Anticipating Super Tuesday

There's always a Super Tuesday in America's presidential politics — at least in modern times.

Presidential primaries are, as I have mentioned here before, relatively new phenomena in American politics — historically speaking.

Before Jimmy Carter made a point of entering every primary that was being held in 1976 (which caused a bit of a fuss back then), candidates would choose to enter some primaries and not to enter others.

After Carter was elected president, more states opted to hold primaries in both parties, and candidates felt obliged to enter all or most of them.

Somewhere along the line, each party's leadership happened on to the notion of holding several primaries on a single day, creating a Super Tuesday that would unofficially separate the presumptive nominee from the pretenders.

There are both pros and cons in this, and it is not my intention, on this occasion, to argue in favor or against having a Super Tuesday. That decision has been made for this presidential election cycle, for good or ill, and we're going to have one tomorrow.

So my objective is to anticipate what is likely to happen. More delegates will be up for grabs on Tuesday than have been committed so far:

• Georgia (76 delegates): Newt Gingrich represented a House district in northwest Georgia for 20 years, and he appears to have an unshakeable lead among the Republicans there.
  
  If Gingrich wins his home state, it will be only his second win in the primaries — and both will have been in the South. He won't have established himself as a vote getter in any other region.
  
  I don't know if his campaign will continue after tomorrow, but even if it does, I really don't think he will be much of a factor the rest of the way.


• Ohio (66): This is really the big prize. Although Ohio is not the most delegate–rich state that is voting on Tuesday, people pay attention to the results there because Ohio is a large state and what happens there is often seen as a national barometer.
  
  And, in fact, Ohio does have a reputation for being a national bellwether. What's more, no Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio.
  
  Thus, it is an attractive target. Victory there could have significant implications for the rest of the GOP race.
  
  As late as last week, polls showed Rick Santorum with a narrow lead over Mitt Romney. But I'm inclined to think that Romney's win in Saturday's Washington state caucuses — a state in which Romney's campaign didn't expect to do well originally — could give him the momentum he needs to win Ohio.
  
  Romney seems to sense as much. As CNN reports, the former Massachusetts governor appeared confident as he campaigned in Ohio during the weekend.


• Tennessee (58): Santorum may lose Ohio — I think he will — but his message is stronger than Romney's in the conservative South, and my sense is that he will win the Volunteer State handily.
  
  If Romney is the Republican standard bearer, though, I see most, if not all, the states in the South voting for him — as they did when John McCain — and, before him, Bob Dole — was the nominee. Romney will need to work to win over Southern Republicans, but he won't have to work too hard to get their votes this fall.


• Virginia (49): With only two names on the ballot — Romney and Ron Paul — this could be a deceptively lopsided primary.
  
  I was discussing this with my father the other night, and he observed that Paul would win his usual 10% of the popular vote. That's probably an exaggeration. I expect Paul to be a little more competitive in Virginia than that — I mean, there must be some voters in Virginia who would like to be voting for Santorum or Gingrich, but neither is on the ballot so they have no alternative but to vote for Paul if they wish to record their dissatisfaction with the apparent nominee.
  
  Nevertheless, I do expect Romney to win by a wide margin in Virginia.


• Oklahoma (43): I grew up in the South. Most of the time, I lived in Arkansas, but I also lived in Tennessee (briefly). As an adult, I have lived mostly in Arkansas and Texas, but I lived in Oklahoma for four years.
  
  Many people consider Oklahoma a part of the South, but I don't. To me, a Southern state is any state that was part of the United States when the Civil War occurred and chose to fight on the side of the South. Oklahoma did not join the Union until the 20th century.
  
  Oklahoma is every bit as conservative as any traditional Southern state, though, and that could certainly be bewildering at first glance. There are, after all, more registered Democrats than registered Republicans in the state. But, in many cases, Democrat has a more middle–of–the–road definition in Oklahoma than it does anywhere else, and the truth is that Oklahomans have only voted for the Democrats' presidential nominee once in the last 60 years.
  
  Sometimes their support is a bit tepid, but more Oklahomans vote for the Republican than the Democrat. Every time.
  
  Consequently, if Romney wins the nomination, I think he can count on Oklahoma's support in November — but I don't think he can count on Oklahoma tomorrow. Only registered Republicans will be voting, and they are a decidedly conservative bunch in Oklahoma.
  
  There was a definite evangelical influence in Oklahoma politics when I lived there, and I have no reason to think that has changed. My sense is that Santorum's anti–abortion, anti–contraception fervor will resonate with Oklahoma Republicans, and I expect him to win the Sooner state.


• Massachusetts (41): I've heard nothing to indicate that Romney won't win the state where he served as governor.
  
  He beat McCain in the 2008 primary, and I expect him to win easily tomorrow.


• Idaho caucuses (32): This one bewilders me. Idaho held a primary four years ago but switched to a caucus, which tends to appeal to party activists more than casual participants.
  
  The 2008 primary offers no clues to how Idahoans might vote. McCain won it with 70%. Paul received 24%.
  
  But Idaho is a rock–ribbed Republican state. Three–quarters of its state senators and more than 80% of its state representatives are Republicans, as are Idaho's governor and both of its U.S. senators.
  
  No Democrat has won Idaho since 1964, and, in most elections, Democratic presidential nominees cannot count on the support of as much as 40% of the voters on Election Day.
  
  I feel confident in predicting that the Republican nominee will win Idaho this fall, but I don't have a clue who will win there tomorrow.


• North Dakota caucuses (28): North Dakota is as much an enigma to me as Idaho.
  
  It has roughly the same history of supporting Republican candidates — albeit not as decisively — although, to be fair, it was fairly competitive in 2008.
  
  Nevertheless, I am inclined to think that the Republican nominee will win North Dakota in November. Who will win it tomorrow is less certain.


• Alaska district conventions (27): I haven't heard any poll results from Alaska, and I am unaware of any campaign appearances that any of the Republicans have made there.
  
  But Alaska is like North Dakota and Iowa. It is likely to vote Republican in November. Of the 13 presidential elections in which it has participated, Alaska has voted Republican in 12.
  
  Alaska does seem to have something of a libertarian streak so it wouldn't surprise me if, in a four–way race, Paul might be able to win Alaska.


• Vermont (17): Vermont was once a reliably Republican state.
  
  In the 19th century, Vermont routinely gave at least 70% of its votes to the Republicans. In the 20th century, it never voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt, even though it had four opportunities.
  
  But the Democrats have carried Vermont in the last five presidential elections, and they probably will again. Vermont leans to the left these days — it gave two–thirds of its ballots to Obama in 2008. Even its Republicans, who have a lot more in common with retiring Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe than they do with most of the Republicans who are seeking the presidency, are more centrist than most.
  
  My guess is that Vermont's Republican primary will have a fairly low turnout and that Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, will finish on top.

If one of the candidates can win half of the states that are holding primaries or caucuses tomorrow, that candidate can claim to have won Super Tuesday.

But if no one wins more than three, it will be inconclusive.

Independence Days Past

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I am feeling nostalgic this Fourth of July.

Not surprisingly, I suppose, it has been my experience that people tend to feel nostalgic if they believe their lives are lacking in some way — and, in this recession (which may be "over" according to traditional economic yardsticks but nonetheless continues for millions), there is no doubt that many Americans, after comparing current conditions to just about any other period in their lives, will conclude that the quality of those lives has, at the very least, declined.

I don't know if issues of financial quality are at the heart of my nostalgia this holiday. Those are the kinds of things people can debate and, at some point, conclude that, were it not for certain facts, things in general would be better.

No, my nostalgia is more for the memories of the holidays and the people with whom I shared those holidays.

It would be nice to have those people with me today, but, realistically, I know that, human life spans being what they are, it was never possible that many of them would be alive in 2011.

I could argue — to a great extent, justifiably — that my life would be different if any of them were still alive. I don't know if my life would be better, but I am certain that the nature of my relationship(s) would be radically altered.

Many of the people I am missing on this Fourth of July would be at least 100 years old if they were alive today — and they would almost certainly be suffering from age–related health issues.

When you think of it that way, it's hard not to conclude they are better off. And so am I, to have been spared that. No one lives forever, and that, I tend to believe, is for the best. In my experience, every life, if permitted to continue long enough, will reach a point of diminishing return where attempts to further sustain it are futile.

I miss my mother and my grandparents and our friends, but I'm glad I have my memories of them as they were and the Independence Days we shared.

I grew up in the South, where it is always hot and humid in the summer. It was in part for that reason that my parents liked to take my brother and me on summer trips to visit friends in Vermont, where it was always cool and pleasant in the summer.

In fact, at times, as I recall, it could be downright cold. I remember some summer nights in Vermont when my parents' friends, who were the caretakers of a ski lodge, built a fire in the fireplace. There were some nights when I had to sleep with a blanket to keep me warm.

It did get warm, even hot at times — but not oppressively so — in the daytime. I have memories of swimming in lakes and streams in Vermont as a child — but I also remember wearing a jacket one Fourth of July evening when my family and our friends went to an old–fashioned village green to see a fireworks show.

I experienced my share of hot weather Independence Days when I was growing up, though. My mother's parents were members of a fishing club in east Texas, and we often met them there when school was out. The lodge was a big, old–fashioned country house with dozens of bedrooms, a huge dining room and a big screened–in porch with rocking chairs.

Members could stay overnight, and so could their guests. My grandfather kept a fishing boat on the premises, as did many other people, and I have quite a few memories of getting up early to go fishing with my grandfather and my father when I was a child.

I was never very good at fishing, but that didn't really matter to my grandfather. He just enjoyed getting out in the silence and serenity of the early morning on the lake, and my memory is that we spent more time on those excursions talking about things we observed than things we caught.

From time to time, my family joined my grandparents for the Fourth of July in east Texas, and I will always remember watching the fireworks show over that lake. Seeing the reflection in the water was almost like getting two shows for the price of one.

There were also times when we didn't go anywhere, just spent the Fourth of July in my childhood home in Arkansas. That wasn't a bad deal, either. We would grill hamburgers, and my mother would fix baked beans with brown sugar and diced green pepper. There would also be corn on the cob — and my brother and I would take turns handcranking the homemade ice cream for our dessert.

Unless we were having ice–cold watermelon instead.

We lived on a lake. There were no fireworks displays there when I was a child, but we lived outside the city limits so we could buy fireworks at the roadside stands that always seemed to spring up around mid–June and have our own shows.

We got bottle rockets and Roman candles — all the pyrotechnic stuff we needed to celebrate our nation's independence. I remember being amazed when I got up the next morning and saw the amount of debris that had been left by our celebration.

(As a child, I remember stocking up on Black Cat firecrackers — with the intention of using them to blow up things like ice when winter froze everything. The novelty of that experience wore off rather quickly.)

On one such occasion when my family stayed home for the Fourth, we did something we seldom did.

The day before the holiday, we went into town to get supplies — soft drinks, hamburger meat, watermelon, the usual stuff — and we stopped at a place called Dog n Suds for lunch.

Now, Dog n Suds was the kind of place that used to be fairly common in America — a drive–in much like today's Sonic with an actual dining room where you could go in, sit down and place an order.

Dog n Suds specialized in hot dogs and root beer (hence, the name), but my memory is that you could buy other soft drinks there, too, and you could get hamburgers, french fries or onion rings as well. There may have been some other things on the menu.

Most of the time, we went there on my birthday or my brother's birthday because Dog n Suds offered some kind of special meal deal for kids on their birthdays — a complimentary hot dog and root beer, perhaps.

For some reason, on that occasion we decided to stop at Dog n Suds for lunch. True, there weren't many options in my hometown in those days. We didn't even have a McDonald's in my hometown until I was old enough to drive.

But we didn't have to eat lunch while we were in town. We could have waited to eat until we got home, I suppose.

We didn't, though. We did something that we almost never did at that time in my life. And so that is why today, instead of thinking of fireworks shows and the like, I am thinking of hot dogs and root beer at Dog n Suds.

The food was good, not great, but being taken there for one's birthday was something of a status symbol. In grade school, I remember that the first question one was asked when everyone realized that someone had celebrated a birthday (even before being asked about birthday gifts) was "Did you go to Dog n Suds?"

Going there when it wasn't anyone's birthday was a rare treat.

For a long time, children in my hometown could still get that birthday special at Dog n Suds. When I was a teenager, I remember working nights at a self–service gas station across the street from that old Dog n Suds. It was still in operation. I watched the lights switch off promptly at 10 each night, and I observed that the flow of traffic there was not particularly heavy, but it never occurred to me that it might be struggling.

Apparently, it was struggling, though. I haven't been in my hometown in many years, and I have heard that it has grown to three times the size it was when I lived there, but the Dog n Suds didn't survive.

I don't remember when I heard that news, but I remember grieving when I heard it.

It is a disappearing chain of eateries now, relics from another time. Last I heard, there were only a handful of Dog n Suds outlets left in the U.S., even though I understand that, at one time, they were almost as common in the middle United States as McDonald's, Sonic or Burger King.

Like Dog n Suds, many things seem to be disappearing from the American experience. I heard recently that Yarnell's, a traditional ice cream company in Arkansas, is closing because of the economy. I can't tell you how many dishes of Yarnell's ice cream I ate as a child — at birthday parties, at summer gatherings, at home — or how sorry I am that future generations will be deprived of that pleasure.

Another pleasure that children in my hometown won't have that I did was eating a Minuteman hamburger.

Minuteman was a regional chain, located mostly in Arkansas and Tennessee, I believe. The advertising logo showed a minuteman, like the ones who defended the colonies during the American Revolution, standing with a musket in one hand. The advertising pitch was something like this — you would get your meal in a minute.

In hindsight, those burgers probably weren't anything terribly special. My memory is that they were advertised as "flame–broiled burgers", and I always ordered a hickory burger, which was served with a dollop of hickory barbecue sauce.

My hometown, as I say, has grown considerably since I was a child, but many of the things I remember — like Dog n Suds and Minuteman — are gone now.

And I grieve for those who will never know such childhood pleasures.

'Sexting' the One You Love

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"Sexting (a portmanteau of sex and texting) is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between cell phones."

Wikipedia

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This is not an easy thing for me to say, but, in many ways, things really have changed — a lot — since I was a teenager.

Oh, sure, some things haven't changed. The good–looking guys and girls still get together, and the relatively few who know they are good–looking — and are self–confident on top of that — are, most likely, still the envy of the vast majority of their classmates.

And most teenagers, whether they are counted among the "beautiful people" or not, have access to a car in which they play their music at excessive volumes.

But most teenagers today, it seems, also have cell phones. In my day (and, boy, do I feel like my grandfather when I say those three words!), the only phone in the house was on the kitchen wall. There was no privacy. If you were going to talk to someone on the phone in my house, you had to go into our kitchen. If it was around dinner time, my mother was probably in there, putting the finishing touches on the evening meal. At any other time, you ran the risk of being overheard by someone who came in to get something from the refrigerator while you were speaking on the phone.

Some of the teenagers I knew had phones in their rooms. But they were comparatively rare. And most of them merely had extensions of the home phone line, so anyone could listen in on an extension that was somewhere else in the house. A few had a personal phone line, but not many.

I'm not sure when mobile phones were invented. They may have existed when I was a teenager. But no one I knew had one. And when I first started hearing about them, I tended to brush them off as high–tech walkie–talkies.

In recent years, though, I've come to realize the many practical uses for mobile phones.

During the massacre at Columbine High School (by the way, next Monday will be the 10th anniversary of that event), many trapped students called 911 or friends or relatives on their cell phones. So did people stuck in the upper floors of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Countless people, young and old, have summoned help with their cell phones. Countless more have used them to call for directions when they were lost — although that's a function that has become less relevant as more people get access to GPS through their cell phones.

Anyway, the point is that these phones have helped people in ways that simply weren't possible when I was a teenager.

But, as cell phones have become more prevalent, so has the potential for abuse.

"Sexting," for instance.

Rather than define that term here, I'll just direct your attention to the Wikipedia definition at the top of this post. If you click on the link to Wikipedia, you can read about the history of "sexting."

Then come back and we'll continue.

(Pausing while reader familiarizes himself/herself with "sexting.")

Now that we all know what I'm talking about when I use the word "sexting," I'll proceed.

Going back to that old–school phrase here ... in my day, a phone was a phone. It wasn't a camera. It wasn't a computer (as an aside here, we did have cameras when I was a teenager, but personal computers were still in the future). It was a phone.

But today, a mobile phone is similar to a Swiss Army knife.

(Come to think of it, that may be an alien phrase to young ears, but a Swiss Army knife was a pocket knife that was much more than merely a knife. It had all kinds of gadgets in it — a screwdriver, a can opener, a bottle opener, scissors, a fork, a knife, a spoon. A Swiss Army knife was practically a compact tool kit. More elaborate ones probably came with lug wrenches and saws. Can anyone tell me if they still make Swiss Army knives?)

Mobile phones used to be just phones, but now they come equipped with cameras, computers, all kinds of stuff. You can check your e–mail on your cell phone these days.

And it seems that the smaller they become, the more there is in them. About 15 years ago, mobile phones were big, clunky gadgets, about the size of a brick, and some were nearly as heavy. Now they're about the size of a credit card — and almost as light.

Oh, and you can also use them for plain old conversations, too — but that is so 20th century.

So, too, I suppose, is the concept of "phone sex." I first started hearing about it in the '90s, I guess, although I would imagine the potential for that has been around since phones started to become fixtures in private homes.

Anyway, when the internet was still in its infancy, apparently, some people started exchanging phone numbers for that purpose by e–mail and in chat rooms, and there seemed to be something of a boom in popularity — for awhile.

And, for awhile there, "virtual sex" was a popular topic. From what I've heard, I gather that "virtual sex" referred to role playing in chat rooms.

But its appeal seems to have tapered off in recent years. I didn't understand that before. But now I think I know why.

"Sexting."

I hadn't heard much about it until lately. And now, to hear some people talk, it's the scourge of our times.

To me, it seems like the latest example of young people doing what young people do best — being curious about each other. And part of me is inclined to say, "Leave them alone! Let them enjoy being young." Our culture sometimes seems too prone to reducing things to their most basic and unappealing elements, and I am reminded of the words of Thelma Ritter in Hitchcock's "Rear Window" — "[Y]ou can't tell the difference between a petting party and a civil service exam."

But things have changed since Ritter's day.

As Susan Reimer points out in the Baltimore Sun, these nude images can take on lives of their own in cyberspace, regardless of initial intentions.

"[U]nlike love letters that can be tossed in the fireplace when the relationship is over," writes Reimer, "nothing in cyberspace ever really gets deleted."

Lately, it's been leading to some pretty extreme laws — jail time for distributing child pornography and registry as a sex offender? It's not good behavior, but, really, do we want to give kids criminal records for things like that?

The state of Vermont apparently has been rethinking its law, and that's good. More states need to use common sense when making these laws.

Clearly, it seems to me, parents and teenagers need to have more heart–to–heart conversations. But stay away from the fear tactics. Young people figured out that approach was a bunch of hooey when their parents tried to convince them they would become criminally insane if they smoked marijuana, which was blatantly false and forever tainted the fear factor, even when it was used legitimately.

If they lied to us about that, the thinking went, what else might they lie to us about?

Well, anything involving sex is way up there on the list.

And the risks of "sexting" are scary enough. No fictional embellishment is needed.

So let's keep things in a realistic realm. The technology has changed, but the human instincts are the same. The specifics are different than they were when I was a teenager, but, in general, not much has changed.

Do we really want to get the police and the courts involved?

The Campaign Will Continue

A couple of things are clear tonight, as the votes are being counted in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont.

* John McCain has wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination. How wildly improbable did that seem only a couple of months ago, when Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney were at the top and McCain was trailing badly in the Iowa caucuses? But McCain came back, won the New Hampshire primary, and the Arizona senator was on his way to the nomination.

And now, tomorrow, McCain apparently is going to go to the White House to receive the blessing of President Bush, the man who trashed him in South Carolina in 2000.

American politics is nothing if it's not entertaining.

* The Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama battle is going to continue. It may continue to the convention floor in Denver.

Obama did win in Vermont earlier tonight. For an African-American man to dominate in a state that is 95% white -- even a state as small as Vermont -- is no small accomplishment. But exit polls indicated that opposition to the Iraq War was one of the key issues for Democratic voters there, and that's an issue that plays well for Obama.

In the other states, Clinton may very well finish on top. She's already been declared the winner in Ohio -- at the moment, with about two-thirds of the vote counted in Ohio, Clinton has 57% and Obama has 41%.

The count in Rhode Island is nearly complete, and Clinton has won there, receiving 58% of the vote to Obama's 41%.

Here in Texas, it's been extremely close all evening. At one point, with nearly 1.5 million votes counted, the difference between the two was only a few hundred votes. Now, with nearly half the votes counted (about 1.8 million), Clinton's lead is a little more substantial (almost 30,000). She has 50% of the vote, while Obama has 48%.

Now, it seemed to me that, to make up the difference in delegates, Clinton needed to beat Obama by about 20 percentage points in each of the primaries being held today. Well, she came close to that in Ohio and Rhode Island. And she lost Vermont, which has only a handful of delegates, anyway.

But it's so close in Texas that I have to believe that, when we all wake up in the morning, Obama will still be in front in the delegate chase. But his margin will be smaller.

If Clinton holds on and wins Texas, though, she can claim to have won in every large state in the country except the state Obama represents in the Senate -- Illinois. That will make it difficult to deny her the nomination.

But it's still the delegate numbers that will make the decision. And I think that battle won't be decided until the convention.

Looking Ahead to the Fall Campaign ...

The polls are now open here in Texas, along with Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. If you live in those states (and if you haven't voted early), you have all day to go to your polling place and cast your ballot.

Neither the Democratic nor the Republican presidential nomination has been locked up, although John McCain is pretty close to wrapping up the GOP nod.

But Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are close mathematically -- even if his 11 consecutive victories make Obama look like he has a huge lead. And neither candidate will mathematically secure the nomination tonight.

Even so, Der Spiegel seems to be assuming that Obama will be the Democratic nominee. (While that may ultimately prove to be correct, it is not a sure thing right now.)

So Der Spiegel is getting the jump on other media outlets, speculating on how the Republicans will wage their campaign against Obama this fall.

"[O]nce the votes have been counted after the Texas and Ohio primaries," write Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart, "it will be highly likely that the left and the right will switch gears from simply observing the enemy to open warfare. ... This means one thing for Republicans: It's open season on Barack Obama."

And Der Spiegel implies that the recent skirmish between the Obama and McCain camps over al-Qaeda in Iraq is merely the opening salvos. More hostilities to come, Der Spiegel says.

Der Spiegel makes some interesting and insightful observations about how political campaigns have been waged in recent years and how a campaign between Obama and McCain is likely to be carried out. I encourage you to read what they have to say.

But keep in mind one thing.

Nobody's been nominated yet.

We still have some votes to count.