It’s On at MyDD: Quant Geeks vs the Creative Writing Class!

DaveOinSF regresses the Primary vs Caucus results in TX, WA, NE and ID!

Long story short, the data — though limited — fits like a glove. Dave proceeds to derive expected primary margins if the other caucus states had conducted primaries, and from that to derive alternative-reality delegate margins.

Upshot: Obama’s caucus pledged delegate margin of +137 would have shrunk to +14.

UPDATE: The Creative Writing Class is making a game effort over there, and, well … hilarity ensues!

Open Thread

Materials for the May 31 Rules and Bylaws Commitee meeting have been published (pdf) by Politico and by TalkLeft. Obamites have drawn attention to a staff analysis that appears to suggest RBC lacks authority to relieve sanctions beyond the bounds of the “automatic” 50% reduction in voting strength. In the morning call, RBC members (and oldtimers) Harold Ickes and Tina Flournoy advised that this is a misinterpretation of the staff report. In their view it merely attempts to clarify two competing interpretations of the 50% penalty, if applied.

Obama won Idaho’s “beauty contest” primary last night … with 56% of the Democratic vote (in contrast to his 79% caucus win), and a smaller popular margin over Hillary.

Evidence is mounting that Obama is the weaker general election candidate. Resistance to recognizing this fact is also mounting.

What else ya got?

Wednesday: The Pit and the Pendulum

There is a tiny, almost imperceptible sign that just maybe momentum is swinging back our way. It looks like all of our warnings about the party about to go off of the cliff may be having an effect. Kevin Rodriguez, a superdelegate from the US Virgin Islands and member of the DNC, was originally a Clinton superdelegate. Then, during Obamania, he moved over to Obama’s column. Yesterday, He moved back to Clinton. Brave man. I hope others follow as well. That doesn’t sound to me like something you do in the pit of despair when you think your candidate chance of winning are nonexistent.

Also, for those of you who enjoy Fresh Air with Terry Gross, she recently interviewed James Webb. He comes off as prickly but what he says to her about his commitment to social justice and the working class may be an indication of his leanings though he’s not the kind of man you want to back into a corner. It’s clear that he will weigh his options carefully but from this interview, he must be pretty steamed about Obama writing off the working class in Appalachia. No, I’m betting that did not go over well at all with Webb.

For example, here is a brief excerpt from Webb’s new book, A Time To Fight:

But the one connecting dot in all of my experiences has been a passion for history and a desire to learn from it. Not the enumeration of monarchs and treaties that so often passes for academic knowledge, but the surging vitality from below that so often impels change and truly defines cultures. The novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote vividly about war and peace, showing us the drawing rooms and idiosyncrasies of Russia’s elite. But in reality, he was telling us that great societal changes are most often pushed along by tsunami-deep impulses that cause the elites to react far more than they inspire them to lead. And this, in my view, is the greatest lesson of political history. Entrenched aristocracies, however we may want to define them, do not want change; their desire instead is to manage dissent in a way that does not disrupt their control. But over time, under the right system of government, a free, thinking people has the energy and ultimately the power to effect change.

Hmm…

I can’t wait to see who he endorses. Will he stick to his guns and insist on respect for his Scots-Irish kin or is he more concerned with foreign policy and Hillary’s more forceful approach? Here’s a possible clue: during the interview, Webb says he considers himself to be in the mold of late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was Hillary’s mentor and whose senate seat she took in 2000. We shall see what he does but I recall several weeks ago that Harry Reid said he knew of at least one of the remaining senators who was ready to committ and he implied that all he had to do was say the word to trigger a slew more. Could he be talking about Webb?

I thoughtlessly volunteered to chaperone Brook’s field trip today so I will be incommunicado until later this afternoon. Yep, a whole day in the company of genteel and well behaved 12 year olds at a minor league baseball game is just chock full of teachable moments but this time, I won’t be able to order a beer with my peanuts. *sigh*