[Marxism] Pols, polls and THE polls in Pennsylvania

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

        First the "big" news: It's Hillary by 11%. That's what every hack
and calumnist who has ever had the slightest brush with any of the
apparatchiks in the Klinton Kampaign was told this morning on a strictly
deep background, NFA [Not For Attribution] basis. [Those are the kinds of
stories that begin, "It is believed ..." or "The BS News Network has
learned..." as opposed to "Sources in the Clinton camp say ..."]

        That's the result that Clintonite pollster Mark Penn supposedly came
up with thanks to an all-day Sunday Dialing for Data marathon. The only one
stupid enough to take this for good coin was Drudge, who dutifully put it on
the Drudge report, from which it was immediately echoed in the Daily Kos,
and from there to other web sites, though I don't think it broke through to
the mainstream media. [Mainly because not just every editor and reporter
worth her/his salt, but also the overwhelming majority of the rest, do not
trust the Clintonites. And as this incident will show ... eventually ... for
good reasons.]

        It may well be that some Klinton poll in the last couple of days
says she is 11% ahead in PA. It would be very easy to construct such a poll.
All you need do is give a nudge in the weight in the poll of older folks,
trim the weight of Blacks and young people down, and --voila!-- 11%.

        The interesting question is: why 11%? Why not 9, or 12, or 15%?
Because the Klinton Kamp has unleashed a full-court press in the media to
make a 55%-45% final score against Obama in PA the definition of "victory"
-- not in PA, but in the national race. 

        A 10% margin --or so the spin goes-- would mean Clinton had solidly
bested Obama, shown all previous results to have been accidental,
demonstratively proved the elected delegate count was a freakish accident in
need of correction by the super delegates.

*  *  *

        Unfortunately for Clinton, plain old grammar school arithmetic is
enough to scatter this spin to the four winds.

        The truth is that to be fairly sure she can match Obama's number of
ELECTED (so-called "pledged") delegates by the end of the primaries, Clinton
would need close to a 3-1 win in Pennsylvania. Because Obama almost
certainly is going to beat her by AT LEAST by 15% in the OTHER big state
still remaining, North Carolina, cancelling part of what she picks up in PA.
A 75-25 Clinton victory is so far out in space that her campaign's claims
she is still somehow viable is beginning to genuinely outrage major party
figures, like Richardson, Reich and Nunn, all recent super-delegate
endorsees of Obama, not to mention Jimmy Carter's all-but-endorsement.

        To at least be on track to match Obama's pledged delegate numbers
(without taking into account North Carolina) she needs almost a 2-1 victory
in PA. (Obama is ahead by 166 pledged [elected] delegates; the 158 at stake
in PA are more than one fourth of the 556 delegates yet to be elected. To
take a bite out of Obama's lead proportionate to the number of delegates at
stake in PA compared to all remaining delegates to be elected, Clinton would
need a 48 delegate lead over Obama in PA: 55 for Obama and 103 for her.
While the formulas are more complicated, for simplicity's sake and as a
first approximation we'll say the delegate allocation will be proportionate
to the vote. That delegate allocation would require a 65%-35% Clinton
victory, three times the margin she's achieved anywhere else and nearly as
impossible as the 75%-25% she realistically needs (taking her defeat in
North Carolina in two weeks into account).

        But Clinton could "reasonably" argue that being denied her Florida
and Michigan primary victories, or at least do-overs which she could/would
win, it is unrealistic and unfair to say she MUST completely close her gap
with Obama. So let's say reducing Obama's lead by 100 delegates is "enough"
for Hillary to claim a "moral" victory that super delegates should recognize
by giving her the nod. 

        To be on track for that, even without taking into account setbacks
like Obama's winning North Carolina, that would require a 28-delegate
Clinton lead in PA, Obama 65, Clinton 93. That --by straight proportional
representation-- would take a 59%-41% Clinton victory, but as a practical
matter, probably more than 60-40. (Without getting too mathematical, typical
statewide Democrat proportional representation rules allocate delegates
roughly 1/3rd statewide and two thirds by District [usually Congressional].
But strongly Democrat urban districts get much more representation than
rural Republican districts, based on the Democrat votes in recent elections.
This winds up giving Obama a slight edge because he is stronger in urban
areas.)

        So, realistically, a 60-40 split is the very least Clinton needs to
claim at least a "moral" victory of being on track to substantially cut down
Obama's lead in pledged delegates. And if you do the math, a series of 11%
victories might reduce Obama's lead by 60, except in the REAL world, he's
not going to come out of North Carolina with a net loss of 12 of the 115
delegates, but almost certainly with a net gain of at least 16, and as
likely as not two dozen. Of the net gain of 60 Clinton would make (11% of
the 550+ still to be elected), once NC is deducted, she's left with 30 or
less. That she's trimmed Obama's lead to 140 or 135 (from 166) is hardly
convincing.

        I believe the 11% figure was sold to the press this morning as part
of the Clinton's camp's attempt to "shape the narrative" so that ANY margin
that rounds to double digits (i.e., 9.5% and up) will be seen as a Clinton
advance in the overall race, rather than as just one more skirmish in which
Clinton did better than Obama, but not by nearly enough to affect the final
outcome.

        So to return to my question, "why 11%"?  Because it is as close to
10% as makes no difference, and has over 10% the advantage of seeming like a
"real number" produced by a poll rather than one picked on the basis of the
criterion, "surely, we can't do worse than that."

        By which hangs the rest of my tale, which is by this afternoon, the
Clinton campaign was backpedalling on the 11% at a 100 miles an hour. Having
done everything they could EARLY in the day to get 11% into the media, by
this afternoon there were official, on-the-record DENIALS that there had
been any such poll -- or any such leak. 

        I know some people perceive a pro-Obama "bias" in the media. I don't
believe it is true, and I think "bittergate" and last Thursday's debate
proves that it isn't the case. But I do believe there is an anti-Clinton
--not bias, but judgment or reasoned opinion in the media. The Clintonites
know that all the reporters at the NY Times, Washington Post, the
three-letter TV news outfits, the AP and Reuters, having ACCEPTED the
information about the 11% poll on deep background, will not break their
pledge of confidentiality and reveal that it was precisely the Clinton
campaign --to their own personal knowledge-- that was the source of the
information. They will feel all the more bound because they knew in the
morning it was BS, and therefore didn't use it. So they owe no explanation
to their readers and viewers. 

        The Clintonites are counting on --correctly-- that the very
reporters and news organizations that in the morning they peddled the
bullshit 11% poll to will, faithfully and accurately report tonight the
official statement denying there was such a poll or such a leak, without the
reporters telling their readers or listeners that plain truth, which is that
the Clintonites are lying. 

        What happened between morning and mid-day I can only guess, but my
guess would be that their REAL internal polling told them they might not
break 10%. So even though four weeks ago the spin was Mrs. Clinton "needed"
15% to stay viable (because polls said they were winning by 20%) and for the
past couple of weeks it's been 10% (despite the public polls showing the
race had narrowed to a 6-8% gap), TONIGHT the spin is that a victory is a
victory, if you win, even by one vote, it is a victory. And a tremendous
victory for a woman, underdog, come-from-behind candidate who was outspent
3-1 or better by her vicious attack-dog front-runner opponent. 

*  *  *

        By tomorrow night, vote counting at the polls will give the lie to
whatever the pols and polls have been saying. 

        And contrary to everything people are led to believe about "swaying
public opinion," who wins, and by how much, will be largely determined by
WHO votes. 

        PA is 12% Black. If Blacks are 15% of the Democrat voters, that is
bad news for Obama; a 20% turnout or close to would be good news; and a 25%
turnout --not beyond the theoretically possible-- quite likely to end the
race, as it would put Obama over the top or within a hair's breadth. 

        But PA is also the second-oldest state in the Union, behind Florida,
with 15% people of retirement age and older, people who came of age before
major battles and victories of the civil rights movement and the tumultuous
60's, and who have proven everywhere to be Clinton's bunker. If they turn
out to be a disproportionate share of the voters --as is often the case in
primaries-- and a larger one than the Black vote, Obama will do poorly
indeed.

        As for the much-touted battle for "the white working class," I think
again the key will be *which* white workers vote. Obama tends to wins or
nearly so among those under 45; among those 45-65, he has, at best, come
close to even, but several times done much more poorly. The story with
middle and upper middle class white people is much the same, just add a few
percent --a very few percent-- to Obama's vote. 

        Don't get me wrong: there has been a real fight these last three
weeks to convince an undecided 5%-15% of possible voters. But MOSTLY it's
been about scaring/inspiring your own supporters into voting, and
demotivating/demoralizing your opponent's supporters from voting. 

        That's been true on BOTH side equally -- except that Sen. Obama's
appeals, advertisement and rallies, due to the nature of his backers and
those of Sen. Clinton -- seem to be much more inspirational and motivational
and, well, innocent. But think of the associations and fears a rally of tens
of thousands of people --mostly Blacks-- are likely to set off in the
subconscious of a 70-year-old who grew up in Jim Crow America.

        Those age cohorts have remained loyal to the Democrats -- to the
degree they have -- not thanks to, but despite civil rights and voting
rights and Selma and the March on Washington and all the rest of it. They're
Roosevelt, New Deal, Social Security Democrats in the main. 

        And, no, don't expect any Willy Horton ads from Mrs. Clinton. The
Republicans have already plowed and prepared that field, it is ready, and
besides, there's no need to associate Barack with Blacks. He IS Black. A
nice enough man and credit to his race, no doubt, our 70-year-old might
think. And THEN comes Mrs. Clinton's ad, with the perfect rationalization:
is he experienced enough? Mature enough? He hangs out with radical preachers
and bomb-throwing radicals from the 60's. What does that say about his
discernment and judgment? 


*  *  *

        As should be obvious from the numbers I give, Mrs. Clinton doesn't
have the chance of an ice cube in hell of winning enough elected delegates
to equal Senator Obama's numbers, or even cut his lead in half or more,
allowing her to claim some sort of "moral" victory. Similar calculations
would give parallel results if the cumulative popular vote were used instead
of delegate numbers. 

        Senator Clinton's strategy now is simply to try to provoke Obama
into doing or saying something the press can be conned into using to portray
Obama as simply unfit for the presidency, as having disqualified himself.
And she's doing that no matter how bad it makes her look. Her advisers
figure --not unreasonably-- that to much of the population she has always
been basically an uninspiring, unattractive figure, so in the fall she would
win --or not-- based on anti-Bush, not pro-Hillary Clinton sentiment.

        But this has more than an individual significance, this is more than
a battle between two major bourgeois politicians. 

        Barack Obama is Black. He is campaigning to be the first Black
person nominated for the presidency by one of the major parties in this
country; he is doing so claiming to stand on the victories of the struggles
of his people for civil and political rights (and the truth is he is largely
right about that); and is doing so with the enthusiastic support of the
majority of his people, as well as MOST other progressive-minded people in
the country, and especially the youth.

        Mrs. Clinton's campaign has become the immediate vehicle for those
who oppose such a development; and as it has become clearer and clearer that
Clinton has no way of gathering enough votes or delegates to make a case she
has majority support, her campaign has morphed into a typical racist
Republican onslaught that from the other side is viewed as being not just
against Obama, but against the kind of progressive political change that
most of his supporters, and especially in the Black community and among
young people, believe or hope he will carry out. That Obama's plebeian
backers are (mostly) mistaken about this is true, but just one factor in the
calculus. So were most Black people wrong in 1963 and 1964 when they thought
the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts would bring them liberation.

        Such illusions can sometimes play a progressive role in driving
social movements onto a higher level of struggle, as was the case in the
60s. 

        And I am convinced, while less dramatic and clear-cut, the clash of
social forces in this case is real, as it was then. So much is this the case
that major right-wing figures have called on their base to intervene in the
Democrat's primary on Mrs. Clinton's side; and in the recent Mississippi
primary, fully one-fourth of Sen. Clinton's vote came from self-identified
Republicans. Not nice granola-crunching Berkeley or Madison independents, or
even Silicon Valley libertarian Republicans, but Mississippi Republicans,
the ones that still keep white sheets next to the rope and shotgun in their
closet.

        I know a lot of people on this list are chagrined, to say the least,
that such a clash of social forces has taken shape around the issue of which
one of two bourgeois candidates, with basically the same paper programs and
promises, should be the standard bearer for what is clearly the majority
imperialist party in the U.S. at this time. But there it is. That's how I
read things. I think the evolution has been clear. 

        I don't know much about PA's rules and regs on voting, party
registering, and so on. There may be very good reasons NOT to do this. But
given this clash, if it were like Georgia, where you just walk up and the
people at the table just ask whether you want to vote in the Democrat or
Republican primary, and there are no other consequences or impact, I'd go
through the trouble of going to the precinct, getting a Democrat ballot, and
voting for Obama. I'm an inveterate procrastinator and sometimes I'm real
lazy so maybe I wouldn't. But I think I would.

Joaquín


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