Don't panic if you're a Democrat, or get overconfident if you're a Republican

Tonight Mitt Romney will open up a significant lead if election results come in relative to when the polls close in any particular state. 

At 19:00 EST (02:00 SAST) Indiana and Kentucky's polls will close, and both states will go for Romney. The electoral college score at this point will be Democrats 0, Republicans 19.

The next set will be Alabama, Georgia Florida, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia. 

Let's assume Romney wins Florida where he is up. He could also take New Hampshire He will definitely win Alabama and South Carolina. I would put Virginia in Obama's column. So at this point we're at Democrats 16 EC votes, Republicans 86. 

Half an hour later polls close in North Carolina, West Virginia and Ohio. Romney looks set to win the first two, and Obama Ohio. EC votes: Democrats 34, Republicans 106. 

The next set is massive: Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas. None of these is a swing state (Pennsylvania is on a good day but I doubt today is one of them). They will all fall predictably. At this point the electoral college will stand at Democrats 171 Republicans 190. 

Republicans will then receive a boost from Arkansas which closes next, adding six electoral votes: Democrats 171, Republicans 196. 

Following that polls will close in Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Wyoming. I am going to assume Colorado falls Democrat which would leave us at Democrats 205, Republicans 223. 

After this Obama's dominance on the west coast, including the giant state of California with its 55 electoral college votes kicks in.

So if you're a Democrat, don't panic. If you're a Republican, don't be overconfident. 

The basics of a US election

The American political system is structured somewhat oddly. As you probably know, it boils down to a vote between two parties – Republicans (Bush, Nixon, Eisenhower) and Democrats (Obama, JFK, Clinton) – and this vote is done per state. Now, each state has its own smaller election, and whoever wins this state gets ALL of the electoral votes belonging to that state. Whomsoever wins the most electoral votes becomes president. Get it?

 (image from http://www.270towin.com)

This means that a few states matter more than others during election time. For example, it is highly unlikely that conservative states such as Texas and Mississippi will vote Democrat in this upcoming election. The converse applies to California and Illinois who are unlikely to vote for a Republican in 2012. The other factor to take into account is the population of the state, which determines how influential the state is in picking the president. For example, in a race to 270 electoral votes, California offers candidates 55 votes, Texas 38, and New York and Florida with 29. States with a smaller population, such as North Dakota have three electoral votes. A win in a state gets the party all of the electoral votes; meaning that even a 51% vote for a Republican in a state gives the Republican ALL of the state's electoral votes. (The exception in this case is Nebraska, which only has five votes, but they are awarded proportionally).  

Now, if we take the 2008 election as an indication of which states might swing and determine the result of the election, it is no surprise that current President Barack Obama has been visiting Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio recently. These are states he needs to win in order to maintain the presidency, as they have been known to change their minds – kind of like Mitt Romney. Most of them also have enough gravitas to decide the presidency.

Today Barack Obama is in Pennsylvania to bang on about extending payroll tax cuts to the working classes, and getting the wealthy to pay for them. While mostly working class Pennsylvania has usually swung Democrat, it voted the other way in the 2010 midterms which is one of the reasons the House of Representatives fell under Republican control. In 2012, Pennsylvania will carry 20 electoral votes. In the race to 270, that’s a rather nice chunk. Its neighbour, Ohio, will carry 18, and its neighbour Virginia has 13.

It’s also no surprise that on this trip the president is also visiting Florida, which holds 29 electoral votes. You’ll all remember Florida’s influence that robbed the world of the presidency of Al Gore in 2000 and heaved The Inconvenient Truth down the pipes of our televisions ever since. This is the impact that a swing state has.

So while the candidates for the presidency are appreciative of the support they will get from their bankable states, the real election will be contested in the swing states. Expect to see candidates and media all over Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Nevada.

Iraq-troops-withdrawal-gate

On Friday President Barack Obama announced that all US troops in Iraq would be withdrawn by the end of the year. As the Americans like to say, "home for the holidays". The end of 2011 was an "aspirational" deadline set by the Bush administration (which, if you remember, started the nonsensical war while hunting for non-existent weapons of mass destruction) in 2008 - Obama only took office at the beginning of 2009.

Obama has been accused once every 13 seconds (according to stats I projected from people whining on the plethora of news channels in the US) of this being a political decision rather than one which is militarily justified. Basically, Obama is ending the war to increase his popularity rather than because it is a justified decision. You know, because there is an election coming up.

Well, "analysts" are forgetting that there is actually quite a lot of time before the next election. It is only in November next year - that's over a year since Obama made the withdrawal announcement (which was 21 October 2011). These experts who are screaming that it is only in Obama's interest, and not in the national interest are missing a fairly sizeable point.

Firstly, it is worth remembering that the Obama has far more access to information and background than any mainstream and a lot of localised media. Basically, his decision is based on far more facts to which anyone sitting outside Baghdad, and many sitting within it, has access. While the senior commander in charge of the mission, General Lloyd J. Austin III (a rather large dissenter of the withdrawal),  would also have access to large amounts of information as well, by virtue of leading a mission, there is a bucket-load of diplomatic data which he, most likely, has not seen.

There would be huge risks in withdrawing troops to boost his poll ratings if the situation in Iraq goes tits-up. If the rate of violence in Baghdad begins to spike again (recent events have gone against more medium-term gains in stemming violence) or if US national security (which is what they call foreign policy a lot of the time here) is compromised in any way. In fact, if troops are withdrawn from one of the countries in which the US is responsible for security, and then something happens on US soil, Obama is finished. The US takes national security incredibly seriously - as would a nation who has faced attacks like 9-11 and chats about domestic safety with BFF Israel. If Obama makes a decision which weakens the US' defence of its borders, he will be collecting unemployment from November next year. No question.

And I highly doubt the president is only thinking up to this year's holidays. It is unlikely that anyone in Obama's administration, and yes, that includes defence secretary Leon Panetta, would allow the president to do so, in spite of Panetta's recommendation to maintain 3,000-4,000 troops in Iraq. Governments around the world think further than two months - everyone older than five years thinks further than two months. While I can't conclusively prove to you that Obama is thinking past Christmas, he is surrounded by seasoned politicians - think Joe Biden, Panetta and Hillary Clinton - who would mop up any basic mistakes like that. 

The other aspect of this whole deal that Obama is taking in the neck deals with the fact that the president was happy to allow a few thousand troops to remain but decided not to because the Iraqi government would not give them immunity. The Bachmanns and other political figures have claimed that Obama couldn't get them immunity because he was "not committed". I'd love to see them argue for keeping the armed forces, probably the most respected grouping of people in the US after the National Rifle Association, without diplomatic and legal protection. In this sense, if anyone is trying to score political points, it is those public figures lashing Obama's decision.

Herman Cain. What matters and what doesn't?

Republican presidential candidate, Herman Cain, has taken quite a lot of flak since he started his surge to the upper results of the polls in the last month. This is partly because he is the frontrunner and is therefore dangerous, but also because he is a moron. Let's go over some modern Cain details:

1) 999. Of all the things I am sick of hearing, it's 999. All the time, Cain's solution to any problem is 999. Unemployment? 999. National deficit? 999. Fix the economy? 99 sodding 9. This is Cain's proposal to have a 9% payment tax, 9% corporate tax and 9% sales tax countrywide. His argument is that this is a simple system that Americans can understand. Well, it's also a dumb system with no proof whatsoever that it will work, but it is SIMPLE therefore it is GOOD. Hear that, America? You're too stupid to work out what a 15% payroll tax is, so we'll make it 9%. Companies, fire all your finance people because we're wiping the tax system. Anyone who can multiply a number by nine and divide by 100 can be an accountant. Oh also, poor people, you'll be paying that same percentage of your income as those who earn bucketloads. And you'll be hit with a 9% sales tax too. People who are actual economists and can explain numbers, instead of just shouting the same one repeatedly, expect Cain's plan (and I use the word in the loosest of terms) to force lower income earners to put more of their income towards the national kitty due to the sales tax than they do right now. It also doesn't take state taxes into account.

2) "When they ask me who's the president of Uzbeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I'm gonna say "You know, I don't know. Do you know? And then I'm gonna say, "how does that create one job?" - Cain.

Yep, this is Cain's attitude to foreign policy. Well, screw the name of the country (which the reporter actually used in the question which led to this answer. If you're a Cain fan reading this it's Uzbekistan). It's always nice when a man vying for the presidency of the world's most powerful nation couldn't give a wank what the name of your country is. While Cain fobs Uzbekistan off as not important enough to matter, he'd do well to, you know, acknowledge the presence of US bases there (and in neighbouring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan). Can you guess which country they border? Afghanistan. Can you guess where arms were delivered before Kabul (the capital of Afghanistan, by the way) was "liberated"? UZBEKISTAN. I think it's inconsequential that Cain doesn't know the president's name. Neither do I. And I'll bet you no one in the current US government other than Hillary Clinton knows either. Incidentally it's Islam Karimov. I get that jobs are probably the hottest electoral issue, but surely it can't come at the expense of every single other thing?

3) "It was a joke". This has twice been Cain's reponse to the media or a rival picking up on some ignoramous thing the candidate has said. It's his sole defence. In 2008 Cain wrote a column for Economic Freedom Coalition, in which he suggested Tiger Woods would be an excellent Republican presidential candidate come 2016 when Obama had finished two terms. This was when Tiger was still a darling of the world, before we found out he had a woman in every city and was about to destroy his marriage and reputation, so we can't really fault Cain for that. However, what we can fault Cain for is pretending it was all a joke. Which is complete crap. Read it yourself and point out the jokes. How dumb does the man think Americans are? (I suppose we covered that under 999). His other "joke" was this: "We’ll have a real fence. Twenty feet high, with barbed wire, electrified, with a sign on the other side saying, ‘it will kill you'". He followed it up with these comments, "What's insensitive is when they come to the United States, across our border and kill our citizens, and kill our border patrol people. That's insensitive, and I'm not worried about being insensitive to tell people to stop sneaking into America." In South Africa we have a word for this. It's called xenophobia. And that it not even remotely the same as actual immigration policy. Of course it would be unreasonable to allow people over the border willy-nilly, but to stoke xenephobic fires by implying that Mexicans come "across our border and kill our citizens" has a huge social impact. Nasty social impact. Oh, I forget. He was just joking.

While I would be supporting Mr Obama again in the next election, I hope intellectual Ron Paul hammers Cain tonight. It really shouldn't be that hard.