HorsesAss.Org

Man, I love caucusing. Voting is a solitary affair; you fill out your ballot alone in the voting booth or at the kitchen table, and then turn on the TV to watch the results. But caucusing is a social event; you vote, you argue, you persuade, you horse trade, you vote again… it’s democracy at its rawest and most exciting. Throw in a little beer and it gets even better.

We got a great crowd at the Drinking Liberally caucus last night; 51 patriotic Americans signed in to help show Iowans what to do tonight, and the first round of balloting contained few surprises:

Candidate:	Votes:	Delegates:
John Edwards	20	3
Barack Obama	15	2
Chris Dodd	6	1
Hilary Clinton	4	1
Dennis Kuccnich	2	0
Mike Gravel	2	0
Bill Richardson	1	0
Fred Harris	1	0

And if this were a primary, that’s pretty much were it would have ended — no second guessing, no second chances for those who threw their vote away on a losing candidate. But caucus goers get the opportunity to temper their votes with reality, and move to their second or third choices if their first choice goes bust. A half an hour of drinking and negotiating and more drinking later, and the Dodd camp leverages their initial strong showing into an even stronger one:

Candidate:	Votes:	Delegates:
Barack Obama	17	2
John Edwards	16	2
Chris Dodd	13	2
Hilary Clinton	5	1

So goes Drinking Liberally, so goes the nation: a three-way tie between Obama, Edwards and Dodd. That’s my prediction for Iowa, and I’m standing by it.

One of the news stories I expect to be following closely in 2008 is the case of Marc Emery, the Canadian marijuana seed seller who faces an upcoming extradition hearing to decide whether he should be sent to the United States to face trial. The effort to extradite him has been led out of the US Attorney’s office right here in Seattle (originally by John McKay, and then by his replacement Jeff Sullivan) and will re-commence in a courtroom in Vancouver, BC on January 21.

As we’ve seen with the Ed Rosenthal case in the Bay Area, prosecuting outspoken drug law reform advocates has been a very high priority for the Bush Administration’s Justice Department. In that particular case, even after the presiding judge urged US Attorney Scott Schools to drop the case, they continued with their futile prosecution attempt, even as it was clear that Rosenthal would never be punished and the number of white-collar crimes being investigated around the country plummeted.

The fact that Emery is Canadian (and that the DEA has openly admitted that he’s being targeted for his political views as well as his business) makes this case extremely important up north. What he does is technically not legal in Canada, but the Canadian government has long felt that it has more important things to do than to try to break up a multi-million dollar industry that isn’t hurting anyone.

Writing in the National Post, Ontario attorney Karen Selick expresses her opposition to the extradition attempt in an open letter to Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson:

Dear Mr. Nicholson: On Jan. 21, 2008 an extradition hearing will begin in Vancouver for Marc Emery, Canada’s pre-eminent activist for the legalization of marijuana. Marc has been charged in the U.S. with conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana, and conspiring to launder money. If convicted under U.S. law, he faces possible life imprisonment without parole.

Should Marc be extradited to the U.S.? The Canadian court will almost certainly say yes. It has little choice under the Extradition Act. Marc openly admits selling marijuana seeds over the internet to customers around the world, including the United States, for years. His conduct would have been grounds for criminal charges here, although Canadian authorities never chose to charge him. But that’s enough under the Act to make it mandatory for the judge to commit him for surrender to U.S. authorities.

That’s where you come in, Mr. Justice Minister. Once the court has ruled, the Extradition Act gives you discretion to refuse to surrender Marc if it “would be unjust or oppressive having regard to all the relevant circumstances.”

I’m obviously no expert on Canadian law, but if Selick is correct, there seems like a valid rationale for the Justice Minister to intervene. This could be one of the reasons why there was some discontent in the Western Washington US Attorney’s office over former DEA head Karen Tandy’s politicization of the case. Either way, Emery seems eager for a confrontation and feels destined to become a martyr.

I won’t copy and paste the remainder of Selick’s letter, but she makes one very important point. Emery has dutifully paid over half a million dollars in taxes from his business. He assisted the Canadian government when they needed to implement a medical marijuana program. But now they appear ready to turn their back on him solely because the United States can’t come to terms with the failure of our own marijuana prohibition (which we continue to try to impose on the rest of the world). How can the Canadian government profit and benefit from a man and his business for years, then allow for the United States to put him in jail for life without even a fight?

I’m afraid I have to take exception to this statement by Goldy:

Oh… and the fact that polls generally show Edwards as being the toughest Democrat to beat… that doesn’t hurt him in my book either.

I suppose Goldy is relying on national head-to-head polls like these. The problem with such national polls is that they don’t reflect the way we elect our Presidents.

Rather than looking at the national head-to-head polls, we should be examining state head-to-head polls and take into consideration the number of votes each state gets in the Electoral College.

In fact, I have been doing just that for a number of months. Essentially, I’ve collected the state head-to-head polls taken in 2007 and have been analyzing the polls as a way of evaluating the relative strength of candidates.

Now I am going to switch into statistical wonk mode and explain my analyses. If you just want to see the results, skip over the Methods section and pick up from the Results.

Methods

To analyze the poll data I take the last month of polls for each state as a way to increase the certainty and (hopefully) minimize biases inherent in individual polls. If there is no polls taken in the last month, I use the most recent poll available in 2007. The analysis could stop at this stage after simply tallying the number of Electoral College votes each candidate would receive for each state based on the poll data.

The one problem with this approach is that it doesn’t account for the uncertainty in the polls. For example, suppose a poll in Pennsylvania of 500 individuals gives Clinton 51% and Giuliani 49% of the vote. Clinton’s lead comes from only five individuals who went for Clinton instead of Giuliani. In fact, statisticians would tell us that there is substantial sampling error because of the small sample size and the very close percentages. The statistician would do some calculations (or simulations) and tell us that the poll indicates that Clinton has only a 69.9% chance of winning, and Giuliani has a 30.1% chance of winning.

In simulating a national election, I do this same evaluation over all states. Here is how it works. I simulate elections using only information from state head-to-head polls (with one exception discussed below). Each single election proceeds state by state, pooling polls from the last month (or the most recent poll if no polls were taken in the last month). For each person polled in the state, I randomly draw votes according to the observed probabilities found by the state’s poll(s).

After conducting such elections in all fifty states (plus Washington D.C.), the electoral vote is totaled and a winner determined from the electoral vote count.

This process is repeated 10,000 times. The result is a distribution of electoral votes for the pair of candidates that fully accounts for the sampling error in the polls used. For example, here is the distribution of electoral votes for a Clinton—McCain match-up from a few days ago:

In this example Clinton won 9,167 simulated elections and McCain won 779 simulated elections. (There were also 54 ties that would go to the House of Representatives and almost certainly result in a Clinton victory.) Thus, the poll data suggests that, if the election were held today, Clinton would have a 92.2% chance of beating McCain.

Oh…about that exception I mentioned above. Some states have had no polls taken at all. In that case, I always assign the electoral votes for the state according to the 2004 presidential election outcome. For the most part, states that have had no polls taken are not likely to hold any surprises. In any case, this procedure slightly favors the Republican candidate (since Bush won in 2004).

Results

Here are the results after simulating a variety of match-ups. (Additionally, I provide a link to my most recent analysis. In most cases the published analysis is slightly older than the analysis from today given in the table below, but the numbers are close.)

Republican	Democrat	Probability the Democrat wins	Average electoral votes for Democrat	Link
Giuliani	Clinton	100%	342	Analysis
Huckabee	Clinton	100%	335	Analysis
McCain	Clinton	92.1%	293	Analysis
Romney	Clinton	100%	385	Analysis
Thompson	Clinton	100%	354	Analysis
Giuliani	Edwards	4.90%	237	Analysis
McCain	Edwards	99.4	303	—
Romney	Edwards	100%	388	—
Thompson	Edwards	100%	358	—
Giuliani	Obama	27.7%	258	Analysis
Huckabee	Obama	88.7%	277	—
McCain	Obama	4.4%	237	—
Romney	Obama	100%	376	Analysis
Thompson	Obama	100%	329	—

Right now Clinton does better against Republican challengers—she beats every one of them with a high degree of certainty. Edwards does very poorly against Giuliani, although he does a little bit better than Clinton against McCain. Obama doesn’t do well against either Giuliani or McCain right now.

Keep in mind that the analysis only suggests what would happen if the election were held right now. (Interpret this the way you might the speedometer on a long trip—it gives you some idea of your progress even though you know your speed is going to change along the way.)

Things will certainly change in the next ten months, but what we can say now is that Clinton has some advantage over both Obama and Edwards in a general election. Is Clinton’s advantage right now important in the long run? It’s hard to say. It’s not even clear to me that her advantage should be considered over more fundamental characteristics like political philosophy and policy positions. Perhaps some readers will use this information as a tie-breaker.

As for me? I still have no idea who I will support at tonight’s straw caucus. Maybe I’ll pretend to be a Republican….

The caucus/primary season officially kicks off tonight, one day ahead of Iowa, when the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally holds its first-in-the-nation presidential caucus, 8PM, at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue East. Republicans and Democrats alike are invited to join us for this momentum setting event that will surely set the tone for tomorrow’s better known if Johnny-come-lately Iowa caucuses.

And when the caucusing kicks off, expect me to be firmly in the camp of Sen. John Edwards.

It wasn’t an easy decision, and it was a long time coming, but in the end, when I look closely at the campaigns of those Democratic candidates who have gained any sort of traction with voters nationwide, Edwards is the only one who appears to be running as a Democrat. Delivering a consistent message of economic populism at home and abroad, Edwards is the only front-runner who seems to know what he wants to do with the office, and the only one whose specific proposals on health care, regulatory reform and economic justice seem targeted toward addressing the real issues that ail our nation. While other candidates promise hope or experience or competency, Edwards is the only Democrat truly promising change… and change is what we’ll most desperately need after eight years of a Bush Administration that has left our nation balancing precariously on the edge of abandoning the core values that have long nurtured our democracy and our economy.

Don’t get me wrong, if Obama or Clinton (or Richardson, Biden or Dodd) go on to win the nomination, I will enthusiastically support them; each of the others has much to recommend them, and would be the clear choice over any Republican alternative. But it is Edwards who speaks to me and my vision of a more prosperous, free and just America for all our citizens.

Oh… and the fact that polls generally show Edwards as being the toughest Democrat to beat… that doesn’t hurt him in my book either.

The other night I saw a promo for an episode of “KCTS Connects” with Enrique Cerna about the condo boom in Ballard:

One of Seattle’s oldest neighborhoods is getting an extreme makeover. Ballard is booming with new condos, new restaurants and new businesses. The area once known as a quaint Scandinavian corner of the city is becoming one of the hippest and hottest spots in town to work, live and play. But is the modernization of Ballard tearing the neighborhood apart?

I’ve been visiting Ballard for years, and while the area has always had a Nordic vibe to it, it isn’t anything like other urban ethnic enclaves in America. It’s not like Southie, or New York’s Little Italy, or half a dozen of the Polish or Irish neighborhoods in Chicago or any other big city in America. Frankly, the whole “Ballard-as-cultural-touchstone” is overrated.

That’s not to say that Nordic history doesn’t have roots in NW Seattle. There are several important Nordic cultural institutions still around, but how many of them are recruiting younger folks? These places were ebbing long before the condo boom.

I haven’t seen the show yet, but I’m sure there will be the usual smattering of “density is bad”, rich people, blah blah blah,” “new people, blah blah blah.” I can’t wait.

Pete Guither ridicules Markos Moulitsas for trying to make the case that Ron Paul is a racist.

Does this man sound like a racist to you?

I’m not talking about the sculpture of Chief Sealth, which I like just fine. (It’s the one in the middle) But what the hell are those boards behind him on either side? They look like they were done by a bunch of eighth graders drunk on grape soda.

Leaves, dollar signs and crosses. Lemme guess… dollars signs and crosses are bad, leaves are good.

Really, folks. Chief Sealth was a great Native American, to whom the current residents of this area owe a great deal. We certainly owe him more than this underwhelming art installation.

What bugs me the most was that somebody approved this. Since this is Seattle, the decision was probably made not by an individual but by a group of people.

To be a fly on the wall at that meeting…

1st Guy: Look folks, we’ve got to finalize a design for this Chief Sealth art thing. Any ideas?

2nd Guy: How about something in bronze with ornate inlays, done by skilled craftsmen with an eye for detail. Creative consulting work by members of the Duwamish tribe. Something classic yet modern, accessible and informative. Something that remembers Chief Sealth for who he was and preserves his memory for years to come.

1st Guy: That’s good, I’m liking it. Anything else?

3rd Guy: How about we run down to Home Depot, get some paints and some plywood, and have my kid’s eighth grade class crap something out for us. I’m thinking something like-

1st Guy: Stop there, Bob, you’ve struck gold. Don’t say another word because that is genius.

While some of you might say, “hey asshole, who asked you to be the big critic guy of all the art?” Folks, we’re not talking about the crappy turd-shaped ash trays you made for your parents in ceramics class. This art display is in a city park. A park you pay for! That means it’s fair game for me, or anyone else, to have a go at.

Some bureaucrat approved this thing, and it’s my right (no, duty!) to speak truth to power. Downtown residents like myself deserve better than this!

UPDATE [Lee]: What is written on those things anyway? I can’t find anything using Google. I’m pretty sure there are no actual languages with question marks and superscript w’s.

UPDATE [Lee]: OK, I found it now, it’s definitely a real language. Check this page out.

What do the signs say? I have no idea.

UPDATE [Lee]: This is the last one, I promise. I’m learning a lot today. From commenter “Smartypants”:

The languages are Lushootseed (front) and English (back). Lushootseed is the local dialect of the Coast Salish language that was used by the Duwamish people.

English translation Panel on Left: Chief Seattle Now The Streets Are Our Home

English translation Panel on Right: Far Away Brothers and Sisters We Still Remember You

Here’s the explanation of the work: “With the sculpture Day/Night the theme of the porcelain panels seeks to proclaim that for many transient inter-tribal people the streets of Seattle are home. Secondly it is declared that although these tribal citizens have sought refuge in the urban centers which have sprung up on Indian Territory around them, the far rural tribal communities from which the originate hold each and everyone’s memory in close and high regard.”

This morning’s fare from the local dailies looks a lot like their TV counterparts: both are highlighting crime (a New Year’s Eve murder on Capitol Hill) and the frivolousness of people swimming in cold Lake Washington and Seattle’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display being delayed a few minutes by a computer glitch (oh, the humanity!)

Nationally, the Iowa caucuses (cauci?) will dominate headlines tomorrow, but today it was international news: the post-election chaos in Kenya, and the post-assassination chaos in Pakistan.

Oh, and a bunch of college teams played football yesterday. In breaking news, exactly 50% of them won their games, a total one seasoned analyst described as “about average.”

In other words, yesterday was a holiday, and nothing much happened. Iowa (and New Hampshire next Tuesday) should change that for the next few days.

Sorry to obsess, but this is the only interesting thing in the tech world right now. And for all you Mac fans, Apple stock recently passed $200 ($198 today), up over 7 percent on the month, and Macworld is coming up with Jobs orchestrating the Greatest Show on Earth. You should be able to watch it via Weblink, unless the servers get crushed as usual. Remember you read it here first! (unless you read MacRumors, or AppleInsider, or…well, you know).

Just a reminder that while our regular Drinking Liberally has been canceled tonight due to the holiday (ie, the Montlake Ale House is closed,) we will be holding special Wednesday night gathering tomorrow, to conduct our first in the nation presidential caucus!

That’s right, tomorrow night, Democrats and Republicans alike are invited to come on over to the Alehouse at 8PM to caucus for your favorite candidate… all caucus rules will apply. My guess? Edwards manages a comfortable win over Obama, with Clinton coming in a distant third.

Stop on by and help us make history.

Hey, have I ever mentioned that Clay Bennett and the rest the Sonics’ Oklahoma City based owners are a bunch of fucking liars? I mean, really… look at the facts, and you’d have to be naive and/or an idiot (or the Seattle Times editorial board) to believe for a minute that Bennett ever had any intention of keeping the team in the region.

Generally, good faith negotiations require a little give and take, with both sides seeking a mutually acceptable middle ground, yet just weeks after 74-percent of Seattle voters approved I-91’s prohibition on the use of public subsidies for sports facilities — and with it, rejected $200 million of taxpayer money to re-renovate Key Arena — Bennett responded with his last, best offer: a half-billion dollar, publicly financed hoops palace in Renton. (Look in Roget’s under “haggling” and you’ll find the Renton proposal listed as an antonym.) When, as expected, the state Legislature failed to deliver a suitcase full of unmarked bills, billionaire Bennett sadly shook his head and announced that he just couldn’t afford to continue losing money at Key Arena, and thus had no other choice but to break the lease, and move the Sonics to Oklahoma City.

Damn. Oklahoma City’s Ford Center must be one fancy arena to economically justify moving the Sonics from Seattle to a market fully one-third its size. According to the Oklahoman:

Walk inside the Ford Center, however, and you’re greeted by cold concrete, completely wrapped around a dark and dull 100 level concourse.

There aren’t any swanky clubs and lounges that make up so many NBA arenas. The VIP area for the high rollers that sit courtside is set up in a hallway outside of the restrooms, not in a more typical private and posh locale.

The average fan is treated to subpar concessions and merchandising stands and few interactive games and entertainment options throughout the concourse.

Oklahoma City’s 5-year-old facility just isn’t fan friendly. Not when you compare it to the palaces found in our neighboring states, and certainly not when compared to many of the country’s other venues.

That’s why Oklahoma City Mayor Mike Cornett has proposed $100 million in taxpayer-funded upgrades to include such spectacular innovations as sit-down restaurants, larger locker rooms, a larger team store, improved bathrooms and “general visual upgrades to the 100 and 300 concourse levels’ floors, walls and ceilings.” Wow… sit-down restaurants and improved bathrooms. That should surely make up for the dramatic reduction in fan base and broadcast revenues that comes with moving from the nation’s 14th to 45th largest market.

Of course, this was never really about economics, was it? Oklahoma City has long had a nagging Basketball Jones, and Bennett et al are the hometown heroes who will finally deliver their fix:

An Oklahoma City energy tycoon says the group that purchased the Seattle SuperSonics hopes to move the NBA franchise to Oklahoma City, but he acknowledges the team could make more money in the Pacific Northwest.

“But we didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here,” Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, told The Journal Record for a story in Monday’s edition. “We know it’s a little more difficult financially here in Oklahoma City, but we think it’s great for the community and if we could break even, we’d be thrilled.”

Yeah, well, it’s a free market, and if Bennett would rather play in a “subpar” facility in a much smaller market, well, I suppose he’s free to take his ball club and go home. But when he and NBA Commissioner David Stern wag their fingers at Seattle and tell us it is somehow all our fault, that’s just adding insult to injury.

The numbers are not yet completely tallied, but later this month Darcy Burner will report over $600,000 cash on hand at the end of the 4th quarter, putting her near the top of Democratic challengers nationwide, and about a half-million dollars ahead of last cycle’s breakneck pace. The campaign tells me that her totals for the Oct-Nov period will top the $306,000 she reported for Jul-Sep, a quarter in which she benefited from an unprecedented $125,000 national netroots drive. Of course, we don’t know Dave Reichert’s numbers, but I’d wager Darcy has now outraised the incumbent in each of the past four quarters, a nearly unprecedented accomplishment.

I suppose Darcy’s fundraising prowess is no longer the news it was last time around, a race in which the then first-time candidate surprised the media and political establishment by putting up record numbers, and coming within a silver hair of defeating “The Sheriff.” But those who dismiss these early numbers as just an inconsequential horse race willfully ignore the important information they tell us about the candidates and the race ahead.

The most obvious conclusions to draw from the 2007 fundraising totals are that the 2008 race for Washington’s 8th Congressional District remains extremely tight, and that contrary to the prediction of naysayers, support for electing Darcy (and defeating Reichert) has grown, not waned, since November 2006. While Reichert has relied mostly on large donors and PACs (not to mention creative accounting) to pad his totals thus far, the overwhelming majority of Darcy’s money has come in the form of relatively small, individual contributions. This not only suggests that Darcy has significantly greater fundraising upside in the quarters to come, it also demonstrates the kind of broad, grassroots appeal that can translate directly into votes come election day.

But I think that the biggest takeaway from the the money race is that Darcy is just a damn hard worker. With Darcy surpassing her goal of raising $25,000 over the final 72 hours of 2007, it would be easy to pen a headline like, “Burner rides late fundraising surge to record numbers,” but that would be misleading. Darcy didn’t just ride the surge, she created it. In that context, Darcy’s lead in the money race doesn’t just predict how the two candidates will perform over the final nine months of the campaign, but how they would perform in office, if elected. I have many complaints about how my friends in the traditional media (particularly the mean-spirited liars on the Seattle Times editorial board) presented Darcy to voters in 2006, but there is no question they completely overlooked her extraordinary work ethic. That Darcy has run this hard for this long demonstrates that she is willing and able to devote the kind of energy and commitment her district deserves. If elected, Darcy Burner would simply work harder than Dave Reichert, and that’s a message voters should hear.

Geov, Piper, & Jessica wish you all the best in 2008.

This is an open thread. Of course.

Happy New Year, everyone! Bear with us as we welcome into this world the firstborn headlines of 2008:

The Seattle Times gets the nod for the very first headline of the year, giving birth to a bouncing 24-pt. sans serif named “Skiers packing snowy slopes” at the propitious hour of exactly 12:00 a.m. And what a cute little tyke she is, all white and fluffy. Photo included!

It took the P-I 34 minutes after midnight to produce its own 24-pt. sans serif zinger, the slightly longer and heavier “Woman stabbed to death on Capitol Hill.” As my 8-year-old nephew might put it, Yuuucccck. Looks like 2008 got off a bit on the wrong foot over at the spinning globe. As for the identical fonts, looks to me like somebody’s been sharing templates…might wanna run a DNA check over there (wink wink).

These are the clear winners, folks. As far as I can tell, the TV stations haven’t registered any newborns yet for 2008. And I have to confess, I expected nothing from the folks at Slog, since their headlines are usually written by barely intelligible unpaid interns who seldom drag themselves out of bed before 9. But whaddyaknow, they get 3rd place with Ka-Bust. Breaking the mold as usual, Slog brought into the world an actual serifed head, topping a story about the Needle fireworks not working.

(Here at HA we beat everyone, of course, with Will’s kicking and screaming “Happy New Year!” video post right on the button at 12 a.m…try it with a hangover!)