Saturday, August 21, 1824. Lafayette goes to New Haven.

Lafayette, on his US tour, arrived in New Haven, Connecticut.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 18, 1824. The Mexican General Colonization Law.

Labels: 1820s, 1824, Immigration, law, Mexico, Taxes

Tuesday, August 16, 1774. No to the British judiciary.

Hundreds of residents of Massachusetts and Connecticut occupied the Great Barrington courthouse to prevent British appointed judges from sitting in the first organized resistance to British judicial rule in Colonial North America.

Last edition:

Sunday, August 14, 1774. Lewis and Tories.

Labels: 1770s, 1774, American Revolution, Colonial North America, Corps of Discovery

Wednesday, August 3, 1774. Connecticut chooses its delegates to the First Continental Congress.

Connecticut chose its delegates to the First Continental Congress.  They were; Roger Sherman, a lawyer from New Milford; Eliphalet Dyer, a lawyer from Windham; and Silas Deane, a merchant from Wethersfield.

Last edition:

Sunday, July 31, 1774. Pugachev's decree

Labels: 1770s, 1774, Catherine the Great, Monarchy, Pugachev's Rebellion, Russia, Slavery

Thursday, July 6, 1944. Advances on Eastern Front, Halted on Western Front, Tragedy in Connecticut, Racism at Camp Hood.

Admiral Horthy ordered a halt to the deportation of Hungarian Jews, clearly seeing which way the war was going.  Hungary had not supported this policy initially, but upon being invaded by the Germans early in 1944 Jewish deportation commenced.

The Red Army took Kovel and Svir.

The Polish 3d Division took Osemo, Italy.

The U.S. Army took Namber airfield on Numfoor.

Allied progress was generally halted in Normandy.

De Gaulle arrived in Washington for talks on his administration and forces. Bretton Woods, of course, the boozy conference on post-war economics, was rolling on at the same time.

The tragic Hartford Circus Fire resulted in 167 deaths and 700 injuries in Hartford, Connecticut.  Up to 7,000 people when the tent caught fire, with the cause never being determined.

U. S. Army Lieutenant Jackie Robinson, stationed at Camp Hood, Texas, was instructed to move to a seat farther back in the back of an Army bus and refused, resulting in his court-martialed.  Army buses were not segregated.

Robinson had originally been an enlisted cavalryman who had been sent to OCS, and was now a cavalry officer serving in an armor unit.  His commander, Paul L. Bates, refused to authorize the prosecution whereupon he was transferred to another unit and then charged with multiple offenses, including public drunkenness even though Robinson did not drink.  He was tried in August 1944, and acquitted.

The delay caused by the trial prevented him from going overseas with his unit.  He was transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, and served as an army athletics coach before being discharged in November 1944.

Council of war, Saipan, July 6, 1944.

Last edition:

Wednesday July 5, 1944. Third Army in Normandy.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of the Atlantic, boats and ships, Canadian Army, George S. Patton, German Kriegsmarine, Operation Overlord, Operation Windsor, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Thursday, March 17, 1774The Lyme Tea Party

Boston 1775: The Lyme Tea Party: Yesterday I suggested that when young people in Lyme, Connecticut , celebrated Independence Day in 1805 by toasting “The Tea Party,” they d...

 

Sunday, January 4, 1942. Construction

 

 "Bantam, Connecticut. War workers' homes. The war has brought approximately a thirty-three percent increase in housing facilities in Bantam--an eighty-unit federally financed housing project about five minutes from the Warren McArthur factory."

Wyoming, North Carolina, Utah, Nebraska, and Missouri push the 18th Amendment over the top.

On this day in 1919, Wyoming, in combination with North Carolina, Utah, Nebraska and Missouri ratified the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution.  These legislative acts secured a sufficient number of votes to make the 18th Amendment the law. The Senate had passed the original proposal on August 1, 1917 and the House a revised variant on December 17, 1917.  The various states passed it in the following order:

1. Mississippi (January 7, 1918)
2. Virginia (January 11, 1918)
3. Kentucky (January 14, 1918)
4. North Dakota (January 25, 1918)
5. South Carolina (January 29, 1918)
6. Maryland (February 13, 1918)
7. Montana (February 19, 1918)
8. Texas (March 4, 1918)
9. Delaware (March 18, 1918)
10. South Dakota (March 20, 1918)
11. Massachusetts (April 2, 1918)
12. Arizona (May 24, 1918)
13. Georgia (June 26, 1918)
14. Louisiana (August 3, 1918)
15. Florida (November 27, 1918)
16. Michigan (January 2, 1919)
17. Ohio (January 7, 1919)
18. Oklahoma (January 7, 1919)
19. Idaho (January 8, 1919)
20. Maine (January 8, 1919)
21. West Virginia (January 9, 1919)
22. California (January 13, 1919)
23. Tennessee (January 13, 1919)
24. Washington (January 13, 1919)
25. Arkansas (January 14, 1919)
26. Illinois (January 14, 1919)
27. Indiana (January 14, 1919)
28. Kansas (January 14, 1919)
29. Alabama (January 15, 1919)
30. Colorado (January 15, 1919)
31. Iowa (January 15, 1919)
32. New Hampshire (January 15, 1919)
33. Oregon (January 15, 1919)
34. North Carolina (January 16, 1919)
35. Utah (January 16, 1919)
36. Nebraska (January 16, 1919)
37. Missouri (January 16, 1919)
38. Wyoming (January 16, 1919)
39. Minnesota (January 17, 1919)
40. Wisconsin (January 17, 1919)
41. New Mexico (January 20, 1919)
42. Nevada (January 21, 1919)
43. New York (January 29, 1919)
44. Vermont (January 29, 1919)
45. Pennsylvania (February 25, 1919)
46. New Jersey (March 9, 1922)

Connecticut and Rhode Island told Congress to pound dry sand and didn't ratify the amendment, not that that matter in context.  There were, of course, only 48 states at the time.

The 18th Amendment provided:

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

While the intent of the Amendment was clear; "bone dry prohibition", it didn't actually provide any definitions and so it required legislation to make it effective, which was quick in coming. 

As this list should indicate, Prohibition was actually massively popular in the United States including the Western United States.  Only two states refused to ratify the proposed amendment.  I'm not sure what the situation was in Connecticut, but Rhode Island was heavily Catholic with a large Italian demographic and likely found the proposal abhorrent for that reason.  Still, it's somewhat telling that Wyoming's ratification came with a slate of late Western states that voted for it.  Still, the entire process really only took one year once Congress had passed it.

Everyone is well aware of how the history of Prohibition worked and its generally regarded as a failure.  Like most popular history, it's become mythologized, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself as myths are the means by which humans originally remembered their history.  However, like other instances in which an event quickly turned into an unacceptable defeat, the myth isn't completely accurate.  The popular myth is that Prohibition was unpopular from the start and is a failed example of legislating morality.  While it may be an example of such a failure, it very clearly wasn't unpopular at first and in fact the opposite was very much the case.  Indeed, as late as the election of 1922 it remained so popular in Wyoming that William B. Ross, the Democrat who ran for office, ran on a platform of more strictly enforcing its provisions.

So a person might reasonably ask what happened to cause it to so rapidly fail and to be so inaccurately remembered.  Quite a few things really.

For one thing, the final push to pass Prohibition came in the context of World War One.  While momentum to pass it had been building for well over a decade, the war caused an enormous fear that American youth would be exposed to the corrupting influences of European culture.  If that seems really odd, and it is, we have to keep in mind that American culture in the 1910s remained predominantly Protestant in outlook (and indeed it still is).  English speaking Protestants took a distinctively different view of drink in this period than their Catholic fellows, in part because their history with it was considerably different.  While early Protestants had not been opposed to drink at all, this had evolved and by this point there was a strong anti drinking culture in the English speaking world.  People feared that progress on the anti drinking front would be lost when young Americans were exposed to French wine and, frankly, French women.

But for the most part the cultural impact on Americans, who were not in the war long, was much less than it would be for later wars, even where they fought overseas.  So this fear did not really last that long.  The short but deep depression that followed the war, moreover, reminded people that alcohol was an agricultural byproduct, and like a lot of things that impact a person's wallet, that had an influence.  The lid coming off of the culture in the 1920s had an additional big impact on things as the 1920s started to Roar and Prohibition became fashionable to flaunt.  That in turn inspired criminal activity that became a major problem.  By the early 1930s Americans had substantially changed their minds as a second depression, the Great Depression, again depressed the agricultural sector along with every other.  So, after a short stint, Prohibition went from massively popular to substantially unpopular, and the 18th Amendment was repealed.

The 102nd Infantry Regiment, United States Army (Connecticut National Guard). September 10, 1917.

Officers

Headquarters Company.

Supply Company

 Company A

Company B

Company C

Company D.

Company E

Company FConnecticut

 Company H

Company I

Company K

Company M

Mid Week At Work: Children Processing Tobacco. August 9, 1917. Hazardville, Connecticut

Girls working tobacco at age 8, 9 and 10.

Boys working tobacco, ages 9 and 11.

Child Labor on Connecticut Tobacco Farms, August 6, 1917.

We posted a similar series of these Hines photographs depicting child labor in Connecticut tobacco fields just the other day.  If anything, these photographs  seem to show a younger group of farm laborers at work.

 This depicts a "second picking" of Connecticut tobacco.

While Hines was attempting to document child and teenage labor in an effort to address its abuses, scenes like this were not uncommon in American agriculture at the time.  They would not have come to a surprise as the residents of Connecticut or anywhere in the East at the time.

 Girls "stringing" tobacco.

 Age 10.

Mid Week At Work: Tobacco; Child and Teenage Labor, August 2, 1917

Three boys, one of 13 years old and two of 14, picking shade-grown tobacco on Hackett farm, Buckland, Connecticut.

We don't think of Connecticut as "tobacco country" anymore, but it, as well as Maryland, once were.

Indeed, they still are, to those in the know.  Connecticut Shade Tobacco is used for premium cigar wrappers.  It is now, and it was also in 1917.

 Teenage labor on "second picking"

It's a quite crop.  Those who grow it, and its little changed in how its grown in harvested over the past two centuries, tend to keep it quite.  Tobacco growing isn't the "down on the farm" type of crop that engenders a romantic vision.

Twelve year old girl "passing" leaves to stringers, tobacco-shed, Buckland, Connecticut 

Of course, we also don't associate child labor, or teenage labor, with tobacco either. But that was also once common. 

Child and teenage labor, Tobacco shed, Vernon, Connecticut.

Child and teenage tobacco workers.  $1.25 per day.  Connecticut.

Child labor, and some teenage.  Ages 9 to 15.  Connecticut.

Growing the crop hasn't changed much over the past century.  But harvesting it through child labor has.

Tracking the Presidential Election, 2016, Part II

I started this thread at the commencement of the 2016 Election Season:

Tracking the Presidential Election, 2016

The focus of this blog, at least theoretically, is on events of a century ago.  Indeed, the event that really motivated the concept of a novel and hence this support blog occurred 100 years ago, and is coming right up.  So we should be looking at the 1916 Presidential election.

That election, as the readers here well know, featured Woodrow Wilson in a contest against Charles E. Hughes. Wilson, of course, campaigning on "He kept us out of war" won.

President Woodrow Wilson.

Charles E. Hughes.  Maybe the beard, in the post bearded era, did in his chances.

I can't compare that election to the current one, as it was nothing like it.  I can compare, and often have, President Obama with President Wilson (without Wilson's racism, however) as in my view they're both guilty of confusing talk with action.

When I did that it was my intent to run that thread all the way through to the end of the campaign.

It's proven to be impossible, however, as the thread has grown impossibly large, and now when I update it the effect is to wipe out all of the other posts on the first page of the blog.  It's basically threatening to suck the life out of the blog, the same way this election is sucking the life out of the country, or so it seems.

So, I've decided to stop trying to update one single entry and start a part two.  There may be more parts later on, depending upon how things go.  There probably will be.

And this is a good point at which to do this, as the race really seems to have turned a corner recently.  It isn't the same race that the pundits were declaring inevitable results for just a couple of weeks ago, although it should be noted that we never did that here.

So, here's part two.

First, the tell of the tape as of today, following the Wisconsin victory for Cruz and Sanders, and the Colorado victory for Sanders.

Democrats (needed to win 2,383)

Clinton:  1,740, or 1,739 (469 Superdelegates)

Sanders:  1055 or 1070 (31 Superdelegates).

Martin O'Malley:  1 (now out)

Republicans (needed to win, 1,237)

Donald Trump:  737 or 753 (1 of which is an unpledged delegate)

Ted Cruz: 505 or 478 (12 of which are unpledged).

Marco Rubio: 171 or 173  (now out)
John Kasich: 143 or 144

Ben Carson: 8  (now out)

Jeb Bush: 4  (now out).

Carly Fiorina:  1 (now out)

Ron Paul:  1 (now out).

Commentary. 

First let us note that the Trump tallies have gone down, that's right, down, since the last tally.

And Marco Rubio's have gone up.  Yes, up, even though he's out.

This race is far from over.

Now, I've been saying that all along, in spite of the press treatment of this race as being over and Trump and Clinton as being the nominees.  They aren't the nominees yet.

And there's more than a fair chance they won't be.

Indeed the pundits have now stated that the race is up in the air.  Last weekend one of them actually blew up at the assertion that Sanders couldn't win the Democratic nomination and that Trump had won the Republican nomination.  And there's suddenly a lot of discussion of the convention rules and what they mean, or the fact that there really aren't any rules.

A lot of things have gone into this, including a sharper focus in the GOP race on the various positions and statements of the candidates. And in spite of the assertions to the contrary, Kasich remaining in the race appears to be hurting Trump but not helping Cruz.  On the Democratic side discontent with Clinton and a surprisingly broad appeal for Sanders is making it far from certain that Clinton will gain enough delegates to prevent a contested convention.

And, as one of the pundits this past weekend finally admitted, there really is no prior convention or even election that provides a useful guild, as up until recently the conventions weren't dominated by primary elections, but by state conventions. So, we may be back, oddly enough, to the old free form convention of old.  Indeed, I suspect we are.

So, given that, my prediction right now is that neither the GOP or the Democrats enter conventions with the result of the race determined.

And if that occurs, on the GOP side Trump will not be the nominee.  He lacks a majority of the delegates now, and that may still be the case by the convention.  And, if he has a plurality, it will not matter.  I'd give Cruz less than a 50% chance of being the nominee as well.  Kasich, maybe, but more likely than that a candidate not currently running.

And while I think it more likely that Clinton take the nomination in a contested convention, I don't think its a guaranteed result by any means.  Sanders still stands a chance, as does a candidate not running at the present time, including Biden.  Sanders is actually within striking distance of Clinton on pledged delegates, and if his tally exceeds that of Clinton's the Superdelegates may truly being to fall apart for Clinton. At least some will defect, or being to look for a compromise candidate.

For the first time in a very long time, it's actually possible that the candidates in the fall might not be those who ran prior to the conventions.

First Commentary Followup

The real nature of the national contests this year is showing up in a surprising way locally. Wyoming is actually getting a lot of attention from the various campaigns, save for the Kasich campaign, which might tell us something about it.  

The Democrats hold their county conventions this Saturday.  The vote at the county level will determine the elected delegates.  The Superdelegates have already pledged for Clinton in spite of the strong state wide general dislike of Clinton.  

Demonstrating how tight this race really is, at the local and national level, both campaigns have sent representatives of surprising nature here recently.  Earlier this week Jane Sanders spoke in Casper.  On the same day, Bernie Sanders spoke in Laramie.  The choice of Laramie, Wyoming's most liberal town (omitted Jackson, whose demographics don't reflect the state very well) was a wise one showing some knowledge of demographics in the state on the part of somebody.

And Sanders has been running television ads. These may be the first Democratic pre convention ads to be ever run in the state.

The Clinton's sent Bill Clinton to Cheyenne.  In Cheyenne he gave a speech where he mentioned the plight of coal.  That shows that they're paying attention to what is going on in the state, but it's also the sort of thing that is fueling the sort of cynicism that is drawing in a lot of people to Trump and Sanders this year.  I doubt very much that anyone here thinks the Clinton's really feel that coal has a long term future in the national energy picture.  Sanders is opposed to fracking, which is part of his national plank, which will mean than in a general election he'll be a flop here, amongst other reasons, but at least he's honest about it.

The Republican state convention is on April 12.  The GOP system is odd as the county conventions have already been held and chose delegates, with nine out of twelve going for Cruz.  The remainder of the twenty-nine total will be chosen at the state convention.

Cruz will come and address the convention, again showing how tight the national election is.  The Trump campaign is sending Sarah Palin to address the GOP convention.  Idaho Governor Butch Otter will cross the state lines to address the delegates for Kasich.

On the Kasich campaign, their choice is the oddest and saddest, and they basically haven't mounted a campaign here. Perhaps that's because they felt that they didn't have a chance here, or perhaps they don't have the cash or the base. There were Rubio supporters in Wyoming although Rubio did not show well at the county conventions.  This is all odd as Cruz is vulnerable for his stated views, in Idaho, about public lands.  Public lands in public hands is a huge issue here and the vast majority of Wyomingites are hugely in favor of keeping it that way.  Trump is known to favor keeping the lands in public hands, Cruz actually favors privatizing them.  Kasich's views are unknown, but if his views on this issue mirrored Trump's, Clinton's and Sander's, he'd have an opening I suspect.  A lot of the votes going to Cruz here now are simply going to him as he's not Sanders.  Otherwise I suspect the support isn't deep.  Cruz is definitely running the best, and most politically astute, campaign here on the GOP side.

___________________________________________________________________________________

April 8, 2016

Updated totals following Colorado.

Democrats (needed to win 2,383)

Clinton:  1,767 (469 Superdelegates)

Sanders:  1 110 (31 Superdelegates)

Martin O'Malley:  1 (now out)

Republicans (needed to win, 1,237)

Donald Trump:  743 (1 of which is an unpledged delegate)

Ted Cruz: 520 (12 of which are unpledged).

Marco Rubio: 171 or 173  (now out)
John Kasich: 143 or 144

Ben Carson: 8  (now out)

Jeb Bush: 4  (now out).

Carly Fiorina:  1 (now out)

Ron Paul:  1 (now out).

Commentary

Why is a Clinton victory regarded as inevitable, when she has over 600 delegates left to capture, while a brokered convention in the GOP is regarded as likely when Trump is about 500 delegates away from securing the GOP nomination?

I'm not saying that a Trump victory is inevitable. Rather, I"m saying that a Clinton victory isn't.

April 10, 2016

Yesterday the Wyoming Democratic Caucus was held.  Here's the new table:

Democrats:  Needed to win, 2,383.

Clinton: 1,774 (469 of which are Superdelegates)

Sanders:  1,117 (31 of which are Superdelegates)

Republicans:  Needed to win, 1,237.

Trump:  743 (of which 1 is an unpledged delegates).

Cruz:  532 (of which 12 are unpledged delegates)

Rubio:  171.  Rubio has suspended his campaign.

Kasich:  143.

Carson:  8  Carson has suspended his campaign.

Bush:  4  Carson has suspended his campaign.

Fiorina:  1  Fiorina has dropped out of the race.

Paul:  1  Paul has dropped out of the race.

Commentary

Okay, a couple of comments.

First of all, these tallies are based on those kept by the New York Times.  You can find alternate ones that vary, sometimes quite significantly.  None of the alternate tallies impact who is the front runner, but they truly are different.  The Times is generally a lower tally.

Part of this might be based on the fact that there's actually more doubt in who takes what in terms of delegates than might initially appear to be the case.  So at any one time time, there could be a 20 delegate swing in the top contenders.  Indeed, these tallies tend to change a bit days after an election is supposedly concluded as the actual picking of the delegates commences.

Next, the Wyoming Democratic vote was yesterday.  This vote is very illustrative of a couple of things.  One of them is that Hillary Clinton has a huge likeability problem.  The second one is that Sanders has a very difficult time getting to where he needs to be even "winning" a state.

You'd have expected that a well established candidate link Clinton would have blown the doors off the Sanders campaign bus against Sanders.  Wyoming's basic outlook on things tends towards the Libertarian, and Sanders Socialist world outlook is about as far from the average Wyomingites as can be imagined.  None the less, Sanders took over 50% of the Democratic vote.  A lot of that is simply because people don't like Hillary Clinton.  Even with the endorsement of one of the state's former governors Clinton couldn't take the state in terms of the popular vote.

None the less, in delegate breakdown, she took the same number of elected delegates that Sanders did.  They each took seven. So if its a "victory", it's a Pyrrhic victory.  The real result is a wash.  Neither candidate really pulled ahead.  If Sanders can really pull ahead somehow, the seven delegates he took in Wyoming might matter.  But right now they surely do not.  Moreover, all of the state's superdelegates are presently pledged to Clinton, giving us an example of exactly what Sanders has been saying shouldn't happen. The majority of Wyoming Democrats, barely, might want Sanders, but the majority of the state's delegates, after the superdelegates are considered, are going to Clinton.

How the Democrats got themselves into this mess is interesting, but then both parties are in a mess right now.  The Democrats are set to nominate the most unlikable candidate they've run in a century.  She is so unlikable that she should be easy pickings for the GOP, but for the fact that the GOP seems to be heading towards nominating the least electable candidate of their own since 1964.  The parties, if their front runners win the nomination, will pit two candidates against each other that are hugely unpopular with large segments of the American public.  Perhaps, in an odd way, that wouldn't be a bad result as none of the front runners is likely to have much truck with Congress.  And that would include those in second position.  Cruz is barely more liked by average Americans than Trump.  Sanders is generally liked but his positions on almost everything are not going to be taken seriously by Congress.

For these reasons, oddly, the best hope for both parties are contested conventions resulting in the picking of somebody other than somebody now running.  There's a relatively good chance of that happening with the GOP and a slight chance of that happening with the Democrats.  With the Republicans, basically, if the current trend in the primaries continues that will happen.  With the Democrats, it's unlikely unless the Superdelegates bolt in mass, which perhaps would be the best service they could offer their party at this time.

On one final item, there's now a building movement to draft Gen. James Mattis as a GOP candidate or even as a Third Party candidate.  This hasn't gone far enough yet to regard there being a high likelihood of it happening, but there's definitely talk of it occurring.  The retired Marine Corps general was popular with servicemen who served with him, and he's not a professional politician.  He reportedly has some big money behind a campaign to draft him, although there's no evidence that he's supporting the movement himself.  It's an interesting development that should be watched.

____________________________________________________________________________________
April 17, 2016 

Yesterday Wyoming's Republican convention was held.  Before we consider that here's a new table, even though yesterday's event shouldn't really impact the tallies actually.

Democrats:  Needed to win, 2,383.

Clinton: 1,776 (469 of which are Superdelegates)
Sanders:  1,118 (31 of which are Superdelegates)

Republicans:  Needed to win, 1,237.

Trump:  743 (of which 1 is an unpledged delegates).
Cruz:  545 (of which 16 are unpledged delegates)
Rubio:  171.  Rubio has suspended his campaign.
Kasich:  143.
Carson:  8  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Bush:  4  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Fiorina:  1  Fiorina has dropped out of the race.
Paul:  1  Paul has dropped out of the race.

Now, these numbers are  bit different on both sides.  For one treason or another, both Clinton and Sanders, who have had no races since the last reported on, have had an increase in delegates.  Trump has remained stationary, but Cruz has gone up for some reason, part of that, but only part, due to an increase in unpledged delegates.  So now Sanders trails Clinton's combined total by over 600 delegates while Cruz trails Trump by slightly under 200. With the New York primary coming up, these numbers stand to change a lot, with early predictions being that Trump will add quite a few delegates.  The Democratic side is much more difficult to predict.

The Wyoming GOP convention is a bit of a non event, as odd as that may seem, in some ways as the results were known a long time ago, after the county caucuses.   It is possible for the convention to arrive at another result but it was known it wouldn't.  Perhaps the most surprising thing is that one state official who is a super delegate did indicate that he might go for Kasich at the national convention.  Which points both ti his wisdom on preserving a future run at office and the big GOP problem that's developing locally and nationally.

That Trump wouldn't win here was already known, but frankly Cruz isn't a popular candidate amongst regular people either.  At least one long term GOP voter I know will be voting Democratic this fall, and he's in the class of folks whom, due to the Second Amendment, normally votes GOP.  And he's not the only one, and he's declaring it openly.  That's because public lands are his litmus test.

Cruz, again in the convention yesterday, said the same thing here that he did in Idaho about wanting to transfer the Public Lands "back" to the states. That is a popular idea with the hard right wing of the GOP here, which reflects a split in the party between the old GOP and the Tea Party elements, but it's massively unpopular with sportsmen, whom make up a large percentage of the voting public here.  Indeed, Cruz again state that the Federal government owns only 2% of Texas and Texans feel that's 2% too much, which is exactly what most native Wyomingites feel is wrong about Texas.  We know that Texans have no ability to use their wild areas without paying massive fees and for many Wyomingites, therefore, Texas isn't what we hold dear about the West.  It's going to be very difficult for Wyoming sportsmen this fall, therefore, and not just Wyoming sportsmen but sportsmen from any area of the West, as they'll have to choose between a land grab that would end the West as we know it or a President who will be hostile the Second Amendment.  I strongly suspect in a lot of areas sportsmen will go for Second Amendment restrictions over the loss of the Public Lands.

Which bring us to this.  The strong discontent in the GOP that's causing this race to be one in which either Trump or Cruz stand the best chances of being the nominee is effectively handing this race to the Democrats in the fall.  Neither Cruz nor Trump will beat Hillary Clinton, assuming that she is the nominee, and while a Sanders nomination is unlikely, I strongly doubt that either Trump or Cruz can beat Sanders either.   Indeed, given the common appeal that both Sanders and Trump have to the disaffected, Trump probably has a better chance of winning against Sanders than Cruz does.

All of which is known to the Democrats and to the GOP, which is why the GOP regulars are considering their options for a brokered convention or a third party candidate, if need be.

This isn't as obvious to the local Democrats, who have never really recovered from the Clinton era and therefore are blind to their chances in the fall.  If Wyoming's Democratic Party were able to muster a strong established candidate for our Congressional seat, which so far seems really unlikely, and if they were able to run on economic and public lands issues, without having to accept the Democratic social agenda that's way too far to the left for most Wyoming voters, they'd have a real chance at taking the house seat away from the GOP.  At least one of the GOP candidates seems to know that, as he's quietly backed off of his vote to remove, which became to study, taking the public domain from the Federal Government.

And so we're off to New York on this thread next.

____________________________________________________________________________________

 New York City construction, 1912

April 19, 2016

Yesterday the New York primaries were held.

The lineup this morning:


Democrats:  Needed to win, 2,383.

Clinton: 1,915 (469 of which are Superdelegates)
Sanders:  1,231 (31 of which are Superdelegates)

Republicans:  Needed to win, 1,237.

Trump:  845 (of which 1 is an unpledged delegates).
Cruz:  559 (of which 16 are unpledged delegates)
Rubio:  171.  Rubio has suspended his campaign.
Kasich:  147.
Carson:  8  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Bush:  4  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Fiorina:  1  Fiorina has dropped out of the race.
Paul:  1  Paul has dropped out of the race.

Commentary

Yawn.  And Oh Wow. And, pundits, really?

Now, in fairness, this is exactly what was predicted on the Republican side, and that's why its anticlimactic.   And nobody can fault anyone for that.  But, for a state that seems to pride itself on being a national leader even if it frequently isn't, this is a surprisingly dull result in some ways, but in ways that were expected and nobody can really be faulted for. . . much. . . save for Cruz having made any traction in New York, which he was unlikely to get anyhow, impossible early in the race.

With Trump the highly predictable occurred, not too surprising given Cruz's earlier mass insult of all New Yorkers with his poorly thought out "New York Values" statement.  Having slapped New Yorkers they slapped him back.  Cruz clearly wasn't going to win in New York.  

Still, it would have been thought that maybe Kasich could have done well and a surprise wouldn't have been impossible. .  As it was, he took 25% of the vote, beating Cruz out for second, and securing three delegates.  That wasn't a bad performance for Kasich, but it certainly wasn't great.  Given that the state is an East Coast state with a strong Democratic liberal base, it would have been presumed that perhaps the less radically conservative element in the GOP would have gone for Kasich in higher numbers there, but they did not.  His presence perhaps helped to keep this from being a complete Trump blow out, maybe, assuming that it was not.

In the Democratic race we saw a real New Yorker, Sanders (by birth) against a late import.  But, New Yorkers went with the Democratic candidate that other more daring states rejected, choosing established and disliked over liked but radial, but not by that great of a margin.  Again, a person can't fault them for that, but the results may not quite be the landslide that pundits are claiming it is by any means.  Even in defeat Sanders did nearly as well as Clinton.

So what do these results mean?

Well, on the GOP side maybe not much.  Trump doesn't really gain that much, although it must be noted that a little under 400 delegates away from winning the nomination at this point.  Still, Cruz is less than 300 delegates away from Trump and the chances for a contested convention remain high.  So we won't really know what this means until the next few primaries are over.  Maybe its the beginning of a final  Trump rally.  Or maybe its just Trump taking his native state. . . a state still retains a fairly significant hard had vote.  

It's hard not to regard this as very disappointing for Kasich, who even after picking up a few delegates and coming in second is still over twenty delegates behind Rubio, who of course dropped out some time ago.  Even combined Rubio and Kasich delegates don't come up to equaling second place Cruz.

On the Democratic side the results are perhaps more telling.  Sanders didn't do bad at all, and he did pick up 106 delegates.  So, even on Clinton's adopted home turf, he did pretty well but still not well enough. Still, if he can make that sort of inroad in a state that Clinton was supposed to have all sewn up, Clinton may be in for a rough time the next few primaries.  Sanders continues to trail Clinton even in the states she wins, including the states she should win in big, and he overcomes her outside of the East and South.  He's  not building enough of a margin right now to make it certain that the Democrats will have a brokered convention (and the GOP race isn't certain to have one either) but it's becoming an increasingly possiblity.

On the press, the coverage again continues to miss the mark.  Last night, and probably today, you could read of both Trump and Clinton scoring "major" victories by large margins. But Clinton didn't.  She took 60% of her adopted state's vote, which is a significant margin over Sanders, and it is comparable to Trump's share of the vote in his native state, but she faces only one opponent and she can't put him away.  40% of New York Democrats said no to her and indicated that they'd prefer Sanders, who is much more "progressive" than Clinton and is well liked personally by most.  If Sanders can take 40% of the vote in a state where she is a Senator she's in real trouble where she isn't.  Indeed, the irony of this race is that both parties are currently heading towards probably nominating very unlikable candidate which makes Clinton a strong candidate by default, where she otherwise would be a weak one.

The race might not mean what it seems to mean for Trump either.  Trump is a New Yorker, and his brash loud style is the type of presentation that many people, no doubt unfairly, associate with New York City.  That style really is disliked in many places and this is the first race in which Trump has pulled a majority of the votes.  But he didn't pull such a majority that he took all the delegates.  Kasich, who nationally is barely being heard now, took three, a small number, but reflecting 25% of the GOP no doubt reflecting a large percentage of the party that doesn't like Trump or Cruz and which reflects a more traditional conservatism.  Trump was expected to do well in New York, and did, but it should also be the state where he performs the best.  60% is good, but it might not be good enough. We will soon see.

Kasich interestingly took Manhattan, the only county he took at all.  Trump took all the rest.  Clinton took only the large urban areas. Sanders took all the rest.  That's very interesting as it tends to show that Clinton is really weak, even in her adopted state, outside of town.  New York is a Democratic state, but the results there tend to show that Trump polled well amongst hard hat and rural voters in the New York GOP.

A big series of East Coast races next occurs on April 26.  Given the performance yesterday the Cruz and Kasich campaigns have to be sweating over that race.  Having gone back to the Atlantic, the "Stop Trump" effort has taken a bit of a blow.   Whether or not that just means something about New York or New England is the big question.  Trump is now within striking distance of taking the GOP race and his opponents have to do well in the never several primaries.

On the Democratic side Clinton is in the same boat, within striking distance, although the number of delegates awarded in any one primary differs. She therefore is actually closer in some ways, but her tally still includes the large number of Superdelegates which, if subtracted, mean that she and Sanders are actually fairly close.  Her victory in New York might not really mean the same thing about New England that it does for the GOP, as Sanders has done well there.  Sanders is nearly 700 delegates behind, but over 400 of those are Superdelegates, so he might be able to close the gap a little on the 26th.

On a couple of semi amusing observations, counties in New York are incredibly tiny.  I happened to look one up last night as it was the only one whose returns hadn't come in.  Unbelievably small.

Also, I can't help be amused in some ways how the New York press, in particular the New York Times, which is a very liberal journal, is in the same state that gives us a Trump sweep.  The New York Times is a great newspaper, but it's amusing to read in some ways as it lives in an atmosphere steeped with East Coast liberalism. Apparently it doesn't know about he large number of New York hard hat voters being in its own state.  The same is true of its readers, based on the comments you see on its news articles, who tend towards the snotty and just can't seem to understand that its a big country out there and a lot of Americans disagree strongly with the Times.  I'd wager, however, the candidates all know that.

Commentary Followup.

The Pundits, oh bother.

Just a few days ago the Pundits were all in a lather about the decline of the Trump campaign.

Now, going into New York, anyone paying attention knew that Trump was going to win.  The task, always regarded as doubtful, was to limit that win. Well, exactly what was expected to occur, occurred. Exactly.

This morning, the Pundits are again in a lather, declaring a Trump pre convention sewing up of the nomination inevitable.

No, it isn't.

Let's say that again.

No, it isn't.

Trump's task remains just as daunting as it was before.  It's no more inevitable after New York, than it was before New York.

Now, let's say the next series of instabilities and get them out of the way. Trump, for old hard hat voter reasons, is likely to do well in all of New England.  But he won't take enough delegates to get the nomination through New England.

After the New England races, the pundits will be flipping over backwards to declare his nomination inevitable.  Right up until some non New England race goes the other way, and they'll start to doubt.

Can I predict the race with certainty here?  No, I can't, but nobody else can either.  If were to make a predication, my predication will be for a convention in which nobody has the nomination.  Going from there is even more risky so I'll abstain for the time being, and turn to the Democrats.

The Press declared Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee prior to her even running.  People who are skeptical of the Press are legitimately fueled by this, as even if it is accidental, and it likely is, the Press has always treated her as the Democratic nominee and continues to do so.  This in spite of the fact that Sanders is doing well and continues to do well, even in New York.  Not deterred by his persistently increasing share of the vote, the Press has now again ramped up its view that she's the certain nominee.

No, she isn't.

It's likely that she will be, and if I were to hazard a guess, I will guess that she'll get enough delegates, when the Superdelegates are taken into account, to take the nomination prior to the convention, but even at that there will be a bit of a contest.  But it isn't impossible even now, nor even remote, that Sanders could upset thing so much that there will be a brokered convention.  A convention of that type would likely still result in her nomination, but it might not.

Anyway you look at it the race is still on, and the pundits, well, aren't doing that well.

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April 26, 2016 

Today was a five northeastern state primary day.

First the days' result, as they stand right now.

Democrats:  Needed to win, 2,383.

Clinton: 2,155 (519 of which are Superdelegates)
Sanders:  1,355 (39 of which are Superdelegates)

Republicans:  Needed to win, 1,237.

Trump:  944 (of which 1 is an unpledged delegates).
Cruz:  558 (of which 16 are unpledged delegates)
Rubio:  171.  Rubio has suspended his campaign.
Kasich:  153.
Carson:  8  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Bush:  4  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Fiorina:  1  Fiorina has dropped out of the race.
Paul:  1  Paul has dropped out of the race.

Commentary 

The big news of course is the Republican event which saw Trump sweep all of these states.  It's proving to be interesting that Trump's real appeal is in the East, which is generally not thought of as having his particular brand of Conservatism.  It also, at this point, puts the forces aligned against Trump in nearly a last ditch scenario, which they are well aware of.  What Trump supporters seem unaware of is that in nominating Trump, which they are now close to doing, they're guaranteed to put the GOP into a serious defeat in the fall. They are very mad about how the GOP has reneged on its promises to them, but at the same time the defeat the GOP is set to receive may be nearly irreparable in some ways, particularly given the stakes involved at the Supreme Court.

Kasich picked up a few delegates, which perhaps isn't surprising, but it's very few.  Yesterday, anticipating the results that in fact occurred, Cruz and Kasich formed an uneasy alliance ceding Indiana to Cruz in exchange for some other states for Kasich.  They'll preserve their dispute, and chances for the convention, if they can make it that far.  The next few races, no matter what occurs, will not determine that as Trump needs over 280 delegates which means the race will go on until at least California.  California really looms as a decisive battleground for everyone and on June 7 there will only be one race remaining in any event.

On the Democratic side Sanders took Rhode Island and Clinton took every other state.  That's interesting too, as given as well as Trump did, we'd expect to perhaps see the same for Sanders given his hard hat Democrat appeal, but outside of Rhode Island, this appears not to have been the case.  Clinton is now very close to taking the nomination, with the Superdelegates included, but not at all close if you omit them.  So their race will continue on but for the first time it is beginning to take on the true air of inevitability.  Having said that, as the Democratic races were not winner take all, Sanders took delegates in every single race, but was only otherwise close in Delaware.  Sanders promises to go on to the end, but unless he can keep Clinton away from 1,237 delegates of all type, his race may rapidly decline in relevance.

Clinton needs over 200 delegates to lock things in, maybe, depending upon the reliability of the Superdelegates.  This probably means that this race remains up in the air until California as well.  But Sanders has to do extraordinary well from here on out to make it all the way to the convention.

Commentary followup:

The New York Times, looking at the math, has this to say about the GOP race in terms of where it will end up:

Though Mr. Trump is in a strong position, his path to winning enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination is not assured. Breaching the 1,237-delegate threshold requires him to maintain the same level of voter support in the contests ahead. If the dynamics of the race shift against him even slightly, he will fall short. Mr. Cruz and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio will try to earn enough delegates between them to deny Mr. Trump a majority and force the convention to undertake a second ballot. At that point, anything could happen.

In addition, there are several caveats that add uncertainty to these numbers. In a few states, there are delegates still to be allocated. Even delegates that have already been allocated can be reassigned.

Interesting analysis.  And something yesterday's results feed into.  The majority of Pennsylvania delegates are unassigned, in spite of yesterday's primary, and will go into the convention that way. That makes them, basically, something sort of like superdelegates.

About the Democrats the Times stated:

Democratic delegates are awarded proportionally, and in states that have voted so far, Mrs. Clinton has won more than half of the vote, on average. The lack of winner-take-all states on the Democratic side makes it very unlikely for Mr. Sanders to close the delegate gap.

Mrs. Clinton can win less than half of the remaining vote and still earn a majority of the pledged delegates by June.

That's pretty interesting too.  Clinton, even at a rate close to failure in a lot of the upcoming races, can still close the deal prior to the convention.

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April 27, 2016

Ted Cruz announced today that Carly Fiorina would be his vp candidate.

I have to admit that its not immediately apparent to me what the strategy here is, unless its to link his campaign with a female business executive.  That may be all the more there is to it.  Chances are that Trump will go after the choice and won't look good for doing so.  For those who may be inclined to think more favorably of Cruz if he is running with a woman, including one who is a business person, perhaps this will achieve something, although frankly I'd guess the impact to be fairly marginal.  

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April 28, 2016

The GOP race took another surprising turn today when the former Speaker of the House John Boehner really went after Ted Cruz.  In a speech today, which wasn't supposed to really be the subject of news quips, Boehner made his dislike of Cruz very well known using some extremely blunt terms about him.  Boehner indicated that he's support Trump if he was nominated, although he has been supporting Kasich, but would not support Cruz.  Given the serious effort to stop Trump, his comments were surprising, but Boehner has been fairly sincere all along and has been particularly open ever since meeting with Pope Francis, just prior to Boehner's resignation.

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April 30, 2016 

 Updated totals

Democrats:  Needed to win, 2,383.

Clinton: 2,183 (520 of which are Superdelegates)
Sanders:  1,406 (39 of which are Superdelegates)

Republicans:  Needed to win, 1,237.

Trump:  997 (of which 41 are unpledged delegates).
Cruz:  566 (of which 16 are unpledged delegates)
Rubio:  173.  Rubio has suspended his campaign.
Kasich:  153.
Carson:  8  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Bush:  4  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Fiorina:  1  Fiorina has dropped out of the race.
Paul:  1  Paul has dropped out of the race.

Commentary

With these new tallies Trump is only 240 delegates away from securing the nomination.  Very close, but not quite close enough right now to guarantee an early end to the contest.  There will not be enough delegates at stake to wrap things up before California on June 3, so the race will continue until at least then.  Indiana is being depicted as the potential end of the race, but it really cannot be.  If the race isn't sewn up by California there are only four races left after that.

On the Democratic side Clinton is 200 delegates away.  The earliest the Democratic race could wrap up would be May 17, although that would require Clinton to take every delegate at stack from now until then.

Commentary followup

Recently I've been avoiding actually bumping this up (even though I've been occasionally commenting on events) as I don't want this thread to resume the same position as its predecessor where it wipes out everything else on the page.  But then there's was the President's Washington Press speech.

For anyone who didn't see it, it was an amazing comic moment, showing the President's excellent comedic timing, and it was stunning in content.  It was nearly impossible to watch and not draw the conclusion that President Obama really doesn't care much for Hillary Clinton, frankly like the majority of Democrats.  But beyond that, his speech was both funny and kind to Bernie Sanders, who was present.  It was rally hard not to conclude that the President favors Sanders in the election.

It also poked fun at the remainder of the candidates, and Trump in particular, but it started off with a comedic statement about the next President "whoever she is".

Whether a person is a Democrat, Republican or Independent, that statement reflects what almost everyone who has looked at the election is concluding.  In spite of her lack of popularity the chances of the GOP basically committing suicide in the election by nominating Trump are becoming so overwhelming that the conclusion is beginning to seem fairly inevitable.

On that probable inevitability, the New York Times ran an editorial yesterday entitled "Go Ahead and Play the Woman Card", maintaining that Clinton's status as a woman really truly matters arguing "
We can't change assumptions about what a leader looks like unless we change what leaders look like.".  This shows how really truly clueless the New York Times tends to be.

Something that pundits have seemingly missed, and in fact the older set of Democratic voters has also missed, is that in 2016 a candidates gender is completely irrelevant.  Nobody cares if Clinton is a woman or not, and that is hardly being noticed by the voters. This is a good thing.  

Frankly, President Obama's election eight years ago crashed that window on everything and effectively he is the last of the firsts.  Prior to him, the "first black" President, or "first Catholic President (Kennedy), or what have you, mattered.  Now, it doesn't. The country that weighted race, gender or religion into these calculations is no more. Oh, sure, some people do, but the country as a whole does not.

This is why in this election we've heard hardly anything at all, really, about Clinton's gender.  And we've heard hardly anything at all about Sanders Jewish faith, which just a decade ago would have been a big deal.  We heard nothing about Rubio's Catholic faith, which was a huge issue for Kennedy.  We aren't even hearing about Trump's serial marriages, when the fact that Reagan had been married and divorced and remarried once was a big deal in the 1976 and 1980 elections for some. A person's religion, background, etc., still undoubtedly matter, but not in the "won't vote for him because. . . "sort of way it once did for many voters.  So, New York Times, it really don't care about what a candidate looks like anymore.  It's not 1975 anymore.

Back to Clinton's nearly inevitable run, some Republican figures, such as George F. Will, are now urging a Dunkirk strategy.

Dunkirk, of course, is famous for being that location in France where British and French soldiers stages a heroic defense of the town against the Germans in 1940 so that the British forces could be withdrawn.  Basically, troops maintaining the line fought to save their army, so that it could be rebuilt in Britain.  Will, and others, are now urging Republicans to fight to save House and Senate seats so that the GOP can be rebuilt over the next four years.  Basically, the Presidency will be abandoned as a hope, conceding that it is already lost.

Will was blunt in his article that the forces that supported Trump will simply be dumped.  He doesn't want them.  The proposal, basically, is to create a new conservative party out of the wrecked shell of the current one, a pretty dramatic concession for a lifelong conservative Republican.

If that occurs, chances are that John Boehner will be one of the Republicans joining him in that effort. The former Speaker of the House was caught this past week taking real hard shots at Ted Cruz, going so far as to indicate that he'd support Trump if Trump is nominated, but not Cruz.  He didn't apologize when audio of that was released, which we probably would generally have expected.  And he showed up with Obama on an amusing video that showed up at the end of the President's speech.  Cruz has been ineffective in trying to paint Boehner since then as just the sort of Washington insider that he's been campaigning against, so in a way Beohner's recent actions may turn out to be the "establishment" getting the last laugh on Cruz, whom they truly dislike.

I should note, no matter what the pundits are currently saying, that even if neither Cruz or Kasich can mathematically get the nomination, it's far from certain that Trump will prior to the convention.  He will have take 47% of the remaining delegates and he's had trouble mustering over 35% of the vote in any election outside of the northeast.  If this goes to the convention, I'd expect the mainline GOP to try to rally and take out Trump and Cruz both.  By this point they are starting to steel themselves against a Trumpite revolt as they're starting to plan, long term, to really dump the Tea Party wing of their party and they might prefer an open breach right now to simply doing it quietly later, if there's a chance to take the White House, which there would still be.  Likewise, while Clinton's nomination seems assured, she doesn't have it yet, and in an election year when even President Obama, for whom she worked as Secretary of State, didn't really have anything nice to say about her, it's still not impossible for the unlikely to happen and Sanders obtain the nomination. 

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May 1, 2016

With Indiana done, Trump is all but nominated, Cruz had dropped out, and Sanders remains in the race.

First, the results as they stand right now.  This probably stands to be revised, as Indiana is still coming in.


Democrats:  Needed to win, 2,383.

Clinton: 2,219 (520 of which are Superdelegates)
Sanders:  1,448 (39 of which are Superdelegates)

Republicans:  Needed to win, 1,237.

Trump:  1,048 (of which 41 are unpledged delegates).
Cruz:  566   Cruz has suspended his campaign. (of which 16 are unpledged delegates)
Rubio:  173.  Rubio has suspended his campaign.
Kasich:  153.
Carson:  8  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Bush:  4  Carson has suspended his campaign.
Fiorina:  1  Fiorina has dropped out of the race.
Paul:  1  Paul has dropped out of the race.

Commentary

The real surprise of the evening is that Cruz dropped out.  He wasn't expected to win Indiana in the first place so his loss impacted very little in terms of his overall chances.  It probably operates to put the bullet in his political future, however.

That leaves only Kasich contesting Trump in the convention, but he has no realistic chance.  Many of Cruz's voters will go to Trump rather than Kasich in any area where Cruz had support.  So keeping this running long enough to go for a contested convention is highly unlikely.  If he did manage to pull that off, there's a decent chance that Trump would not be the nominee, but that's very unlikely.

So that takes us to the Democrats where Hillary Clinton now needs less than 200 delegates to win.  Amazingly, even at this late date, Sanders managed what Cruz could not; he remains competitive against a nominee who is closing in on the final number.   He'd need a little under 900 delegates to make it, however, and that's unlikely to occur.  But he continues to try.  And as it isn't impossible, he can't be blamed and to has to be admired.

Assuming that these primaries continue to play out in their current direction, this now means that the contest in the fall will between two disliked candidates, Trump and Clinton, but the dynamics mean Clinton will win. The Presidential race, therefore, is now all but over.

The amazing thing is that the GOP has managed to throw a race such as this, but then it's done very poorly in its Presidential picks in recent years.  At the same time, it's made promises it didn't keep.  It set itself up for failure in these regards, but now it may have set the table for internal reform.  It's current task is to hold on to the seats in the House it has for the next two years, and to keep the Senate seats it has right now.  Clinton's unpopularity may aid it in that.  The struggle it will face, if it does that, is dealing with likely vacancies in the Supreme Court, including the current one, over the next four years while it rebuilds.

That process has started already.  It's pretty clear that at the same time some in the GOP are now embracing Trump, others, recognizing the upcoming defeat, have their knives out for those responsible for it.  The GOP that we see in 2020 will not be the same one that will complete the 2016 election.  And it may be questionable as to what the Democratic party is as well.

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May 4, 2016

 And now Kasich is out.  Trump is the Republican nominee.

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Tracking the Presidential Election, 2016