Category Archives: LDVUSA

A quick update on my previous post, “How bad will the credit crunch get?“: the May figures for the Case-Shiller house price index featured in that graph are out, and they are down again. The index now stands at 186.06, compared to 226.29 at its peak in June 2006 and with 200.76 in December 2007. US house prices are now at the lowest level since September 2004.

If the Democrat primaries were being run on first past the post (rather than allocating delegates in proportion to the votes won by the different Presidential candidates), then Hillary Clinton would now be the Democrat nominee for President, despite having won fewer votes overall.

Most of the coverage in the UK of American elections in the last couple of days has focused on Hillary Clinton’s latest primary victory and then John Edwards’s endorsement of Barack Obama.

However, also of significance is the special election (by-election) win chalked up by the Democrats in a formerly solidly Republican Mississipi congressional seat. George W Bush carried the district with more than 60% of the vote in 2004, but in this week’s election Democrat Travis Childers won through. This makes it three special election victories for the Democrats in a month – all in strongly Republican areas – and …

Mitt Romney won yesterday’s low profile Maine caucus. (No Democrat contest.)

In those states where at least one poll has taken place post-Iowa, McCain is ahead in thirteen, Romney in just two. On the Democrat side, it is thirteen-three in Clinton’s favour over Obama. For both Romney and Obama one of the states they are leading in is their home state. (Data from pollster.com).

A (near) knock-out result is more likely on the Republican than Democrat side when more than half of the US goes to the polls on Tuesday, as the Republicans have “winner-takes-all” primary election rules. On the Democrat side generally more …

John McCain: another win confirms his comback and gives him a chance as we head towards Super Tuesday, where 22 states coast-to-coast are up for grabs. His campaign still looks to be struggling to have the financial and organisational strength to fight on that much large stage, but he’s had an excellent run in with a series of victories giving his campaign a major boost.

Mitt Romney: his campaign will be disappointed to lose to McCain by a small margin – again – but will be hoping that a few early loses will be swept away into the curiosity corner of …

If you’re going to manipulate a photograph for political use, have a better excuse ready than this.

Hat tip: Hywel Morgan

Tuesday brings Michigan’s primaries, which will be a bit odd as most of the top Democrat candidates aren’t on the ballot paper. Why?

The answer may well be: by bucking the male political pundit stereotype of how a Presidential candidate should act.

Peering through the New Hampshire entrails is likely to go on for some time, and throw up more evidence as time goes on (particularly when the pollsters who were predicting a large Obama win starting trying to figure out where they went wrong), but the early signs are that a strong Clinton showing amongst women who made up their minds in the last few days of the campaign was key to her victory.

What could have caused her to do well amongst this …

I think it’s safe to guess that there aren’t many Liberal Democrats who are fans of George W Bush’s foreign policy, whether it is on Iraq, international action on climate change or a host of lower-profile issues. However, would a victory by either Clinton or Obama bring about a US foreign policy that Liberal Democrats would be more comfortable with?

Saturday night’s New Hampshire debate saw both of the leading Democrat candidates espouse foreign policy views likely to be highly controversial. Obama repeated his support (previously criticised by Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone) for unilateral military action against parts of …

1. Romney has won the very low profile Wyoming caucuses.  The Democrat contest is at a later date. The Republican contest was brought forward to between Iowa and New Hampshire in an attempt to get more attention paid to Wyoming. Although Wyoming got a deluge of direct mail from Republican candidates, there were hardly any campaign visits and there’s been very little media coverage, even of the result. But hey – they have managed to get a mention on this blog out of it 🙂

2. Latest New Hampshire polls:

• Suffolk University has Clinton 36, Obama 29, Edwards 13 / Romney 30,

…

The New Hampshire primary, which is coming up next week, is given huge importance in the US political process. There’s no doubt that it makes for great drama and a ready flow of enjoyable political anecdotes. But does it all matter?

What’s almost never mentioned is that the majority of winners of open contests don’t go on to be their party’s candidate for president. (By “open” I mean a contest without an incumbent President or Vice-President, which is what both the Republican and Democrat contests are this year).

Here are the details: for the Democrats: in 1984 Mondale lost to Hart, in 1988 Dukakis …