’t process decimal points.1 The sample is 384 “likely” Democratic voters, and the margin of error is 5 percentage points. So, Clinton’s lead is well outside the M.O.E.
In the other major party primary, based on 255 “likely Republican voters,” it is:
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McCain, 20
Romney, 16
Giuliani, 14
Huckabee, 13
Paul, 8
Thompson 6
Hunter “0″
Margin of error is 6 points. Now, that’s an interesting result! Hope it holds. It would be fun to see a patchwork quilt of delegates for four or five different candidates.2
Interesting that the poll also finds that 62% of Democrats say they are sure of their choice, but 61% of Republicans say that they could change their mind!
Now, how to process that Dem poll in decision making…
If it really is that lopsided–and I assume there will be several more polls before election day, 5 Feb.–that would certainly make this undecided voter’s task easier. The decision rule has been something like: (1) Gravel or Kucinich (with various complicated rules for resolving that choice) for expression of sincere policy preference (especially on political reform); (2) Edwards on sincere delegate-preference grounds; (3) Obama on sincere grounds of a candidate’s projected use of the presidential office for persuasion.3
No. 3 comes in to play if my congressional district could give 2 delegates to Obama rather than 1, so I await that congressional-district polling (or a close enough statewide race to make it plausible that one delegate might be in play in this district).4 No. 2 comes in to play if, and only if, Edwards is around 15% statewide, which would net him around 12 of the 81 at-large delegates (and assuming he holds to his promise to stay in the race and not release those delegates; his policy proposals are by far the closest to mine of anyone other than Gravel or Kucinich, and delegates and platforms may not mean a lot, but they mean something). So, if nos. 2 and 3 remain in abeyance, then no. 1 becomes a nice freebie!
________
- And small sample sizes that have trouble locating supporters of candidates struggling to reach 1%. [↩]
- The GOP gives 3 delegates from each congressional district to the plurality winner. A dumb rule, because it creates serious malapportionment, and because voters inclined to vote strategically have no idea who might be the top two in their congressional district in a presidential primary, yet sincere voting may produce gross distortions of the primary electorate’s preferences. [↩]
- No strategic voting here! [↩]
- For the Democratic primary, each congressional district awards 3 to 6 delegates ‘proportionally’, with a 15% threshold; there are also 81 statewide delegates proportional to those candidates who clear 15%. A far less stupid rule than the Republicans’, but still pretty stupid as it still has that low-information problem at the district level. [↩]
Survey USA has it about the same for California Dems: Clinton 50, Obama 35, Edwards 10, “other” 3.
For Republicans, one candidate actually leads the pack: McCain 33, Giuliani 18, Huckabee 14, Romney 13, Thompson 9, Paul 4, “other” 3.
2% undecided among Dems, 4% among GOPsters.
(Seen at Pollster.com)
Seed planted by MSS — 15 January 2008 @ 16:31
Don’t the conventions also vote on policy planks, as well as electing the Presidential nominee and ratifying the Veep nominee? Am I too cynical in expecting that the Administration in power doesn’t regard the convention’s platform as terribly binding (ie, if the Administration would rather be doing something else)?
I wonder how things would fare differently if delegates were elected in one level of districts (say, House of Reps districts) by STV. In this case, there probably would be a stronger than normal case for a ticket-voting “above the line” option as per the Australian Senate – most people would, I assume, want to vote for the Romney-, Obama-, etc, -pledged slate rather than for individuals (especially if the convention functions more as a simulacrum of the Electoral College than as a simulacrum of Congress — see my above re planks).
MSS asks whether there is any good reason for using Congressional districts. I suppose campaign machinery is organised around these, and there would be existing, verifiable public rolls of who lives in which district which the parties would have access to. All parties in Australia, AFAIK, use federal and State divisions to elect delegates to their own party conferences.
The only quasi-public body I know that draws its own electoral boundaries is the National Roads & Motorists Assoc of NSW. The NRMA’s elections are the largest private polls in Australia – I’d estimate at least half of all adults would belong to their State’s affiliate of the NRMA (eg, Royal Automobile Club of Queensland/ Victoria, etc). NSW NRMA used to use state-wide block vote to choose its 11 (?) directors, but this had obvious problems. Now the NRMA has its own committee (IIRC, 3 members, and one must be an admitted lawyer) that divides NSW into 11 districts. The NRMA previously used IROV, with a ticket-voting option (rather odd for a nominally non-partisan body!), but recently switched to single-member plurality.
I wonder if it would be easier to simply say, eg, “If NSW has 55 federal MHRs, group 5 federal Reps divisions to make 1 NRMA division. If it has, say, 52, then group either 4 or 5 divisions, as long as the 4-division divisions are the largest in area”, or something like that. After all, the club’s “districting committee” members have to be paid for their services.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 16 January 2008 @ 01:47