{"id":2569,"date":"2007-11-28T08:56:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-28T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/11\/you-might-be-a-political-junkie-if%e2%80%a6\/"},"modified":"2009-08-22T14:10:32","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T20:10:32","slug":"you-might-be-a-political-junkie-if%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/11\/you-might-be-a-political-junkie-if%e2%80%a6\/","title":{"rendered":"You might be a political junkie if\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Carter Bundy<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

This one is for the real hard-core political \u2013 and math \u2013 junkies. If you\u2019ve ever spent half an hour (or more) playing with one of those interactive Electoral College<\/a> maps to figure out what combinations of states will yield 270 electoral votes, you\u2019ll love how Iowa Dems select delegates to the national convention.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\n

The Iowa Caucus<\/a> serves the same general purpose as a traditional primary \u2013 to elect delegates in the presidential nominating process. That\u2019s where the similarities end, though, and the craziness starts.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The precinct-based Iowa Caucus doesn\u2019t even result in the election of state delegates to the national convention \u2013 only precinct delegates to the county caucuses. The counties, in turn, select delegates to the state party meeting, which then selects national delegates. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The numbers you\u2019ll see on the evening of Jan. 3 won\u2019t represent the percentages of people who came out to support candidates, but the percentages of delegates selected to go to the 99 county caucuses from the 1,784 precinct caucuses.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kindergarten redux<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

When you show up at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 3, first you have the Pledge of Allegiance. Then some adult gives instructions.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Then you go off into a corner of the room with the other people who like your candidate, and they count you off, one by one. Literally. Yes, they have cookies and milk, too (At some of them, at least!).<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Except for the absence of quiet time, it\u2019s kindergarten all over again.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Enter the math dragons<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Each precinct is assigned a certain number of delegates it gets to send to the county level, more or less in relation to its voting population.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The actual math behind the assignment of those delegates, though, is crazy. Let\u2019s say you have eight delegates from a particular precinct, and a candidate has 14 percent of the participants standing in his or her corner. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s comfortably more than 1\/8 of the votes, so he or she gets at least one delegate, si? Nope. If you\u2019re in a precinct with six or more delegates, and you don\u2019t have 15 percent of the vote, you\u2019re deemed \u201cnot viable,\u201d and your supporters go to one of the \u201cviable\u201d candidates in \u201cre-alignment.\u201d It\u2019s only after the realignment that you calculate delegates.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That hurts two kinds of candidates. The first are second-tier candidates who may have 5, 10 or even 20 percent of the people behind him or her, but don\u2019t get over 15 percent in most precincts. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> is showing signs of breaking out of this group and being viable in many places (I\u2019m in Iowa, remember, and I saw some yard signs this evening), but at the very least Chris Dodd<\/a>, Joe Biden<\/a>, Dennis Kucinich<\/a> and Mike Gravel<\/a> can count on being well underrepresented when the delegates are totaled up.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Seconds count<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Another type of candidate who suffers under the reign of Iowa Caucus math terror is a candidate who is viable in most precincts but who is not the second choice of a large number of non-viable candidates\u2019 supporters.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In 2004, Howard Dean<\/a> and Dick Gephardt<\/a> were in a nasty spat for the last few weeks of the caucus. Dean did well enough to be viable in most precincts, and Gephardt didn\u2019t. Gephardt\u2019s folks remembered the spat, and their second-choice votes went to John Kerry<\/a> and John Edwards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kucinich voters, who perceived Dean as unfairly getting love from many liberals, also resented Dean. The Kucinich folks, of course, saw Kucinich as the real liberal in the race.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Further, Kucinich and Edwards encouraged their folks to support the other candidate if one was viable in a precinct and one wasn\u2019t. Edwards\u2019 delegate totals swelled on the basis of Kucinich and Gephardt voters re-aligning with him, while Dean fell behind.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Just like the Electoral College, the final delegate counts in Iowa<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> may not reflect the percentage of support of voters for each candidate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Blocking for delegates<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Depending on how many folks show up in any given precinct, there is a range of votes, which will secure a set number of delegates. Say Hillary Clinton<\/a> does well in a precinct in the initial vote, and is well over the number she needs for four of the eight delegates. But her people calculate she won\u2019t have the votes during re-alignment to secure a fifth delegate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Further suppose that it\u2019s a precinct where Barack Obama<\/a> is doing a little better than Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, and they\u2019re the only two other viable candidates. Suppose that, under the math, it looks like Obama is going to eke out three delegates to Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s one. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> supporters are bummed because if they only had, maybe, an extra five votes, they could get a second delegate, reducing Obama to two also.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Well, in this scenario, Hillary\u2019s getting four even if she loses some individual votes, so her supporters, if they\u2019re paying attention, can send five voters over to caucus with Richardson. If her people perceive Obama to be more likely to challenge her for first place in the delegate totals around the state than Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place>, that\u2019s a smart play. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Any candidate who can shed a few votes without dropping down a delegate will use the exact same math. For example, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s campaign may think Obama and Clinton are going to run away with first and second place statewide, but may calculate that he has a shot at edging out Edwards for third. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

If Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> can afford to lose a few extra voters in a precinct without losing a delegate himself, and Edwards is in a tight battle for an extra delegate with any other candidate, it makes sense for the guv to send a few voters to the other candidate to block Edwards from picking up a delegate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Phew. Is it any wonder Iowans score well in national math rankings?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME<\/a> in New Mexico<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here<\/a>. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carter Bundy This one is for the real hard-core political \u2013 and math \u2013 junkies. If you\u2019ve ever spent half an hour (or more) playing with one of those interactive Electoral College maps to figure out what combinations of states will yield 270 electoral votes, you\u2019ll love how Iowa Dems select delegates to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bundy-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}