Kautzman’s AP GO PO Blog

It is a little disturbing for democracy. One candidate could win with some rules and lose with others.

By Sharon Begley
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 4:05 PM ET Jan 26, 2008
Even if you do not live in an early-primary state, it’s almost impossible to avoid online polls and “elections.” How much their results square with reality remains to be seen, but one online poll is intriguing less for any predictive power than for what it says about the interaction of math and elections (and I don’t mean the funny way they count votes in Florida). The American Mathematical Society and other scholarly groups have launched a site where you pick your favorite presidential candidate—as well as choose any of eight you deem acceptable and rank them from one to eight. (To play, go to www.amstat.org/mathandvoting.) Now the fun begins. The three different methods produce, when I tried it, at least two different winners.

For anyone who believes in democracy, this is a little disturbing. What it means is that “election outcomes can more accurately reflect the choice of an election rule than the voters’ wishes,” writes mathematician Donald Saari of the University of California, Irvine. One candidate could win with some rules and lose with others. In fact, as mathematicians analyze voting systems, they are turning up other oddities that can yield a “winner” who does not reflect the will of even a plurality, much less a majority. The discoveries are especially relevant this year. “The severity of the problem escalates with the number of candidates,” notes Saari, and one thing this primary season has is a lot of still-viable candidates.

One of the most surprising aberrations mathematicians have found comes in a four-way race. There, of course, one candidate wins a plurality and another comes in last. Saari examines what happens if the third-place candidate drops out and, in the next round of voting, people have the same ordered preference as before (A is the first choice of the most, followed by B, then D). Consider an election with 30 voters, who mentally rank the candidates this way:

Three voters prefer John McCain to Mike Huckabee to Mitt Romney to Rudy Giuliani, in that order.

Six prefer McCain to Romney to Huckabee to Giuliani.
Three prefer Giuliani to Huckabee to Romney to McCain.
Five prefer Giuliani to Romney to Huckabee to McCain.
Two prefer Huckabee to Giuliani to Romney to McCain.
Five prefer Huckabee to Romney to Giuliani to McCain.
Two prefer Romney to Giuliani to Huckabee to McCain.
Four prefer Romney to Huckabee to Giuliani to McCain.

In our system, McCain wins, with nine first-place votes, trailed by Giuliani (eight), Huckabee (seven) and Romney (six). Now let’s say Huckabee drops out. Cross out his name where he came in first, and notice who is now the first choice of his former supporters: two go with Giuliani and five with Romney. That pushes Romney, formerly in last place, to the top, with 11 first-place votes. As the GOP field prunes itself, don’t be surprised if the new leader comes from the back of the pack.

If Super Tuesday produces a clear GOP front runner, he could be one whom many and perhaps most Republicans will have to hold their nose to vote for in November. Our pick-your-favorite system, known as plurality voting, “may produce a winner who is the least acceptable to the majority of [GOP] voters,” says Steven Brams of New York University, a pioneer in the application of math to voting. That happened in the 2000 presidential election, when Ralph Nader got about 95,000 votes in Florida. George W. Bush’s winning margin was about 500. “Since a significant majority of Nader voters preferred Al Gore to Bush,” says Brams, “the winner was the candidate least preferred by most voters.”

One fix for that is approval voting, in which voters choose any number of candidates they deem acceptable. This not only would avert the distortions of 2000, but would let candidates regarded as unelectable draw their true share of supporters. “You don’t have to desert your preferred candidate for fear of ‘wasting’ your vote,” says Brams. Hypothetically, if supporters of Joe Biden, who dropped out of the Democratic race after Iowa, didn’t have to worry that a vote for him might benefit, say, Barack Obama, whom they like less than Hillary Clinton, they could have shown support for their man and his foreign-policy expertise by voting for both him and Clinton. That might have clarified somewhat how much voters value experience. “Election returns would better reflect the overall acceptability of candidates, rather than being distorted by considerations of electability or about wasting your vote,” says Brams. The best-known race decided by approval voting is for secretary-general of the United Nations. That, more than plurality voting, tends to ensure that an extremist candidate cannot best two centrists who split the majority’s vote and let the fringe candidate in.

With three viable Democrats remaining, it’s unlikely that the nominee will be someone whom most Dems rank their least favorite. But with four viable Republicans, that is a real possibility. If Florida 2000 wasn’t enough to get us to re-examine plurality voting, though, grumbling in the GOP ranks probably won’t be either. It is said that a nation gets the leaders it deserves. Maybe we also get the voting system we deserve.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/105586

Packed room cheers at call for end to war

Presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul signs an autograph Thursday in Spokane. The Spokesman-Review (BRIAN PLONKA The Spokesman-Review ) Online Follow news of Ron Paul and the other presidential candidates on our new campaign Web site: s-r.com/elections Inside Paul denies link to controversial newsletters. Clinton, Obama campaigns plan events in Northwest.

Jim Camden
Staff writer
February 1, 2008

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul may be having limited success in presidential contests in recent weeks, but his campaign message of more freedom, less government and an immediate end to the war in Iraq was a huge hit with a Spokane crowd Thursday evening.

An estimated 900 people who packed a ballroom at the downtown Doubletree Hotel shouted approval when he warned that government spending was weakening the country and creating “a nanny state.” They cheered raucously when he called for bringing troops home.

“There’s no need to be fighting all these wars,” he said. “What we need to do is bring the troops home as soon as possible.”

To those who might argue that would result in chaos in Iraq, he countered: “What’s over there now?”

People who say the war must continue are the same ones who were wrong in saying that Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, Paul added.

While this may sound like standard criticism of the Bush administration from a Democratic presidential candidate, Paul is seeking the Republican nomination.

As part of that effort, Paul and his campaign urged supporters in the room to attend the Washington state precinct caucuses Feb. 9, the start of the selection of delegates in Washington state.

There’s also a Republican presidential primary on Feb. 19, and the party will use both to award delegates.

But members of the Paul campaign were focused on the caucuses Thursday in an effort to repeat the success of another unlikely Republican candidate in 1988.

In that year, supporters of the Rev. Pat Robertson stunned GOP regulars by turning out at caucuses in large numbers across the state, electing delegates to their county conventions and sticking with the process through the state convention.

The Texas congressman’s speech Thursday was a mix of peace and populism, fiscal conservatism and limited government.

The crowd, some of whom had driven into the city on bad roads and waded across downtown intersections that more resembled slushy ponds, appreciated his message.

“Freedom is popular,” he told the cheering crowd. “It brings people together.”

He returned frequently to foreign policy and the war in Iraq, at one point contending the nation needs to learn a lesson from the 1960s and ’70s and its experience in the Vietnam War.

Americans elected a president in 1968 because they wanted to end the war, but the war continued for years until America eventually lost.

“We lost and we had to come home, and it was an utter tragedy,” Paul said.

But the consequences were not as predicted, all the dominoes didn’t fall and the world didn’t slip into communism, he said. Today the United States trades with Vietnam, and China not only is a major trading partner but it holds much of our debt.

The United States should heed the words of the Founding Fathers, avoid foreign wars and seek only trading alliances, he said.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have had their freedoms curtailed, with enhanced airport security, warrantless searches and laws allowing people to be jailed as enemy combatants, Paul said.

There’s a debate in Washington, D.C., whether a practice known as waterboarding is torture, he said. Anyone who thinks it isn’t should volunteer to try it, he suggested.

The country should abolish the income tax, return to money that is backed by gold and silver, and eliminate the Federal Reserve Board, Paul said.

Although the economy is hurting, it should not bail out the mortgage industry in the current housing crisis.

Instead, it should let the economy work itself out, which might cause difficult times for some people for a year or so, but would result in a stronger country in the end, Paul said.

Bringing U.S. troops home from all foreign stations would boost the economy, he said, because it would result in them, and the country, spending money in America that is being spent overseas.

“We want peace and we want prosperity and we don’t want perpetual war,” he said.

Face-off is last meeting before Super Tuesday

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio sits in the audience during the Democratic presidential debate Thursday in Los Angeles.

Dan Balz and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post
February 1, 2008

LOS ANGELES – Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama set aside personal hostilities here Thursday night but sharply disagreed on who has the better combination of leadership and experience to defeat Republicans in November and lead the country as president.

Heading toward a critical round of primaries and caucuses on Tuesday, the two remaining contenders for the Democratic nomination focused their strongest words on Republicans.

For almost two hours, Obama and Clinton examined their differences on the Iraq war, health care, immigration and governing style, with Clinton emphasizing her lengthy resume and experience and Obama challenging her about judgment and the ability to inspire the country.

“It is imperative that we have a president, starting on Day One, who can begin to solve our problems, tackle these challenges and seize the opportunities that I think await,” Clinton said.

“Senator Clinton, I think, fairly has claimed that she’s got the experience on Day One,” Obama later replied. “And part of the argument that I’m making in this campaign is that it is important to be right on Day One.”

There were occasional barbs, but nothing that approached the candidates’ war of words in Myrtle Beach, S.C., last week. When Thursday’s debate ended, the two rose and exchanged private comments amid smiles and laughter.

“We’re having such a good time,” Clinton said toward the end of the forum. “We are. We are. We’re having a wonderful time.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Obama agreed.

The Kodak Theatre, site of the Academy Awards ceremony in the heart of Hollywood, served as the venue for Thursday’s forum and the pre-debate spectacle on the streets outside rivaled Oscar night. Hollywood stars scrambled to get what was considered one of the hottest tickets in town.

On the subject of the Iraq war – arguably the issue that has shaped the course of the Democratic contest – Obama made a crisp if familiar argument: that his judgment about the invasion reflected a broader skill for understanding the world. Obama also said his consistent opposition to the war would make him a stronger candidate in the general election.

“You know, Senator Clinton mentioned the issue of gravitas and judgment,” he said. “I think it is much easier for us to have the argument when we have a nominee who says, ‘I always thought this was a bad idea, this was a bad strategy. It was not just a problem of execution.’ ” Clinton countered that she had believed that sending weapons inspectors back into Iraq at the time Congress approved the war resolution in 2002 was a “credible idea,” repeating her contention that she did not know that Bush was going to invade.

She argued that she believed in “coercive diplomacy,” but when faced with repeated questions about her decision not to support an alternate measure, she sought to focus on comparing their Senate records.

“I certainly respect Senator Obama making his speech in 2002 against the war,” she said. “And then, when he came to the Senate, we’ve had the same policy because we were both confronting the same reality of trying to deal with the consequences of George Bush’s action.”

Early on, the pair sparred over health care, each citing it as an area in which they have policy differences. They dwelled on health insurance, focusing on details and differing on how to bring the most people into a national insurance network. Still, on a night when civility reigned, Obama said that their health-care proposals were about 95 percent similar.

Clinton has not reported amount donated in January

Letta Tayler
Newsday
February 1, 2008

LOS ANGELES – Barack Obama raised $32 million in campaign contributions in January, a record sum that will carry him well beyond next week’s Super Tuesday primaries in what is shaping into a protracted nomination battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama’s haul was the most raised by any candidate in one month in this presidential campaign. John Kerry raised more – $44 million – in March 2004, but he already had secured the nomination.

“For a candidate who had no guarantee of getting past Super Tuesday to have raised $32 million in a single month is astounding,” said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington nonprofit group that tracks money in politics. “It gives Obama tremendous firepower going into Super Tuesday and beyond.”

Obama and Clinton will compete in 22 states holding Democratic primaries or caucuses Tuesday, the largest number on one day in history.

With John Edwards out of the race, Clinton and Obama are in a race for delegates to secure the nomination. Feb. 5 offers the biggest single opportunity for delegates, but it can’t seal the nomination.

In an e-mail to supporters Wednesday evening, the Obama campaign said it had attracted 224,000 new donors in January for a total of more than 700,000 overall. The $32 million raised in one month matches the campaign’s best three-month fundraising period in 2007.

The funds will finance television and radio ads in 20 Super Tuesday states – nearly double the number airing Clinton spots – as well as in seven states holding primaries in mid-February, said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

“Obviously this contest could go on for some time,” Plouffe said ” … We think we’re going to have the resources to conduct vigorous campaigns.”

The Clinton campaign has not released its January fundraising figure, raising assumptions that it hadn’t matched Obama. It sought to minimize Obama’s jackpot, saying votes and delegates matter most.

“We have all the resources we need to compete and win in this contest,” spokesman Blake Zeff said. He noted that polls show Clinton leading in most Super Tuesday states, especially those with many delegates.

But some polls show Obama narrowing the gap. His aides contend his main disadvantage is name recognition, which ads might help.

The funds Obama raised were just for primaries, meaning he could seek more money from his January donors for the general election. Much of Clinton’s campaign war chest can only be used for the November vote, increasing her need to find new donors, Ritsch said.

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 1, 2008; A08

Sen. Barack Obama has launched an eight-figure, 24-state barrage of television advertising, heading into the Super Tuesday contests and beyond, that will carry his message to twice as many states as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ads will reach with her current ad buy.

While Obama (Ill.) plans to spend more than $10 million on a blitz that will run through Tuesday, the two leading Republican presidential candidates are spending far less on the air wars. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who delayed airing any Super Tuesday commercials, plans to spend $2 million to $3 million in the remaining five days and has released only one ad in California. His chief rival, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), plans a modest buy on national cable networks.

Obama is on the air in all but three of the Feb. 5 states — he is bypassing his home state of Illinois — and is to begin advertising today in Maryland, Virginia and the District, which vote Feb. 12. His latest ad begins with black-and-white images of John F. Kennedy and features the endorsement of the late president’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy.

Clinton (N.Y.) countered with new commercials yesterday, one playing on anxiety about the economy — symbolized by a plunging skydiver — and the other, set to patriotic music, carrying an uplifting appeal of the type usually associated with Obama.

Clinton plans to advertise in a dozen of the 22 states that will hold Democratic primaries and caucuses Tuesday, including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Missouri, Tennessee, Arizona and California. Clinton, whose aides believe she does not have to prove her readiness for the Oval Office, has yet to make any commitments in subsequent states.

But Clinton is also using some unconventional tactics. Her campaign bought an hour block on the Hallmark Channel to air a portion of the national town hall forum her campaign is mounting, on the eve of the Feb. 5 primaries. Clinton, former president Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, are set to appear.

“We come in at a massive disadvantage for name ID,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said yesterday. “The more people get to know Obama, the better we do. Our supporters want us to be as aggressive as we can in as many places as we can.”

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer brushed off the disparity, noting that Obama is running state-specific testimonials from such politicians as Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.). “The campaigns are at different stages. . . . While Senator Clinton is highlighting the solutions for the economy she’ll deliver as president, Senator Obama is using third-party validators like Governor Napolitano to assuage voter concerns about his readiness to lead,” Singer said.

Ken Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies political advertising, said Obama faces the greater challenge. “People know Hillary,” he said. “You either like her or don’t like her; maybe advertising helps at the margins. Obama really needs to introduce himself.”

Romney’s California ad, which previously aired elsewhere, stresses his business experience while saying that McCain has never run anything. The Associated Press reported that Romney plans to air ads in other unspecified states but that no decision has been made.

McCain’s aides had been preparing for a heavier assault. They note that their candidate won Tuesday’s Florida primary after Romney had spent $5 million on television ads there and McCain less than $2 million.

“We’ve proven we can win races with limited resources,” said Jill Hazelbaker, McCain’s communications director. “We will be visible, regardless of whether we’re on television.”

With McCain making only a token television buy, said Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, Romney may be reluctant to risk more of his personal fortune on commercials. “How much do your odds improve with a big ad buy at this point?” Tracey asked. “He’s not competing against a Clinton or Obama, where money’s not an issue.”

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has made a small national cable buy for an ad that calls for the Internal Revenue Service to be abolished.

While the campaign has been in full swing for nearly a year, analysts say, the latest round of advertising could be pivotal because many voters in the Super Tuesday states are tuning in for the first time.

The Clinton ad featuring the skydiver says that “our economy could be heading into free fall,” citing foreclosures, interest rates and health-care costs. As the skydiver’s parachute unfurls, the spot touts Clinton as “the person you can depend on to fix the economy and protect our future.”

In the other ad, Clinton praises the nation’s “can-do spirit” and, in a veiled swipe at Obama, says: “We know you can’t solve economic problems with political promises.” A third ad quotes from a New York Times editorial endorsing her.

One Obama ad features excerpts of his speech after winning Saturday’s South Carolina primary, in which he declares: “This election is about the past versus the future. . . . Don’t tell me we can’t change. Yes, we can.” In another, he promises a middle-class tax cut and an end to the Iraq war. A third spot is more biographical, with Obama beginning: “My parents weren’t rich. My father left me when I was very young.”

Both Democrats are targeting Hispanic voters. Clinton is running a Spanish-language ad in such states as Arizona and California that says: “Millions of Hispanic families live with the fear of not having health insurance. . . . Hillary is our friend and will help us.”

Obama’s Spanish-language ad, also airing in Arizona and California, features Luis V. Gutierrez, a congressman from Chicago who touts him as a leader on immigration reform. “We know what it feels like being used as a scapegoat just because of our background and last name,” Gutierrez says.