Abulsme.com

Updated Random Spot Tool

Well, since I couldn’t sleep, and eventually got tired of Wikipedia and random shows on the Tivo, I ended up retrofitting my Random Spot Tool to get rid of the ancient and unfriendly MapQuest hack and replace it with an integrated Google Maps version using their Maps API.

At the same time, since now I could, I added a few things that were not possible the old way. It is much better and much more fun than before. Play with it and enjoy.

And maybe go on some trips!

Of course, now I haven’t slept at all. I took Amy to school, and am now going to have to rush through the rest of my morning activities to try to get to work at a semi-reasonable hour.

Bleh Bleh

Not feeling great tonight. Really tired. Should have been asleep probably 3 or 4 hours ago. But of course can’t sleep because I’m feeling uncomfortable. So I’m up watching an episode of Globe Trekker on the Tivo, while hitting the random article link on Wikipedia over and over and reading about whatever happens to come up.

I have to be up in a little over 4 hours to get Amy up and to school. It is getting close to the point where it is better to just stay up.

I could just go into the office and try to do stuff that is actually useful or productive in some way, but I don’t really feel quite up to that either, and I keep hoping at some point I’ll actually just nod off. But not yet.

Bleh.

Oh, Some Republican Delegates

No new Democratic updates today, but CNN updates their Republican numbers to include some results for Idaho. Don’t know why they are doing this right now really, but whatever. McCain picks up 17 more delegates, Paul picks up 5.

New Republican totals: McCain 1517, Huckabee 275, Romney 255, Paul 35

There are actually 298 more Republican delegates that CNN has not yet accounted for.

Electoral Triva

Out of all the US Presidential elections in the last 100 years (meaning 1908 to 2004) how many times did a third candidate actually get electoral votes?

It is more than I actually would have thought. Ten times out of 25 elections. A full 40% of the elections in that time period.

Here they are:

1912 – Wilson (Democrat) 435, Roosevelt (Progressive) 88, Taft (Republican) 8
1924 – Coolidge (Republican) 382, Davis (Democrat) 136, LaFollette (Progressive) 13
1948 – Truman (Democrat) 303, Dewey (Republican) 189, Thurmond (States Rights) 39
1956* – Eisenhower (Republican) 457, Stevenson (Democrat) 73, Jones (Independant) 1
1960 – Kennedy (Democrat) 303, Nixon (Republican) 219, Byrd (Democrat) 15
1968 – Nixon (Republican) 301, Humphrey (Democrat) 191, Wallace (American Independent) 46
1972* – Nixon (Republican) 520, McGovern (Democrat) 17, Hospers (Libertarian) 1
1976* – Carter (Democrat) 297, Ford (Republican) 240, Reagan (Republican) 1
1988* – Bush (Republican) 426, Dukakis (Democrat) 111, Bentsen (Democrat) 1
2004* – Bush (Republican) 286, Kerry (Democrat) 251, Edwards (Democrat) 1

(Source: National Archives)

The ones with asterisks are cases where the third person got an electoral vote due only to a faithless elector. In all the other cases the third person actually “earned” the electoral votes.

(Or at least most of them… in a couple of cases faithless electors added to a third candidate’s total, but the candidate also got other electoral votes by the normal means… and the 1960 case was interesting too as some of the electors were actually directly elected as unpledged electors… some of whom voted for Byrd, who wasn’t actually running.)

Given that, you could discount 5 of those 10 elections. Even so, you are left with 5 elections (20% of the elections) where a third person “legitimately” earned electoral votes. Which is more often than I would have thought.

Now granted, while the last “faithless elector” incident was very recent… the 2004 election… the last time a third candidate actually “won” electors was 1968, a full 40 years ago. So we’re a bit overdue! It doesn’t look all that likely this time around, but perhaps in 2012. :-)

But maybe we could have a faithless elector or two. That could be fun. :-)

Electoral College: Nebraska Strengthens More for McCain

It is McCain’s turn for good polling news today. The latest poll in Nebraska moves the state to a greater than 10% lead for McCain, putting it into the “Strong McCain” category. A special note about Nebraska. It is one of two states (the other being Maine) that does not choose to allocate its electoral votes on a winner take all basis, but rather by congressional district. Unless it was a toss up state though (which it obviously is not at this moment) it is unlikely that it will actually split its electoral vote. (Maine by the way, is Strong Obama, so it is also unlikely to actually split.)

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225
Obama Best Case – Obama 333, McCain 205

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261

Thinking about Nebraska and Maine, it is interesting to note that ultimately each state can choose how it allocates electoral votes. It is only by long standing tradition that it is winner take all based on a popular vote. Any state that wanted to could just as easily change their state laws to have the legislature choose the electors, or the governor. Or for that matter they could choose to have them selected as winning prizes in the state lottery. It is completely up to the states. It is actually kind of a shame that states are not more creative on this.

I still remain in favor of the notion of appointing electors well in advance of the election from a pool of uncommitted people, and having them actually have to be convinced by the candidates to choose one or the other.

That would be different. :-)

Closer and Closer (Delegates)

Today one pledged delegate in Alaska moves from Clinton to Obama. Not sure the story behind that one, quite possibly just adjustments as the process finalizes. In addition, Obama gets three more superdelegates and Clinton gets one more superdelegate. Net for today, Obama gains four, Clinton stays even.

Updated stats:

Delegate count is: Obama 1978, Clinton 1780, Edwards 7

In percent terms that is: Obama 52.5%, Clinton 47.3%, Edwards 0.2%

2026 delegates are needed to win.

There are 285 delegates yet to be determined.

Obama needs 48 more delegates to win.

Clinton needs 246 more delegates to win.

In percentage terms, that means:

Obama needs 16.8% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 28.3% before KY/OR.)

Clinton needs 86.3% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 74.4% before KY/OR.)

Now, with the updated numbers from DCW if Clinton gets her best case scenario on Saturday (full seating of Florida and Michigan using existing results) Clinton would gain 193 delegates, Obama would gain 97 delegates and Edwards would gain 11 delegates. The new totals would be Obama 2075, Clinton 1973, Edwards 18. The new magic number would be 2209.

With that:

Obama would need 134 more delegates to win (38.1% of what would then be remaining).

Clinton would need 236 more delegates to win (67.0% of what would then be remaining).

And that is Clinton’s BEST case.

Current (admittedly very limited) polls would indicate Obama getting about 40 delegates from the remaining 3 primaries. Which would mean he only needs about 8 more superdelegates to be able to clinch this thing on June 3rd… with no Michigan and Florida.

Rumor has it that Obama has a few dozen superdelegates lined up who have privately committed to declare in his favor within a week of the primaries ending on June 3rd. If we don’t have Clinton’s best case, but something more like the proposal to seat the two delegations at half strength, that will probably be enough to clinch it.

We shall see. The next big event is the Rules Committee meeting on Saturday. Without it, this would almost certainly be over one week from right now. If they move the finish line back a bit, it will take a little longer, but probably only a few days.

We’re just going through the motions now.

(OK, really, we’ve just going through the motions since April 23rd if not even earlier, but now I think even Hillary knows it… at least I hope she does.)

If Michigan Comes ‘As Is’

The Michigan 36 – Obama gets 18
(Matt, 2008 Democratic Convention Watch)

Michigan selected 36 Uncommitted delegates at their District Conventions in April. The state of these 36 delegates, specifically whether they have officially endorsed Obama, has become important in advance of this weekend’s RBC meeting. Knowing how many of the 36 are committed to Obama could make the difference in what type of deal the Obama campaign is willing to accept. We asked our readers to help us out, and they did.

Information was hard to come by – We weren’t even able to find the names of 5 of the 36 delegates.

Of the remaining 31, 30 of them have been reported to support Obama, but there aren’t good sources for 12 of the 30. We will continue to look for verifiable sources for the rest of these delegates.

But we do have good sources for 18 delegates, and therefore we are moving 18 Uncommitted delegates into the Obama column in our Michigan/Florida sidebar counter, as well as in Scenario 5 in FL & MI By The Numbers.

Reminds Me of the Wean Physics Lounge

Back in college I would so have done this:

(via Boing Boing Gadgets)

I’m guessing Brandy wouldn’t let me today.

Which is probably a good thing.

Electoral College: Minnesota strengthens for Obama

Today’s round of polls includes a poll for Minnesota that pushes Obama’s “last five polls” average lead over 10%, moving the state from “Weak Obama” to “Strong Obama”. This is the first state added to Obama’s “Strong” column since way back in March. Thus the streak of good poll results for Obama continues. Since only “Leaning” states moving back and forth affect my “best case scenarios” rather than strong or weak states, the summary does not change.

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225
Obama Best Case – Obama 333, McCain 205

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261

More Delegates, More Delegates

Six more supers today. Five for Obama, One for Clinton.

New stats:

Delegate count is: Obama 1974, Clinton 1780, Edwards 7

In percent terms that is: Obama 52.5%, Clinton 47.3%, Edwards 0.2%

2026 delegates are needed to win.

There are 289 delegates yet to be determined.

Obama needs 52 more delegates to win.

Clinton needs 246 more delegates to win.

In percentage terms, that means:

Obama needs 18.0% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 28.3% before KY/OR.)

Clinton needs 85.1% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 74.4% before KY/OR.)

As a note of interest, based on the latest polls in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota, I expect Obama will pick up about 40 delegates in those primaries. That would putt him potentially only 12 delegates away from the win if that were to happen.

That assumes of course no Florida and Michigan. But conventional wisdom at this point is that there will be some seating of Florida and Michigan this weekend, pushing the magic number further out and therefore putting Obama a bit further away from the win… although still a lot closer than Clinton.

Site Controls

Categories

Calendar

Search New Archive

AbulWiki

Other Stuff

Updated Random Spot Tool

Bleh Bleh

Oh, Some Republican Delegates

Electoral Triva

Electoral College: Nebraska Strengthens More for McCain

Closer and Closer (Delegates)

If Michigan Comes ‘As Is’

Reminds Me of the Wean Physics Lounge

Electoral College: Minnesota strengthens for Obama

More Delegates, More Delegates

Twitter Archives

Archives

Site Controls

Categories

Calendar

Search New Archive

AbulWiki

Other Stuff

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Twitter Archives

Archives