The Eight PUMA States

 

There are eight states which John McCain would not have won if the Democrats voting for him had instead voted for Barack Obama.

These states are:

Missouri

Montana

Georgia

South Dakota

Arizona

West Virginia

Kentucky

Louisiana

 

This represents a total of 64 Electoral votes.

As it stands, the Electoral count is 364/174, Obama.

Had it not been for Democrats voting for McCain, this count would have been 428/110.

The PUMA voting block may not have prevented an Obama presidency, but it *did* prevent Obama from having a Reaganesque win… and thus, with it, his attempt to garner the mantle of being the Democrat’s Ronald Reagan.

And — lest anyone think that these are states which could not have been won by a Democrat anyways — all of these states (with the exception of South Dakota) were won by Bill Clinton in either 1992 or 1996… or both.

 

Missouri    (Clinton 92/96)

Montana   (Clinton 92)

Georgia     (Clinton 92)

Arizona     (Clinton 96)

West Virginia  (Clinton 92/96)

Kentucky     (Clinton 92/96)

Louisiana     (Clinton 92/96)

Proposal for 2012 Primaries

From December 2007 to March 2008, I wrote various drafts of a proposal on how our political parties — starting in 2012 — might adopt primary election procedures that would better serve our country in selecting presidential candidates. I originally drafted a hypothetical calendar for 2008, based on general election results from 2004. Now that we have the results for 2008, I can now propose a calendar specific to 2012.

The system by which our parties choose their presidential candidates has proven itself to be, at best, highly questionable — at worst, severely flawed.

The primary calendar we need most is one that is built on an orderly and rational plan — one that is based on mathematics and on recent historical outcomes — and not on an arbitrary, publicity-driven, system of one-upsmanship. The change I propose would provide for a more effective, equitable process than the one we have now.

The following factors are the key ones to consider:

Margin of Victory

- The state primaries would be placed in order according to the leading candidates’ margins of victory in the preceding general election — with the states registering the closest margins of victory going first.

For example, John McCain won Missouri by 0.1% and Barack Obama won North Carolina by 0.4%; conversely, McCain won Wyoming by 33%, and Obama won Hawaii by 45%. Therefore, the primary calendar I propose would commence with primaries being held in states such as Missouri and North Carolina — and would close with such states as Wyoming and Hawaii.

- The purpose of ordering the states according to the margin of victory is to help the parties determine which candidates can appeal to those states that have found themselves most recently on the Electoral Divide. A narrow margin in the general election is reflective of an evenly divided electorate. In this scenario, a candidate who appeals to, say, Florida and Montana is more likely to appeal to a greater number of Americans on the whole.

Iowa, New Hampshire, and Fairness

- Iowa and New Hampshire might object to this new system, given their longstanding tradition of being the first states to cast their ballots. However, so long as Iowa and New Hampshire retain their record of being fairly bipartisan states, they’ll maintain their position towards the front of the primary schedule.

- Just because a state should have its primary later in the season does not mean that that state will prove invaluable to the process. Indiana and North Carolina weren’t held until May 6th, but those two states might have very well decided the fate of the 2008 Democratic nomination.

- This new system allows other states to play a greater role in how the parties select their candidates. For example, Missouri and North Carolina would be two of the states to get the limelight in 2012. Likewise, based on the results to come in November of 2012, a still-different slate of states could have a more significant role come 2016. A rotating system will be healthier and fairer.

Groupings of Five, and Timing & Spacing

- By placing states into groupings of five, no one state will be overly emphasized on any given date.

- Candidates will still need to address the concerns of individual states, whilst having to maintain an overall national platform. For example, a candidate will be less able to campaign against NAFTA in Ohio whilst campaigning for it in Florida.

- Given that each state has its own system for electing its delegates, these groupings of five states will act as an overall balancer. Ideally, caucuses will be done away with altogether by 2012. However — should that not happen — states with caucuses, states with open primaries, and states with closed primaries can all coexist within a grouping, therefore no one system will hold too much influence on any given date.

- Racial and geographic diversity in this process has been a great concern for many. The narrowest margins of victory in 2008 were in a wide variety of regions — the Midwest, the Great Lakes, the Mid-Atlantic, the South, and the West.

- All parties would have an interest in addressing these narrow-margined states early on. The incumbent will want to win over those states that were most in doubt of him in the previous election, and opposing parties will want to put forth candidates who have the best chance of winning over those very same states.

- Primaries will be held biweekly, giving candidates and the media enough time to process and respond to the outcomes of each wave of primaries.

- Washington DC will be placed in the same grouping as whichever state — Virginia or Maryland — is closer to its own margin of victory.

- American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Americans Abroad — not having Electoral votes of their own — will determine their own primary dates, so long as they occur between the first grouping and the last grouping.
Under these guidelines, the proposed calendar for the 2012 primary season is:

January 2012

Tue, 1/10

Missouri
North Carolina
Indiana
Florida
Montana

Tue, 1/24

Ohio
Georgia
Virginia
Colorado
South Dakota

Tue, 2/7

North Dakota
Arizona
South Carolina
Iowa
New Hampshire

Tue, 2/21

Minnesota
Pennsylvania
Texas
Nevada
West Virginia

Tue, 2/26

Mississippi
Wisconsin
New Jersey
New Mexico
Tennessee

Tue, 3/6

Kansas
Nebraska
Oregon
Kentucky
Michigan

Tue, 3/20

Washington
Maine
Louisiana
Arkansas
Alabama

Tue, 4/3

Connecticut
California
Illinois
Delaware
Maryland
Washington DC

Tue, 4/17

Alaska
Idaho
New York
Massachusetts
Rhode Island

Tue, 5/1

Utah
Oklahoma
Wyoming
Vermont
Hawaii

It Seems We’re Winning This Thing… Exit Polls To Follow Shortly…

Seems Hillary is taking the “scenic route” for this election…

There we have it, while Hillary (and Bill) are still stumping for Obama, their efforts are focused on what is really important; electing down-ticket Dems into other state and national offices.

This is obviously bad news for B. Hussein Obama as Hillary would have been a perfect Vice-President anti-Palin campaigner for him. It isn’t a secret that Hillary is a strong, resolute woman who has the love, admiration and support of millions of middle America voters out there.

Here are a few excerpts from the New York Observer story on this very issue:

With the McCain campaign running tactical circles every day around the Obama outfit—which has failed, somewhat unbelievably, to come up with even a semi-compelling response to the Palin selection—one might think Mrs. Clinton, to say nothing of her sidelined husband, would be a useful surrogate on the counterattack right about now. Apparently, the Obama campaign does not agree.

“My concern is that I see them as totally reactive right now as opposed to getting out there on their own and saying what the hell they are about,” said Leon Panetta, a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton who has advised Mr. Obama. “They seem to be intimidated by the Palin pick. They seem to be intimidated by how the Republicans are coming at them on change. And you cannot win if you are constantly on defense.”

The exact same strategy Obama used to sideline Hillary in the primaries is what is failing so woefully against McCain/Palin. In the Democratic Party, the powers that be turned a blind eye to Obama’s shenanigans, thereby allowing him to get away with a whole lot of stuff, and handing him the nomination on a virtual golden platter.  Alas, he’s in the big leagues now, and Reid, Dean and Pelosi (to name a few) are completely out of their depth. The only forces in the democratic party that can save him are Hillary (and Bill Clinton), and to call on them in his hour of need would merely show that Obama should never have been the nominee in the first place.

Ha! Karma is a wonderful thing, is it not?

Posted by AD76

A Tale of Two Obamas

Meet “Dr. No”… From Russia With Love? Perhaps?

Dr. No