Landslide Lyndon and Landslide Hillary?

As we await results from both the primary and caucus in Texas, one can't help but think of Robert Caro's massive 3-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, serialized (in part) in the New Yorker, was centered around the seminal election of the young LBJ's career: a statewide race.

Like Hillary, LBJ had staked his political career on the Senate race. He gave up his seat in Congress, and had told friends, according to Caro, that he would leave politics forever if he lost to the popular former two-term Governor. (LBJ actually did lose to Coke Stevenson once, in the first primary with three candidates, held on July 24, 1948; but this was the run-off, between just the two men.)

LBJ had actually run previously, in 1941, and lost by a total of 1,311 votes to Pappy O'Daniel, despite leading by more than 5,000 votes with 96% of the vote counted. The last 4% didn't go LBJ's way.

Like Hillary's strength in the current race, LBJ put his faith in the "Valley" -- counties like Webb, Zapata, Brooks, and the rest. Many of these counties were under the control of party bosses, who could -- in Caro's delicate phrasing -- "control" the primary process. In Duval County, the votes came in on Election Day (Saturday, August 28, 1948) with LBJ out-polling Stevenson 4,195 to 38. 99.1%

The race was close and hotly-contested statewide, but the former Governor clung to a small lead. Stevenson's statewide margin as reported at 1:30am on Saturday night/Sunday morning, was 854 votes.

But Duval County was not done. The day after the election (Sunday, August 29, 1948), an additional ballot box was found, surprisingly enough in the very precinct where Duval boss George Parr voted. The box was opened, and added 110 votes to the LBJ column, against just 1 for Stevenson.

The various precincts checked their results, and Stevenson's aides (who had incredibly cancelled scheduled primaries in some Stevenson-friendly counties because of over-confidence (according to Caro)). By the following Friday, six days after the election, Stevenson's lead had been whittled to a mere 157 votes.

But in checking and re-checking the ballots, Duval County found an error. Precinct 13, which had previously reported 765 votes for LBJ, found an error. In Caro's words:

The figure for Johnson, which was reported as 765 on Election Night, was now 965 -- because since Election Night, according to testimony given later, someone had added a loop to the "7" to make it into a "9". Johnson had 200 more votes.

The legend of "Landslide Lyndon" -- winning a 1,000,000 person primary by a mere 87 votes was born.

A few weeks ago, Hillary compared herself to LBJ. We may find another reason to compare them tonight.

Or maybe in a few days.

Fuzzy Math in Texas?

At 9:48pm ET, CNN is reporting the following results in Texas:

Obama: 579,152
Clinton: 506,197

Total votes: 1,085,349

Yet, only 6% of precincts have reported results.

By that math, more than 18 million Texas Democrats would be voting in today's election.

The total population of Texas is 23 million.

Hmmmm...

Update: The consensus is that the early numbers reflected "early voting." Late deciders broke overwhelmingly to Clinton (61-38%).

It's Time for the Feats of Strength

As we await results from Ohio and Texas, the mood among the "Gang of 500" is that the Clinton Machine has found its footing. She has held an "Airing of the Grievances" against the press, and now it's time for her to win the feats of strengths (a.k.a. the Texas Primary (not the Texas Caucus) and Ohio Primary.)

If Clinton can win both states, preferably impressively, the new MSM line has it, she can turn this race around and restore order in the universe.

The reality is that Hillary will wake up tomorrow either (i) facing calls for her to get out of the race (in the worse case, if the polls turn against her), or (ii) facing a virtually insurmountable deficit of 125-150 pledged delegates. Assuming that ratio holds, Hillary will end the primary contests with about 1,552 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,702.(*)

Her only realistic chance to the nomination is to swing close to 500 of the 795 super delegates (or 59.4%) to her side.

How can she do it? Not by competing in every state.

Like in 1960, the remainder of this primary battle (if it goes past tonight) will be fought on 'battleground' states where the Clintons will perform, as the saying goes, additional 'Feats of Strength.'

(In the 1960 primaries, Kennedy was not challenged in every state, but rather a select few, like Wisconsin and West Virginia. By winning those specific battles, JFK was able to convince the other appointed (i.e., super) delegates that he would be the strongest national candidate. In the years since 1960, the Democratic nomination has approached a marathon of states, culminating in 1992 when Bill Clinton bled Paul Tsongas dry over the spring primaries. In 2000 and 2004, the party effectively short-circuited the lengthy primary process by declaring the winner of the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary, effectively, the nominee.)

The balance of this calendar this month is Wyoming (caucuses on March 8th) and Mississippi (primary on March 11th), with nothing thereafter until April 22nd (Pennsylvania).

With such a sparse calendar, and with Obama having historical advantages in caucuses and primaries in the South, Hillary will likely 'shut down' if she survives tonight, picking Pennsylvania as her next battleground.

Happy Festivus.

(*)- Delegate estimates calculated as follows:
(1) 4,049 total delegates minus 795 superdelegates = 3,254 pledged delegates.
(2) Splitting the balance of the 3,254 pledged delegates (based on proportional apportionment) such that Obama maintains his 150 delegate lead would result in 1702 pledged delegates for Obama, and 1,552 pledged delegates for Hillary.
(3) In order to get to 2,025, Hillary would need 473 of the 795 supers, or 59.4%.

Super-Delegate-dom

Although a win tomorrow by Obama in both Ohio and Texas will make the point moot (and don't think for a minute that the Clintons won't try to fight on if they win one of the two states, and lose the other narrowly), Geraldine Ferraro's op-ed last week about the role of super-delegates is worth revisiting.

Ferraro served on the Hunt Commission, which in 1982 revised the manner in which the Democratic Party chose its nominees. Last week in the NY Times, she wrote that "[T]he superdelegates were created to lead, not to follow," after many of them "walked away" from the party's nominee (President Jimmy Carter) in 1980.

In 1984, these superdelegates stuck with former Vice President Walter Mondale when he was in trouble, having lost 16 of 26 primaries or caucuses to Senator Gary Hart. But the core group of 700 or so superdelegates stuck with Mondale (many had committed before the primary season even began), and as Hart later said, "I got almost none of them, because [Mondale] was considered inevitable."

But whatever happened in the general election in 1984?

If you listen to Ferraro, it was a deus ex machina that caused the general election defeat:

We lost in 1984, big time. But that loss had nothing to do with Democratic Party infighting.

But while the loss may have not have had anything to do with 'infighting', the record reflects that Mondale lost 49 of 50 states (he also won the District of Columbia, along with his home state of Minnesota.)

The superdelegates helped Mondale on his way to a record matched only by George McGovern in 1972, who won just Massachusetts and DC.

Perhaps the 1984 voters, like those in 2008, had a better sense of who could challenge Ronald Reagan in the fall. After all, it's hard to argue that Gary Hart would have fared worse.

A New Era at Harvard?

While the NY Times is still reeling from the 'should-have-published / shouldn't-have-published' story about Senator John McCain's close, um, ties, to lobbyists on behalf of Paxon Communications, another controversial bombshell was printed this weekend, but in the sports section.

Less than a year after being named the Harvard basketball coach, the Times story details a series of aggressive recruiting tactics that appear destined to upgrade the talent level in Cambridge.

The Ivy League holds itself to a higher standard than the NCAA for athletic recruiting; its "Academic Index" or AI, has been the standard by which athletes have been measured for years.

For example, a student with a 3.1 grade-point average and just over 1,560 out of a possible 2,400 on the SAT would register roughly a 171 on the Academic Index, the minimum score allowed by the Ivy League for athletes.

(For more on AI and Ivy League recruiting generally, see The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values, by (former Princeton president) Bill Bowen and James L. Shulman, or Playing the Game: Inside Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League, by Chris Lincoln.)

Harvard, for years has had standards at the high end of the scale, even with the Ivy League, as detailed in the Times article. In short, the previous assistant coaches were working from the expectation that the team -- as a whole -- had to average 202, and that kids below about 195 were, basically inadmissible. The Times indicates that the average for Harvard going forward will be significantly lower, and that at least one potential recruit has not yet met the minimum threshold (171) to allow admittance at all.

But somewhat like the McCain story -- where the implication of an inappropriate romantic relationship overshadowed the more substantive John-McCain-can- be-influenced-by-lobbyists angle -- the more explosive element of the Harvard article is the citing of two specific (potential) NCAA recruiting violations.

First, one of Harvard's assistants (possibly before he officially accepted his position in Cambridge) played basketball last summer with two of the kids that Harvard ended up recruiting, and in one instance drove approximately 200 miles to play.

Second, Harvard coach Amaker himself 'bumped' (to use the recruiting parlance) one recruits' parents in a grocery store approximately 280 miles away from Cambridge. (The recruit ended up committing to Penn, which is undoubtedly how the story became public.)

While Amaker and his staff may be making great efforts to upgrade the level of talent that will be play in Cambridge in the next four years, it is far from clear that Amaker can harness such talent into a winning team. Just ask fans from Seton Hall or Michigan.

But ironically, the rap (at least according to the Times' own story when he was hired) on Tommy Amaker at Michigan was that he was "too principled to run a major college program."