Another thing which I wanted to blog about that came up in my conversation with my Sister the other night was the massive effect Caucuses (cauci? it is a latin root but according to dictionary.com it's -es) had on the results.
Looking at the results from Super Fat Tuesday, one thing that really jumps out at you are these HUGE margins for Obama in some states. When you look closely, it turns out that most of those wins came in Caucus states. Obama won by over 60% in 7 states. Of those, his home state of Illinois (65%) and the heavily black Georgia (67%) were the only primary states. The other 5 where he racked up big margins were caucus states, including Colorado (67%) Minnesota (67%), Kansas (74%), Alaska (75%) and the total blow out in Idaho (79%). The only caucus state he's lost has been Nevada.
Caucuses are different from elections because you ahve to be at the voting site at a very specific time. This means it's more of a pain in the ass. It also means that if you have a very rigid schedule, you're SOL. But why do caucuses favor Obama by such huge margins? I dunno. I can think of two educated guesses as to why he does better. First, Obama tends to do best with younger voters and the most affluent of voters. These voters are the most likely to have the schedules flexible enough to attend caucus events. Second, Obama brings in lots of first time voters. When the process is "turn up, check off ballot, go about your day" habitual voters will attend. It takes more motivation to get people out to a caucus. And Obama seems to be capable of generating that kind of excitement. What does that mean? Well, the next caucus state is Washington this weekend. Guess we'll see.
Image Public Domain, US Government from the Galvin Library.
Looking at the results from Super Fat Tuesday, one thing that really jumps out at you are these HUGE margins for Obama in some states. When you look closely, it turns out that most of those wins came in Caucus states. Obama won by over 60% in 7 states. Of those, his home state of Illinois (65%) and the heavily black Georgia (67%) were the only primary states. The other 5 where he racked up big margins were caucus states, including Colorado (67%) Minnesota (67%), Kansas (74%), Alaska (75%) and the total blow out in Idaho (79%). The only caucus state he's lost has been Nevada.
Caucuses are different from elections because you ahve to be at the voting site at a very specific time. This means it's more of a pain in the ass. It also means that if you have a very rigid schedule, you're SOL. But why do caucuses favor Obama by such huge margins? I dunno. I can think of two educated guesses as to why he does better. First, Obama tends to do best with younger voters and the most affluent of voters. These voters are the most likely to have the schedules flexible enough to attend caucus events. Second, Obama brings in lots of first time voters. When the process is "turn up, check off ballot, go about your day" habitual voters will attend. It takes more motivation to get people out to a caucus. And Obama seems to be capable of generating that kind of excitement. What does that mean? Well, the next caucus state is Washington this weekend. Guess we'll see.
Image Public Domain, US Government from the Galvin Library.
2 comments:
I like how you capitalized Sister, as this is a position of distinction and anyone holding such position clearly deserves great honor. And an amazing graduation present...
PS am I the first person to comment your blog?
PS am I the first person to comment your blog?
First and only so far!
Post a Comment