Why did Obama lose the New Hampshire Primary?

The Independent Voters

In what many described as a "shocking" or "surprising," Hilary Clinton won last night's New Hampshire Primary. I have to say personally that I was expecting a Barack Obama win just like everyone else. But to examine why he lost, you have to start with the kind of primary election that New Hampshire has.

Some primaries are what is called "closed":basically that only the people who are registered democrats can vote in the democratic primary, only those registered as democrats can vote in the republican primaries, and people registered as independents can't vote at all. You can argue that this is an effective method of preventing sabotage--I am a democrat and my nominee is already decided, so I am going to go out and vote for a republican candidate who has absolutley no chance of winning in a general election so the Democrats will win the election. This is an idea called "raiding."

New Hampshire has what is called a semi-closed primary, meaning that independents can chose which primary they want to vote in, but can't vote in both the republican and democratic primaries. The independent vote basically has to chose which of the primaries is more important to vote in.

This reason is why Mr. Obama lost. Obama won Iowa with a lot of support from independent voters in Iowa. The republican race their wasn't really decided by independents as much. It was the 3 out of every 5 republican primary voters who were evangelicals or born again that decided the vote their.

The republican race in New Hampshire is much different. John McCain is a republican candidate who draws a lot of independent voters, and so is Obama. It appears that McCain got these voters to come out for him: 37% of the voters in the republican primary were independents. All these independents chose to vote for McCain for many reasons, not the least of which is that New Hampshire is in many ways McCain's state.

Among "die-hard" democrats, Obama is actually less popular than Hillary Clinton. This seems rather counter-intuitive, but consider Obama's main message: he wants to unite america, and end the partisan divide etc. These are very strong messages that resonate with a lot of Americans, but not democrats. Why? Well it's because many democrats see this election as their chance to beat the republicans at their own game. They finally have a political climate where more people plan to vote for a democrat than a republican in the Presidential election. To many, this isn't the time to end partisanship, but rather the time to finally get it to work to their advantage. They want to beat the republicans, not compromise with them.

So if we accept that Obama's message doesn't play as well to die-hard democrats, then why did so many of the independent voters choose to vote for McCain? It's because of Iowa : Obama's boost in the polls (All polls include likely voters, but does that mean they will vote in a specific primary?) gave him a 13 point lead in the latest Gallup poll. He was considered in many ways to be a sure thing--Why would we have to vote for him, he is already going to beat the crap out of Hilary. We might as well help out McCain, whose lead in the same Gallup poll was only 4 points. The Independent voters thought Obama was a sure thing, and that everybody else was already voting for him, so they didn't really need to vote for him.

In the end, its not as much that Hillary Clinton won this primary election, or that Obama lost. It is

Loss for the FCC

The US Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today in the case of Fox et. al. vs. The FCC. Finally, a victory for the broadcasters.
The two incidents in question were:

- 2002 Billboard Music Awards: In her acceptance speech, Cher stated:
“People have been telling me I’m on the way out every year, right? So
fuck ‘em.”

- 2003 Billboard Music Awards: Nicole Richie, a presenter on the show,
stated: “Have you ever tried to get cow shit out of a Prada purse? It’s not
so fucking simple.”

To understand the decision, first we must understand the FCC definition of indecency (taken directly from the FCC Website):

Indecency findings involve at least two fundamental determinations. First, the material alleged to be indecent must fall within the subject matter scope of our indecency definition: that is, the material must describe or depict sexual or excretory organs or activities. . . . Second, the broadcast must be patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.


The decision is about the uses of the word fuck on TV. The Decision frequently references the Bono Golden Globes "incident."(NBC broadcast the Golden Globes that year) Bono, while accepting his award, said "This is really, really, f------ brilliant," but the FCC originally ruled that it was not indecent because he was not describing "sexual or excretory organs or activities."

Then months later (after Janet Jackson and the Super Bowl), the FCC reversed its decision to say that what Bono did was actually indecent and profane. They didn't fine NBC or its affiliates, but it still was not a very good sign for the TV business.

The Networks (Fox CBS and NBC) argued that:
1) The reversal of policy (see Bono above) is a major shift without explanation
2) The way the FCC interprets "Community Standards" is vague
3) The FCC’s definition of “profane” is contrary to law
4) The FCC’s indecency regime is unconstitutionally vague
5) The FCC’s indecency test permits the Commission to make subjective determinations about the quality of speech in violation of the First Amendment
6) The FCC’s indecency regime is an impermissible content-based regulation of speech that violates the First Amendment


On the first argument, the court basically said that the FCC was wrong to change its position without articulating it correctly. "While the FCC is free to change its previously settled view on this issue, it must provide a reasoned basis for that change."

NBC, just so you know, used the argument that sometimes even the top leaders of government use words in that way, and the Court agreed. (and it cited the "President Bush’s remark to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the United Nations needed to “get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit” and Vice President Cheney’s widely-reported “Fuck yourself” comment to Senator Patrick Leahy on the floor of the U.S. Senate").

The Court then declined to rule about arguments 4 thru 6 because of "A fundamental and longstanding principle of judicial restraint requires that courts avoid reaching constitutional questions in advance of the necessity of deciding them." Basically the constitutional questions were not central to the case, but they still did comment on them. ("Because we doubt that the Networks will refrain from further litigation on these precise issues if, on remand, the Commission merely provides further explanation with no other changes to its policy, in the interest of judicial economy we make the following observations")

The Observations were as follows. All speech covered by the FCC's Idencency policy is "fully protected" by the First Amendment.
Also, the court questioned whether the FCC’s indecency test can
survive First Amendment scrutiny. They said:

We are sympathetic to the Networks’ contention that the FCC’s indecency test is undefined, indiscernible, inconsistent, and consequently, unconstitutionally vague. Although the Commission has declared that all variants of “fuck” and “shit” are presumptively indecent and profane, repeated use of those words in “Saving Private Ryan,” for example, was neither indecent nor profane. And while multiple occurrences of expletives in “Saving Private Ryan” was not gratuitous, Saving Private Ryan, a single occurrence of “fucking” in the Golden Globe Awards was “shocking and gratuitous.”

Parental ratings and advisories were important in finding “Saving Private Ryan” not patently offensive under contemporary community standards, Saving Private Ryan, but irrelevant in evaluating a rape scene in another fictional movie. The use of numerous expletives was “integral” to a fictional movie about war, Saving Private Ryan, but occasional expletives spoken by real musicians were indecent and profane because the educational purpose of the documentary “could have been fulfilled and all viewpoints expressed without the repeated broadcast of expletives,”(finding Martin Scorsese’s PBS documentary “The Blues: Godfathers and Sons” indecent)

The decision then goes on to talk about the indecency test, saying

It appears that under the FCC’s current indecency regime, any and all uses of an
expletive is presumptively indecent and profane with the broadcaster then having to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Commission, under an unidentified burden of proof, that the expletives were “integral” to the work. In the licensing context, the Supreme Court has cautioned against speech regulations that give too much discretion to government officials.

This is as close to a complete victory for the opponents of censorship as you can get. The court did not actually rule on these observations, but it sets a great precedent for any further challenge for the networks. Take that, FCC and the Parents Television Council.





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Barack Obama's Health Plan 2

It seems a lot of people who read what I wrote about Barack Obama's health plan (and by a lot of people I mean pretty much everyone who read it) disagreed with how I characterized the plan.
So I went back to check my facts and see if I was wrong, and trust me I hoped I was wrong. I would love to know that he wants universal health care for everyone. THat would be great. But so I went on his website, and there I found this 15 page pdf file (http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/HealthPlanFull.pdf) that was the material that the Obama campaign circulates regarding its health plan.
I looked at the first bullet point -- "OBAMA’S PLAN TO COVER THE UNINSURED". Uh-oh. Maybe I was wrong. I kept on reading to see exactly what it said.

"Obama will make available a new national health plan which will give individuals the choice to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to federal employees"

That sentence makes me think I was right. "give induviduals the choice to buy affordable health coverage" is not universal health coverage. I think the plan is being passed of as a universal health coverage plan cause it sounds a lot better than lets make health care cheaper.

I will say I was wrong about one thing. The fourth bullet point was "MANDATORY COVERAGE OF CHILDREN" and goes on to state that "Obama will require that all children have health care coverage."

But look at the difference in langugae. Obama "WILL MAKE AVALABILE" to Obama "WILL REQUIRE." I think we can definatley say that Obama is not promising universal healt care for everyone, but rather making it affordable for everyone. That is an admirable goal, but I for one wish he would go just a little bit further.

New Hampshire Civil Unions Law

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/31/national/main2870690.shtml

Finally a state that chooses the side of tolerance over the side of homophobia. Governor John Lynch just signed into law a bill that would allow same-sex couples to have civil unions starting next year in New Hampshire. I would have liked them to have gone for real marriage, but theres only so much you can ask for.

Billy Graham's Library

Billy Graham's Library was dedicated this morning, and it has been written about by many people since it happened as he is Billy Graham. CNN, when it was doing its piece on the dedication, mentioned his apparent anti-semitism.
It appears that a long time ago Mr. Graham was a very close advisor to President Nixon, and not just on matters of faith as he has been for every president since then. Mr. Graham and the President were in the Oval Office, and President Nixon voiced his opinion that Jews were in control of the media or some other crazy conspiracy theory. Mr. Graham sai he agreed with him, and that Jewish people have a “stranglehold” on the American media.
Now you can look at this and think, wow this guy is a racist.I’ll admit that is what I first thought, and I was gonna write this to criticize the Presidents for attending the funeral service of a bigot. But after thinking about it, and reading that Mr. Graham had actually refused to call for the conversion of Jews, I started feeling bad for him. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in the Oval Office standing with the president, being treated as a friend. I would think that would be pretty persuasive. I would imagine people try to impress the president and say things they don’t actually mean. I just feel bad for him. He was manipulated by a president. So I would not call him a racist. He is no Jerry Fallwell. Or Pat Robertson.
Sure I don’t agree with him on many things, but I respect the man a lot for what he believes. And I also think that Rachel Zoll, the AP religion writer who wrote the story about the dedication, is doing the right thing by not mention these allegations, and just letting the man enjoy his library.

Dan Bartlett Resigns

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6712377.stm

Dan Bartlett Resigned from his post as Counselor to the President, in charge of the Communications, Media Affairs, Speechwriting, and Press Offices. Pretty Big Position. The reason given was to spend more time with his family and work in the private sector (basically work for more money). I do not blame him for wanting to do either of those things, as I am sure everyone can say working in the White House must have been a very demanding job.
But the timimng of this doesn't surprsie me. With only a little under 600 days left in the Presdient's Term, it is going to be hard to justify staying and working for the President. With every passing day the President is under more criticism for Iraq and everything he has done wrong so far in his presidency. Plus, the Presidential Primary Season is starting to get a lot of media coveage. The President is, and will start to get, more and more irrelevant. When the latest polls have you at 30 percent approval ratingl and 63 percent unapproval, you know you have a serious problem.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first of a few high-profile, or maybe not so high-profile, people leaving the White House in the few months to come. The time to leave with at least some moderate respect is now.

Studio 60 : "Breaking News"

Going into the last part of the show, I was unsure of how much I liked it. I thought most of the storylines were very good, but something about it was still meh. I can really see the parrallel in Matt's Drug use to Aaron sorkin's possible drug use, but thats ok.
The ending, on the other hand, I thought was remarkable. Tom's reaction of throwing whatever it was at the screen I think was perfect. It is a great example of having some perspective on things. Sure the ratings are down for the show inside the show (as well as the actual show) but there are still more important things going on in the world.

A Fred Thompson Candidacy?

News has spread about Fred Thompson forming a presidential committe, the first step in exploring a bid to the white house. What chance does he have at winning the Republican Nomination? Well thats a very interesting question.

In the latest Gallup Poll (http://www.galluppoll.com/content/default.aspx?ci=17785), Thompson was polling at 12% without even formally entering the race. Thats above, but within the margin, of Mitt Romney. Romney spent nearly $12 million dollars. Thompson hasn't spent anything. Thats really very impressive.

Name Recognition is also a key part of Thompson's chances to win the nomination. Thompson is a character on Law and Order, as basically every single article has mentioned. Even before taking this first step at a presidential bid, Thompson was being written about by Political writers at the NY Times and the Washington Post as a possible conservative candidate. He was appointed by President Bush to guide the nomination of John Roberts. So hes stayed active in politics, and the media was covering his campagin before it even existed.

Finally, his idealogical stance would be key to him winning the Republican Nomination. These is a void this year in the Republican Presidental Candidates. Both Giuliani and McCain (even though hes really trying to hid it now) are moderate Republicans. Mitt Romney used to be a moderate republican, but he reversed his ideas sometime within the past five years. Plus, no matter how valid this point is, a lot of people will not vote for him because he is a Mormon. Kennedy was said to have solved the religious question among presidential candidates, but Mormonism is seen by many as a fringe religion.

There is a hole to fill here. If Thompson campaigns as basically a sucessor to Bush, as the standard bearer for the Right, he might have a very good chance of winning. He has all these things before he even started running his campaign. After declaring, make a few speechs, and getting a lot more coverage from everyone in the media, Thompson will really see where he is.

I know I'll be paying attention to this.

Microsoft's Touch Table--Actually an iPhone?

After looking at the video of Bill Gates intorducing the new touch table technology, I was struck by how similar this is to the Apple iPhone's interface. Sure one is on a phone and one is on a computer, but still the basic premise is the same. And how long do you think it would have taken for Apple to move this technology to computers.

Its nice to see the Microsoft is at least taking some time to advance techonology though. Its been a long time since they were anywhere near close to being on the cusp on new technology. The Zune was 6 years behind the iPod. It may have many other criticisms, but Microsoft was very late to the table. Vista, despite its problems, is still 2 years behind Mac OS X Tiger. It copies things like Dashboard, and quick window viewing.

Just in general, I will say that Apple is probably more expensive than windows stuff. But there is something extra that you pay for. Macs are the new technology. Features come first in Macs and then get copied by everyone else. Wireless technology being a first example. Built in cameras.

Anyway, good job Microsoft. And here are the links to the keynote of the iPhone introduction and then the touch table introduction.

Microsoft : http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/sticker-shock/video-of-bill-gates-showing-off-his-expensive-table-264453.php
Apple : http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/mwsf07/

The Future

‘A new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage’ John Fitzgerald Kennedy
‘Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the cold war assumes new responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom but threatened still by ancient hatreds’
William Jefferson Clinton


In the quotes, the two greatest Democratic politicians in the last 40 years shed light on what they call their generation. But now we must ask, what is our generation—what will we be know for? We live in a world of unparalleled peace and prosperity, and yet there is still hatred and there is still genocide and there is still injustice. Will we be the ones who fix these problems, or will we sweep them under the rug? The events in the first decade of our century have been numerous enough to span lifetimes, and the progress we have made is significant. But what will the next five years be like, and for that matter, what about the next fifty?