Is a Contested Convention Inevitable?

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Before the 2016 presidential primaries and caucuses began, I figured — like probably everyone else did — that, even though there were 17 candidates for the Republican nomination, the voters would settle on one fairly early in the process.

If anyone had asked me if we would know the identity of the nominee by mid–April, I would have responded in the affirmative. After all, that is the way it almost always works out.

All the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees in my lifetime have been nominated on the first ballot. Whatever their faults may have been, candidates have won or lost the general election entirely on their own. The number of ballots it took to nominate them has never been a factor in the general election.

But the topic of a contested convention — sometimes called a "brokered" convention although that really is a label that belongs to another time in American political history — began to circulate rather early in that process this year — and even though we are in mid–April and the Republican field is down to three active candidates, we still do not know who the nominee will be.

The front–runner, businessman Donald Trump, has been busily shooting himself in the foot. He lost the Wisconsin primary to his top rival, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, last week, and now he is limping into his home state primary, New York, where polls show him comfortably ahead.

Once Trump wins New York next week, as appears inevitable — although I guess I should be more careful about proclaiming something inevitable, given what we have already seen in this year's presidential campaign on both sides — I believe Cruz will be mathematically eliminated from securing enough delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the third wheel in the campaign, is already mathematically eliminated.

But that won't mean that Trump is on Easy Street. Cruz and Kasich aren't the only ones who have delegates committed to them. So does Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who withdrew from the race when he lost his home state's primary a month ago. Rubio has 171 delegates who will be committed to him through the first ballot.

Trump needs to secure more than 51% of the delegates that are available in the primaries that will be held in the next two months to barely win a majority. That is certainly achievable. It is fortunate for Trump that most states do not award delegates on a purely proportional basis.

Trump having enough delegates to win on the first ballot is certainly more likely than Cruz capturing 90% of the remaining delegates (and that assumes that Trump won't win most of the delegates in New York). Talk about an impossible dream. And, as I said, Kasich isn't in the running for a first–ballot nomination.

But Cruz and Kasich could prevent Trump from having enough delegates to claim the nomination on the first ballot when everyone goes to Cleveland this summer. That could so easily happen.

American voters are a funny bunch sometimes. It often happens that, when one candidate appears to be on the verge of clinching a presidential nomination, the voters in the party start voting for someone else. Most of the time, that has happened in the Democratic Party. The front–runner eventually prevails, but not before the voters flex their contrarian muscles and throw a good scare into the presumptive nominee — as if to remind him (or her — Bernie Sanders seems to be throwing a good scare into Hillary Clinton's campaign) who's really in charge.

Or, at least, who is supposed to be in charge.

In the case of a contested convention, it appears that no one will be in charge. That is the part that seems to worry people the most. There will be chaos, we are told. Delegates will be fighting in the aisles.

Actually, the biggest concern seems to be that a multi–ballot convention will doom the nominee in the general election.

But I conducted a very random and extremely unscientific survey, and nearly everyone with whom I spoke said multiple ballots at the convention would not disqualify the nominee from becoming president.

Of course, I suppose that depends on what the voters see playing out on their TV screens during the convention. If they see riots in the streets, that could certainly influence their votes.

A contested convention would be a new thing for just about everyone. The last time the Republicans needed more than one ballot to choose their nominee was in 1948, nearly 70 years ago. That convention produced the second nomination of New York Gov. Tom Dewey, who went on to lose to President Truman in the upset of which people still speak.

The Democrats' most recent contested convention was in 1952. That one produced Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson as the nominee. He went on to lose the election to popular war hero General Dwight Eisenhower.

Now, at this point, you may be wondering if a contested convention has ever produced a nominee who went on to win the presidency. The answer to that is yes.

Woodrow Wilson (1912) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932) were both the products of contested conventions. FDR only needed four ballots. Wilson needed nearly four dozen.

Four Democratic presidents in the 19th century — James K. Polk in 1844, Franklin Pierce in 1852, James Buchanan in 1856 and Grover Cleveland in 1884 — needed more than one ballot to win their nominations.

In fact, until Harry Truman won the 1948 nomination on the first ballot and went on to win the November election, every eventual Democratic president for more than a century needed multiple ballots the first time he was nominated.

But eventual failure has been a more frequent outcome. Including the 1952 convention, 10 Democratic nominees who needed more than one ballot have gone on to lose the presidency. Thus, by nearly a 2–to–1 margin, nominees from brokered Democratic conventions have lost in the general election.

Multiple–ballot conventions have been less frequent for Republicans. They have had only 10, but their success ratio has been better. Half of those contested conventions produced the eventual winner, starting with Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

My guess is that, barring violence in the streets of Cleveland, a contested convention would be a ratings magnet. A contested convention would give viewers a rare civics lesson, an opportunity to see real wheeling and dealing on the convention floor, which would be sure to produce some surprises the next time the roll of the states was called. As I mentioned, Cruz and Kasich might well join forces to stop Trump. Cruz might well tell Kasich that, in exchange for his delegates' support, he would offer Kasich the vice presidency.

In that case, Trump might try to join forces with Rubio — and make a similar offer to him for his delegates.

And, although the two leaders deny that anything like it will happen, a compromise candidate might emerge if the balloting goes beyond a second or third ballot.

Theoretically, anything could happen in a contested convention.

The Numbers Games

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I've heard a lot of hopeful talk today from supporters of Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz that the results of yesterday's primaries and caucuses are indicative of a shift in the momentum in the quests for the Democrats' and Republicans' presidential nominations.

On the Republican side, Cruz won the Kansas and Maine caucuses. Donald Trump won the Kentucky caucuses and the Louisiana primary. Cruz's campaign is fixated on the number of wins because it suggests a shift in momentum. And, to be sure, momentum is important in presidential politics. But that was the real value of the early contests — in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. Although they were small individually, together they created a perception that benefited certain candidates heading into last Tuesday's Super Tuesday contests.

There's a big change coming, one that was designed to avoid a prolonged battle for the GOP nomination like the one in 2012. Up to this point, Republican primaries have been allocating delegates on a proportional basis — all states holding Republican primaries or caucuses after March 14 will award the delegates on a winner–take–all or winner–take–most basis.

Momentum has mostly been established now. Unless Cruz starts winning in bunches, the attention will be on delegate counts. Splitting four contests with Trump is a draw as far as momentum is concerned, and attention remains on delegates. Cruz won that battle, too, but not impressively enough. As I write this, the apparent delegate numbers from yesterday's contests are Cruz with 69 delegates, Trump with 53 delegates, Marco Rubio with 18 delegates and John Kasich with 10.

The current delegate total has Trump with 384 delegates, Cruz with 300, Rubio with 151 and Kasich with 37 — and, as I have established, Cruz gained 16 votes on Trump yesterday. The magic number for nomination is 1,237, and much of the talk is about ways to keep Trump from reaching that number.

Is it possible? Unless the race is down to Trump and a single anti–Trump, I think the answer is no. With three rivals, Trump probably wouldn't need to do as well as he has done in many states just to finish first — and, therefore, wrap up a state's entire delegation.

Rubio's home state of Florida and Kasich's home state of Ohio will vote on March 15. Winning your home state is pretty important in presidential politics. If you can't win your home state, you might as well give it up. There are 99 delegates available in Rubio's home state; while I haven't seen a poll of Florida recently, the latest one that I have seen, from Feb. 27, had Trump leading Rubio by 20 points. If that proves correct, Rubio will lose his home state and, because it is a winner–take–all state, all the delegates.

Kasich is said to be leading in Ohio, although I haven't seen any polls lately. Ohio will have 66 delegates available to whoever finishes first.

Illinois also votes on March 15 and will be awarding 69 delegates on a winner–take–all basis. I haven't seen any polls from Illinois lately, but just think. On March 15, in just those three states, more than 220 delegates will be awarded. If Trump finishes first in all three states, he will be halfway to the nomination.

A win in Ohio probably would keep Kasich's candidacy alive — but not for long unless he wins Michigan on Tuesday — or at least does well enough to grab a portion of the state's 59 delegates.

But the numbers game will be the game in the GOP a week from now with winner–take–all and winner–take–most contests coming in most of the big states — New York (95 delegates) on April 19, Pennsylvania (71 delegates) on April 26, California (172 delegates) on June 7.

It's going to be hard to deny Trump the nomination if something dramatic doesn't happen in the next week or two.

On the Democratic side, the numbers continue to favor Hillary Clinton, even though Sanders won by about a 2–to–1 margin in the Kansas caucuses, and he easily won the Nebraska caucuses. Sanders also won in Maine.

Clinton crushed Sanders in Louisiana — and Louisiana, even with the depleted black population following Hurricane Katrina, is a place where nearly one–third of the population is black. It was the Democrats' biggest single prize of the day.

When all was said and done, Sanders narrowly picked up ground on Clinton with 64 delegates to the former secretary of State's 62 delegates.

But to win the Democrats' nomination a candidate needs 2,383 delegates, and Clinton is already almost halfway there with 1,130 committed to her. Sanders has 499 delegates.

The math gets tougher for the challengers from this point on, and it looks like something really astonishing will have to happen if either Clinton or Trump is going to be denied their parties' nominations.

Something that astonishing seldom happens in American politics, and I'm guessing it won't happen this time.

But who knows? All the political rules are being rewritten this year.

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.

Random Thoughts on an Historic Night

We still won't have any results from today's primaries for a little while.

But CNN says Barack Obama needs only to claim four more delegates tonight --either in the primaries (and he's favored in both of them) or with the help of superdelegate commitments -- to secure the nomination.

• Needless to say, it looks like the race for the nomination will end tonight, as the results from the last primaries come in.
  
  That makes this an historic night. Tonight, for the first time, a black man will address an audience as a major political party's presumptive presidential nominee.
  
  If nothing else, this campaign is shaping up to make a spectacular topic for this generation's Theodore H. White. Whoever he or she may be.
  
  White wrote a fantastic series of behind-the-scenes books, "The Making of the President," starting with the 1960 campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon and proceeding with volumes about the 1964, 1968 and 1972 campaigns.
  
  I wish we could look forward to White's unique political insights in this campaign. But he's been gone for more than 20 years.
  
  Jules Witcover did a reasonably good job of trying to fill White's shoes with his book on the 1976 campaign, "Marathon," but no one has written White's kind of presidential election book in almost 40 years.
  
  The last time White did it.
  
  We're overdue.


• Obama will wrap up the nomination only a few days shy of the 40th anniversary of Bobby Kennedy's assassination.
  
  His achievement is doubly ironic when you realize that the night that Obama is supposed to accept his party's nomination in Denver will be the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
  
  I'm sure there were times when Dr. King permitted himself to dream of the day when a black man would be nominated by a major party for president.
  
  But I also believe that -- because of the times in which he lived -- Dr. King probably didn't dream of that day too much.
  
  When he was alive, it was enough of a challenge for Dr. King to strive for the right to vote, a decent wage, integrated schools, integrated housing, integrated public facilities.


• I guess the presidential nomination means things have almost come full circle.
  
  To complete the circle, Obama needs to win in November.
  
  I believe that's a thing that is easier said than done.
  
  My hunch is that Obama's candidacy will turn out to be largely symbolic. But that's what I believe now. People and campaigns that have a lasting impact have a way of demonstrating that at their appointed time -- the way Gandhi did in India and the way Martin Luther King did in the United States.
  
  Part of what makes such a man and such a campaign truly significant is the ability to convince those who are as-yet unconvinced.
  
  So we'll see what happens in the next five months. That's an eternity in politics.


• I saw Joe Madison on CNN a short time ago, and he was talking about how he hoped the debate wouldn't be on race.
  
  Hmmm.
  
  Seems to me that boat has already sailed.
  
  Sorry.
  
  It was always inevitable that race would be an issue in a campaign featuring the first black presidential nominee.
  
  Just as it's inevitable that the first woman to be nominated for president will have to contend with discussions about gender.
  
  Americans have come a long way on the subjects of race and gender, but they still have some issues that have to be resolved before a woman or a black can be elected president.
  
  Those demons will have to be exorcised in the fall campaign. And it will be a measure of Obama's presidential potential if he is able to put the race issue to rest fairly quickly and turn his attention to the real problems -- the war, the economy, health care.


• About 35 million people voted in the Democratic primaries this year. When the general election is held, there should be well over 100 million people participating.
  
  In the race for the nomination, Obama faced a foe who shares most of his political views. Democrats weren't asked to choose between two different political philosophies.
  
  But the voters in the general election will be given a choice between two candidates who want to take the country in different directions. I just wonder if we'll ever get the chance to talk about the significant policy choices that will be offered to us this fall.


• Of those 35 million votes, Clinton took about 18 million of them.
  
  Now, I don't expect many -- if any -- of Clinton's voters to vote for John McCain. But how many of them will choose not to vote at all?
  
  I know several women who are Clinton supporters. Most have sworn they will not vote at all if the choice is Obama-McCain. That's what they're saying right now. It remains to be seen how they will feel in November.
  
  But those votes could be critical if Obama wants to win in places like Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas -- where my friends live -- as well as all the other places on the map.
  
  I've heard talk and read articles about how many states Obama puts into play.
  
  But it seems to me those projections are based -- at least, in part -- on the very large assumption that Obama can rely on the backing of Clinton's supporters in November.
  
  So my question is -- how does one make up for the absence of 18 million votes?


• Well, if it's any consolation, McCain will have his own issues to deal with.
  
  He would be wise not to rely on the automatic support of some groups of Republican voters.
  
  McCain will be 72 when the voters go to the polls in November. He has been criticized as not conservative enough. Social conservatives have made noises about boycotting the November election.
  
  Although it appears to be in remission, cancer has been an issue for McCain in recent years.
  
  And he himself has conceded that he doesn't know much about economic issues -- at a time when economic issues may be what truly fuels the presidential campaign.
  
  My thinking is there will be more than enough side issues on both sides to keep voters distracted from the important matters.
  
  Again.

Who Is the Best Choice for Democrats?

As the backdrop to the compromise on the Michigan and Florida delegations, Democrats heard talk about "electability" and threats from some Democrats that they will abandon their party if their candidate isn't nominated.

The compromise didn't resolve the matter of which candidate will be nominated -- so it now appears that the decision will be left to the superdelegates.

Who's it going to be, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

When all is said and done, the Democrats can say that it was a virtual split. Obama has a slight edge in popular vote and delegate support, but timing is everything, as the saying goes.

And that leads, inevitably, to "What if ... ?" questions.

What if Texas and Ohio had voted with most of the other states in early February instead of early March?

What if voters in West Virginia and Kentucky had held their primaries in February instead of May? Would Obama have been able to build his remarkable primary/caucus winning streak?

Obama withdrew his membership from his church yesterday. If he had done that earlier, would it have changed the outcome in some of the states that followed? Would he have been able to secure the nomination by leaving his church?

What's the situation in states that will clearly be battleground states in the fall?

Here's a peek at a few of them.

• Clinton appears to give John McCain a tougher fight for Florida's 27 electoral votes than Obama.
  
  Quinnipiac University says Clinton leads McCain in Florida (48% to 41%) but it says McCain leads Obama (45% to 41%). Rasmussen Reports has different margins but identical outcomes -- Clinton over McCain (47% to 41%) and McCain over Obama (50% to 40%).
  
  
• The race for Michigan's 17 electoral votes seems to be favoring McCain, although polls suggest Clinton might be more competitive there than Obama.
  
  Neither Democrat has been leading in recent head-to-head polls.
  
  EPIC-MRA's latest surveys for WXYZ-Action News report that McCain leads both Democratic challengers (44-40 over Obama, 46-37 over Clinton).
  
  According to those results, Obama is more competitive against McCain than Clinton. But it's worth mentioning that EPIC-MRA's survey on McCain-Clinton was completed April 8 and I have found no surveys on that question that are more recent. The survey on McCain-Obama was completed May 22.
  
  But Clinton is tied with McCain (44-44) in the latest Rasmussen Reports while Obama trails by 4 points (41-37).
  
  
• It seems likely to me that California (55 electoral votes) will remain in the Democratic column, where it's been since 1992.
  
  Both Clinton and Obama have been leading in every California survey I've seen. The numbers are similar for both candidates -- one may lead McCain by a slightly higher margin than the other, but the polls consistently show the Democrat winning in California.
  
  At this point, I can't see anything changing the outcome in that state.
  
  
• In Ohio, there are 20 electoral votes available. Polls are mixed on Obama vs. McCain, with Obama leading the latest Survey USA poll (48% to 39%) and McCain in front in the latest Quinnipiac University survey (44% to 40%) and Rasmussen Reports (45% to 44%).
  
  Against McCain, Clinton leads Ohio by 7 percentage points in Rasmussen (50% to 43%) and Quinnipiac (48% to 41%).
  
  Survey USA apparently is only asking respondents about Obama-McCain, because I have seen almost no results of a Clinton-McCain inquiry since early April (the exceptions to this are Missouri and North Carolina -- see below).
  
  The advantage in Ohio appears to belong to Clinton.
  
  
• Pennsylvania, with its 21 electoral votes, appears to be favoring the Democrat, whichever one that is.
  
  Obama's lead in the polls is pretty consistent, generally between 6 and 8 points (46-40 in Quinnipiac, 48-40 in Survey USA, 46-39 in Susquehanna Polling), a little narrower in Rasmussen Reports (45-43).
  
  Clinton's lead in Pennsylvania is consistent as well. It's also consistently a little higher than Obama's -- 11 points each in Rasmussen Reports (50-39) and Susquehanna Polling (49-38), 13 points in Quinnipiac (50-37).
  
  I'd say Democrats can expect to carry Pennsylvania for the fifth straight time.
  
  
• Georgia (15 electoral votes) is one of those Southern states in which Obama is expected to benefit from a large black turnout. (Blacks acccount for just under 30% of Georgia's population.)
  
  But the latest surveys of likely voters indicate McCain leads both Democrats by margins in double digits. Rasmussen Reports has McCain leading Clinton, 48% to 37%, and leading Obama, 53% to 39%.
  
  Strategic Vision's latest survey seems to confirm Rasmussen. It has McCain leading Obama, 54% to 40%. Apparently, it didn't ask respondents about McCain vs. Clinton.
  
  
• North Carolina (15 electoral votes) is another Southern state where Obama's race is expected to work in his favor. (About 21% of North Carolina's residents are black.)
  
  And the conservative Washington Times says Sen. Elizabeth Dole faces a tough battle for re-election this year.
  
  But, even though the climate for Republicans isn't good in North Carolina, McCain has been leading in most of the recent polls I've seen. And the only exception has been in Clinton's favor, not Obama's.
  
  Survey USA has McCain leading Obama in North Carolina, 51% to 43%, but it has Clinton leading McCain, 49% to 43%.
  
  Rasmussen Reports has McCain leading both Democrats by 3 points in North Carolina -- 48-45 over Obama and 43-40 over Clinton.
  
  And Public Policy Polling reports that McCain leads both Democrats as well. McCain leads Clinton in that survey, 48% to 40%, and he leads Obama, 49% to 42%.
  
  
• I've heard talk suggesting that Obama should pick Virginia Sen. Jim Webb or Gov. Tim Kaine as his running mate.
  
  The thinking is that a traditionally Republican state like Virginia (13 electoral votes) is a viable Democratic target in the presidential election -- if only because Virginia rejected incumbent Republican Senator George Allen in 2006 and put Webb in the Senate in his place.
  
  That logic may be correct, but the polls aren't all that favorable.
  
  Obama does run closer to McCain than Clinton in Virginia, but the polls still lean Republican in that state.
  
  Rasmussen Reports says McCain leads Obama 47-44 and he leads Clinton 47-41. The latest VCU Communications and Public Relations survey finds McCain leading Obama 44-36 and leading Clinton 47-38.
  
  In the interest of fairness, Obama led McCain in Survey USA 49-42.
  
  
• Missouri (11 electoral votes) is a bellwether state, having voted for the winner of almost every presidential election for a century.
  
  When polls ask voters in that state to choose between Obama and McCain, McCain leads in every survey. Sometimes the lead is slim (48-45 in Survey USA), sometimes it's wider (47-41 in Rasmussen Reports).
  
  But the last time I saw a poll that showed Obama leading McCain head-to-head in Missouri was in a survey from December. That was before the Iowa caucus, which gave Obama the early momentum he needed to overtake then-front runner Clinton.
  
  The results are more mixed when the choice is between Clinton and McCain.
  
  Survey USA apparently asked Missouri voters about Clinton vs. McCain and came up with Clinton 48%, McCain 46%. Rasmussen Reports says McCain leads Clinton, 45% to 43%.
  
  
• Historically, New Mexico (5 electoral votes) is another bellwether state.
  
  Rasmussen Reports found that Clinton leads McCain in his neighboring state, 47% to 41%. Rasmussen says Obama's lead is even higher, 50% to 41%, but Survey USA says Obama and McCain are tied in New Mexico, 44% to 44%.

Time to Settle It, Once and For All

As the Democrat National Committee meets to discuss what is to be done with the Michigan and Florida delegates, it's worth noting a few things.

• First, it is beyond dispute that both states scheduled their primaries before party rules said they could -- and apparently with both states' party leaderships' knowledge of the probability of severe ramifications if the rule was violated.
  
  You may not agree with the rule, but it is a rule. I'm sorry for the voters in Michigan and Florida. They did their part -- they participated. It isn't their fault that their states jumped the gun in scheduling the primaries.
  
  
• Second, it also appears to be likely that this is going to settle things in the race for this year's nomination -- possibly before the primaries on Tuesday.
  
  I'm sorry if it turns out that a ruling on the Michigan and Florida delegations minimizes the importance of those final primaries -- but on the positive side, almost every state got to take part in a genuine debate over the Democratic nomination this year. That's a victory for democracy.
  
  
• Third, we'll probably hear talk about "electability" from both the Hillary Clinton and the Barack Obama camps during this committee conference. That's important, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor in a decision about a rules violation.
  
  And supporters of neither candidate should threaten to punish the other by staying home on Election Day if their candidate doesn't win the nomination. Participation by all groups in this year's primaries has been admirable, but it's only half the battle. You have to vote in November if you want to help make your candidate(s) president, senator, congressman or governor.
  
  The only clear preference being indicated by any group of voters seems to be coming from Democrats themselves -- polls now show more than 50% of Democrats prefer Obama for the nomination and he has a double-digit lead in most surveys.
  
  But national polls show both Democrats leading John McCain among all likely voters by margins that are within the margin for error -- numbers that will fluctuate during the summer as running mates are named and conventions are held.
  
  Apparently, neither Clinton nor Obama can legitimately claim to have an advantage over the other against McCain -- at this stage.

The Real New Math

When I was a child, I recall a debate among the adults over what was called "the new math" that was being taught in the schools.

Being a child, I didn't understand most of what the adults were saying. And, to me, the "new" math didn't appear to be any different from the "old" math. I still had to learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers -- just as my parents did a generation before.

So my assumption -- which, in hindsight, appears to have been correct -- was that what was different was not what we were being taught but how we were being taught.

I must say, though, that the adults who were in charge of things when I was 6 or 7 years old didn't always seem to make the most logical decisions.

For example, when we were put through the emergency drills in school, we were instructed to crouch beneath our wooden desks in the event of a nuclear attack. It was essentially the same posture we were told to take in the event of a tornado -- which was a far more frequent threat in central Arkansas than a Russian nuclear attack.

But hiding under a big (and unsecured) hunk of wood to avoid either a violent storm or a thermonuclear fireball didn't seem like a good idea to me.

There's a different kind of "new math" out there these days.

Call it "delegate math." It doesn't start with delegates, it ends with them.

This math originates with Hillary Clinton -- and it doesn't really seem to be any more logical than the old "duck and cover" posture my teachers told me to take if a tornado or a nuclear missile was spotted heading towards my elementary school.

Just after her win in Pennsylvania, Clinton proclaimed that she was leading in the total popular vote. This, apparently, qualifies her for a nomination that she isn't getting by way of the delegates.

If this isn't "new math," then it's "new rules for math."

Journalists who double-checked the calculations found that the numbers included votes Clinton received in the Florida and Michigan primaries. Those primaries were held before Democratic Party rules permitted them to be held, and the party stripped the states of their delegations to the convention.

So, in terms of delegates, the states meant nothing. But Clinton's name was placed on the ballot in both states, and Obama's name was placed on the ballot of only one of those states. So Clinton received votes in both states and was credited with "winning" both primaries. Obama received votes in only one of those states.

Clinton piled up a big margin in popular votes in those two primaries -- as one would expect. And, when those votes are included in the national total, it puts Clinton in first place. Without those votes, she is running second.

Lame duck North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, who has endorsed Clinton, seems to be buying into the new Hillary math. Easley says that, if Clinton can win North Carolina, she will win the nomination -- and the general election.

I wonder if that means the Clinton campaign won't continue to focus on the bogus lead it claims to have in the popular vote if Clinton wins the North Carolina primary. Clinton would need to win North Carolina (and Indiana) by really substantial margins two days from now for her to have a legitimate lead in the popular vote without including her vote totals in Michigan and Florida.

Of course, that wouldn't stop people from wanting to know which candidate leads in the popular vote, even though it's almost impossible to get an accurate figure.

"News audiences -- and superdelegates -- want to know the popular vote, a simple number that in almost any other election cuts through the intermediation and lets you know who’s winning," writes Clint Hendler in the Columbia Journalism Review. "The Democratic Party’s nominating process is a kaleidoscope of caucuses, conventions and primaries, sometimes all in the same state. And there’s no obvious best way to estimate a popular vote from it all."

The popular vote is skewed in a number of ways in the presidential primary season. Primaries tend to draw more participants than caucuses because the process of participating in caucuses is more tedious and time-consuming than going to a neighborhood polling place and spending a few minutes in the voting booth.

For that reason, caucus-goers tend to be more committed to their candidates than primary voters are. How do you measure the intensity of one's commitment and assign it a relative value in an election equation?

The best way to predict the outcome in a state in the general election is to study how that state has voted in previous presidential elections. If a state has voted for the same party for the last 40 years -- as some states have -- that state is likely to vote for that party again this year.

A few states have earned the status of "bellwether" -- which means such a state always or almost always votes for the party that wins the election. Such states are Missouri, Nevada, Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Delaware, New Mexico. Those are the states to keep an eye on when the ballots are being counted in the general election.

And then there are the states that hold the so-called "open" primaries. In these states, you may identify more with one party but you may choose, for any of several reasons, to vote in the other party's primary.

In my adult life, I have lived in three different states. In one of those states, I had to declare my party affiliation when I registered to vote (it was possible for me to register as an independent, but, since there were never independent primaries, registering as an independent would have meant that I would not be voting in primaries).

In the other two states, all I had to do was register to vote. I declared my party preference when I went in to vote in a primary. It didn't have to be the same party every time. I could alternate between parties in the primaries in each election cycle, if I wished.

The only real restriction was that I could not vote in one party's primary and then vote in the other party's runoff. If I voted with the Democrats in the original primary, and the Republicans had a more interesting (or perhaps the only) runoff, I was out of luck.

With the nomination not yet settled, it's the open primaries in the remaining states that could cause some havoc in the Democratic race this year. I've heard rumors of Republicans who might participate in the Democratic primaries in some of the remaining states. Anti-Clinton forces may vote for Clinton, believing that she would be the easiest foe for McCain to defeat. And some anti-Obama forces are rumored to be considering voting for Obama in the belief that he would be easier for McCain to defeat.

Popular vote totals in the presidential primaries really won't tell you anything. At this point, it's all about the delegates. And, however they were selected, by the party's true believers or Republican "cross-overs" or the super-delegate party bigshots, the delegates are the ones who will be going to Denver in August and will cast the votes that will nominate the presidential candidate.

In the delegate math, the advantage remains with Obama. And it's an advantage that will be hard for Clinton to overcome.

"Colby College political scientist and delegate selection expert Anthony Corrado estimates that Clinton would need to win about 69% of the remaining delegates, a virtual impossibility given proportional representation of the nominating contests," says Charlie Cook in the National Journal.

That's the math that matters.

Being There

The horse race for the Democratic nomination is shaping up to be a photo finish.

But neither horse may have what it takes to make it to the finish line.

Even after you factor in all the super-delegates and the delegates that were committed to each candidate based on the popular vote in each state -- and you allow for the delegates that are left in the primaries that haven't been held yet -- the numbers don't add up to a majority for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

And that means revisiting Michigan and Florida, which held Democratic primaries on dates that violated party rules. Consequently, their delegations were barred from the convention in Denver this summer.

But now it appears that no one can be nominated for president, under the party's existing rules, without those delegations. Unless the party wants to break -- or rewrite -- a bunch of rules.

Party chairman Howard Dean told CBS' Face the Nation he thought it was "very unlikely" that the Michigan and Florida delegations would be seated at the convention without some concessions on both sides.

Dean also said that the party would not pay to hold "do-over" primaries in both states.

"[O]ur job is to tell the American people about Senator McCain's record on Iraq and the deficits and so forth, and convince the American people that our nominee is better than Senator McCain," Dean said. "And that's what we're going to be using our resources for."

Well, that's fine, Mr. Chairman, but you haven't got a nominee yet. And, like it or not, there are some differences between Clinton and Obama. Right now, the choice is between McCain and a shadow candidate, Sen. Generic Democrat. McCain will have the opportunity to sharpen his attacks once he can stop referring to the nominee as "my opponent" all the time.

It may not be what the Democrats wanted, but something will have to be done about Michigan and Florida.

Part of this mathematical quandary could be resolved fairly simply, it seems to me. If the delegations from Michigan and Florida aren't being included in the decision, why are their numbers still included in the total? Doesn't that artificially inflate the majority number a candidate needs to win the nomination?

Florida originally was allocated 210 delegates. Michigan originally received 156 delegates. Based on the original delegate totals, a candidate needs 2,024 delegates to be nominated (currently, Obama has 1,527 and Clinton has 1,428).

If you take away the delegations from Michigan and Florida, a candidate needs less than 1,850 to win the nomination.

If you adjust the math, it's still a tight race, but, with the bar lowered appropriately, it doesn't mean that Obama or Clinton must win four-fifths of the vote in every primary that's left in order to be nominated.