Entries for February 2008

How many editors have changed the course of history? Not many. William F. Buckley Jr., who died earlier this week at 82, was one who did.

“Liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition” in America, wrote the distinguished literary critic Lionel Trilling in 1950. “The conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not, with some isolated and ecclesiastical exceptions, express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.”

Tom Edsall has the scoop: The Hillary Clinton campaign is urging superdelegates not to endorse anyone. It is obviously afraid of a cascade to Barack Obama. And rightly so, given the latest Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania, which shows Clinton leading Obama among primary voters by only 49 to 43 percent. That looks just about the same as Clinton’s current lead in Ohio.

This suggests the following situation if on March 4 Clinton wins in both Ohio and Texas--a dicier proposition every day, given the Texas numbers. As I’ve explained, she’s unlikely to get any significant delegate advantage out of such victories unless her support rises sharply in the next six days. And the Pennsylvania numbers suggest she’s not likely to get much delegate advantage out of an Ohio-size victory there. Pennsylvania selects 55 delegates statewide by proportional representation and 103 delegates by proportional representation in congressional districts. In addition, there are 14 “soft, unpledged” delegates. Including those delegates, a 49-to-43 percent victory would give Clinton a 29-to-26 advantage in statewide delegates. Six of the 19 congressional districts with 26 delegates have even numbers of delegates: probably no delegate advantage for either candidate there; score it 13 to13. The two black-majority districts in Philadelphia have 16 delegates: probably an 11-to-5 Obama advantage. If you assume Clinton carries each of the 11 remaining districts, all with odd numbers of delegates, she gets a 43-to-32 advantage there. Final score: Clinton 90, Obama 82.

Via RealClearPolitics.com, here are the latest polls on Texas and Ohio:

In Texas, Rasmussen has Hillary Clinton ahead of Barack Obama by a statistically insignificant 46 to 45 percent, a result similar to the Washington Post/ABC poll showing her ahead 48 to 47 percent. CNN headlines its result, with admirable statistical modesty, as a tie, but it's Obama 50 to 46 percent. This is the first Texas poll with an Obama lead.

Let me take the results of the ABC/Washington Post polls in Texas and Ohio and the terrific graphic in Sunday's print Post and try to estimate the delegate count in the primaries if the vote splits the way it does in the poll. Statewide, the poll showed Clinton ahead by the statistically insignificant margin of 48 to 47 percent.

Texas allocates 127 delegates by proportional representation within the 31 state Senate districts (with a 15 percent threshold, which no one but Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will meet). I have Clinton coming out on top in the delegate count by 64 to 62.

That's what Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies calls Iraq and Afghanistan in an opinion article in Sunday's Washington Post. Cordesman has long been a skeptic about the possibilities for success in Iraq and has been quoted on occasion by those who argue we should withdraw posthaste. In this article, he recommends the opposite—and in the strongest terms. Key passages:

What the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common is that it will take a major and consistent U.S. effort throughout the next administration at least to win either war. Any American political debate that ignores or denies the fact that these are long wars is dishonest and will ensure defeat....

The latest poll numbers from Texas and Ohio are not good news for Hillary Clinton. The realclearpolitics.com average has her ahead of Barack Obama by only 49 to 46 percent. She leads by a statistically insignificant 48 to 47 percent in the ABC/Washington Post poll and 47 to 44 percent in Rasmussen.

• Take a look at the map of the results of Wisconsin's Democratic primary. What do most of the counties Hillary Clinton carried have in common? They're at the edge of the state and in non-Wisconsin media markets. Which is to say, they're counties where Barack Obama presumably didn't have the 3-to-1 or 4-to-1 advantage in ad buys he had in the rest of the state. Note that none of them is in the state's southern tier of counties. Those counties get Illinois media, which has been lavishing favorable attention on Obama for four years, since his come-from-behind victory in the 2004 Senate primary. Implications for Ohio and Texas: Obama appears to be able to outbuy Clinton in both these states.

• Ariel & Ethan, a Washington-area polling firm I'd not heard of before, has E-mailed a report on a survey of 55 uncommitted Democratic superdelegates. Here are a couple of excerpts from the press release: