The polls close in a half-hour. Best results at the Secretary of State's website here. For you delegate junkies out there (and I know you're out there), you can find the returns by Congressional district here.
I don't know if the early returns tell us a lot. I think it's going to be a toss-up between Obama and Clinton, and the same with McCain and Romney. If Romney loses here I expect him to drop out tomorrow. For Obama, a win would be very significant for spin, but the delegate counts are where the action is on the Democratic side. This race is going on, for a while, at least.
[UPDATE by Julia] 8:27 PMBowers has the exit poll numbers at Clinton 50.7--44.4 Obama. If that holds up with her absentee edge it could be a good night for her. Then again it was only a few weeks ago that she was up here by 20 points. She was expected to win handily all along.
[UPDATE by Julia] 8:45 PM MSNBC exit polling demographics: Obama won the white vote 49-43, Black vote 89-11, Clinton winning Latino vote 2-1 and the Asian vote about 3-1.
[UPDATE by Julia] 9:12 PM CNN has more votes in than the SoS. 14.2% to 5.8% in. CNN has it at 55% to 32%. The SoS has it at 53.9 to 32.6%% . looking at the counties LA, SF and Sacto don't have any numbers in. I see some in Marin, Fresno and a decent chunk from SD. This is going to be a long night folks. Absentees come in first. LA typically comes in late, but they don't have the same problems as other counties with counting the paper ballots. They did not have to switch their machines. Sacto has been warning for a while that they will be slow.
[UPDATE by Julia] 9:16 No sooner do I update, but MSNBC calls it for California. This feels premature based on the numbers coming from the registrar. They do have experienced number crunchers on the TeeVee.
[UPDATE by Julia] 9:30 14.8% in from the SoS: 54.8% to 31.8% Clinton over Obama. Some LA numbers in.
[UPDATE by Lucas] 9:41 46 out of 53 congressional districts reporting, McCain with significant leads in every district (woah, wrong number: 15.2% of precincts total reporting).
It's primary election day in California. Don't let yourself forget to vote, and check our voter guide to help you figure out what those initiatives are about.
Here is a scary thought: People who are just old enough to vote for the first time in this election were ten years old when the 2000 election brought George Bush to the White House, and likely don't remember much from before that.
(I wonder what we'll be dealing with the rest of the week. bump. - promoted by Lucas O'Connor)
So I went to my polling place at an off-hour to see if turnout was decent (it was pretty average, in my view). It was a new location for me, in a little art gallery featuring an exhibit called "Patriot Acts" (yes, a politically themed art installation in a polling place. Ah, the People's Republic of Santa Monica). I had no problem getting my ballot and heading to the booth. The guy behind me was a DTS voter who had no idea that Republicans didn't allow them to vote in the primary. "I wouldn't vote for the Republicans anyway," he yelled as he took a Democratic ballot. But nobody told him to make sure to fill out that Democratic oval to re-assert that he, as a nonpartisan voter, requested a Democratic ballot (as if taking the ballot in the first place wasn't enough of a clue). So I told him.
My neighbor was headed to the polls; she's also a DTS voter. I told her to make sure to fill out that Democratic oval. She said she kind of heard something about that but wasn't sure.
I've received more than a couple emails from DTS voters thanking me for telling them about the issue, or saying that they didn't fill out the bubble, asking me whether or not their votes will be counted.
This is a NIGHTMARE. An absolute nightmare. This has been in place since 2002, and somehow the evidence from 2004, when so few DTS voters participated in the Democratic primary in LA County, wasn't enough to dummy-proof the system. Thousands upon thousands of voters are going to be disenfranchised today. I can't reach them all; neither can the CDP. The Secretary of State must demand that all those DTS ballots are impounded, the machines recalibrated to eliminate this problem, and all votes reread through the feeder. In a race so close, we cannot have this crisis of confidence.
UPDATE: I'm on a conference call with the Obama campaign right now and they're talking about this very issue. "There is great concern" in Los Angeles County, and "the pollworkers are confused" about this as well, according to the lawyer on the phone now (I would use the word "ignorant" and not confused). "We're hoping the Secretary of State and the County Registrar will rectify this situation" but they don't sound particularly hopeful.
DTS voters are also being denied ballots in selected counties, according to the campaign.
Carla Marinucci is wondering why this wasn't challenged previously. This has been in place in LA County in multiple election cycles, and knowing that DTS voters would show up in record numbers, I agree that it should have been caught earlier. My point is that the Secretary of State's office or the county registrar should have been the ones to catch it. The lawyer just said "We hope that they will adopt procedures to make sure these ballots are counted," and if they aren't adopted, he raised the option of legal challenges.
These ballots almost certainly won't be counted tonight, and keep that in mind when you start seeing the results roll in.
They're hoping that the media gets this out. I'm trying.
From the inbox: This is really weird. From the Clinton campaign:
4:25 PM EST HILLARY WIRE UPDATE...
* False reports about voting problems in LA are being drudged up
- Everything is going smoothly in LA.
"I urge the Secretary of State and County Registrar to do everything within their power to ensure that every vote is counted, and to carefully weigh voter intent against this confusing Los Angeles County ballot design.
Barack Obama's endorsement by the Grateful Dead showed the extent to which he is bringing voters out of the woodwork. Typically in campaigns, you start with 1/3 supporting your side, 1/3 supporting the other side, and 1/3 ready to be convinced. The middle is the battleground (unless you buy into the DLC playbook of pissing off the base to try and win over the other side's base, which is why no Clinton has won 50% nationwide). The other option is to not buy into the voter pool as a zero net sum game and bring in new people. To date, Barack Obama has excelled at expanding the pool and bringing in young voters and first time voters and boosting turnout.
When it comes to the Grateful Dead, it is almost a joke when it comes to getting Deadheads to care about politics. It might be the least friendly demographic for increasing participation in electoral politics. The Dead didn't step up against Nixon or any other major threat to America since. But they have been inspired by Barack Obama to come together for a reunion concert to Get Out The Vote. I'm proud to be there and will be updating below the fold, you can listen to a Live stream here (beginning at 7:30 pacific + Dead time).
In Barack Obama's final email to supporters, this little reminder kind of jumped out at me:
If you declined to select a political party when you registered to vote, you can still vote for Barack Obama if you request a Democratic ballot from the poll worker. Make sure you mark "Democratic" in the appropriate space or the vote might not be counted.
Vote might not be counted, ay? What's this all about?
Turns out that in Los Angeles County, if a DTS voter requests their Democratic ballot and casts their vote, but does NOT mark "Democratic" in the appropriate space, the vote will indeed not be counted. The ballot will go through the scan-tron machine, not register as a counted vote, AND will not spit back out for the voter to fix. In LA County, they feed the ballot through the tabulator right in front of the voter, presumably to prevent errors just like this. But this one doesn't get caught in all the tests.
This seems to me significant just as a voting rights issue. There are 776,000 DTS voters in LA County alone, which is ¾ of everyone who has voted in the first four Democratic primaries thus far. Setting up an additional hurdle for these voters if they want to participate in the Democratic primary, and then NOT INFORMING THEM if they fail to clear that hurdle, seems to me to be just completely unacceptable.
Here's the ballot, and you can see that there's virtually no reason to give people something else to screw up. There's only one bubble to fill out, and it's already been implicitly "filled out" when they asked for the ballot in the first place.
Our friends in the Courage Campaign (who are urging DTS voters to vote in the Democratic primary) sent a letter to the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters, noting that the law is pretty clear on the issue:
The statute is clear: voters who have already affirmatively requested a Democratic ballot and cast a vote for a Democratic candidate, but who inadvertently fail to mark line number 6, must have their vote counted. To do otherwise is contrary to the statute. We can find no statutory basis for requiring voters to mark additional boxes to indicate that they are DTS voters requesting a partisan ballot.
I'm trying to get a PDF of the letter up as well, but I'm all thumbs with this pesky technology, so bear with me. The point is that a lot of people tomorrow may not realize that their vote is in risk of not being counted. Which is terrible for democracy, regardless of preference in the primary race.
[UPDATE by Julia] The full letter from our (Courage Campaign) lawyer is now on the flip. It was faxed this morning and Steven has had several discussions with the LA County ROV about this already.
So far in 2008, Democrats have held two presidential primaries without the possibility of delegates not being seated at the national convention- New Hampshire and South Carolina. And a funny thing happened. Turnout for the New Hampshire primary was 83.5% of the total number of Democratic votes cast in the general there in 2004. In South Carolina, turnout hit 80% of the total number of 2004 Democratic votes. Part of that is that Democrats are coming out of the woodwork. But part of it is independents swinging Democratic.
But if you're a DTS voter in California, it isn't necessarily an intuitive process to get your mitts on a Democratic ballot. Poll workers won't offer it to you, and that seems to make a difference since in 2004 only 8% of the 2.5 million DTS voters in the state participated in the primary. Since then we've amped up to about 3 million DTSers and getting them into the Democratic process is a huge deal.
Yeah, this is short, but I don't see an open thread to post to :-).
Earlier this week, I commented on a story about people not having sent in absentee ballots yet:
One of the reasons I'm waiting is that I want to make sure I don't end up voting for someone who's not in the race anymore on Feb. 5. I'm not talking viability, but rather that three candidates on the ballot (Dodd, Biden, Richardson) have already withdrawn from the race, and more may do so after South Carolina. FTR, our absentee ballots are sitting here on the computer desk, and we already know how we're voting on the props.
The Hillary we saw last night was pretty weak Throwing Punches to see them return and punch herself in the nose.
Throwing out the only thing she has left for dirt on Obama, that he spent 5 hours of work on a realestate deal for a member of a church group that he was assigned to in Chicago.
The Chicago sun times has looked into this and reported over and over again, but the dirt falls off.
And the national media has investigated these allegations and find nothing that supports Hillary's claims.
So this is the same ole same ole... search and destroy that Hillary has been attempting since IOWA.
First it was the $850,000.from Bundler Norman Hsu with ties to Johnny Chung and the Chinese military.....
Shades of Bill Clinton renting of the Lincoln bedroom.
Oh!!! Please not again...
After that Fiasco faded and Hsu was brought to Justice we watched donations come in for $2300.00 from dishwashers, maids and cooks in New York.
These people make minimum wage in most cases and the 2300.00 dollars would constitute 10% of their yearly salary... Smells kinda fishy!!!
Next we have the stumble in the debate, where the Fearless leader was asked direct questions.... but would not answer.
Google the 2nd debate.
And the Sunday talk show circuit, 5 national shows, all the same questions - pre arranged. With the same Answers ( except for Chris Wallace, bless his heart he did ask 1 intelligent question not on the cards)
So far in this Primary season, we have had the Media annoint Hillary Clinton, that blew up when she was caught 3 times in IOWA with Shills in the crowds asking her pre arranged questions.
Hillary starts the Leak and destroy campaign against Edwards and Obama..... It doesn't work.
Bob Novack Republican operative is toast!
Hillary' leaks that she has breaking news about major dirt on Obama. This comes back to bite your highness in the arse when it doesn't materialize. CNN Wolfe Blitzer gets up off his knee's and put's his tounge back into his mouth as Hillary withdraws her boots.
Hillary loses IOWA, her Press secretary says, Iowa wasn't important, "It was like running for mayor of a small Village"
This hurts the IOWA Electorate! What a way to treat the people that voted for you!
Disenfranchising the voters, the Unions, the Blacks and all other Democrat's in the party has got to be her favorite pasttime.
We now go to New Hampshire and watch as state Democratic leaders tear each other apart, get yelled at by Hillary operatives and Bill.
Questions still linger in how many neighbor states drove over from organizations to vote for Hillary, leading a lot of Democrat's to believe that the Clinton Machine is well oiled. ... Hillary wins, proving Pollsters wrong.
Next we see Hillary Hillary pit Union against Union, Member against member, because she did not like the Culinary Union supporting her opponent......
Yet Hillary Clinton and staff worked toward getting the Rule on the books for the Culinary workers just 12 months earlier.
"This is in addition to the Clinton campaign's efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations," said Plouffe. "These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week's worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself."
(I was going to write a post about the deadline for voter registration being tomorrow, but this has all the deets. So, if anybody you know is not registered, let them know their application must be postmarked by TODAY!!! - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Last night I was watching football with friends and at one point the discussion turned to the upcoming election. One of my friends has not yet registered and was remarking that she was going to mail in her registration on Tuesday, aware of the deadline. This friend is quite moderate and despite the fact that politics is a fairly regular topic of conversation for our group of friends, I was not sure if she was going to want to vote in the Democratic of Republican primary. Quite frankly I was just happy she was intending to register. So I went through and explained to her and another friend who is DTS, but wanting to vote in the Democratic primary the rules for California's primary.
Make sure all of your family and friends who are DTS voters are aware:
1) They are not permitted to vote in the Republican primary.
2) They must request a Democratic ballot if they wish to vote in the primary, otherwise they will only get a ballot with the initiatives.
3) Vote by mail people have until Jan 29th to request a Democratic ballot from the registrar.
Literally right after I finished that conversation I got this email from the Obama campaign. It is exactly in keeping with the overall message from the Obama campaign about bringing people into the process and drawing voters who may not be registered Democrats to vote for Obama. The email is on the flip.
This year's California primary was intended to be unusual for several reasons, not just the move to February 5. It was a common assumption that more voters would choose to vote by mail, and that those voters would be sending in their ballots early, forcing the presidential campaigns to shift their tactics accordingly.
But how is it actually working out? The answer depends on where you are. In Santa Clara County, where more voters (56%) are registered as vote-by-mail than any other high-population county, it seems to be business as usual. From the Mercury News:
Historically, about 25 percent of absentee ballots are dropped at polling places or the registrar's office on Election Day. And so far, there doesn't appear to be a lag in votes already cast in Santa Clara County or statewide, officials say. Weir said some counties are even seeing a bigger early vote count than normal, while Santa Clara County officials say the flow is about normal at roughly 4,000 a day.
While down here in Monterey County, most folks seem to be waiting. From the Monterey Herald:
Despite requesting a record number of absentee ballots for California's Feb. 5 presidential primary, most Monterey County voters are hanging onto them, apparently still undecided whom they will choose as their party's nominee.
As of Friday, county Registrar of Voters Linda Tulett said fewer than 11,000 absentee ballots had been returned out of 81,000 issued, with a little more than two weeks to go until the state's primary.
What these articles suggest is that the assumption that vote-by-mail people would send in their votes early as they committed to a candidate just isn't happening. Instead a larger number of voters seem to be waiting to see what happens in the earlier states, their votes driven by media perceptions of who is "viable" and who is not. Although California's votes may help determine the outcome, California voters are still depending on the earlier contests, and we may still act merely as a coronation.
The hope that the earlier primary date would get candidates to pay more attention to Californians and Californian issues doesn't seem to be paying off either. Leon Panetta, former Clinton Chief of Staff and director of the Panetta Institute at Cal State Monterey Bay, expects campaigns to conduct less expensive but high targeted campaigns:
Leon Panetta said he believes the candidates in both parties have already spent so much money trying to build momentum in the early states that they're starting to watch their budgets and focusing their campaign efforts on the areas of maximum return, both in terms of votes and money....
"I think they're beginning to watch their dollars and cents," Panetta said. "This is probably going to be the most targeted campaigning that we'll see until the general presidential election (in November)." [From the Monterey Herald article]
While the candidates will be spending more time in California over the next two weeks, they're also going to have to spread their attention to other important states like Ohio, Illinois, New York, and other places. Meaning that we can expect the CA primary to be won through a combination of GOTV and media buzz.
Cross posted from Daily Kos with the permission of the author,masslib.
The Observer Unlimited reports Maya Angelou has recently penned a poem for Hillary Clinton. For those of you who do not know, Maya Angelou is a renowned poetess and author of National Book Award winner, autobiographical novel, I know why the caged bird sings . The poem borrows from an earlier work of Ms. Angelou, her iconic classic, Still I Rise . Hillary can take great honor in Maya's use of the imagery of that poem as it is an important work, and indicative of her great love for Hillary that she made her "family" in her heart that way. Maya's poem really struck a chord with me after my experience volunteering for Hillary in Southern NH, and I would guess it was written in that time period. I was campaigning for Hillary from hours before she lost Iowa until hours before she won NH. My story and the poem below the fold.
Yes, I'm here to tell you (oh no it's not PC), that this race is about gender. If you don't want to hear my analysis then please go elsewhere rather than shooting me for something you haven't even read. I mean, why read when you can just blast away at the nasty, woman supporting hillbot who is playing that gender card thing?
They know that the day a woman is nominated for President millions upon millions upon millions of Marys will register to vote for the first time in their lives.
(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)
Look out! Hillary Clinton just passed Dennis Kucinich and is now in 3rd place both in California and nationally in the Pick Your President Poll. Barack Obama is still leading John Edwards. I know for sure that the Obama supporters and network are encouraging their people to vote in the poll. What about John Edwards? He was doing quite well before Obama supporters started working on GOTV. Who knows maybe Clinton will catch up?
I can't share with you the actual vote margins, but suffice to say they do not match up with your average daily kos poll. There is plenty of time for anybody to claim first place. The poll will run until the 18th. You can follow the results on this page. The numbers are current as of 2 PM PST. We will be updating over the weekend.
Here are the current California standings, which are now identical to the national rankings:
1. Sen. Barack Obama
2. Sen. John Edwards
3. Sen. Hillary Clinton
4. Rep. Dennis Kucinich
5. Gov. Bill Richardson *
6. Sen. Mike Gravel
(Richardson is starred because he dropped out, but people voted for him prior to that, so he retains his rankings.)
Here are the Republican rankings. The vote totals are many magnitudes less on the Republican side than the Democratic side. RONPAUL (yes all one word) is leading, not a surprise given his online organizing strength. Being from California really isn't helping Duncan Hunter.
1. Rep. Ron Paul
2. Sen. John McCain
3. Gov. Mike Huckabee
4. Gov. Mitt Romney
5. Mayor Rudy Giuliani
6. Sen. Fred Thompson
7. Rep. Duncan Hunter
As an aside, it has been a real pleasure to work side by side with other state based progressive groups on this poll. People I met in Chicago at Yearly Kos are now partners on this poll. It's been a lot of fun and we are happy to see people having fun and firing up their networks.
Congratulations to Hillary Clinton for winning New Hampshire. But there is much more at stake to this horse race than the skim surface of the campaign mechanics the mainstream media tells.
Though Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire, her back door dealings have already seem to have secured her a position in the White House, barely trying.
Just like the general election where the electoral college is the only vote that matters, the primaries have a similar system that parallels the electoral college in process. It's call the delegates and superdelegates.
Here's an explanation of what they are and how they're selected. They aren't voted for at all:
Clinton's campaign co-chair is Terri McAuliffe, who works and is very influential in the DNC. He was able to lock all of the DNC for Hillary anyways. What is your opinion of this?
To be honest, I am not that interested in arguing over the merits of moving up to Feb. 5th. What I am intrigued by is the level of activity going on now. As a good little online organizer, I looked for metrics to be able to assess the lay of the land. There is a lot going on here in California, even if there are no TV ads.
Poking around the candidate's websites I find that there are over 50 events for Barack Obama just between now and Sunday. They range from canvassing, to precinct captain training, to meetings with local campaign surrogates. It is a truly impressive amount of grassroots activity. John Edwards' website shows 13 events between now and the 12th.
Meanwhile Hillary Clinton's event status is a lot harder to assess. I only got one return for an event with a 100 mile radius of my place, which should include the Bay Area, but when I use a SF zip it shows 10 events between now and Feb 5th with the same radius. Obviously I can't do apples to oranges, but it appears that Obama has a lot greater grassroots activity than the other two.
If anyone from the campaigns wants to give me better numbers, I would be glad to update this post.
I am actually interested in hearing from all of you what you have heard from the various candidates offline. Thus far I have been visited by two canvas teams, one from Barack Obama's Walk for Change program and also Ron Paul. I live in a very blue neighborhood in urban Sacramento. I have not gotten any glossy mailers yet. Has anyone knocked on your doors? What about phone calls? Any mailers?
Ballots get mailed next week and about half of the vote will come in that way. So there is no time to lose for these campaigns. And for all of you to go volunteer for your favorite candidate!
Updated with a swell picture from Russiablog. -Lucas
Via TPM , word of internal polling from Jackie Speier that shows her with a huge 30 point lead over incumbent Tom Lantos. Speier's camp quotes a 57%-27% lead over Lantos is a straight "who would you support" poll of the 12th district.
The goodwill and name recognition that Speier built up during her primary run for Lt. Governor last year seem to be serving her well out of the gate. I'm sure Lantos will bounce back from numbers like these, especially once the incumbent protection kicks in. But if these numbers prove to be remotely accurate, it's gonna be a heckuva race on the peninsula.
The squabble to be first in deciding the nation's fate is intensifying. Early states are cleverly inching their primaries in a race to secure voting influence for their citizens. By the end of February, we'll know who the presidential finalists are before more than half the nation gets a chance to vote, let alone meet the candidates. Sound Fair?
The heavily frontloaded primary schedule does all of America a disservice. Leaving the power to decide who the next president of the America can be to a handful of people is just not right. The demographic make up of all the early primary state, even combined, does not accurately represent the American population. For instance, isn't New Hampshire the third wealthiest state in the nation?
With less than a month left, there seems like there's no hope. The Washington Post reports that the American people are being tempted by pessimism, and are losing faith in our political system. But, not to fear.
Register to host a caucus at www.nationalcaucus.com and get involved.
It seems like there's no hope but to accept the circumstances. However, I came across this website, the National Presidential Caucus, that looks to give voters a fair chance to voice their opinions before the primaries kick off. It's not a national primary or anything like that, don't let the name mislead you.
Here's how it works:
1) Post your caucus online
2) Meet offline with some friends, neighbors, whomever to discuss candidates and issues
3) Post your results from your discussions online
It's as simple as that. It's really just an effort to encourage and empower civic engagement and voter opinions. So why not...
How can we claim to go across seas to build a democracy, when our own political system at home is suffering? Get involved. sign up to host a caucus in your neighborhood today.
The stakes are high in the next election and we can't sit idly. Join the National Presidential Caucus (NPC) effort to confront the heavily compressed primary schedule we're facing today. NPC is hosting a National Caucus Day on Dec. 7th.
To encourage voters to form opinions before the early primary states and the media determine who the leading candidates will be, NPC is asking people like you to host caucuses in their communities.
To make this work, we need as many caucuses as we can get.
Here's how it works:
-Post a caucus on the website
-Meet offline on December 7th to talk about issues and candidates that matter TO YOU
-Post your results on our website with all the other caucuses from across the nation
Hosting a caucus is as simple as getting some friends, family, or whomever you want together. It's really easy to do!
What if every state's caucus and primary were weighted equally? I don't know about you, but I'd call that democracy.
Register to host a caucus today . Together, let's try to reinvigorate democracy as we know it.
Barack Obama's endorsement by the Grateful Dead showed the extent to which he is bringing voters out of the woodwork. Typically in campaigns, you start with 1/3 supporting your side, 1/3 supporting the other side, and 1/3 ready to be convinced. The middle is the battleground (unless you buy into the DLC playbook of pissing off the base to try and win over the other side's base, which is why no Clinton has won 50% nationwide). The other option is to not buy into the voter pool as a zero net sum game and bring in new people. To date, Barack Obama has excelled at expanding the pool and bringing in young voters and first time voters and boosting turnout.
