Brendan Nyhan

Though it looks like there isn’t new content, I actually updated the post on Obama’s support below several times today so please check out the new material.

There’s been some debate among pundits about where Barack Obama has been successful and why. To try to make some sense of what’s going on, I decided to actually look at the data. (My pundit card will soon be revoked.)

One issue is how to compare across states given the change in the number of candidates running over time. The method I used is to focus on how well Obama did relative to Hillary Clinton by looking at the proportion of their total vote that Obama received, which (a) attempts to adjust for the departure of John Edwards and (b) contains much more information than simple win/loss tallies. (I also excluded the home states of Illinois, New York, and Arkansas and the largely uncontested states of Florida and Michigan from the analyses below.)

When you focus on Obama’s proportion of the two-candidate vote, it’s striking how he’s run up huge margins in so many of his wins but his losses have almost all been relatively narrow:

Obama has won nine states with more than 60 percent of the two-candidate vote and three states with more than 70 percent, but he’s only received less than 40 percent of the two-candidate vote once.

The first question is whether Obama is doing as well in caucuses as it appears. The answer is yes:

Weighting states equally, he’s received an average of 66 percent of the two-candidate vote in caucuses and only 51 percent in primaries. Why? Kevin Drum’s readers suggest the following explanations, which seem plausible, though the data can’t really arbitrate between them:

Caucuses require organization and Obama was better organized. They require enthusiasm and he has more enthusiastic supporters. They require time, and his demographic has more free time. They’re mostly in small states, and Obama targeted small states. They’re dominated by activists, and activists tend to support Obama.

Another issue is how Obama’s performance has varied according to the racial composition of the states in question. Despite my worries about a possible ceiling in white support, Obama has done well both in states with high black populations and heavily white “red states” (as Matthew Yglesias and other commentators have noted). The data indicate that this pattern, which is plotted below using a quadratic fit, appears to hold up across the full set of primaries and caucuses to date:

One claim I’ve seen thrown around to explain this pattern is the existence of racial threat. According to this story, Obama’s race isn’t an issue in overwhelmingly white states because race isn’t salient there, whereas Obama can win in states with large black populations using a coalition built on black support. But in states with moderate black populations, race is sufficiently salient to reduce his vote totals among whites and he can’t ride the black vote to victory in the same way as he does in more heavily black states. I’m not sure if that’s true, but the data are at least broadly consistent with the story.

Another pattern observed in exit polls is that Obama has not done as well as Hillary Clinton among Hispanics. At the aggregate level, the data do show that he’s done worse in states with larger Hispanic populations, though the association doesn’t seem to be particularly strong:

Finally, Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic recently claimed that Hillary “can’t win the small states (unless she controls the machine — think Nevada)” while “Obama cannot win the states where the majority of Democrats reside.” But as Yglesias argued, this claim seems to depend heavily on California:

This seems like a mighty gerrymandered “can’t” for Obama. He can win Democratic states like Washington, Connecticut, and Delaware. He can win states the Democrats sometimes carry like Iowa and Missouri. Is the criticism that Obama can’t win big heavily Democratic states? Well, he won his home state of Illinois and Clinton won her home state of New York. So this amounts to saying Obama lost California. Which, of course, he did. And it’s a big state so California gets a lot of delegates. But one can hardly proclaim the winner of California the winner on some “states where the majority of Democrats reside” theory when Obama’s winning more states and winning more delegates and winning them in all regions of the country.

Let’s take a closer look. First, here is Obama’s vote plotted against the log of state population (graphing by raw population is useless because California is so much larger than the other states):

As you can see, he has generally done better among smaller states, as Ambinder observed.

Turning to Ambinder’s second claim, we can look at the Obama vote relative to the Democratic presidential vote in the 2004 election:

Again, we see that Obama has generally done better in the least Democratic states.

So is Ambinder right? One last way to assess the claim is to look at how Obama’s vote varies with the log of state population*Democratic presidential vote, which roughly approximates the number of Democratic voters by state:

Once again, Obama appears to do worse in states that are larger and more Democratic. The question is why. One possible explanation is that it is harder (i.e. more expensive and time-consuming) for him to reach base voters in those states to move them off their default preference for Hillary. By contrast, in smaller and less heavily Democratic states, there are fewer caucus and primary voters for him that he can reach more effectively. Another possibility is that Hillary’s elite support is stronger in larger and more Democratic states, whereas Obama has greater support from “red state” Democratic politicians who are concerned about Hillary’s performance in the general election.

It’s hard to separate the associations between these variables because larger states are (on average) more black and Hispanic, more Democratic, and less likely to have caucuses. But when we put all these factors together in a linear regression (including both black population and black population squared), we find that the U-shaped quadratic relationship for black population and the positive relationship for caucuses are statistically significant, while the other factors are not. In other words, the evidence so far is consistent with the conventional wisdom that Obama does best in heavily black and heavily white states and in caucuses and he does less well in moderately black states and primaries.

[Disclaimers: This is all just a rough cut at early aggregate voting data. We only have 30 observations so far. Finally, we can’t make direct inferences about individual behavior based on aggregate data.]

Update 2/11 12:06 PM: Kevin Drum links and asks an additional question:

I’d add a caveat to this. Brendan actually finds that all five pieces of CW are true, but that the last three aren’t statistically significant. In other words, there’s at least a 5% possibility that they might be the result of chance.

But this is a one shot deal, and I wonder if the results are significant at, say, a 90% level? In an academic setting this wouldn’t be good enough, but in a real-life setting where this is the only data you have (no followup studies, folks!), most people would probably think that 90% certainty was fairly convincing. For better or worse, it looks to me like the CW is likely true on all five counts.

To answer the question, the other variables aren’t close to being significant. However, I wouldn’t put too much stock in the results of any of these hypothesis tests because (a) hypothesis testing is riddled with epistemological problems and (b) it’s difficult to achieve significance in small samples.

Update 2/11 3:50 PM: Josh Patashnik at TNR flags a more elaborate regression model predicting the Obama vote by the Daily Kos blogger poblano, who states that he “looked at pretty much every variable could think of that we can quantify about a state and that might affect the Obama-Clinton vote share” before putting together a model with nine variables. However, as Patashnik notes, the performance of the model over the weekend was “only so-so”:

Poblano at Daily Kos has done a great job putting together a regression predicting Obama’s share of the vote in each state. I’m not totally sold on it–it performs very well for the states that voted prior to when the model was constructed (which it obviously should, given that that’s how the parameters were chosen in the first place), but did only so-so for this weekend’s states (overestimating Obama’s support in Louisiana and Nebraska, and underestimating it in Washington and Maine).

This is what’s known as “overfitting” and it’s the reason I didn’t make predictions for upcoming primaries based on the regression model I discuss above. The problem is that model performance usually deteriorates dramatically when you make predictions out of sample (i.e. for new data). Poblano’s search for explanatory variables is likely to make this problem worse.

Bill Bishop at the Daily Yonder (formerly of the Austin-American Statesman) also passes along two graphs showing that at the county level (rather than the state level) Obama actually did better in more Democratic counties in both California and Missouri:

The lesson is that the answers we get depend, in part, on the level of aggregation we consider. Remember the Gelman et al study of the relationship between income and party, which finds that the association varies by state income (PDF). In the poorest states, income is closely related to party affiliation, but the relationship weakens as state income increases. It’s possible that something similar is going on here.

Finally, per Roger Ford’s comment below, I pulled all the available exit poll data to look at how the white vote for Obama varies with the black population in the state, which is a more direct measure of the racial threat hypothesis above. Here’s the graph of interest plotted with both a linear and a quadratic fit:

The quadratic relationship is statistically significant in a regression including the other factors listed above, though I’m not sure why white support for Obama would increase in heavily black states relative to moderately black states. (Whites there are more comfortable with minority elected leadership?) The linear relationship isn’t statistically significant, but see above for the appropriate caveats about hypothesis testing.

Update 2/11 4:38 PM: The graph of population*Democratic presidential vote and the discussion of it above have been updated to correct an error caught by TerryVB. (Specifically, I switched the X-axis from log(pop)*presidential vote to log(pop*presidential vote).)

Update 2/11 9:52 PM: To try to understand variation in the white vote, I tried poblano’s idea of using Southern Baptist population as a continuous variable that can proxy for “Southernness” (as suggested by IKL in comments below). And indeed the relationship between Southern Baptist population and Obama’s white support is striking (and statistically significant):

Once you account for this variable, the relationship between black population and Obama’s support among whites vanishes.

Update 2/12 10:06 AM: Plots of state education and income are inconclusive in bivariate form, though education is positive and statistically significant in a multiple regression as poblano notes:

The reason, I’m guessing, is that the education-Obama relationship only shows up once you control for Democratic presidential vote. If you disaggregate by states Kerry and Bush won, it seems to be positive for “red states” and negative for “blue states”:

Update 2/13 9:49 AM: Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal provides an accessible overview of some of the pros and cons of regression analysis for those who are not familiar with it. But it’s worth noting one additional limitation. He links to another regression post by Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics which finds that Hillary Clinton does better in states she visits more. Cost suggests that this means her visits are effective in increasing support. While that might be true, it is also possible that Clinton is visiting states where she has more support (or where her support is increasing). Regression can’t handle this problem, which is known as endogeneity, directly (different approaches are usually required). The general issue is that regression tells us nothing about causality; it can only tell us about possible associations between variables.

Update 2/14 12:42 PM: techne and other commenters argue that Obama’s support in heavily white states is driven by the public nature of caucuses, which is possible. As such, I’ve made a new version of the graph showing Obama support by black population with a linear trend fit only to the primary states. This version is much more dramatic as a result of including Washington, DC (it also includes VA and MD):

Also, Cost makes a thoughtful case for why primary/caucus campaign visits might not be endogenous in a comment below.

With John McCain’s lock on the GOP nomination deflating elite interest in Michael Bloomberg, pundits have to look elsewhere to engage in pointless speculation about third-party presidential candidacies. Bizarrely, Robert Wright suggested on Bloggingheads that Mike Huckabee might run — an unlikely idea that was immediately squashed by Huckabee’s statement today on “Meet the Press” that he would vote for the Republican nominee. It may be a signal, though, that the pointless speculation will now focus on McCain-hating conservatives rather than anti-partisan centrists.

As others have noted, Mitt Romney justified his exit from the Republican presidential race yesterday by smearing advocates of withdrawal from Iraq as wanting to “surrender to terror”:

If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

Unfortunately, it’s the latest chapter in a long pattern of GOP attacks on dissent since 9/11. Click here for the full timeline (now archived at a permanent page).

December 2001: In response to Democratic plans to question parts of the USA Patriot Act during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, John Ashcroft suggests that people who disagree with the administration’s anti-terrorism policies are on the side of the terrorists. “To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies, and pause to America’s friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.”

February 2002: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle expresses mild disagreement with US anti-terror policies, saying US success in the war on terror “is still somewhat in doubt.” In response, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) says that Daschle’s “divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country.”

May 2002: After the disclosure that President Bush received a general warning about possible Al Qaeda hijackings prior to 9/11, Democrats demand to know what other information the administration had before the attacks. In response, White House communications director Dan Bartlett says that the Democratic statements “are exactly what our opponents, our enemies, want us to do.”

June 2002: Republican Senate candidate Saxby Chambliss issued a press release accusing Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) of “breaking his oath to protect and defend the Constitution” because he voted for a successful 1997 amendment to the chemical weapons treaty that removed language barring inspectors from certain countries from being part of United Nations inspection teams in Iraq.

September 2002: Campaigning against Democrats who did not support his legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security (a department whose creation he had previously opposed), President Bush said that “the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people.”
After a speech by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle criticizing the Bush administration and the GOP for politicizing the war on terror, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), the House Majority Whip, criticized those in Congress who are “questioning the president’s leadership, that are constantly throwing up hurdles to keep us from doing what we have to do to protect the American people.” He added, “These are people that don’t want to protect the American people… [T]hey will do anything, spend all the time and resources they can, to avoid confronting evil.”

May 2004: After Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) said “the direction [in Iraq] has got be changed or it is unwinnable,” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) said Democrats are “basically giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” Similarly, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called President Bush an “incompetent leader,” House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) said Pelosi “apparently is so caught up in partisan hatred for President Bush that her words are putting American lives at risk.”

September 2004: As John Kerry steps up his criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq and the war on terror, Republicans repeatedly suggest that he is emboldening the enemy. Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) says that “while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats’ manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief.” President Bush says, “You can embolden an enemy by sending a mixed message… You send the wrong message to our troops by sending mixed messages.” And Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) claims that terrorists “are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry,” adding that Democrats are “consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there.”

In addition, South Dakota GOP chair Randy Frederick attacked Senator Tom Daschle, saying “Daschle’s three years as Complainer in Chief have brought shame to the honor of his office, concern to our men and women in uniform, and comfort to America’s enemies.” When asked about this comment, John Thune, Daschle’s opponent, cited Daschle’s statement that President Bush “failed so miserably at diplomacy that we’re now forced to war” before the invasion of Iraq, saying “What it does is emboldens our enemies and undermines the morale of our troops,” adding, “His words embolden the enemy.”

July 2005: Senator Dick Durbin states that a description of US interrogation procedures at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility sounds like something “done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others.” Presidential adviser Karl Rove responds by suggesting that Durbin and other liberals seek to put US troops in danger, saying that “Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.”

November/December 2005: With critics of the war in Iraq growing increasingly vocal, Republicans lash out, suggesting that Democrats are encouraging the enemy and want to surrender to terrorists. President Bush says that “These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America’s will.” Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) states that “Many on the Democratic side have revealed their exit strategy: surrender” and Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) says that “[T]he liberal leadership have put politics ahead of sound fiscal and national security policy. And what they have done is cooperated with our enemies and are emboldening our enemies.”

After DNC chairman Howard Dean says “The idea that we’re going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong,” Republicans reiterate the same line of attack. House Speaker Dennis Hastert says Dean “made it clear the Democratic Party sides with those who wish to surrender” and GOP chairman Ken Mehlman says Dean’s statement “sends the wrong message to our troops, the wrong message to the enemy, the wrong message to the Iraqi people.”

January 2006: President Bush suggests that “defeatists” on Iraq are disloyal by contrasting them with a “loyal opposition,” stating that the American people “know the difference between a loyal opposition that points out what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.”

March 2006: Senator Russ Feingold introduces a motion to censure President Bush. In response, Republicans suggest that he is harming national security and endangering US troops. RNC chairman Ken Mehlman says that “Democrat leaders never miss an opportunity to put politics before our nation’s security” and that they would “would rather censure the President for doing his job than actually fight the War on Terror,” refers to “repeated Democrat attempts to weaken these efforts to fight the terrorists and keep American families safe,” and states that “Democrats should to be focused on winning the War on Terror, not undermining it with political axe-grinding of the ugliest kind.” Senator John Cornyn adds that the resolution would “make the jobs of our soldiers and diplomats harder and place them at greater risk.”

June 2006: In response to Democratic calls for a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, President Bush suggests that Democrats want to surrender. “There’s a group in the opposition party who are willing to retreat before the mission is done,” he said. “They’re willing to wave the white flag of surrender. And if they succeed, the United States will be worse off, and the world will be worse off.” However, Bush adviser Dan Bartlett is unable to name a single Democrat to which this description applies.

September 2006: During a press conference the day after the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11th, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said, “I wonder if they [Democrats] are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people,” adding, “They certainly do not want to take the terrorists on and defeat them.” When asked if he intended to accuse Democrats of treason, Boehner replied, “I said I wonder if they’re more interested in protecting the terrorists… They certainly don’t want to take the terrorists on in the field.”

After Democratic House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said the capture of Osama bin Laden would not make the US any safer, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said “Where do your loyalties lie?” while standing next to a poster depicting Pelosi and her statement.

Senator Rick Santorum also attacked Democratic minority leader Harry Reid on the Senate floor, saying, “If you listen to the Democratic leader, our lesson is: . . . Let’s put domestic politics ahead of the security of this country. That’s the message.”

October 2006: In emails to GOP supporters, President Bush asserted that Democrats “will wave the white flag of surrender in the global war on terror” if they win the 2006 election; RNC chairman Ken Mehlman used Democratic opposition to the Military Commissions Act to suggest they do not want to interrogate terrorists, stating that “84% of the Democrats in the House voted against interrogating terrorists, as did 73% of the Democrats in the Senate”; and Senator Sam Brownback claimed Democrats “want to … weaken our ability to fight an effective War on Terror.”

January 2007: Defense Secretary Robert Gates denounced a resolution opposing President Bush’s plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, saying, “I think it’s pretty clear that a resolution that, in effect, says that the general going out to take command of the arena shouldn’t have the resources he thinks he needs to be successful certainly emboldens the enemy and our adversaries. I think it’s hard to measure that with any precision, but it seems pretty straightforward that any indication of flagging will in the United States gives encouragement to those folks. And I’m sure that that’s not the intent behind the resolutions, but I think it may be the effect.”

Appearing on “Meet the Press,” Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that “I think that’s a dangerous position to take, to oppose a sitting commander in chief while we’ve got people being shot at on the ground. I think it’s one thing to have a debate and a discussion about this strategy, but to openly oppose, in essence, the strategy, I think that can be a very risky thing for our troops.” Senator John Cornyn said, “To offer nonbinding resolutions which encourage our enemies and undermine our allies and deflate the morale of our troops is, to me, the worst of all possible worlds.” And Senator Jon Kyl added that “[t]he worst thing would be for the Senate by 60 votes to express disapproval of a mission we are sending people to lay down their lives for.”

February 2007: White House spokesman Tony Snow said that “Osama bin Laden thought that a lack of American resolve was a key reason he could inspire people to come after us after September 11th. I am not accusing members of the Senate of inviting carnage on the United States of America. I’m simply saying you think about what impact it may have.” Rep. Don Young (R-AK) twice repeated a quotation falsely attributed to Abraham Lincoln on the House floor, which states that “Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.”

April 2007: The White House and other Republicans begin referring to the Democrats’ proposed withdrawal date from Iraq as a “date for surrender” and “waving the white flag of surrender.” Sen. Norman Coleman (R-Minn.) said the Democrats were “handing al-Qaeda a victory that they will be able to use to strengthen their forces and then hurt and kill more Americans.” Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a presidential candidate, said that, if a Democrat were elected, “it sounds to me like we’re going on defense. We’re going to wave the white flag there [in Iraq].” And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that “[Democrats] used this serious effort — what should have been a serious effort to fund the troops — as an opportunity to send a memo to our enemy on when we’re going to give up and to get pork for various and sordid projects back home.”

July 2007: Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman attacks Sen. Hillary Clinton’s request for information about US preparation for eventual withdrawal from Iraq, suggesting it will boost enemy propaganda. In a letter to Clinton, he wrote, “Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia.”

August 2007: GOP chairman Mike Duncan claims that Democrats want the US to lose in Iraq in an email to supporters, writing that “The Democrat leadership believes failure by our troops in Iraq… is essential for them to win elections in 2008,” that “Democrat leaders are hoping for our troops to fail so their party can gain a political advantage,” and that “The Democrats are hoping our troops fail in the War on Terror in the craven desire that it will boost their party’s electoral fortunes in 2008.”

September 2007: Republican presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and John McCain attack critics of General David Petraeus, including Hillary Clinton and MoveOn.org. Giuliani tells Sean Hannity that “You should not be allowed to malign someone’s reputation unfairly just because you think it’s good for your campaign,” while McCain states at a press conference that “MoveOn.org ought to be thrown out of this country” (a statement he later retracts).

February 2008: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney withdraws from the race, saying “If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.”

In addition, GOP Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said that a Democratic bill requiring a rapid withdrawal from Iraq would “put a bullet right in the hearts of our troops who are there.”

May 2008: In a fundraising email to supporters, NRSC chairman John Ensign suggests that one of the top legislative priorities of “Big Labor, MoveOn.org and extremist environmental groups” is “weakening our national defense.”

September 2009: During a town hall meeting, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) calls Nancy Pelosi one of the “domestic enemies of the Constitution” shortly after saying that “[Second Amendment] gun rights are actually critical to prevent treason in America.”

[see also Smears of Barack Obama’s loyalty 2006-]

A friend in law school point out that Chelsea Clinton appears to have fooled the Wall Street Journal into misrepresenting her mother’s career:

Ms. [Chelsea] Clinton said that, as president, her mother will “get the government back into the student-loan business” and do away with the federal financial-aid forms that families must fill out, drawing nods of approval from the audience.

Without a 2% government loan to go to Yale Law School, Hillary Clinton may have had to take a job at a high-paying law firm to pay back her debt rather than going into public service, Ms. Clinton said. “I might not be here today,” she said.

Clinton did go into public service immediately after law school. But as McClatchy notes in a story on her claims to “35 years of change,” she actually left her nonprofit job after less than a year and subsequently spent 15 years in a corporate firm:

Clinton worked at the Children’s Defense Fund for less than a year, and that’s the only full-time job in the nonprofit sector she’s ever had. She also worked briefly as a law professor.

Clinton spent the bulk of her career — 15 of those 35 years — at one of Arkansas’ most prestigious corporate law firms, where she represented big companies and served on corporate boards.

It’s no wonder the Journal is confused, of course. The Clinton campaign has repeatedly suggested that she worked in nonprofits for most of her career:

She routinely tells voters that she’s “been working to bring positive change to people’s lives for 35 years.” She told a voter in New Hampshire: “I’ve spent so much of my life in the nonprofit sector.” Speaking in South Carolina, Bill Clinton said his wife “could have taken a job with a firm … Instead she went to work with Marian Wright Edelman at the Children’s Defense Fund.”

…Her campaign Web site biography devotes six paragraphs to her pro bono legal work for the poor but sums up the bulk of her experience in one sentence: “She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm.”

To be fair, McClatchy does point out that Hillary did extensive public service work while serving as a corporate lawyer. But that’s not what she and her family are implying.

The annoying pattern of silly extrapolation from the primaries to the general election continues.

Rush Limbaugh is saying that John McCain needs Mike Huckabee as his VP to win the South:

Some people think that McCain is going to have to choose Huckabee, because if you look at what McCain won last night… What Huckabee did last night in the South has stunned everybody, because he spent about four bucks, and he just swept through the South.

The real story last night, though, is not that Huckabee won in the South. The story is that McCain didn’t win the South… McCain, for all intents and purposes, is the nominee… The fact that he did not win the South is important, the reason is simple. He’s not strong in the South, and Republicans cannot win the White House, cannot win a presidential race without winning in the South, and McCain demonstrated he can’t do that last night unless he puts the Huckster on the ticket as the veep.

So John McCain is going to lose Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee (the Southern states Huckabee won) in November without him? Please.

Even the New York Times, which rarely fact-checks absurd claims, throws water on this one in an article on Huckabee’s supposed resurgence:

Yet even if [Huckabee] were to do well in Texas, the experts ask, so what? He cannot overtake Mr. McCain in delegates, and he does not necessarily add to his desirability as a vice-presidential candidate, since Texas is likely to vote Republican in the general election, with or without Mr. Huckabee on the ticket. Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia, also still in play, fall under similar analysis, to varying degrees.

In the Times, Nicholas Kristof makes the same error:

So that raises the obvious question: Who would be the stronger Democratic candidate?

The answer isn’t certain, partly because Barack Obama’s shine could quickly tarnish…

But one clue emerged in Tuesday’s balloting in 14 “red states” that were won by President George W. Bush in 2004. Mr. Obama won nine while Hillary Rodham Clinton won four and is ahead in the fifth.

The Democratic primary electorate in “red states” is not representative of those states. More importantly, look at the “red” states Obama won. Most of them (ie Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, and Utah) are not going to go Democratic no matter who the nominee is.

ABC News is now mocking misinformed voters — many of whom are obviously not highly educated — for going to polling places on the wrong day. The story is headlined “Dumbocracy” and comes with this “photo illustration”:

Dumbocracy: Hundreds Try to Vote on the Wrong Day
Voters in Non-Super Tuesday States Complain That Polling Places Are Closed

Elitist much?

The foreign news service AFP has a story on Howard Dean trying to avert a convention fight that includes some purple prose:

A brokered convention has not been seen in decades, and harkens back to an era of shady political deal-making when powerbrokers and cash kings — instead of regular voters — chose one candidate over another at a raucous, smoke-filled convention hall.

“[C]ash kings”? Really?

For what it’s worth, while conventions are less democratic, they actually often served to better represent the interests of the general public since the “shady political deal-making” was often geared toward choosing the candidate most likely to win. The dominance of primaries by ideological activists has arguably enhanced polarization.

President Bush’s former Council of Economic Advisers chair Greg Mankiw restates what so many Bush economists have said — contrary to the claims of the President and most of the GOP presidential contenders, tax cuts don’t raise revenue:

Republican candidates are fond of saying we should cut tax rates because doing so would incentivize more rapid economic growth (true) and raise tax revenue (wishful thinking).