Monthly Archives: April 2016

Can Donald Trump Lock the Nomination?

EDITED AFTER NEW YORK PRIMARY

NOTE: UPDATED AND IMPROVED VERSION OF THIS ANALYSIS IS HERE

There is almost no way that Donald trump will get to the Republican National Convention with anything less than a fairly strong majority of pledged delegates. But can he get there with the 1237 delegates needed to lock the nomination on the first ballot?

I made a list of upcoming contests and initially estimated Trump’s delegate take using the oversimplified method of multiplying the percentage of available delegates with Trump’s percentage according to the most recent available polls. This slightly underestimates the number of delegates since the actual percentages are broken down to the exclusion of “undecided” and minor candidates who were in the polls but not the context, etc. However, it can be more inaccurate because many of these contests are not exactly proportional but kind of.

Some states don’t have usable polling data, so I put Trump’s percentage at 40, which is the average for all the cases where there are polling data.

Five upcoming states are winner take all. Given the fact that Trump seems to win a lot, and will campaign his New York Vallues Ass off in those states, I assume he will win in every case (this might be wildly wrong, but he is generally ahead, so I’m sticking to that story). So in those states he earns 100% of the available delegates.

When I add this all up, and add in the delegates already assigned, Trump ends up with 1198 pledged delegates, or 39 short of a lock.

That is a shade over 5% of the remaining delegates. If Cruz or Kasich do better than expected, this would clearly put Trump too far away from the 1237 number, but if either stumbles and/or Trump does really great things, I mean, great things, and believe me he can do those great things, he’s always doing great things, in some of the upcoming deals, I mean, primaries, he can probably close that gap.

My money is on him not maybe closing the gap…

Who Will Win The New York Democratic Primary?

As you know, I’ve been applying a model to predict the outcome of each of the Democratic Primary contests, and have done pretty well at predicting results.

All of the future contests are primaries, not caucuses. It turns out that the two modes have very different patterns. Many have suggested that this has to do with how the process works, and somehow caucuses, or open contests, favor Sanders, who has won several. However, it also turns out that caucusing is a northern thing (and Sanders does somewhat better in the north, or more accurately perhaps, rarely wins in the south). Caucusing is also a white thing, apparently. Caucuses happen in non-southern mostly white states, and these are states that Sanders can (but does not always) win.

Since the remainder of the contests are primaries, I used my simple ethnic-based model, which predicts the outcome of the various contests based on the estimated percentage of African American voters. I used only data from previous primaries to develop a simple linear model. This model applied to all of the future contests, starting with New York, tells us that Clinton will win in New York.

After that, Sanders wins in several smaller and mostly norther states, but also, California . Clinton wins in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which are relatively large. If this plays out as predicted, between now and the end of the primary season, Hillary Clinton will pick up about 795 delegates and Sanders will pick up about 778 delegates.

How many delegates does each candidate have so far? Clinton has approximately 1310 and Sanders approximately 1094. (This is approximate because in some states it is actually a little hard to count because of the nature of the system.)

Here is a table showing all of my projections from here on out. I’ll probably redo the model a few more times, especially if anything unexpected happens, so stay tuned.

Democratic_Primaries_Clinton_Vs._Sanders_New_York_To_End

“Southern” Voters Prefer Clinton, Others Mixed

How does the “southernness” of a state affect the Democratic Primary?

Clinton has been doing well in “The South.” Of course, defining what “The South” is is pretty tricky. I divided up the states by “Deep South” vs. Other, so all the usual orginal deep south states count as “southern” except Florida. You know what they say about Florida. “The farther south you go, the farther north you get.” Also, Texas is not deep south in the traditional sense.

Using this rough division, Clinton wins all the time in the “Deep South” and Sanders wins some and loses some in the other states, as shown in this handy dandy graphic:

SouthernVsNotSouthernStatesandDemocraticPrimary2016

This is good news for Sanders, because the three big states coming up are New York, Pennsylvania, and California, and they are not in the deep south. Of the remaining states, only Kentucky is southern. So, this biases future primaries, given this one variable, towards Sanders.

Being “deep south” vs. not is in and of itself a bit of a meta-variable, associated with other factors with in the Democratic Party, mainly ethnicity.

Democratic Primary and Size of State

When either candidate wins a state, that candidate’s supporters celebrate and underscore the significance of that win. The other candidate’s supporters generally proceed to explain how it was not a significant win, or in some cases, come up with conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen.

So, here is an interesting question: Does one candidate or another, between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, tend to win bigger states more, or smaller states more? This is important because next Tuesday is the New York Primary, and New York is huge. Of course, state size is not the only factor, and indeed, state size is probably related to a lot of other factors that may be more directly related. Still, it may be interesting to see what this all means.

Some of the largest states are in the future (New York, Pennsylvania, and California). The largest states, on average, are ahead with a very sightly higher median, and a more impressively larger mean. Here are the stats:

Screen Shot 2016-04-15 at 9.46.40 AM

And here is a histogram, showing the size distribution of states (delegate count) so far and not yet voting in this primary season:

Screen Shot 2016-04-15 at 9.39.43 AM

Large states matter more, numerically. If a candidate has a very small bias towards winning big states, but the two candidates otherwise split the wins, the candidate with the bias wins. More concretely, imagine each candidate wins or loses by 10%, and the distribution of wins and losses is exactly even for both candidates, but one candidate wins the largest three states and the other candidate wins the smallest three states, then a very substantial gap will result between the candidates. In a winner take all scenario, in this race, with Clinton winning the largest states and Sanders winning the smaller states, this would result in a final pledged delegate count of about 1406 for Sanders and 2306 for Clinton!

So, does one candidate win more in large states? Yes. Here is state size (as number of pledged delegates) against the percent difference between the candidates with Clinton upward on the graph, Sanders downward on the graph.

DemocraticPrimaryResults_BySizeOfState

Clinton won, so far, the four biggest states and the fifth biggest state was a near tie. (Clinton also won more small states, but the effect of large states is greater, as noted).

Does this, by itself, mean that Clinton is going to win New York and California? No, of course not. This is just one factor, and as noted, probably relates or correlates to other factors such as diversity, various kinds of activism, overall political gestalt in the state, and so on.

The Nation Corrects Vox on Sanders Tax Hike

A while back Vox produced a tax modeler that would tell you how your taxes would change with Sanders plan. It raised most people’s taxes by a few thousand dollars. But the modeling was misleading because the same plan would probably reduce health care costs for those same individuals.

I pointed that out back at the time but most of the response to me pointed out was the ridiculous recitation of completely wrong information (from both sides of the debate) so I dropped it because it really doesn’t matter. President Sanders or President Clinton would not produce any tax plans. Not their job.

Anyway, The Nation, which has gone all in with Bernie as I’m sure it should, came out with a counter modeler for taxes. so the Vox piece is here, The Nation’s piece is here.

Bovids Of The World

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, there are 143 species of bovids. The Animal Diversity Web is a bit less precise, indicating that there are “more than 140 extant and 300 extinct species.” That second number is highly questionable because today there exist sister species that are so similar I doubt they could be told apart from fossils alone. If you check around the internet, this ~140 number comes up again and again, and Wikipedia says 143.

horns640hResearch published in 2011 and later by Colin Groves, Peter Grubb, and David Leslie, which has been tagged as controversial by some but accepted by others, puts this number much higher, over 270. Why such a difference, and why is this controversy only emerging recently? It isn’t like bovids are barely studied, or highly cryptic.

One of the reasons probably has to do with vagueness in the species concept itself, and it may well be the case that there are sets of species defined by Groves et al that are too finely split. But, the most likely explanation is that more modern methods, using DNA and recently developed statistical techniques, simply come up with a larger number. I’ve only read some of this literature, but I’m pretty sure the larger number is much closer to correct than the smaller number.

This has an important impact on understanding and addressing problems of ecology, diversity, evolution, and conservation. With respect to conservation, this means that some populations of bovids, the more rare and geographically restricted ones, are likely to be more at risk of extinction, if there are other populations at different locations that can no longer be referenced as survivors. It has been suggested, indeed, that splitting large taxonomic groups into larger numbers of species is some kind of pro conservation shenanigans. Such hippie-punching has no place in modern biology, of course. The increase in our accounted-for diversity that happens with more research is both expected from historical trends over recent decades (though it is a reverse of earlier decreases in diversity as more was learned about certain groups) and is predicted by evolutionary theory.

Screen Shot 2016-04-13 at 3.00.19 PMAnyway, I’m not here to talk about that controversy exactly. Rather, I want to point you do a new book, a really fantastic book, called Bovids of the World: Antelopes, Gazelles, Cattle, Goats, Sheep, and Relatives, by José Castelló.

Castelló uses the larger number, by the way: 271. And this book includes all of them.

The majority of this 664 page book consists of plates and a species description on the left, and details on the right, including excellent range maps, with one species in each layout. The species are divided by the usual commonly accepted tribes. This also means that many but not all of the species are grouped by very large geographical regions, because that is how the bovids are organized across our global landscape.

The back matter consists of nothing more than an index, critical in such a volume, and the front matter has an overview of what a bovid is, and details about key anatomy used in the field guide.

This book is one of a handful in the emerging subcategory of animal books that covers an entire taxonomic group either globally or nearly globally. I recently reviewed Waterfowl of North America, Europe and Asia by Reeber, which isn’t quite global but since waterfowl tend to migrate is nearly so. A while back I reviewed the guide “Sharks of the World” by Compagno, Dando, and Fowler. And I’ve reviewed one of my favorite guides of all time, “Carnivores of the World“, which covers all the carnivores except those that evolved partly into fish.

pantelope640hThis category of book is not meant to be the one book you carry with you while touring around in the field. If you go to Africa, bring The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals (it includes the bovids), for example. Rather, this book is to understand the bovids as a major and important taxonomic group.

Paging through a given tribe’s entries, you can come to understand biogeography better, as you see the ranges depicted on the maps of a continent or region. Also, small bovids tend to have smaller geographical ranges than larger bovids, but there are major exceptions. Why those exceptions?

Looking at the physical variation in key features, such as body size, sexual dimorphism, head dress, and markings, you can see patterns that are best explained with interesting evolutionary and ecological theories. If you teach behavioral biology or zoology, this will be a useful reference point for your thinking on all those key bovid examples. Or, if you are just interested in animals, or are planning a trip to a place where you’ll be observing antelopes or other bovids, you may want to invest in this.

And when your crotchety Uncle Bob is over for a holiday dinner and you get into an argument about how many duikers there are in West Africa vs. Central Africa, you can pull out your copy of Bovids of the World and settle the bet!

The plates are drawings, not photographs, which is entirely appropriate in this sort of book. Habitats matter to photographs and that would bias the physical comparisons. Also, I can tell you from personal experience that many of the bovids, especially the forest dwellers, just don’t have great photographs anyway.

I studied the information on the bovids with which I’m familiar from my own fieldwork, and I see only quality information.

As far as I know, there is not another guide like this available. Also it is not that expensive.

Table of Contents:
FOREWORD by Brent Huffman and Colin Groves 5
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 7
INTRODUCTION 8
TRIBE AEPYCEROTINI
Impalas 24
TRIBE NEOTRAGINI
Sunis, Royal Antelope, Pygmy Antelope 28
TRIBE REDUNCINI
Reedbucks, Waterbucks, Rhebok 38
TRIBE ANTILOPINI
Gazelles, Oribis, Steenbok, Grysbok, Dik-diks 82
TRIBE OREOTRAGINI
Klipspringers 224
TRIBE CEPHALOPHINI
Duikers 244
TRIBE CAPRINI
Sheep, Goats, and relatives 302
TRIBE HIPPOTRAGINI
Horse Antelopes 466
TRIBE ALCELAPHINI
Tsessebes, Topis, Hartebeests, Wildebeests 496
TRIBE BOSELAPHINI
Nilgai, Four-horned Antelope 542
TRIBE TRAGELAPHINI
Spiral-horned Antelopes 546
TRIBE BOVINI
Bison, Buffaloes, Cattle, Saola 596
SKULLS 650
REFERENCES 659
INDEX 660

Republican Candidates Running Away from Trump. And Phyllis Schlafly.

… and why we never got the Equal Rights Amendment.

Donald Trump is a very good Republican candidate. In terms of both style and substance, Trump does a good job of representing that part of the Republican Party that has been in charge of that party for several years, the Tea Party. The Republican Party has built itself up to become, effectively, the majority party in the US by pandering to this part of the base, along with gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression. So, really, there is no reason that Republicans running for office around the country should be upset with the fact that Trump is the frontrunner in the nomination process. If they were smart, they would embrace Trump, run on his coat tails, and win.

But the candidates may be running away from Trump anyway. One possible explanation for this is perhaps found in contrasting the Bush Dynasty, which has been central to Republican politics, or played an important role, for decades. The Bushes are a different kind of Republican than Trump, and from the Tea Party. They are the connected establishment Republicans who manage that interface between big money, mainly energy money (including the Saudis and the Kochs and all of that) and the political process. Trump may be seen as a wrench to be thrown in that carefully engineered machine. Naturally, established Republicans would prefer someone like Jeb Bush to be the nominee, or really, anybody other than Trump, because they are all nicely tied in and the status quo of a majority party fully connected with energy money, buttressed by absurdly right wing social policy, can continue and strengthen.

Nice theory. But the background is distant and deep, and the evolution of Republican politics, the Bush Dynasty, social conservatism, and establishment GOP politics is a bit more complicated and interesting. For some of this background, I refer you to this interesting item by Rachel Maddow:

I’m going to add two things to this, which won’t make sense unless you watch the video. 1) A lot of young liberal progressives actually supported Goldwater in those days because a) he wasn’t part of the Democratic political machine (the Democrats were not so much about democracy in those days) and 2) not only did Nelson get divorced, but he was quietly understood by New Yorkers to be very much of a carouser, drug user, and general all around bad guy, despite his clean looks and well spoken manner. I don’t know how true that all was, but it certainly lubricated the transition from beloved centrist to moral reprobate in people’s minds.

(Also, the war, and the politicians positions on it, was important and complex in those days.)

Democratic Primary: 2008 vs. 2016 Delegate Math

There is some discussion about Bernie Sanders’ strategy for winning the nomination despite being significantly behind in the pledged delegate count. Most of this discussion is nearly worthless because those engaged in it (talking and listening) are, or seem, poorly informed about how the system actually works. So I thought this would be a good time to look at some of the numbers.

First, some context.

The primary process is not Constitutionally democratic. There is no legal requirement that a party nominate someone based on any sort of voting process. But, over the last several decades this has become normal. Having said that, it is also a vetting process. The reason primaries are held over a long course of time is not because no one can figure out how to get all the party’s participants to vote on the same day. Rather, it is a long and drawn out contest in which the different candidates make their respective arguments using various venues, and as this process happens, party participants vote, in groups, for one or the other. It is like a boxing match. There are several rounds and we see how the candidates do over time.

This varies across states (and between the parties, and across time), but the ways in which party participants express their opinions are myriad. There are two ends of a wide spectrum. One is to simply ask people who claim, or demonstrate (depending on state) that they are with, a member of, or associated with a particular political party which candidate they prefer, in a polling process that looks just like an election. That is a primary. At the other end of the spectrum, people gather in public spaces and go through a formalized ritual involving holding up signs, standing on furniture, yelling and wildly gesticulating, and moving around the room, and often electing or choosing a subset of individuals to represent the views of the larger number in that room. Then, usually, they do it again at a later date in a different room. Sometimes a few times. That is sometimes correctly referred to as a caucus.

But a primary and a caucus are not two distinct things. Many contests are somewhere in between. In Iowa, it goes much as I just described. In Minnesota, where we have a caucus system, it doesn’t work that way at all and is much more like a primary where people simply vote.

Party members and operatives may prefer the caucus system because it gets people involved, and also, exposes and allows discussion on a wider range of issues. A party can, and often does, define itself on the basis of issues, and without a caucus system, the issues are defined by a very small number of individuals, often not even directly involved with the party. For example, for the Republican Party, the issues are mostly defined by radio shock jocks like Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News network commentators.

But a caucus system may have the effect of limiting participation, excluding those who can’t make the caucus schedule, for whom an absentee ballot is the only way to vote, etc. That is an argument for dropping the caucus and using primaries instead. But, of course, the counter argument to that is that the caucus invites real, meaningful participation. Which sounds great in theory, until you go to a caucus and notice that only a few people are actually meaningfully participating. But, at least, someone is somewhat meaningfully participating.

There are many other things going on that matter. For example, are you under the impression that people who might participate in a primary or caucus are registered in a particular political party? And, if you are registered in a certain party, you have to change your registration to participate in a different party’s process? Well, that may be true for you, but it depends on which state you live in. For example, in Minnesota, you can’t register in a party. We simply do not do that here. Yet, in Minnesota, you must be with the party to participate. You sign off on a general agreement with the party’s principles, and you agree to participate in only one party’s activities in a given caucus cycle. Yet you don’t register. If this seems odd or even impossible, perhaps you live in New York State or some other place where one formally registers.

The different versions of “party membership” leads to a great difference in what can happen during the primary process. The following pertain.

When you go to vote or caucus,

1) Do all the people go to the same building, regardless of political party? (In some states, yes, in other states, no.)

2) Once you get there, do you have to vote or caucus in the party that you are already registered in, or can you chose at the last second?

3) If you are not registered, or if (as in some cases can happen) you are “registered as an independent”, are you excluded from participating in a particular party’s contest, or not?

4) Is your primary or caucus also the day on which actual constitutional candidates or issues are on a ballot — the official government run ballot, not the party ballot — or is this just a party thing? (Some states often do this, some states never do this, and it affects who shows up.)

4) How does “open” vs. “closed” (able or not able to switch at the moment of the primary) relate to “primary” vs. “caucus” in your state?

We often see it remarked that Sanders does better in caucus states, or in open states, etc. etc. This might be partly true, but given that the following kinds of contests theoretically exist, it is a great oversimplification.

  • Registered, same building, open system, primary
  • Not Registered, same building, open system, primary
  • Registered, different building, open system, primary
  • Not Registered different building, open system, primary
  • Registered, same building, closed system, primary
  • Not Registered, same building, closed system, primary
  • Registered, different building, closed system, primary
  • Not Registered different building, closed system, primary
  • Registered, same building, open system, true caucus
  • Not Registered, same building, open system, true caucus
  • Registered, different building, open system, true caucus
  • Not Registered different building, open system, true caucus
  • Registered, same building, closed system, true caucus
  • Not Registered, same building, closed system, true caucus
  • Registered, different building, closed system, true caucus
  • Not Registered different building, closed system, true caucus
  • Registered, same building, open system, preference ballot within caucus
  • Not Registered, same building, open system, preference ballot within caucus
  • Registered, different building, open system, preference ballot within caucus
  • Not Registered different building, open system, preference ballot within caucus
  • Registered, same building, closed system, preference ballot within caucus
  • Not Registered, same building, closed system, preference ballot within caucus
  • Registered, different building, closed system, preference ballot within caucus
  • Not Registered different building, closed system, preference ballot within caucus
  • I quickly add that not all these combinations exist, but many do, and even this accounting does not fully reflect all of the actual variation. For example, the exact ways that state-wide pledged delegates are allocated also varies across states, and that variation adds even more complexity. And, two different states may have different ways of allocating delegates, but whether or not the campaigns engage in these methods varies from year to year. For example, in Nevada this year, the Sanders campaign engaged in a ground game to capture more support after the caucus system passed through its first phase, but in Minnesota, as far as I know, neither campaign bothered. That was probably not a strategic difference, but rather, a reaction to the fact that allocation works ever so slightly differently in each of these two caucus states.

    There is a reason that political experts like Rachel Maddow have highly specialized lawyers to give overviews of this sort of thing when they want to try to get it right!

    Then there is the issue of pledged vs. unpledged delegates.

    The following commonly held beliefs are incorrect about this issue.

    1) “Superdelegates” exist only in the Democratic party. Not true.

    2) “Superdelegates” declare which candidate they will vote for prior to the convention, and thus, can be counted as part of that candidate’s vote total. Not true.

    3) “Superdelegates” are members of the party elite who are not responsible to the citizens or voters. Not true.

    4) “Superdelegates” destroy democracy and ruin everything for everybody. Not true. Maybe a little true.

    5) There is no reason to have “Superdelegates” other than for the party elite to control the outcome of a primary. Mostly not true.

    Superdelegates (an unofficial term for unpledged delegates) exist because of the 1968 and 1972 Democratic Party Conventions. In 1968 all hell broke loose, and one of the problems was the perception that the nomination was mainly the product of back room politics. So a fully democratic process was deployed for 1972. But in that years, the Republicans played dirty tricks (remember Watergate?) on the Democrats and messed up the process. So, it was decided that a certain number of delegates should be responsible and involved individuals who were held accountable by the fact that they were elected to their jobs (either as constitutional officers or party officers) or otherwise potentially held in esteem or contempt based on their behavior, and that these delegates would not be pledged as part of the primary and caucus process. They would be the control rods available to fix things when things broke because of murder, dirty tricks, scandal, or any unforeseen event.

    Superdelegates do not pledge for a candidate, but they are people, and more to the point, they are politicians. And Americans with First Amendment rights. So, it is easy to understand how many would want to endorse a particular candidate for the party’s nomination, and one could argue that there is no reason to stop them from doing it, and there is no legal way to stop them. Having said that, many Superdelegates choose to not endorse, because they feel, as many do, that their role as the adult in the room when things go sideways is compromised by any such endorsement.

    The point is, when the process eventually moves to the convention, we should expect Superdelegates to do the right thing, but we can’t expect that everybody’s version of the right thing is the same. Should a Superdelegate vote in favor of the candidate that won their state? (Not all Superdelegates represent states, some are at large, but this would work for many.) Should a Superdelegate vote in favor on the candidate that is ahead nationally, regardless of how that candidate did in that delegate’s state? If Candidate A is ahead but was recently photographed sitting in a hot tub full of fruit jello with the Primier of North Korea and recorded making a deal for nuclear weapons, perhaps a Superdelegate may decide to switch allegiance to Candidate B. If a candidate does so much better during the last half of the primary process than the other candidate, does this indicate that this candidate is the people’s choice, even if the people who voted during the first half of the election aren’t really being asked? What if national polling indicates that everybody in the party has shifted preference from the winning candidate to the candidate that is behind, for some reason or another? Would these conditions mean that the right thing to do is to support the second (or third) place candidate?

    And, when it is all said and done, and a given Superdelegate has made a decision that is at odds with the constituency of the home state or district for that delegate, will people remember that it is their job in our great democracy to exact vengeance and hold that delegate’s fee to the fire next chance they get?

    OK, now back to Sanders’ strategy and the numbers. One of the things we hear today is how Hillary Clinton lost and Barack Obama won in 2008, even though it was assumed that Clinton would win. Also, at some point, Clinton threw in the towel and urged support for Obama. This year, it looks like Clinton is going to win the nomination, and Sanders is not, so at what point does Sanders support Clinton?

    What Sanders should do, of course, is to keep his campaign running fully until the convention, though he could bow out sooner if he chooses. If, for example, he comes in second in New York and, especially, if Clinton picks up a lot of delegates there, one could not fault Sanders for shifting his support from himself to his opponent. At the same time, one can not fault him for choosing to not do that.

    It has been suggested, vaguely by the Sanders campaign and interpreted by the press, that Sanders’ strategy at this point is shifting from winning the pledged delegate count to getting the Superdelegates to support him, thus giving him a win on the first ballot at the Convention. Short of this, he could get a sufficiently large subset of the Superdelegates to support him, forcing Clinton to not win on the first ballot.

    After the first ballot, the pledged delegates are more or less free to vote for whom they want (though it may not be that simple and can vary by state, and there are rules that don’t exist yet pertaining to this). So if, for example, it is true (though there is no credible evidence of this) that Democrats across the nation have shifted their preference towards Sanders, even if they voted or caucused previously for Clinton, then Sanders might do well on the second ballot.

    So now we come to some interesting numbers.

    Each primary season is different, in terms of ordering of states, total delegates, total needed to secure a nomination, etc. etc. I looked at the Obama-Clinton race and found the moment where the total number of pledged delegates fought over was roughly at the point we are now in the Clinton-Sanders race. At that point in time, Obama had 1159 pledged delegates, and Clinton had 1059 pledged delegates, for a spread of 100 delegates.

    At this point in the process, measured as stated, this year, Clinton has 1255 delegates and Sanders has 1012 delegates, for a spread of 243.

    (These numbers are no perfectly matched because there is no way to do that for obvious reasons.)

    Putting this another way, at this point in the process, Hillary Clinton is significantly more ahead of Bernie Sanders than Barack Obama was ahead of Hillary Clinton eight years ago.

    I hasten to remind you that these numbers do not include the unpledged Superdelegates.

    There are two reasons these numbers are important. First, this spread is large enough to argue against Superdelegates going into the convention with a shifted alliance towards Sanders in order to act as a control rod on a very close and dynamic race. That argument could weaken if Sanders does exceedingly well in New York, of course. The second reason is that the number of Superdelegates that would have to be convinced to make this move would be very large, probably beyond what is possible.

    Something important, something troubling, and something dangerous

    The important thing first.

    I predicted who would win the Wisconsin primary, although my prediction suggested that Sanders would do better than he did. (He underperformed.) I predicted the outcome of the Wyoming primary exactly.

    These are the most recent two in a long series of mostly correct predictions of which Democratic candidate will win each of the contests in this long presidential primary season. My predictions of which candidate would win have been mostly accurate, but also, fairly accurate with respect to how many delegates each candidate would pick up.

    Several primaries back, for several primaries in a row, Sanders did somewhat better than my predictions suggested, indicating that the model I was using to make these predictions possibly underestimated that candidate’s long term performance. However, that stopped happening, and Sanders went back to performing pretty much as I expected him to perform, or not as well.

    This verifies the fact that Hillary Clinton will finish this presidential primary season in the lead. Yes of course, one never knows. But at some point one has to presume, even if there is a small chance that a numerically nearly impossible outcome will emerge. And, if this turns out to be wrong, since I am tracking every delegate, I’ll be among the first to know and acknowledge, and shift strategy as needed. But at the moment I feel very comfortable working with the assumption that the primary season will end with Clinton having about 2,000 pledged delegates, and Sanders having between 1700 and 1800 pledged delegates.

    If the unpledged delegates simply track this outcome, this will give Clinton the nomination on the first ballot.

    I have been using a similar model for making these predictions all along, but refining the model (how it works) and adding data (with each contest’s outcome). I have tried several times to develop a version of the model that would put the consistently second place candidate, Sanders, at an advantage, biasing the model with assumptions about a possible improved performance. Not once did that alternative version of my predictive model put Sanders in the lead at the end of the primary season, though he got close once.

    Simply put, barring an unlikely surprise, Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2016. That is the important thing.

    Now the troubling thing.

    From the start of this primary season, I was happy with either candidate, and vowed to support whichever candidate is nominated. Most sane people intend to support the winner, because the alternative is rather horrible. Most people did pick a candidate earlier in the process, but I refused to. Of course, every time I questioned a criticism of Clinton, some Sanders supporters “accused” me (as though that was a legitimate accusation of wrong doing) of supporting Clinton. When I would critique a criticism of Sanders, the reverse would generally happen. Many people were simply not allowing me to be supportive of both. Also, I wasn’t undecided. I had decided that both were excellent candidates, in their own ways.

    But it goes beyond that. During this primary season, I’ve witnessed, again and again, people who had previously shown signs of high level functioning and impressive intelligence saying many utterly stupid things. I’ve closely monitored and been involved in many presidential elections, and I note that this often happens to some degree, but this year, this has been happening wholesale and to an extreme. I will not give you examples. If you are a reasonable person who has been paying attention, you don’t need me to give you examples because you know exactly what I am talking about. If you are one of the folks who has been quick to make utterly illogical or fact free arguments about every aspect of this race, often reaching far into the land of conspiracy theory, then you don’t know what I’m talking about but you will sense, somehow, that this paragraph is deeply insulting to you. Feel free to make defensive comments below. I will ignore them. And, I have nothing else to say about this. This departure from reason is, of course, the troubling thing.

    The dangerous thing overlaps with the troubling thing.

    Weeks ago it started to look like a small number of supporters of Bernie Sanders, in the event that Hillary Clinton was nominated, were going to either write in Sanders, vote for Trump or Cruz, or not vote at all. This did not surprise me, because a good number of the Sanders supporters where I live, in the shadow of Michele Bachmann’s congressional district, are fairly right wing. This may not make sense if you see Sanders as a progressive, very left candidate (which he is) but have a non-nuanced view of politics, but it is both true and understandable. The same thing happened with the Paul mini-Dynasty. I will not spend any time here outlining how this happens.

    Over time, however, this “small percentage” has grown, and polling indicates that something close to 20% of declared Sanders supporters are what has become known as “Bernie or Busters” of various political stripes, but all holding the same dangerous view. These folks will not support anyone but Sanders, or will turn on the Democratic party if Sanders is not nominated.

    Parallel to this phenomenon we see myriad other destructive practices by Sanders supporters, and by destructive I mean destructive to the political process and to the Democratic candidacy. Given that Clinton is going to get the nomination, it is a significant problem that so many Sander supporters are trying so hard to damage her.

    These trends, of “Bernie or Busters” or of taking Clinton as seemingly equivalent to Satan, are a problem not only because of their immediate effects, but because the Sanders campaign accepts and exploits these activities and attitudes. It is no longer possible to point to the two or three times that Bernie Sanders scolded someone for this attitude and claim he is taking care of this, and it is no longer possible to give the Sanders campaign the benefit of doubt, suggesting that they just don’t know about what is going on. Campaigns know these things. Sanders knows about these things.

    To this we add the clearly emerging pattern of the Clinton campaign working down ballot, to elect a blue, or at least, bluer Congress (and to help Democrats in other ways), while Sanders does very little in this area (he has done some things, but not much). Sanders’ strategy of having the masses show up in DC to shame the GOP Congress into not being nefarious haters was never going to work. Clinton’s strategy, and the strategy of the rest of the Democratic Party, to take back Congress, can work if we follow through. The numbers show that we actually could do it this year, if we don’t throw away the opportunity. Sanders appears to be throwing away the opportunity, Clinton is not.

    So that’s the dangerous part. We need to approach the general election with a candidate and supporters who are going to do what is needed. The Sanders campaign has become a danger.

    Several days ago I posted this on my Facebook page:
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    Among the reactions to this meme were assertions that somehow it is wrong for candidates to help each other (see comments above about taking back Congress .. Franken’s election is exactly how the Democrats retook the Senate for a couple of years). Among the reactions was a call to find someone to primary Franken. These are insane reactions. These are the reactions of deluded cultists, not political activists.

    And, these reactions were among the small number of final straws that had fallen upon this particular camel’s back. I decided to take a break from the Facebook conversation about this election for a few days, and I blacked out my profile pics, without comment, as a form of protest. To underscore the protest, I began posting nothing but cat pictures. A handful of my Facebook friends understood and commiserated. A good number of Sanders supporters seemed to quiet down (except one or two), probably realizing that I was fed up.

    And now, I’m back. But guess what. I’m not going to argue about Sanders, or Sanders vs. Clinton. The Sanders campaign is done. If this had all gone somewhat differently, I’d still be talking about Sanders, points he’s making, interesting things about his campaign, but the cost of doing that is too high. The Sanders campaign, owing mainly to the personality cultists and the Bernie or Busters, which are probably in total about a third of his supporters, have ruined the campaign, and made it not worth talking about. The Sander campaign, sadly, has become less interesting, more annoying, and just as predictable, as a bunch of cat pictures.

    980xThis is not to say that Sanders contribution has not been great. It has been very significant, and this souring of his campaign detracts from that only modestly. But that part is done. We’ve heard Bernie, we’ve listened, he’s influenced the process.

    But from hear on out, if you are a Bernie supporter, talk to the paw.

    Climate Science in the K-12 Classroom

    Calling U.S. K-12 Science Education Professionals!

    GHF Online science instructor Madeline Goodwin is doing her Master’s thesis research on climate science in the classroom, and she needs your help! She is doing a survey of science education professionals to find the answer to the following question:

    What are the most important climate science concepts for students to ProfessionalPictureunderstand by the time they graduate high school?

    If you are a K-12 science education professional in the United States, Madeline invites you to take her survey.

    CLICK HERE

    New climate study is frenemy of climate science driven policy

    There is a new study out in Nature that is liable to be misinterpreted, or that may be flawed in a way that lends itself to misuse, in the context of climate science driven policy.

    The study is “Northern Hemisphere hydroclimate variability over the past twelve centuries” by Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Paul J. Krusic, Hanna S. Sundqvist, Eduardo Zorita, Gudrun Brattström & David Frank

    I’ll make just a few comments here, but mainly, I want to point you to comments by climate scientist Michael Mann (author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines and Dire Predictions, 2nd Edition: Understanding Climate Change).

    The main question related to policy is this. Do warmer conditions such as we are experiencing now as a result of human greenhouse gas pollution change the hydrology of the planet? The answer, based on various research projects, is yes. Two main things seem to pertain. First, there is more moisture in the air owing to the air being warmer and sea surface temperatures being higher. More moisture holding capacity and more evaporation (movement of water into the air as vapor) result in this effect. At the same time, changes in weather patterns can clump a good amount of this moisture up, so even a modest amount of increase in atmospheric moisture can (and does) result in major precipitation events, causing flooding and other untoward events. This clumping can also serve to deprive some areas of moisture for extended periods of time, and major droughts such as in the Middle East and California are attributed at least in part to this effect.

    The study seems to show that this is not likely. The study looks at paleo data over thousands of years, testing and extending a model to apply to present and future climates. The result seems to show that the more extreme changes in hydrology, either wetter or dryer, are not likely. However, Mann makes the point that the kind of data used in this study, such as tree rings, do not reliably show extreme events. In other words, extreme events in the past likely happened without leaving much of a signal.

    Mann’s comments are in a facebook post partly reproduced here:

    …The study represents a laudable effort to document past changes in extreme rainfall and drought using paleoclimate proxy data, but there are some shortcoming with the study, and especially with the way it is being billed by some of the study’s authors and certain organizations.

    A press release from the international paleoclimate organization ?#?PAGES? is accompanied by the rather bold headline “Climate models overestimate twentieth century wet and dry climate extremes”. The lead author Fredrik Ljungqvist is quoted in the press release stating that the discrepancy between the smaller hydroclimatic variations shown by their paleoclimate proxy reconstruction and the greater variations shown by climate models imply that “Climate models strongly overestimate the intensification of wet and dry extremes in the twentieth century”.

    Does this study in fact meet the burden of establishing that models are overestimating extremes in rainfall and drought?

    Almost certainly *not*.

    The discrepancy could arise, of course, from the opposite problem: that the paleoclimate proxy data are *underestimating* hydroclimatic extremes. In my view, that is a far more likely explanation.

    Our own extensive work analyzing paleoclimate proxy data has shown has demonstrated they are not well suited for reconstructing past climate *extremes*. Tree rings and many other chemical and biological climate proxy records, by their nature, tend not to record very large short-term fluctuations, and for this reason they are likely to show muted extremes, i.e. less extreme variation than actually exists in the climate record. We published several articles demonstrating this problem over the past several years:

  • Schurer, A., Hegerl, G., Mann, M.E., Tett, S.F.B., Separating forced from chaotic climate variability over the past millennium, J. Climate, 26, 6954-6973, 2013.
  • Mann, M.E., Rutherford, S., Schurer, A., Tett, S.F.B.,Fuentes, J.D., Discrepancies between the modeled and proxy-reconstructed response to volcanic forcing over the past millennium: Implications and possible mechanisms, J. Geophys. Res. 118, 7617-7627, doi:10.1002/jgrd.50609, 2013.
  • Mann, M.E., Fuentes, J.D., Rutherford, S., Underestimation of Volcanic Cooling in Tree-Ring Based Reconstructions of Hemispheric Temperatures, Nature Geoscience, 5, 202-205, 2012.
  • (all available here)

    So, in conclusion, it would be rather dangerous to extrapolate from this one potentially flawed new paleoclimate study any sweeping conclusions about climate models and human-caused climate change. Such over-interpretations of paleoclimate data poorly serve the critical public discourse over the impacts of climate change, and can in fact do harm to the paleoclimate discipline by publicizing bold but unsubstantiated claims that are very likely to be refuted by further work.

    Who won the Wisconsin Democratic Primary? (Final)

    I’ll post the results when they are available, after 8 or 9 PM central, below.

    Meanwhile, as of 6PM Central time, early info from Wisconsin suggests that Sanders will do very well in today’s primary.

    The good news for Sanders: My prediction of 55 delegates for Sanders and 31 delegates for Clinton appears to be on track.

    Bad news for Sanders: The same model that predicts that still says 2096 committed delegates for Clinton and 1747 for Sanders by the end of the primary season.

    The Wyoming primary, this Saturday, should be about even for the two candidates.

    In the New York primary, which is in about eighteen years from now (counted in Primary years) (April 19th), is predicted to go for Clinton over Sanders (150:97) with Clinton taking 188 of the delegates from today through the 19th, and Sanders taking 159.


    Final results:

    With 100% reporting, Sanders will clearly win the Wisconsin Primary. He will likely get about 56.5% of the vote, to Clinton’s 43.2%.

    Media reports this as Sanders taking 47 delegates and Clinton taking 36 delegates, of the available 86 delegates.

    (Pause for the arithmetically inclined to key in.)

    Often the number of delegates assigned by the press, from whatever sources they use, are preliminary and will be changed later. I’ve found that calculating the ultimate number of delegates for proportionate representation by using my own math works better. So, given proportionate distribution of 86 committed delegates, this would translate into something close to 49 delegates for Sanders, and 37 for Clinton.

    This is quite a bit off my prediction. I predicted Sanders would win, but by more than this. Moreover, my predictions for Sanders in states he’s won in have tended to underestimate his performance. So, this looks like a very weak win for Sanders at a time when he needed a bigger win.

    On the other hand, it is only one race, so it does not mean much.

    On the third hand, Sanders outspent Clinton by something like 3:1 (I’ve heard, subject to correction if you’ve got one), so that makes the win less impressive again.

    Need a new shaving brush?

    I just got my new Semogue 1305 Superior Boar Bristle Shaving Brush. It is the one on the left.

    I like it. I prefer boar because I don’t want to kill badgers and because the bristles are stiff and it basically works better.

    I got the old one decades ago, and it was decades old when I got it. I should note that I wasn’t actually using it (much) when there were so few bristles. That is what it looked like after I ran it through the dishwasher to see how clean it could get. I think a few bristles fell out.

    Anyway, I shopped around, picked the Semogue 1305 Superior Boar Bristle Shaving Brush, and I like it, so now, if you are looking for one, you don’t have to do as much research. You’re welcome.