Super Algebra Tuesday

Lord almighty, Super Tuesday is complicated for the media to cover this year.  The problem is not just that the Democratic side of the race is so darn close.  The real issue is that most political reporters are terrible at math.

The Republican race is a cake walk for reporters.  The GOP bas has finally remembered why they liked McCain eight years ago, once again embracing McCain as a straight-shooting boy scout who can praise Bush's war in Iraq and invoke the name of Ronald Reagan 31.3 times per hour. Baring a deus ex machina on behalf of Mitt Romney, McCain will win today, and go on to get the 1,191 delegates he needs.  Bingo, presto--the GOP has a candidate for president.

Meanwhile, to figure out what will happen on the Democratic side, your average political reporter must reach for a calculator, slide rule, and abacus--and not necessarily in that order.

The bottom line is that the Democrat who wins the nomination needs 2025 delegates to do so, but how that will happen is palm-sweatingly unclear.   It almost seems like the Super Tuesday media coverage of the Democratic race has been taken over by a cruel 4th grade pre-algebra teacher.  "If Obama is ahead by 2% on the West Coast when the polls open on East Coast, and 20% of the electorate has voted absentee in California, how much of a victory in the popular vote will it take for Clinton to overcome the 20% closing momentum of Obama in 97 tracking polls distributed across 24 states?"

Ready, set, begin!

Yikes! I forgot my #2 pencil.

What makes the Democratic side so complicated is the fact that none of the Democratic primary or caucus states are 'winner-take-all.' If McCain beans Romney by three votes in California, McCain takes all the delegates for that state.  By contrast, if Clinton were to trounce Obama by 15% in California and Obama were to rout Clinton by 30% in Illinois, delegates would still be distributed to each. 

On top of all that, even after the Democratic delegates are divvied up by the electorate across the 24 states voting, today,  there are still over 700 'superdelegates' who can swing the nomination.

So, even if there is a political reporter in the media who scored better than a C+ on a math test in their entire life, the  superdelegates loom over the entire equation like a giant unknown variable--which was a lesson in Algebra II (groan).

All this crazy math means one thing: the Democrat who wins the most votes on Super Algebra Tuesday will not likely be the Democrat who carries the day.  Both candidates will inevitably declare themselves the victors.

'Winning' for Clinton or Obama will likely come down to which  campaign is better at driving the media  narrative, which campaign can capture the attention of the math-crazed political reporters desperate to cling on to something more lyrical than piles of paper filled with cross-out multiplication tables.

And when we clear away the math -- throw away all the cheat sheets and scratch pads -- the story we see is about Obama's 'momentum.' 

Even if the math sides with Hillary Clinton, the onerous task before her campaign will be drive the debate away from the poetic tale of Barack Obama's momentum.   Obama's 'big mo' is the story that the media seems to want.

Despite the race to control the narrative, the media is still going to walk us through an unhealthy amount of Algebra in the next 24 hours by way of explaining the state of the race. 

So, put your pocket protectors in place, America.  Start up your calculators, dust off that abacus. 

Ready.

Set.

Calculate!

Cross posted from Frameshop

Follow Jeffrey Feldman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffreyFeldman

Comments

[avicenna]

As a Canadian who is pretty good at math and logical expressions involving problem solving, I can only shake my head in bewilderment how such a convulated system can be expected to be employed to make such important decisions. Who on earth designed this system, and who would agree to implement it? At the end of the day, I really hope Americans will have the opportunity to crawl out of that deep hole they are currently burried in, and select the one leader who is sure to change America's character back to the idealistic dream it dares to be instead of the nightmare it has become. Good luck!

[kellygrrrl]

I bet my 8th grade Honors Algebra daughter could figure it out before I could. It would be a great lesson for math teachers across the nation to make a study of this.

[Pippen]

There is a vote here few have reported about and that's the Jewish vote. Jewish culture has a firm and strategic influence on our foreign policy. The Jewish people here in America often vote in block. They influence New York delegates and Florida delegates overwhelmingly.

The problem I see is this:

Hillary has courted the Jewish vote and is not considered a liberal on foreign relations or military action. (see Bill's war with Bosnian/Serb).

Obama on the other hand came out early and said a few positive things about the Palestinians and then booked a fund raiser with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, both of which who have made anti-semitic comments in public.

I might be going out on a limb here but seems to me Obama can kiss the Jewish vote bye bye. Does this mean he's lost New York (delegates) and Florida (delegates) ?

We've calculated racism and misogyny, now we can calculate the religious/ culture vote.

Gee wonder who the Mormons will vote for?

[jason10006]

" If Obama shows a decisive win here..."

And IF he loses in terms of both delagates and number states won, and possibly in terms of actual votes cast, I gurentee you the BEST possible coverage will be Candy Crowley telling CNN viewers "never discount the Clinton Machine" whereas the most NEGATIVE thing you will hear about Obama is someone form any non-Fox network saying that "voters have not yet all embraced his uplifitng message of change."

Of course, on Fox hilary is the devil and obama must always be referred to by his middle name, but I digress...

[JustAnotherJoe]

Algebra? Wrong high school subject, dude. Algebra has a fairly simple set of rules that are applied logically and consistently to solve problems. The presidential nomination is more Kafkaesque than mathematical. Why is that?

[longislandlol]

Great article; the DNC's McAuliffe did this a favor to who?

[NASCARLiberal]

And what about those Florida delegates? As you know Hillary trounced Obama in Florida, a fact the Obama-blinded media seems to ignore.

And, since Florida jumped its primary forward to January 29th and has been told their delegates won't be seated in Denver ... what will happen to that margin Hillary won in that state?

Florida voters disenfranchised by a hissy-fit of DNC leadership? And the country-at-large suffering because Hillary could be denied her large share of the delegates she won in Florida.

Do the math on this one. It is staggering and pathetic. Dean was protecting the sanctity of the New Hampshire primary where single digit delegates are at stake, and disenfranchising triple digit delegates in Florida. Is he asking to lose the election in that state? Does he want angry Floridians to stay home in the general election. Or is he just crazy?

[ystasino]

Instead of specifics we get punditry and whining on how tough algebra is. You get an F!

[fearwig]

One thing would probably end the real debate, at least in popular conception, as soon as the polls are in, and that's a popular vote/delegate win for Obama, no matter how close. While it is popular to dismiss the momentum factor, it's not imaginary, and it's not just part of some narrative invented by the media--it's just a very appealing and interesting story for the media to cover. If Obama shows a decisive win here, he has symbolically, if not yet practically, overcome the once-inevitable incumbent, even if it's not by the 700-delegate margin necessary to compensate for the super-delegate wild card. And as much as people hate to admit it, symbols and intangibles have as much meaning in an election as hard votes, especially when half the nation is still waiting for their shot at the polls.