The fix might not be in, but the mechanics for making the fix are all in place.
Republican voters this Presidential cycle, do you think your vote counts? You might want to think again and consider the potential manipulations and shenanigans in your party's rules and voting schedule.
I won't lay out conspiracy theories here or pick the potential winners and losers of this system; you can do that yourself. This just lays out the rules and the calendar and you can work out how to manipulate this.
If you vote in the Democratic primaries for President, your vote will be counted proportionately for the candidate you’re voting for. So, if Clinton gets 50% in a state, Sanders 40%, and O’Malley 10%, Clinton will get 50% of the delegates for that state, Sanders 40%, O’Malley 10%. There are rounding issues here and there, but that’s basically the same rule for every Democratic contest.
Now, for the Republicans, instead there’s a weird quilt of rules about allocation of delegates based on the amount of votes they get in a caucus or primary as to whether they get delegates proportionally, if the winner by plurality gets all of them, who gets “bonus” delegates and at-large delegates assigned to the state delegation to the RNC convention, and so forth.
The bottom line is, your vote may count double, triple, or tenfold, or may not count at all, or may count proportionately. Whether it’s going to count or not has a lot to do with state party rules, which are set up basically so they can be manipulated around a party-favorite candidate.
Details:
For the first two weeks of March of 2016, the RNC requires sort of proportional representation of delegates - but leaves up specific rules about what the thresholds are to receive delegates on a state by state basis. They also allow states to set up a system to award at-large and bonus delegates (delegates given to a state because they have Republican elected officials at the state or federal level) as winner-take-all, either by Congressional district or statewide.
After March 14, state parties can set their delegation rules anyway they want. They can actually change the rules at any time; so one state could be winner-take-all, another could be strictly proportional, another could be proportional with thresholds for candidates to earn any delegates.
The intent of this latter rule was (ostensibly) to allow states to adopt winner-take-all rules once an apparent front-runner had started leading the field, so it would force everybody to effectively rally around the leading candidate. However, note that the flexibility in state by state rules allows each state party (run, by definition, by the Establishment) to basically pick their rules based on which candidate they want to earn delegates or be denied delegates based on the polling going into primary day.
Note also caucus rules are wildly variable; some caucuses have their own threshold requirements on a site-by-site basis (such as 15% of voters present must support a candidate to get a vote in the state totals, otherwise the voters are forced to caucus with another candidate) and the allocations of groups of votes can change by county, congressional district, or special district in the state. There’s so much room for shenanigans here it’s hard to describe in detail.
Here’s how this will play out (Republican calendar only):
States locked in to the semi-proportional format: * = caucus, otherwise a primary
February: (basically one a week) 2/1 Iowa*, 2/9 NH, 2/20 SC, 2/23 NV.
(Washington caucuses are on 2/20, but their Presidential delegates are not selected at the caucus. It’s complicated but the bottom line is there are no delegates to go into the delegate count and thus affect the overall race.)
March:
3/1 - Alabama, Alaska*, Arkansas, CO*, Georgia, MA, Minn*, ND*, OK, TN, TX, VT, VA, WY* (“Super Tuesday” this year)
3/5 - Kansas*, Louisiana, Maine*.
3/6 - Puerto Rico
3/8 - Hawaii*, Idaho, MI, Miss.
OK, so now we’re at the end of the enforced proportionality window and will have a “leader” in the delegate count.
States where the states can basically change the rules about delegate selections anytime, including winner-take-all:
3/15 - FLA, ILL, Missouri, NC, OH (<— actually more delegates to be awarded than “Super Tuesday”)
3/22 - AZ, UT*
4/4 - WI
4/19 - NY
4/26 - CT, DE, MD, PA, RI
5/3 - Indiana
5/10 - Neb, WV
5/17 - OR
5/24 - WA delegates actually selected
6/7 - CA, MT, NJ, NM, SD
6/28 - UT (delegates actually selected)
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
It's Larry Yount Day
Today, September 15th, is Larry Yount Day, in honor of the patron saint of September Call-Ups.
For those of you not familiar with the older brother of Hall of Famer Robin Young, Larry is the guy in baseball history who out-did the fictional Moonlight Graham.
Larry got called into a meaningless game for the Houston Astros in the 9th inning on this date in 1971 for his major league debut. He was out of baseball shape, having been out with the National Guard the previous week. (The common Vietnam-era practice of draft-eligible baseball players was to join the National Guard and get a friendly exemption from most actual duties, but they did have to drill from time to time.) He was stiff in the bullpen, but hid it from the coaches, and was announced as the relief pitcher without being entirely warm.
For those of you not familiar with the older brother of Hall of Famer Robin Young, Larry is the guy in baseball history who out-did the fictional Moonlight Graham.
Larry got called into a meaningless game for the Houston Astros in the 9th inning on this date in 1971 for his major league debut. He was out of baseball shape, having been out with the National Guard the previous week. (The common Vietnam-era practice of draft-eligible baseball players was to join the National Guard and get a friendly exemption from most actual duties, but they did have to drill from time to time.) He was stiff in the bullpen, but hid it from the coaches, and was announced as the relief pitcher without being entirely warm.
He got to the mound and started throwing his warm-up tosses, but was
flinching from elbow pain as he threw them. This got the attention of
his catcher, and then the coaching staff, who came to the mound, and
removed him.
Under baseball rules, normally a pitcher has to face one batter before he can be removed legally (a pinch hitter may be announced and then replaced; the stricture on pitchers is to avoid an endless series of swaps that would delay the game forever as managers jockey for right-lefty matchups). However, there's an exception in the rules for injuries.
That said, when a player is thus removed from the game, he's credited with a game "played" - and thus in Larry Yount's case, he was an official major leaguer the moment he stepped onto the mound.
Yount's stiffness continued so he never got into another game that year. In the spring of 1972, he had a great spring training but got optioned to AAA with the last cuts due to some other players on the roster having run out of minor league options. The club expected to bring him back later that season, and indeed Larry started out great at AAA. But something happened -- not an injury, Larry swore later -- and he lost his effectiveness suddenly, and ended up spending a very mediocre year entirely in AAA. He kicked around the minors a few more years, and was traded to the Brewers in 1973 for another minor leaguer, where he broke spring training camp with his younger brother Robin -- then a rookie-- in 1974, but he hung up his spikes after not making the big club.
Here's his line from Baseball reference:
1 major league game "played"; zero batters faced; a
perfect line with mathematically undefined ERA and
Wins-Above-Replacement.
Dream the dream, you September call-ups of life.
Under baseball rules, normally a pitcher has to face one batter before he can be removed legally (a pinch hitter may be announced and then replaced; the stricture on pitchers is to avoid an endless series of swaps that would delay the game forever as managers jockey for right-lefty matchups). However, there's an exception in the rules for injuries.
That said, when a player is thus removed from the game, he's credited with a game "played" - and thus in Larry Yount's case, he was an official major leaguer the moment he stepped onto the mound.
Yount's stiffness continued so he never got into another game that year. In the spring of 1972, he had a great spring training but got optioned to AAA with the last cuts due to some other players on the roster having run out of minor league options. The club expected to bring him back later that season, and indeed Larry started out great at AAA. But something happened -- not an injury, Larry swore later -- and he lost his effectiveness suddenly, and ended up spending a very mediocre year entirely in AAA. He kicked around the minors a few more years, and was traded to the Brewers in 1973 for another minor leaguer, where he broke spring training camp with his younger brother Robin -- then a rookie-- in 1974, but he hung up his spikes after not making the big club.
Here's his line from Baseball reference:
Dream the dream, you September call-ups of life.
Saturday, April 04, 2015
Pete's 22, and the Many, Many Open Mad Men Questions Before the Final Episodes
One last stab at trying to wrap it all up before the series conclusion starts tomorrow.
Will the series end in 1969, or will it bleed into 1970? Will we see a years-after scene of some sort? Will it end on a trite New Year's Eve, or will the series do one last time-jump of some sort?
Important events of 1969 yet to come after Season 7 Episode 7: the Manson Family murders, the Beatles crossing Abbey Road, Woodstock (will Sally go?), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid is released, the Mets win the World Series (you have to believe *that* one will make it in, given the repeated shout-outs to the Mets over the years and the lingering token of Lane Pryce's Mets' pennant finding Don in 7.4), debut of the 747 (continuing the series' use of planes and jet age imagery - that plus the first flight ended in New York City, on December 2), the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont (the unofficial "end of the 1960's).
What musical outros will guide us down the final seven episodes? The latter half of 1969 is replete with classic releases, from the first Stooges album to Nick Drake's debut album to breakout albums from Laura Nyro and David Bowie to Abbey Road and Let It Bleed (ominously, in December). But please, no Harry Chapin.
Will Don get into an elevator? Will the elevator be used as a heavy-handed metaphor for something going on in Don's life? Will he fall down an elevator shaft? Will he overhear some important plot detail from an elevator? Will he get into a fight in an elevator? Answers: Yes, yes, maybe, yes, yes, and yes.
Will Ben Michaelson, Don's Lawyer, finally make an appearance on screen? Will it be to get Don out of that awful contract with McCann?
Speaking of which, are we finally going to meet Hubert Green and the crack team of executives from Secor Laxative, the firm's most loyal client through ten (plus) years and four changes of ownership? How about seeing a little of the creative?
Will there be an acting role for a taxi driver? Or will we learn Mad Men is set in a parallel universe where there are robot taxis in the 1960's?
Will Ginsburg make a cameo, a la Paul Kinsey and Danny Siegel? If it's a sad expository scene underscoring the insanity of modern life set in the nuthouse, as with Pete and Beth, I'll be disappointed. Buick's Bob Benson?
We've already skipped over the Stonewall Riots (in June of 1969) and gone straight to the moon landing, missing a golden opportunity to find one of the series' best-loved write-off characters in the midst of the historical action, or at least running away from it. Will Sal Romano show up again, out of the closet and directing fabulous, fabulous commercials?
Which former paramours of Don - there are so many to choose from - will make an appearance? Or are we past the monkeying around of Sex and getting down to the brass tacks of Death? There are some good candidates - Sylvia Rosen is still in the building, Rachel Menken Katz was still in Don's heart, and poor Suzanne Farrell was literally left holding the bag the last time we saw her - Lord knows Dr. Faye has every motivation to come after Don with Pete's .22 - but my money's on Betty being the only significant figure from Don's past love life to play a real role in the end.
Uh oh. The Manson murders were just three weeks after the moon landing. Is Megan's Sharon Tate t-shirt going to be just one of those coincidences? Hunch: Megan's going to know somebody involved, and something will happen as a result, and it will not be that interesting. (We are hoping it's not flying back to Don's arms.)
We all know Harry Crane will never, ever make partner. Will Roger finally get his wish and get Harry fired, or will he become the king of SC&P, lording over the agency from his throne in the computer room?
Will Henry become Attorney General and continue his rise, or will be become Lieutenant Governor and join the obscure dustbin of history?
Who, exactly, is Pete going to end up shooting with the .22 rifle that's been hanging around since Season 1, episode 3? Or is this the Godot of Chekhovian guns, never to be actual shot after all? It is the last act.
A small but persistently nagging question leftover from season 2: was Anita's little boy actually Peggy's? If so will Peggy reunite with him as his mother, or be forced to make a choice between career and having a family?
Will Sally lose her virginity? Please, please God, if it happens, please don't let it be to Glenn. (The acting talents of the two young actors in this off-again, off-again romance spread over eight years have diverged mightily, and what chemistry might have been created for either a happy or sad first physical union has now veered over into the prospect of simply yucky.)
Will Don Draper literally die, literally plunge off a building, and literally see his life's work fly by? Or will Don be killed metaphorically so that Dick Whitman can live?
What, exactly, is going to be the fruition of all this astronaut imagery and explicit reference from the previous nine seasons? Apollo 12 is barely remembered and the drama of Apollo 13 lies in 1970.
Will Ken Cosgrove quit advertising to become, oh, say, John Irving? Duh, of course.
Will we have the fifth Bobby Draper? Will anybody in the family notice the only regular character in the series to have been played by different actors is any different?
Will Captain Harris be killed in Vietnam, freeing Joan to marry Roger, which she will refuse to do? Will Joan end up as President of the new agency?
Will Roger get back together with Mona? Of course.
Will Peggy and Stan split off to form their own agency, or be content as mid-level cogs at McCann? Will Peggy and Stan, you know, get together finally? What about Peggy and the now-suicidal but New York bound Ted Chaough? What about Peggy and the hunky handyman, Nick? Answer: Peggy always will have her cat.
Will Betty get a life? I keep thinking that ship has sailed, but hope springs eternal. Episode 2 of season 1 started out with establishing the basic conflict of an intelligent woman bred and inculcated into living a life of background subservience to men's more important doings, but the series has never quite stepped into the pitch and swung for the fence with Betty. We can only hope she realizes that Henry is not that much of an improvement over Don, and at least joins Francine at the travel agency.
Will the show, in the end, be about Don or about Peggy? Will it be about the irredeemable burden of the past preventing personal evolution (Don) or the great leap forward of liberation (Peggy)?
Will anybody care in seven weeks?
Will the series end in 1969, or will it bleed into 1970? Will we see a years-after scene of some sort? Will it end on a trite New Year's Eve, or will the series do one last time-jump of some sort?
Important events of 1969 yet to come after Season 7 Episode 7: the Manson Family murders, the Beatles crossing Abbey Road, Woodstock (will Sally go?), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid is released, the Mets win the World Series (you have to believe *that* one will make it in, given the repeated shout-outs to the Mets over the years and the lingering token of Lane Pryce's Mets' pennant finding Don in 7.4), debut of the 747 (continuing the series' use of planes and jet age imagery - that plus the first flight ended in New York City, on December 2), the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont (the unofficial "end of the 1960's).
What musical outros will guide us down the final seven episodes? The latter half of 1969 is replete with classic releases, from the first Stooges album to Nick Drake's debut album to breakout albums from Laura Nyro and David Bowie to Abbey Road and Let It Bleed (ominously, in December). But please, no Harry Chapin.
Will Don get into an elevator? Will the elevator be used as a heavy-handed metaphor for something going on in Don's life? Will he fall down an elevator shaft? Will he overhear some important plot detail from an elevator? Will he get into a fight in an elevator? Answers: Yes, yes, maybe, yes, yes, and yes.
Will Ben Michaelson, Don's Lawyer, finally make an appearance on screen? Will it be to get Don out of that awful contract with McCann?
Speaking of which, are we finally going to meet Hubert Green and the crack team of executives from Secor Laxative, the firm's most loyal client through ten (plus) years and four changes of ownership? How about seeing a little of the creative?
Will there be an acting role for a taxi driver? Or will we learn Mad Men is set in a parallel universe where there are robot taxis in the 1960's?
Will Ginsburg make a cameo, a la Paul Kinsey and Danny Siegel? If it's a sad expository scene underscoring the insanity of modern life set in the nuthouse, as with Pete and Beth, I'll be disappointed. Buick's Bob Benson?
We've already skipped over the Stonewall Riots (in June of 1969) and gone straight to the moon landing, missing a golden opportunity to find one of the series' best-loved write-off characters in the midst of the historical action, or at least running away from it. Will Sal Romano show up again, out of the closet and directing fabulous, fabulous commercials?
Which former paramours of Don - there are so many to choose from - will make an appearance? Or are we past the monkeying around of Sex and getting down to the brass tacks of Death? There are some good candidates - Sylvia Rosen is still in the building, Rachel Menken Katz was still in Don's heart, and poor Suzanne Farrell was literally left holding the bag the last time we saw her - Lord knows Dr. Faye has every motivation to come after Don with Pete's .22 - but my money's on Betty being the only significant figure from Don's past love life to play a real role in the end.
Uh oh. The Manson murders were just three weeks after the moon landing. Is Megan's Sharon Tate t-shirt going to be just one of those coincidences? Hunch: Megan's going to know somebody involved, and something will happen as a result, and it will not be that interesting. (We are hoping it's not flying back to Don's arms.)
We all know Harry Crane will never, ever make partner. Will Roger finally get his wish and get Harry fired, or will he become the king of SC&P, lording over the agency from his throne in the computer room?
Will Henry become Attorney General and continue his rise, or will be become Lieutenant Governor and join the obscure dustbin of history?
Who, exactly, is Pete going to end up shooting with the .22 rifle that's been hanging around since Season 1, episode 3? Or is this the Godot of Chekhovian guns, never to be actual shot after all? It is the last act.
A small but persistently nagging question leftover from season 2: was Anita's little boy actually Peggy's? If so will Peggy reunite with him as his mother, or be forced to make a choice between career and having a family?
Will Sally lose her virginity? Please, please God, if it happens, please don't let it be to Glenn. (The acting talents of the two young actors in this off-again, off-again romance spread over eight years have diverged mightily, and what chemistry might have been created for either a happy or sad first physical union has now veered over into the prospect of simply yucky.)
Will Don Draper literally die, literally plunge off a building, and literally see his life's work fly by? Or will Don be killed metaphorically so that Dick Whitman can live?
What, exactly, is going to be the fruition of all this astronaut imagery and explicit reference from the previous nine seasons? Apollo 12 is barely remembered and the drama of Apollo 13 lies in 1970.
Will Ken Cosgrove quit advertising to become, oh, say, John Irving? Duh, of course.
Will we have the fifth Bobby Draper? Will anybody in the family notice the only regular character in the series to have been played by different actors is any different?
Will Captain Harris be killed in Vietnam, freeing Joan to marry Roger, which she will refuse to do? Will Joan end up as President of the new agency?
Will Roger get back together with Mona? Of course.
Will Peggy and Stan split off to form their own agency, or be content as mid-level cogs at McCann? Will Peggy and Stan, you know, get together finally? What about Peggy and the now-suicidal but New York bound Ted Chaough? What about Peggy and the hunky handyman, Nick? Answer: Peggy always will have her cat.
Will Betty get a life? I keep thinking that ship has sailed, but hope springs eternal. Episode 2 of season 1 started out with establishing the basic conflict of an intelligent woman bred and inculcated into living a life of background subservience to men's more important doings, but the series has never quite stepped into the pitch and swung for the fence with Betty. We can only hope she realizes that Henry is not that much of an improvement over Don, and at least joins Francine at the travel agency.
Will the show, in the end, be about Don or about Peggy? Will it be about the irredeemable burden of the past preventing personal evolution (Don) or the great leap forward of liberation (Peggy)?
Will anybody care in seven weeks?
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