Photo by: Robert Linder

If anything consequential comes out of the Federal Government’s recent decision to spend nearly one $1 trillion of taxpayer money to prop up failing American financial institutions, I hope it’s this: that the word “socialist” is never used by Republicans to describe Democrats again.

Over the past few months on various blogs have I seen Conservatives and Republicans bash Democrats for tending to be socialist, especially when it comes to describing the health care plan of Barack Obama, pumping fear into the minds of middle class Americans, warning them that nobody wants socialist, or government-run healthcare.

Yet now, when the seeds of mismanagement, deregulation, and greed are finally coming to bear and manifesting as the current US “financial crisis,” George Bush, Henry Paulson, and Bush’s economic advisers are injecting an unprecedented amount of money into our financial system to buy out gobs and gobs of “toxic debt,” in a last-ditch effort to right a sinking ship. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of Democrats on board with this measure as well, but the entire thing stinks of hypocrisy to the highest degree.

Wall Street types and Conservatives love the free market and want Government out of their business as much as possible. Wall Streeters and other “top-down” economists love to fashion themselves as bootstraps kind of people, wheeling and dealing on the last frontier of free enterprise. Except when they get themselves into trouble, and they come running home to mommy and daddy like a trust-fund baby who wrecked his Lamborghini.

Now the Capitalists and their proxies in Congress and the Government are bending over backwards to send more money their way, only this time it’s our money, your money, going into the market like a firehose to correct their poor decisions. Was there a referendum on this decision? Do Middle Class Americans really have the emergency funds hiding in their mattresses to donate to fat cat Wall Street tycoons in order to give them another try at making an extra million?

A New New Deal?

The important thing to realize here is that this money, this $700 billion, is our money, that we don’t even really have in the first place. In fact, in order to pay for the whole thing, the Federal Government has asked Congress to once again raise the Federal debt ceiling from around $10 trillion to nearly $12 trillion dollars. So let me get this straight: my free-wheeling neighbor has been reckless in his financial decisions and now wants me to lend him money that I don’t have so he can go back to his corner office on Wall Street and sock away millions more that I will never see returned to me? And in order to make this loan, I’ll have to basically write a credit card check out to him but first ask my credit card company to raise my credit limit because I too am currently out of money? In this scenario, my two year old daughter will be paying the minimums on my debt until the day she dies without making a dent in the principal

I certainly don’t have the answer to this problem, but I know this…you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created the problem in the first place. In other words, the same bunch of economic wizards who allowed this whole thing to happen are the ones coming up with the solution to the problem, using the same manner of thinking that created the problem back at square one. Bush, Paulson, Bernanke, the Wall Street lobbyists, the disgustingly overpaid Wall Street CEOs, all at the table coming up with this latest scheme to empty the American coffers in order to continue to enrich a tiny percentage.

Within about a week, the Government executed a knee-jerk response to a problem that Bush, Paulson, and Bernanke have been denying and hoping would go away for over a year, if not more. How many times have we heard Bush describe our economy as “fundamentally sound?” Even Sarah Palin’s Running Mate has gotten into the “fundamentally sound” game, describing our economy in those words the exact same day the market dropped over 500 points and brought on the conditions that called for the Government’s intervention. If fundamentally sound means that emergency steps must be taken at the tune of almost a $1 trillion without any assurance of success, then I guess they were right. Wouldn’t it have been useful to bring other minds to the table in an attempt to create a lasting solution to this problem that not only helped the markets but also was aimed at providing relief for everyday Americans who have just been along for the terrible ride so far?

When FDR faced a similar crisis, which was more accurately an economic crisis as opposed to the financial crisisthat we currently face, he enacted the programs of the New Deal, which attempted to created lasting solutions to the problems wrought by the Great Depression in a way that not only helped failing financial institutions, but also benefited ordinary Americans. Over the next 80 or so years, Conservatives in Congress and other lobbyists dismantled many of the programs of the New Deal, especially its systems of financial regulation, with only entities such as Social Security, the FHA, the FDIC, and the SEC, still remaining today. Enter our current “crisis,” man-made and entirely avoidable, if not for greed and the short-sightedness of Conservative economic policy.

“Too Big to Fail?”

The common retort to my line of thinking is that these institutions are too large to fail, and that the Federal Government can’t idly stand by and allow Goldman Sachs, AIG, and the others to go under. My answer to that is that the collective financial health of the American people is too big to fail too, but I don’t see any Government agencies rushing in to buy up my debt, or ease my health care payments by initiating Universal health care coverage, or adjust the housing market back to realistic levels by providing affordable government-back mortgages to all Americans, or alter bankruptcy laws to favor ordinary Americans instead of credit card companies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for a handout from the Government to correct any mistakes I’ve made either. I’m not in favor of many of these Democratic-sponsored plans to protect homeowners from foreclosures, either. Why is it that I had the common sense to get into a mortgage that I could afford, that I had the common sense to read the rate disclosures, but now would have to spend my tax dollars to bail out somebody else who was less vigilant in their financial decisions? A little more accountability on everyone’s part could go a long way in this whole thing and we consumers share a burden of responsibility in this mortgage mess as well.

Truth be told, while I described this bailout as smacking of socialism at the beginning of this post, the reality is that it resembles fascism more than anything else:

Fascism: “A philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism.” — The American Heritage Dictionary

The bottom line is that while I hope our markets weather this storm and our economy once again stands on solid ground, I can’t help but think that this latest move will ultimately cost a lot of money but do nothing more than continue to support financial institutions and their gigantic payrolls, profit-sharing programs, and exorbitant end of year bonuses, and simply leave the rest of us out in the cold with only the bill to pay for the next dozen or so generations.

Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. 1949-2008.

I was extremely saddened when I woke up Thursday morning and learned about the untimely passing of Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

In the morning’s early twilight, I took a quiet moment to remember her career. Thinking about how proud I was of her actions following the 2004 Presidential election, profound feelings of appreciation and gratitude began to swell up within me for the opportunity that I had to meet this strong, courageous, and passionate woman in person several years ago.

During the filming of my documentary Swing State Ohio, I had the opportunity to meet and interview Ohio U.S. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Representing parts of Cleveland alongside Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Tubbs Jones was an outspoken firebrand, a dedicated public servant, and a woman who represented the best of American politics.

My fellow Swing State Ohio producers (wife Lauren and High School classmate Jed Wolfington) first tracked her down in Boston at the 2004 Democratic National Convention a few moments after her electrifying speech to the delegates. I was at home in New York reviewing and assembling our incoming documentary footage and watching wall-to-wall CSPAN coverage of the convention while my co-producers attended the event in person. Struck by her eloquence, personal power, and high energy, I immediately called Jed and Lauren, saying: “You have got to interview this woman.”

“We’re already on it,” Jed replied, and they managed to “wildcat” their way behind closed doors and wrangle a few minutes of her time for our cameras. She was very passionate about the War in Iraq, which was really in its infancy during those late summer days of 2004. She had voiced strong objections about it from the onset and her interview that day concerned the sadness and heartbreak she felt as she attended funeral after funeral of Ohio natives struck down by that horrible conflict.

I joined the production crew a few days before the election in November and ran into Stephanie face-to-face at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in downtown Cleveland. The night before, in Cleveland, she spoke before a crowd of at least 100,000 people, as she introduced John Kerry at an Election Day Eve event also attended by Bruce Springsteen. Her speech again electrified and embodied the incredible passion she had for positive change in this country. At one point, she pulled out this silk pink dress slip, waving it in the air, calling it George W. Bush’s “pink slip,” to the delight of the crowd.

The next day, when I met her in person, she was dressed casually in a sweat shirt, but had raced over to the Board of Elections when word came down over an 11th-hour decision to forbid camera crews from entering polling places . The ruling was later overturned, but amid the chaos and frenetic energy of the day, Stephanie again spoke to us a few minutes, this time about how confident she was feeling about John Kerry’s chances that day and how excited she was about the incredible turnout, especially in Cleveland’s urban areas and places with high populations of young people. Interestingly, the conversation turned personal and intimate, as she shared with us thoughts about the passing of her husband, who died the year before from a heart attack.

Stephanie later went on to be an extremely vociferous supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton during her failed 2008 presidential bid, but I believe Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones’ finest hour was when she displayed uncommon courage, patriotism, and dedication to her constituents when she was the sole voice in the House of Representatives challenging the outcome of the 2004 Presiential Election. In only the second such challenge since 1877, Tubbs Jones joined with Senator Barbara Boxer to dispute the certification of Ohio’s electoral votes. Largely overlooked by the mainstream media, her attempt proved futile when it came down to a vote (267-31), but it spoke volumes about her respect for the constitution, voters rights, and her tireless efforts to promulgate open and transparent democracy.

A great American legislator, a champion of voter rights, and a powerful voice of Ohioans and all Americans, may Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones rest in peace. 1949-2008.

Below is video of that historic moment.

Political Move?

Yesterday I posted a discovery I had made about one of the Comcast executives behind the yanking of MSNBC from Standard Cable to the “digital only” tier in the Boston television market.

Specifically, the Comcast’s Vice President of Public Relations here in the northeast is a woman by the name of Shawn Feddeman, who prior to running PR for Comcast, was the Press Secretary for former GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney while he was Governor of Massachusetts. She was also a campaign contributor to to Romney’s failed presidential bid while serving as head of PR for Comcast in New England. I felt that this revelation was further evidence that Comcast’s decision to pull the network from its analog package was politically motivated.

Well, apparently my post made the rounds and not long thereafter I received a response from another executive at Comcast. While I appreciate the attempt to provide some clarity on the issue, the executive’s response only sparked further questions on my part.

Below I will provide that executive’s response, as well as my follow-up questions to him. Hopefully we will soon receive some answers that make some sense.

Hi Paul. Jim Hughes from Comcast’s Boston office here. As a fan of Hardball and Countdown myself, I can tell you for sure that this was not about politics — it was about ensuring that our network is able to deliver the maximum benefit to the maximum number of customers. And as you may have seen in the press, we’ve already started delivering the benefits — we announced the launch of seven new HD channels here in Mass. — Disney HD, ABC Family HD, TLC HD, AMC HD, Science Channel HD, TMC (The Movie Channel) HD and Showtime 2 HD — last week, and more are on the way. A single analog channel takes up as much space on our network as 10 digital channels, or 3 HD channels, and this change is allowing us to strike an appropriate balance between our analog and digital offerings. As for the price issue you bring up, you’re right — digital cable service requires a box-rental fee. This is the fee that we waived for a year for affected customers. And while other TV providers here and elsewhere in the country are seeing the growing consumer preference for digital TV and dropping analog service altogether, we are committed to delivering a low-cost analog option for our remaining customers who want it.

And below, you will find my response to Jim Hughes:

Hi Jim,

Thanks for reading and writing in to Monkeyinmymind.com.

While I appreciate you laying out Comcast’s plans to deliver more HD programming, and also explaining how analog channels occupy more “space” than their digital counterparts, your response still doesn’t quite answer exactly why MSNBC was chosen out of all the cable news channels to be ejected from analog into digital-only format.

To provide some context to this issue, I am aware that if one receives a digital programming package, one still generally receives access to analog versions of those digital programs (now excepting MSNBC, of course). For example, I was over at another Comcast subscriber’s home this weekend and noticed that while they had access to ESPN HD, HBO HD, and CNN HD, this person still had access to the analog versions of those channels. Why doesn’t this hold true for MSNBC?

I love the picture and quality of HD programming as much as anyone else, but I wasn’t aware that this was a “choose or lose” proposition when it comes to mainstays on the cable programming spectrum like MSNBC. As of today (and until February 17, 2009), the default television format is not yet digital so consumers like myself and many thousands of others shouldn’t be forced into converting to digital prematurely.

To that end, I was hoping you could provide additional clarity on the following questions:

1) What other channels besides MSNBC were removed from analog format in order to be digital only (I haven’t noticed anything else missing from the lineup)?

2) What type of Nielsen ratings did these other channels earn?

3) If Comcast’s motivation was not political, but instead to “ensur[e] that [y]our network is able to deliver the maximum benefit to the maximum number of customers,” why do CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC remain available in analog format?

This move smacks as a double standard, especially when one compares the ratings that each of these channels earn. Please note the following ratings numbers over this last weekend, comparing all of the cable news networks:

You will notice that while MSNBC trails FoxNews and CNN (only slightly) in one demographic, it outperforms Fox and CNN in the 25-54 demographic, and outperforms CNBC in all demographics.

Live + Same Day Weekend Ratings
Cable News Ratings August 2, 2008
P2+ Total Day
FNC – 699,000 viewers
CNN – 467,000 viewers
MSNBC – 420,000 viewers
CNBC – 132,000 viewers
HLN – 263,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,033,000 viewers
CNN – 657,000 viewers
MSNBC – 548,000 viewers
CNBC – 262,000 viewers
HLN – 270,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 169,000 viewers
CNN – 145,000 viewers
MSNBC – 213,000 viewers
CNBC – 68,000 viewers
HLN – 103,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 178,000 viewers
CNN – 167,000 viewers
MSNBC – 288,000 viewers
CNBC – 134,000 viewers
HLN – 101,000 viewers

Again, thanks for your forthright answers.

In order for many of us to believe that this decision was NOT politically motivated, answers to questions like mine would be sincerely appreciated.

No Longer a Viewing Option

As a left-leaning political junkie, MSNBC constitutes my sustenance, my entertainment, and my candy, especially during election cycles. As the only network with progressive commentary (i.e. Keith Olbermann on Countdown), along with other entertaining, informative, and engaging programming, to include Joe Scarborough’s Cup of Joe, Dan Abram’s Verdict, and Chris Matthews’ Hardball, MSNBC is literally the only channel that my wife and I watch together on TV (I also watch football during season and occassionally some Comedy Central stuff before going to bed).

As parents of a two-year old, watching Chris and Keith during the primaries was not only our source of information and news, but it was also our entertainment - our little guilty pleasure that we shared together. We felt like we knew Chris Matthews (my wife did meet and interview him during the making of our documentary film, Swing State Ohio, during the Presidential Election in 2004), and watching his show, along with the others was familiar, comforting, and relaxing. We even liked MSNBC featured conservatives Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, and even Pat Buchanon, because they are all charming, wildly intelligent, and provided their views in a fair and reasoned manner.

So given our affection for this network, this lonely island in a sea of mindless wing-nuttery and mediocrity, we were shocked, dismayed, and disgusted when found out that our beloved MSNBC was being moved from standard cable to the “Digital Tier” on Comcast in the Boston area.

Thanks to the “magic of the internet” I did some looking around and found that this was happening all over the country. I found the timing to be odd, considering this network is 99% dedicated to political programming (besides their disturbing late-night prison documentary series “Lock Up”), and we are fewer than 100 days away from a kinda important political event. I also found it odd that among the cable news channels, only MSNBC, the “left-leaning” channel, was tapped to move to the digital tier, forcing its customers to cough up extra cash for the extra service.

Some further digging ensued and the Monkey and I found a comment on a blog that seemed to provide some explanation from Comcast (bold added by me):

This is Shawn Feddeman from Comcast in Boston and I wanted to address your posting about some recent channel changes we have made locally.

As you mention, Comcast did in fact move MSNBC and several other channels (what other channels?) to our digital lineup this week. This is not a more expensive tier of service, but it does require a digital cable box (which is more expensive). Most of our customers in the area aren’t impacted by these moves because they already have digital cable service. However, for the analog customers who want to continue watching MSNBC and the other channels, we are offering them a free cable box for a year (after which you will have to pay for it, proving that it is more expensive).

We made these changes to our lineup so that we could launch more HD programming - which our customers have been asking for (what, just the progressives were asking for it? - no conservatives want to see O’Reilly in HD?). In the coming weeks, we will be adding many new HD networks o respond to the demand.

Finally, I would also like to point out that there were absolutely no political motivations behind the recent channel moves. (Except for one little thing which you will find out by reading below). We have been communicating with our analog customers about these programming changes for more than a month through postcards, e-mails, calls, channel crawls and more to ensure they knew about the changes. Thanks for letting me clarify.

First of all, Shawn Feddeman is not correct about this tier not being more expensive. Many people have standard cable; digital cable costs about $40 more per month. In addition, many people (like me) also get standard cable paid for with our condo fees. In order to upgrade to digital I would have to buy my own service, an additional cost on top of my condo fees.

But I do have a question for Ms. Feddeman regarding Comcast’s motivations behind making this change: If you want to provide more HD programming, why didn’t you tap FoxNews for HD broadcast? Wouldn’t FoxNews viewers appreciate seeing their right-wing blowhards in full digital glory?

And finally, Ms. Feddeman asserts that there is no “political motivation” behind the decision to pull the left-leaning channel from the standard lineup. That would be a lot easier to believe if there wasn’t one little interesting tidbit about Ms. Feddeman’s employment prior to running the PR shop at Comcast.

Shawn Feddeman a Former GOP Operative

Former Romney Spokeswoman Feddeman

Through the “magic of the internet,” I discovered that Shawn Feddeman served as Governor Mitt Romney’s Press Secretary prior to working for Comcast. Obviously she is a Republican who was at one time actively involved in politics, working for a future Republican presidential candidate. It just doesn’t pass the sniff test that there were no political motivations in this decision. Her credentials alone indicate that certainly politics played a role in this decision to move MSNBC off basic cable.

My wife is considering poneying up for the digital tier but my intention right now is to boycott that move out of principle. I know in a way I’ll just be punishing myself, as I won’t have my favorite channel during what will be a historic and exciting Presidential campaign. I plan on writing a letter to Shawn Feddeman and will provide updates on the situation in these pages at Monkeyinmymind.com.

Why Is This Man Smiling?

The Football Gods are none too happy with Packers management for contracting a political charlatan like former Bush talking head Ari Fleischer to come to Packers Camp and give a few pointers to the club on the intricacies of media relations in sports. While it is no surprise that people that work in professional football seem to have a conservative political bent, the fact that they would invite such a credentialed double-speaker and truth-dodger, who was the mouthpiece for the Bush Administration during the deception-filled run-up to the Iraq War, informs us as to their intentions concerning the Brett Favre saga.

I have talked about the insulting nature of the $20 million “marketing role” offer to Brett Favre to basically shut up, re-retire, and go away in a previous post here. And if Brett takes the offer, I will certainly have a few things to say about his personal integrity, but as of now the Monkey and I can only construe the offer as further evidence of an “integrity vacuum” that permeates many strata of our culture, from the military to corporate America, to professional sports.

• If the Packers are so confident of the skills and quarterbacking-acumen of Mr. Aaron Rodgers, they should have no problem with allowing him to demonstrate his supremacy over Mr. Brett Lorenzo Favre in open competition.
• If the Packers truly care about winning now, not in the future and in the hands of an unproven backup, they should welcome home Mr. Favre.
• If the Packers really want to increase their advantage against a Division rival over the next several years, they should trade Favre to the Vikings in exchange for a couple valuable draft picks, negatively impacting the Vikings ability to draft quality players in the future.
• If the Packers truly respect the man that literally built the modern-day Packers franchise through his grit, determination, and maverick spirit, they should release him. But one other famous Libra perhaps articulated this concept more eloquently than me and the Monkey ever could: “If you love someone, set them free.”

Here’s an amazing tape-recorded phone call between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in which they seem to bury the hatchet…have a listen.

With the results of Hawaii, Washington, and Wisconsin Primaries in, we are getting a better sense of who the nominee will be in each Party. On the GOP side, it is a forgone conclusion that Senator John McCain will win the nomination. As far as the Democrats are concerned, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are running neck and neck in terms of Delegates and the overall popular vote, but Obama is certainly pulling away with the momentum of pulling off ten straight victories over the last few weeks.

Although it is impossible right now to predict who will win the nomination for the Democratic Party without the seeing the results of the contests in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, I believe it is nonetheless possible to predict the outcome of the General Election in November, using the results of the primaries so far.

But First, A Different Take

Before I do that, I wanted to take a moment to point out another method, perhaps the “established” method for predicting the winner in the 2008 Election. In the established method, we would take the results of the last Presidential Election and assume as a benchmark that the Republicans would win the same states they won last time (the so-called “Red States”) and the Democrats would again win the states won by Kerry (the so-called “Blue States”). This method of looking at the electoral map is outlined (albeit from what appears to be a GOP perspective) in an intersting blog post on Patriot City. The writer describes that in order to determine who wins, the game becomes a matter of “flipping” states from one side to the next. In other words, the onus is on the Democrats to improve upon last time, rather than on the Republicans to make any new gains. The Democrats could “flip” Florida or Ohio, for example.

This method depends on the assumption that voters’ opinions are basically unchanged since the last election. I believe this traditional look at the Electoral Map is flawed, as it does not take into account the extreme dissatisfaction a majority of Americans have for GWB, the growing infatuation many Americans hold for Barack Obama, the uncertainty about the economy, the downward spiral in Iraq since 2004, the hatred many Right Wing Republicans have for John McCain, and perhaps most importantly, the overwhelming demand for change that is driving record-numbers of voters to the polls during these Primaries.

Voter Turnout: Democrats to the Polls in Record Numbers

I got the idea for this post while watching the results of the popular vote in each primary over the past couple of months. I was struck by what appeared to be an overwhelming turnout on the Democratic side, regardless of how the Republicans fared in each contest. So I decided to go back through all of the results of the primaries so far and discovered some pretty striking numbers.

I went through each state and added up how many votes each of the five major candidates (Obama, Clinton, McCain, Romney, Huckabee) on both sides received in each contest. The numbers below equal the total number of votes cast for each candidate. Here are current tallies (not including Washington and Hawaii) in terms of the popular vote for each major candidate:

Barack Obama: 10,625,401 total votes

Hilary Clinton: 10,352,875 total votes

John McCain: 5,815,561 total votes

Mitt Romney: 4,273,809 total votes

Mike Huckabee: 2,958,786 total votes

By simply looking at these numbers, it is evident that both of the Democratic candidates have mobilized more actual voters than any of the Republican candidates. By nearly a 2-1 basis, either Obama or Clinton has earned more votes than John McCain and Mitt Romney, and both of the Democrats have “out-turned-out” voters by a 3-1 basis in comparison to Mike Huckabee.

It is widely acknowledged that voter turnout has been unprecedented during this primary election cycle. And while not every General Election voter participates in the primaries for a variety of reasons, it is safe to assume that the voters who do turn out for these Primary elections will most likely vote in the General Election.

While unscientific, I believe the results here are a good indicator of a proportionate turnout during the General Election, in which (obviously) the field in that contest will be narrowed to one candidate for each party. Again, compiling the total votes of Clinton and Obama and comparing that figure against the total votes of all three Republican candidates combined, we see that Democrats have still mobilized more overall voters than the Republicans, 19,879,615-12,664,729, or 61% to 39%, indicating an overwhelming majority of support which should carry through the General Election, right?

Primaries vs. Polls

A “realist” might argue that this doesn’t match up to recent polling data, which suggests that the General Election race is much tighter than my unscientific analysis is suggesting. However, recent evidence suggest that our traditional methods for polling Registered voters, normally involving a telephone call to home phone landlines, can no longer accurately gauge the will of the electorate, especially with more and more voters under the age of 40 abandoning home landlines and using cell phones as their primary phone numbers. This vast segment of the population can no longer be accurately reached, rendering traditional polling less and less relevant.

Additionally, I would submit that what could be more accurate than an actual election to determine the will of the electorate? It is one thing for a pollster to get a potential voter to answer a few questions on the phone, but a whole new challenge for a candidate to get a voter to actually leave their home, take time off work, and cast a vote. In this way, I think the aggregate raw numbers of these recent Primary elections is a far more accurate means of predicting the will of the electorate.

The Electoral College and the “Magic Number”

What I’ve done so far is use the Primary Elections results to essentially predict the result of the popular vote in the General Election. While perhaps interesting, this analysis alone does not constitute an accurate prediction of which candidate will actually win the Presidency, because as we all know (painfully so in 2000), the popular vote does not determine the Presidency. Instead, our election system uses the Electoral College to determine a President. I’d like to talk more about this system in future posts, but the most important thing to understand about the Electoral College is the “magic number” of votes needed to secure the Presidency, which is 270.

See, the General Election for the Presidency isn’t really a national election. It is the combined result of 50 simultaneous state elections. If a candidate wins a state, he or she earns the electoral votes awarded to that state, which are based upon the size of their congressional delegation (US Senators and US Representatives combined). Big states like California and Texas have 55 and 34 electoral votes respectively, while small states like Delaware and Alaska each have three electoral votes. Thus, some states (the more populous states) are more important than others.

Predicting Electoral Votes

Again, using the results of the primaries, I went back and determined an overall winner for each state, regardless of Party. In other words, whichever candidate earned the most raw votes, “won” the state. I also employ a general assumption to use these results as a predictor the General Election: if a candidate earns the most overall votes, that candidate’s Party would win the state in the general election , regardless of which candidate is actually on the ballot at that time. For example, Mitt Romney won Michigan on the Republican side, with 337,847 votes to John McCain’s 257,521 votes. In my system, Mitt Romney wins the entire state as he earned more votes than the leading candidate on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, who earned 328,151 votes overall. Even though Romney will not be on the ticket in the General election, I am still awarding this state to the Republican side, as the Republican candidate earned more overall votes than the leading Democratic candidate. So, in my system the GOP candidate, which would most likely be John McCain, would earn 17 electoral votes for winning Michigan. (I recognize an inherent flaw in this system, considering that Romney was a “native son” in Michigan, which probably explains why he won more votes than any other candidate. As I have no way to adjust for this or to predict whether or not Romney might be on the ticket as the VP, thereby possibly ensuring that this result carries through to the General Election, I have no choice but to keep the State of Michigan on GOP win column, assuming that this flaw may be counterbalanced by other inherent flaws in my system. One of these flaws might be the fact that none of John Edwards’ popular votes were accounted for in my method, which may tip the balance even further towards the side of the Democrats).

State By State Electoral Vote Breakdown, by Candidate

Below is a list of each state, followed by which candidate on either side won the most overall popular votes. The number next to each of these candidates designates the Electoral votes at stake, which are “won” by the winner in each state.

Washington, DC : Obama - 3
Maryland: Obama - 10
Virginia: Obama - 13
Kansas: Obama - 6
Louisiana: Obama - 9
Washington: Obama - 11
Alabama: Obama - 9
Colorado: Obama - 9
Connecticut: Obama - 7
Delaware: Obama - 3
Georgia: Obama - 15
Illinois: Obama - 21
Minnesota: Obama - 10
Missouri: Obama - 11
North Dakota: Obama - 3
South Carolina: Obama - 8
Hawaii: Obama - 3
Wisconsin: Obama - 10
Iowa: Obama - 7

OBAMA TOTAL: 168 Electoral Votes

Arkansas: Clinton - 6
California: Clinton - 55
Massachusetts: Clinton - 12
New Jersey: Clinton - 15
New York: Clinton - 31
Oklahoma: Clinton - 7
Tennessee: Clinton - 11
Florida: Clinton - 27
New Hampshire: Clinton - 4
CLINTON TOTAL: 168 Electoral Votes

Maine: Romney - 4
Alaska: Romney - 3
Utah: Romney - 5
Nevada: Romney - 5
Michigan: Romney - 17
ROMNEY TOTAL: 34 Electoral Votes

Arizona: McCain - 10
MCCAIN TOTAL: 10 Electoral Votes

As you can see, no single candidate would have enough Electoral Votes to win the Presidency at this point. As these numbers do not include the results for Washington, New Mexico, Idaho, and Nebraska on the Republican side, nor Montana, West Virginia, and Wyoming on the Democratic side, nor Ohio, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Kentucky, Oregon, and South Dakota for both sides, it is not yet a complete picture. But that doesn’t stop me from using the data in hand to predict a winner in the General, nonetheless.

Re-Writing the Electoral Map: Landslide Winner Predicted

With just these partial numbers in hand it is already possible to predict a winner using my system, in this case by landslide, if you add up the “current” electoral votes by Party.

TOTAL GOP: 44 Electoral Votes

TOTAL DEM: 336 Electoral Votes

As you can see, Democratic candidates are winning more popular votes and more states than any of the Republican candidates. I predict it will be a landslide victory for the Democratic candidate, whether it’s Hillary or Obama, a la Reagan’s victories in 1980 (489-49) and 1984 (525-13) and George H.W. Bush’s victory in 1988 (426-111).

The Democratic victory in 2008 will in effect re-write the “Red State/Blue State” Electoral map we’ve grown accustomed to over the last few election cycles. The dynamism of Obama or the warm memories that many working class Americans hold for the Clintons will sway voters in Southern states and Western states that voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

It is clear that Americans want change. In 2008, they will get it.


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