Earlier today, someone sent me the following item, and Phil at PolySigh also has noted it. It is one of those things that is just almost impossible to believe.
Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state’s 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. “How can it possibly be,” Ickes asked, “that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn’t understand proportional allocation?”
Strategy (2)
I promised myself that this should not turn into yet another US Presidential Elections Blawg, but when Matthew Shugart posted this piece about a – uhm – factual mistake made by a Clinton advisor …
Well, all I can say is:
What. The. H€%k?!?
Scion grafted by Jacob Christensen — 09 May 2008 @ 19:42
It is rather incredible, isn’t it?
Although such an understanding (or misunderstanding, more accurately) of the system does explain, to some degree, the Clinton campaign’s early behavior.
However, if she truly can’t pick top campaign advisers who understand the electoral process, then surely she shouldn’t be picking a cabinet…
Seed planted by Steven Taylor — 11 May 2008 @ 16:04
The Personnel Skills of Hillary R. Clinton
If she truly can’t pick top campaign advisers who understand the electoral process, then surely she shouldn’t be picking a cabinet?
Scion grafted by PoliBlog — 11 May 2008 @ 16:13
Cross-posted at Polisigh:
Next: Penn advising Hillary, “Look, just accept the Vice-Presidential nomination for now, because if we can persuade a mere handful of the Democratic Electors to plump for you and give their other vote to Jimmy Carter, you’ll have 53% of the Electoral College to Obama’s 52%, so you’ll get President and he’ll be relegated to Vice-President…”
Seed planted by Tom Round — 14 May 2008 @ 17:07
The problem with the rather blasé allegation that CLinton’s abysmal electoral advice reflects some non-trivial characteristic is that it (1) assumes that the quality of campaign translates directly into the quality of governance (2) assumes that the Obama campaign correctly analysed the effect of PR-BM where the Clinton campaign did not.
(1) is perhaps somewhat vitiated by the 2000 and 2004 presidential results where the effectiveness of the campaigns does not seem to have been borne a very direct relationship to the quality of governance. (2) assumes that the Obama campaign set out deliberately to produce a delegate majority that, at least in part, results from reversed winner results and the bias against those with work and family commitments that is inherent in caucuses.
I am not absolutely certain that either argument really advances the cause of a particular candidate or deepens the understanding of political science.
A more interesting question would be applying the seat vote equation to the outcome of the Democratic nomination contest.
PS I get bragging rights for picking up the Clinton bungle when it happened, rather than months later.
Seed planted by Alan — 14 May 2008 @ 22:54
Yes, it seems pretty evident that the Obama campaign understood the PR system and the Clinton campaign thought it could win on early “momentum” and “big state” victories.
One campaign got it right and the other wrong. What that might mean for political science I will leave to the country specialists. Except that I do intend to do the seat-vote analysis when it is all over–the problem being, of course, that the vote totals are somewhat of a moving target depending on whose totals you want to believe. It is hard to do seat-vote analysis if we do not have reliable vote totals, as we do not for many of the caucus states.
I certainly would never make the claim that the strategic quality of the campaign would tell us much about governance ability.
Seed planted by MSS — 15 May 2008 @ 13:36
Actually, the fatal error was not contesting the ‘Potomac primary’. Under PR, even, perhaps especially. PRBM, you cannot give your opponent a large swathe of uncontested seats.
Has there been any work on US voting and the winner picking syndrome? There’s some evidence from Australia that a small (3 percent) group of voters see their job as picking the winner, as in a horse race, rather than choosing the winner. It would be interesting to have a historical view of who had how many delegates and when so you could look for any sign of horse race voters..
I was stunned to learn that many Pennsylvania delegate selection districts had even numbers of delegates. Districts with even magnitudes are a bad idea in any system of PR.
O do not envy you trying to find a set of ‘real numbers o which to work the seat/vote equation.
Seed planted by Alan — 15 May 2008 @ 14:07
I’m inclined to think there’s a connection between Obama understanding PR and supporting a return to cumulative voting in IL (even if it is not strictly a PR system).
In withdrawing Lani Guinier’s nomination, on the other hand, Clinton’s husband accepted the argument that cumulative voting is a racial quota system.
It is amazing how many smart people don’t understand or care about the rules that structure political competition. For analysts and candidates alike, that’s suicidal.
Seed planted by Jack — 15 May 2008 @ 17:43
While I take Jack’s point. the principle of transparency demands that the working of an electoral system not be so opaque that errors of this magnitude can happen. Of course, most fructovoters would argue that if the US political elite actually understood the working of election systems they would immediately institute a different electoral system)
Seed planted by Alan — 15 May 2008 @ 19:16
We discussed the even magnitudes back at the start of February.
I generally agree they are not a good idea. But then neither are 3-seat districts if one values proportionality, nor 5-seaters when there are exactly two very competitive candidates. I do not have the full list, but I believe 3, 4, and 5 are the most common magnitudes across state Democratic primaries.
I would love to see an analysis of whether either of the two remaining candidates benefited relative to the other from either placing second in even-magnitude districts or placing first in odd-magnitude districts.
Come to think of it, I should do that analysis. But please do not hold your breath.
Seed planted by MSS — 15 May 2008 @ 21:05
Alan: “if the US political elite actually understood the working of election systems they would immediately institute a different electoral system.”
Indeed.
Seed planted by MSS — 15 May 2008 @ 21:09
I don’t know what formula the Dems use to apportion delegates across districts – my guess is either [1] Hare quota and highest remainders (as used to allocate delegates among presidential contenders), or else [2] possibly Huntingdon equal proportions, with divisors (as used to allocate Congressreps among States).
If the latter, it is relatively simple to ensure uneven numbers for all districts (or all but one, if delegates districts = odd number) simply by allocating two seats at a time instead of 1, and reducing the divisor by two each time. (Unless only one seat remains).
Granted, this would depart more widely from “voter population” proportionality – however, (a) it’s not a Baker v Carr constitutional violation as “one person, 1.00 vote” doesn’t apply to primaries absent racial discrimination; (b) allocation is already pretty skewed, as it counts both population and registered Democrats; (c) arguably, if your district has (say) 5.873 times the average quotient of voters, it would actually have greater voting power – in the sense of, “effect on the final outcome – if it were rounded down to 5 delegates than rounded up to 6 – especially since if its population later rises to (say) 6.127 quotients, it jumps from 5 seats to 7, not just from 5 to 6. The game is still fair, but the stakes per throw are doubled. Ironically, by relaxing proportionality at an earlier stage of the process (delegates per district), you can increase proportionality at a later, more crucial stage (ie, answering the question “Do Democrats prefer Hillary or Obama?”).
Seed planted by Tom Round — 15 May 2008 @ 21:24
I urge all fructovoters to join me in holding our breaths until our host does his even magnitude allocation analysis.
Seed planted by Alan — 16 May 2008 @ 00:27
Rephrase Alan.
If the Democratic Party actually understood the working of election systems, and they could discipline their incumbent ranks the way Newt did in 1994, they would immediately institute a different electoral system.
The one thing entrenched Democrats and Congressional Republicans can agree on is staying in office. Whether reform would reduce their advantages doesn’t even earn consideration among risk-averse career Democrats.
I’ll be voting Green in the most competitive jurisdiction I can wrangle. Until the costs of winner-take-all are painfully obvious, the benefits of change will not resonate.
Seed planted by Somewhat anonymous — 16 May 2008 @ 01:22
Alan, #9: if the US political elite actually understood the working of election systems they would immediately institute a different electoral system.
I don’t think so. I think they like the one we have: high barrier to entry of new parties (i.e. competition), while at the same time candidate-centered rather than issue-centered. In the absence of term limits, decent constituent service plus understanding the needs of your major donors can keep you in office forever.
Alan and MSS, what different electoral system do you think U.S. political elites would favor?
Seed planted by Bob Richard — 16 May 2008 @ 11:20
Bob and ‘SA’: on a purely strategic level, I agree with you. Of course the incumbents like the rules under which they have been elected, until such time as they see advantage in reform. We are a very long way from that point.
Alan, please breathe!
Seed planted by MSS — 16 May 2008 @ 12:59
The current system is in no-one’s interest. The Republicans are facing an electoral Armageddon where they are going to learn, perhaps even the way the Progressive Conservatives did in Canada in 1993, that FPTP is not their friend.
In 2006 the MI-1 went Republican by 66%. The Democrats just achiebed a 12 point swing. In IL-14 the swing was 6 points.
When districts in Mississippi are going Democrat by 54 percent then the FPTPit gapes open beneath their feet. Assume that Illinois is more typical than Mississippi. What would a nation-wide 6 point swing do to the Republican minority in Congress?
Proportional representation was introduced to the Australian senate in 1949 because, among other things, the ruling Labor party had a reasonable expectation of losing every seat in the Senate. Such prospects concentrate the mind wonderfully, although possibly that organ is too long atrophied among Republican members of Congress.
Seed planted by Alan — 16 May 2008 @ 13:22
I really wish I could agree with Alan. But in fact, with the failure now in 3 “safe” GOP seats of their strategy of nationalizing the campaign–a vote for the Dem is a vote for Obama and Pelosi (and Rev. Wright), one can expect the party’s incumbents to retreat to local politics and strategically dessert their own party when it might suit their reelection.
In other words, while the argument can be made that the current system is not in one or the other party’s (or both parties’) collective interests, it continues to serve the individual interest of incumbents pretty well.
I suspect the 20 losses I alluded to in another post are exaggerated. And 2006 (as analyzed here at the time) showed the extent to which our swings can’t be understood the same way as they can in a parliamentary democracy. FPTP, combined with the other features of the institutions that characterize the American system, still allow incumbents to protect themselves.
In any case, it is Democrats who currently control Congress. They hardly can be in a mood for PR when they are the ascendant party–even if the same logic articulated above means that they will never reap the gains from partisan swings that opinion polling and special elections would portend if this were a parliamentary-FPTP system.
Seed planted by MSS — 16 May 2008 @ 13:52
By the way, further discussion of swings in congressional elections really ought to go to one of the plantings on that topic (like the “20 losses” one from yesterday). This is supposed to be on presidential nominating (which seems to have fallen in popularity in the orchard; your orchardist can’t always keep up with the latest sprouting trends!)
Seed planted by MSS — 16 May 2008 @ 13:54
The cross-pollination is probably the result of widespread anoxia.
Seed planted by Alan — 16 May 2008 @ 17:09
It seems to me, anecdotally, that the “split vote” problem of FPTP is not symmetrical between incumbents and challengers, but tends to favour incumbents. That is, when a voting system places an extremely high premium on uniting around one single party or candidate, the “status quo” starts off with a head start, just by being there. Whereas selecting one single lead challenger usually involves a dispute among the “outs” that divides and enervates them.
My examples here are India, Canada and the UK, although maybe I’m over-generalising (PNG has high turnover with FPTP). Having said that, in the US, a substantial third-party challenge seems to coincide with those years when the Presidency swaps parties (2000, 1992, 1980, 1968 – although unnecessary in 1952, 1960 and 1976 and insufficient in 1948), even when the sucessful challenger got over 50% of the votes, or at least when it was unlikely that runoff or IROV would have changed the result.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 16 May 2008 @ 17:24