Beyond Red & Blue

Is Ferraro helping to lay the groundwork for Hillary Clinton's 2012 campaign?

In today's Boston Globe, former Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro proposes a formal study on whether sexism hurt Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign:

...a group of women - from corporate executives to academics to members of the media - have requested that the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University and others conduct a study, which we will pay for if necessary, to determine three things.

First, whether either the Clinton or Obama campaign engaged in sexism and racism; second, whether the media treated Clinton fairly or unfairly; and third whether certain members of the media crossed an ethical line when they changed the definition of journalist from reporter and commentator to strategist and promoter of a candidate. And if they did to suggest ethical guidelines which the industry might adopt.

A report that partially or wholly validates Ferraro's charges (and how could any study group dismiss them totally?) could be used to promote the argument that the nomination was "stolen" from Clinton this year and that she has a claim on the nomination in 2012 (an idea that would be dimmed, but not completely extinguished, if Barack Obama wins the general election this year).

But Ferraro's idea to formally charge the media with "ethical" violations does come close to charging voters themselves with behaving unethically (if they consciously followed the lead of the sexist media) or behaving stupidly (if they blindly followed that lead). Sounds like elitist reasoning to me.

I'm also unclear on the supposed ethical line between "commentator" and "promoter of a candidate." If the first can't also be the second, doesn't that mean that most talking heads and bloggers can no longer be considered journalists? Ferraro, probably wisely, does not give any examples of "ethical guidelines" that journalists should adopt to solve the problem of how "society can allow sexism to impact a woman's candidacy to deny her the presidency."

Complete county-by-county primary results (so far)

For real election obsessives, I've posted an Excel spreadsheet with complete primary results so far:

Download 2008primariesbycountyasofMay27.xls (1181.5K)

Not surprisingly, it is a very large file and may take a while to download. I will be posting maps from the data after the final primaries, in Montana and South Dakota on June 3. Disclaimers below:

NOTE: The purpose of this spreadsheet is to show geographical patterns in support for specific presidential candidates. For that reason, all popular vote data is included, and primary results are included for states that hold both primaries and caucuses -- even when those primaries are not used to award national convention delegates. This inclusion should not be interpreted as an argument for using these primaries as the means for determining a party's presidential nominee. On the Democratic side this chart includes results from the Florida and Michigan primaries, but those early primaries were not sanctioned by the national party (and Barack Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan) and thus did not count toward the awarding of delegates. This chart includes only primary results from Texas, but delegates from that state were awarded in accordance with the results of both the primary (which Hillary Clinton won) and caucuses held on the same day (which Obama won). This chart includes results from nonbinding primaries in Nebraska and Washington, but delegates from those states were awarded in accordance with the results of earlier caucuses. (In both states, Obama won both the caucuses and primaries, but won the latter by smaller percentage-point margins.) Finally, popular votes from the Iowa and Maine Democratic caucuses are estimates based on each county's awarding of delegates to statewide Democratic conventions.

SECOND NOTE: You may have noticed that I flagged “Marengo County, Alabama” by putting “NA” in the column that compares votes cast in the Democratic and Republican primaries. That’s because I am certain that the 6,175 votes recorded for Mike Huckabee is impossibly high, given the overwhelming Democratic bent of the county. But the state of Alabama has not corrected this and probably never will. There are always errors like this (someone probably put an extra digit in a handwritten sheet given to the state) that aren’t corrected unless they would significantly change the outcome of the race, and every state has a different level of carefulness in these matters. I will try to catch anything unusual like this, but it's inevitable that there will be (hopefully very slight) errors at the county level.

A shift in tax attitudes?

The Boston Globe's website has a handy rundown of Proposition 2 1/2 override votes that have been held so far this year. Eighteen cities and towns have voted so far, and only seven have approved property tax increases for such things as schools, police departments, and (in Rowley) a "pumper truck." Will these springtime results offer clues about what will happen with the big tax question of the year -- the referendum on the November ballot that would eliminate the state income tax? (That's something the Legislature is not likely to let happen no matter how the referendum turns out.)

Abolition of the income tax lost by a 40-48 margin the last time it was on the ballot, in 2002. (Blanks made up the remaining 12 percent of the vote.) In most towns, the anti-tax forces got more than 40 percent of the vote, but most cities and more affluent suburbs soundly defeated the measure. Six of those communities have had override votes so far this year, and they've split down the middle, with property tax increases passing in Brookline, Natick, and Wayland but losing in Harvard, Newton, and Sudbury. The city of Newton, in particular, bears watching this fall: If the anti-tax measure comes within 10 points of passing there (it lost 29-56 last time), it should win statewide easily.

It's also worth noting that traditionally liberal Newton is the home of a controversial $200 million high school project, detailed by Seth Mnookin in this week's Boston Globe Magazine.

Kennedy, Kerry are no match for US Immigration

Despite the efforts of Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, among others, a popular teacher at Fenway High School was deported over what seems to be his misreading of a government document. (Let those of us who have never been confused by, say, a jury notice be the first to cast stones.) As the Boston Globe's James Vaznis reports:

[Obain] Attouoman came to America on an exchange visa in the early 1990s and sought political asylum. Along the way, though, he misread a notice in which he was given a court hearing date to argue his case, leading a judge to order his deportation.

A math and special education teacher, Attouoman had a bond with his students. He was known around the school for his dark pinstripe suits, prompting students to coin a word for dressing sharply, Obaining.

Maybe Attouoman should have sought asylum in Canada instead of the United States. Massachusetts, in particular, needs skilled immigrants to maintain its work force (we have a very low birth rate, and native-born Americans show little interest in moving to the Bay State), but stories like this would make me think twice about coming here.

Ted Kennedy as local hero

CommonWealth contributor Dan Kennedy has an unsentimental appreciation in the Guardian on what Sen. Ted Kennedy (no relation) means to residents of Massachusetts, where he's a lot more than a liberal lightning rod:

This may or may not come to a surprise to outsiders, but in Massachusetts Kennedy is known principally for two things: his diligent attention to the constituent-intensive aspects of being a senator, especially when it comes to bringing home the bacon; and his easy affability and accessibility, especially in comparison to our more dour and distant junior senator, John Kerry.

"10 Regions" primary totals after Kentucky and Oregon

I've included the unofficial returns from Kentucky and Oregon, and Barack Obama has now narrowly won Frontier, his fifth region in our 10 Political Regions model. His strongest region remains the South Coast, while Hillary Clinton's strongest region is Cumberland (which includes most of the almost-all-white Appalachian area that has been getting so much attention in recent weeks).

Obama is now ahead in the national popular vote by 160,000 votes if you don't count Michigan (where he wasn't on the ballot and both candidates pledged not to campaign), and Clinton is ahead by 168,000 votes if you do count Michigan. (Arguably, Obama's strength is understated in both cases because he did exceptionally well in caucus states, where the reported popular vote totals are much lower than in primary states.)

The recent primary results also reinforced the pattern by which Clinton does best in counties where George W. Bush significantly increased his share of the vote from 2000 to 2004 (perhaps Democratic voters in those counties overestimate Republican strength nationwide) and Obama does best in counties where Bush lost ground between 2000 and 2004 (perhaps those voters overestimate how easy it will be for the Democrats to win this year). The former category includes much of Kentucky, where Clinton won yesterday; the latter category includes a big chunk of Oregon, where Obama won.

Almost as adorable as tribbles!

Never mind the bears in Uxbridge. Massachusetts is three days away from the "Arrival of Brood XIV Magicicadas In Massachusetts," according to the website Massachusetts Cicadas.

Mashpee seems to be ground zero for the invasion. Here are some suggestions on what to do if you stumble upon the harmless creatures.

What about Snowe?

Survey USA has released 17 different polls on how well John McCain and Barack Obama would do in Pennsylvania with different running mates. Not surprisingly, Obama does best when paired with the high-name-recognition John Edwards and with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. The oddest questions involve a scenario with Obama picking a Republican, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, as his running mate (and running pretty much evenly with McCain).

As long as we're entertaining the possibility of a bipartisan ticket, am I crazy to speculate about Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe? She's a woman with 30 years in Congress, has a lot of foreign policy experience (including a stint on the Select Committee on Intelligence), has always been one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress (and is pro-choice), and might be willing to give up a seat in a US Senate likely to be controlled by Democrats for the foreseeable future. If Obama does pick a woman as a running mate, I'd bet on Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, but unless I'm missing some big disadvantage (like a history of poor debate performances) Snowe doesn't seem any less likely than Hegel.

Revenue Dept. says film tax credit could cost Mass. millions

From CommonWealth editor Bruce Mohl:

The Massachusetts Revenue Department says the state's 25 percent film tax credit would not come close to paying for itself in terms of generating new tax revenues, even including economic multipliers.

In its analysis, the Revenue Department assumed $100 million in film tax credits would generate qualifying movie expenditures in Massachusetts of $400 million. The analysis indicated the film tax expenditures would generate at best $23 million in new state taxes, resulting in a net tax loss to the state of $77 million.

Hypothetical numbers were used in the analysis because not enough actual data is available yet, but the Revenue Department said the hypothetical numbers were consistent with the information on film tax credit applications obtained by the agency so far this year.

The analysis assumed $256 million in payroll spending, with half of the money paid to big-name stars and directors who don't live in Massachusetts and are unlikely to spend most of their salaries inside the state. The analysis also assumed that $20 million to $40 million of the movie spending would occur in Massachusetts even without the tax credits.

The Revenue Department plugged the numbers and assumptions into a model developed by Regional Economic Models Inc. and concluded the tax credits would boost the state's gross domestic product by $349 million and increase state employment by as much as 3,658, with as many as 2,963 jobs in the film industry and the rest in support areas.

The analysis concluded the movie spending would generate new income, corporate, sales, meals, room, and other state taxes of $17.9 million, or as much as $23 million if the state wasn't required to reduce spending to pay for the film tax credits.

The film tax credit analysis was contained in a letter sent May 19 to Rep. Steven D'Amico of Seekonk, a critic of the film tax credit who had requested the study. D'Amico said supporters of a bill that would offer a 20 percent tax credit to companies that build movie studios in Massachusetts were trying to push the bill out of committee before members could read the Revenue Department analysis.

D'Amico said the state needs to be make sure that any tax credits offered by the state generate tax revenue gains for the state. "This is corporate welfare for highly profitable corporations that are playing one state off against another," he said.

In all fairness, Weymouth didn't burn down during those five days

After retiring as mayor of Weymouth this January, David Madden returned to his old job as fire chief and served all of five days before retiring again. (The town replaced him with the guy Madden had replaced a few days before.) As the Patriot Ledger reports, "Retiring as chief allowed Madden to retire as a public safety rather than municipal employee, permitting an earlier retirement age and higher levels of benefits."

Sadly for Madden, the state's retirement commission has expressed reservations about the town's decision to let him retire as fire chief rather than mayor. Will the Weymouth Retirement System accept the state's "suggestion" to reclassify Madden's retirement?

(Thanks to the Pioneer Institute blog for the tip.)

   

Is Menino sticking out his neck for Hillary?

The Boston Globe's Political Intelligence blog is reporting today that nearly 50 Massachusetts supporters of the pro-choice group NARAL have signed a letter asking that the organization retract its recent endorsement of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. "We believe NARAL’s endorsement was not only the wrong one, but entirely premature," the letter states, according to the Globe.

The signers include state Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Sal DiMasi, but perhaps the most notable name is Tom Menino, the mayor of Boston. Menino has been a strong Clinton supporter since before the Massachusetts primary in February, but he also has a long history of advocating for more federal aid to go to cities like Boston. ("We need a partnership with the federal government to secure our cities — and that means financial assistance," he said as president of the US Conference of Mayors in 2003.) If Obama is nominated (which seems more than probable) and then elected president, Menino's late stand for Clinton may make things awkward when the mayor goes to Washington to lobby for funds.

Menino may be betting that Obama is a forgiving sort, or he may feel it's more important to maintain relations with Murray and DiMasi, who can influence any state aid to Boston. Or, more simply, he really thinks it's a mistake not to nominate Clinton.

America is "right of center"

"McCain sees right-of-center nation as he moves against Obama" is the headline of an AP story, flagged by the Drudge Report, that begins:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican John McCain's game plan for beating Democrat Barack Obama rests on one huge assumption: Despite an unpopular war, an uncertain economy and the GOP's beleaguered status, the country still leans more to the right than to the left.

How can this be? The political center in the United States is, by definition, the point at which half the population lies to the left and half the population lies to the right. So how can the nation as a whole lean toward one side or another?

I think the reason this cliche endures is that "the left" commonly refers to the points of view that could be ascribed to the more liberal half of the country in the 1960s: more government spending, mandatory school busing to integrate schools, more regulation of monopolies such as the phone company and post office rather than more competition in those fields, huge public housing projects and other kinds of "urban renewal", income tax rates as high as 90 percent, etc. Almost no one clings to those ideas in the 21st century, so if they constitute "the left," then America certainly isn't a left-leaning nation today.

But the "America leans right" cliche seems to pit the 1960s left against the 2008 right. Though even liberal Democrats now agree that the free market system brings better service and more choice when it comes to phone service, this idea is considered "right of center." Same thing with the notion that there are better ways to increase affordable housing than by erecting huge public complexes; any idea to use the marketplace rather than direct government intervention is "right of center."

At the same time, I think that the right has been able to sever itself from the 1960s version of conservatism. So support for laws guaranteeing equal rights for African-Americans and for women is no longer a "left of center" view, though it surely was 40 years ago. Government regulation to reduce pollution was definitely "left of center" in the 1960s but the popularity of that idea is not cited as proof that America leans to the left today.

Once-popular ideas on both sides of the political spectrum have fallen out of fashion, and the definition of "left" and "right" is constantly changing. One can argue that America has shifted to the right over time, but it's logically impossible for the country to "lean right." The center is the center.

Vice-presidential picks don't matter

At Bloomberg.com, Al Hunt puts forth an impossible-to-prove theory as pundit wisdom:

Over the past 50 years, 17 men and one woman have been chosen by the major parties to run for the vice presidency of the U.S. Only one -- Lyndon Johnson in 1960 -- demonstrably affected the outcome of the presidential race.

This is worth remembering as the nation enters the quadrennial feeding frenzy over completing the tickets.

Journalists who want to seem more worldly than the rest of the press pack must periodically state that something that everyone likes to talk about means nothing at all -- and minimizing the importance of a running mate is one of the most popular ways to say that you know better than everyone else. But there's no way to measure the impact of vice-presidential nominees on the outcome of a presidential election. Maybe George W. Bush would have lost in 2000 had he picked another Dan Quayle; maybe Al Gore would have won had he picked a labor favorite like Richard Gephardt rather than the relatively hawkish Joe Lieberman. Maybe if Ronald Reagan had picked someone other than his chief primary rival, George W. Bush, in 1980, he would have beaten Jimmy Carter and John Anderson with 49 percent instead of 51 percent, and his status as a minority-vote president would have made Congressional Democrats less willing to work with him. How can anyone know for sure?

Hunt gives himself a little room by saying that Lyndon Johnson was the only VP pick with a "demonstrable" effect on an election, implying that one is free to believe that other candidates mattered (as long as you don't mind Washington sages laughing at your ridiculous theory). The truth is, no one knows whether the running mates will be important this year. And almost no one believes it will be the deciding factor, so there's no need to refute that notion. So when writing about the possible running mates in 2008, just dispense with the caveats and go right into the baseless speculation.

Why can't we be more...European

Bashing Europeans -- especially the French -- for going soft on war in Iraq became a popular US pastime in the immediate post-9/11 era.  French fries were renamed "freedom fries."  John Kerry, who spent time in France as a youth, was even accused of somehow looking French, a low blow indeed!  Now, along comes New York Times columnist Paul Krugman with a startling message in the $4 per gallon of gas era: We should all try to be more European.

Writing in today's paper, Krugman says the folks across the pond have it exactly right when it comes to the new oil-price reality: "If Europe’s example is any guide, here are the two secrets of coping with expensive oil: own fuel-efficient cars, and don’t drive them too much."  That approach is possible in Europe, he says, because of a car culture that doesn't worship monstrous gas-guzzlers and metropolitan and regional planning that welcomes low-rise apartment buildings and makes heavy use of rail transit. 

By the time I finished the column, I felt practically continental -- and carbon-footprint virtuous -- for Krugman describes my transportation profile perfectly.  I have a nearly 25-year-old Saab, which gets good mileage, but spends most of the time getting the rest it needs in the driveway of my Boston home, while I take the city's MBTA subway system downtown to work.  It might be the right model for our times, but Krugman quickly reminds me what a complete outlier I am in this country, pointing out that fewer than 5 percent of all Americans commute to work via public transportation. 

It's hard to feel like you're part of a privileged elite when sandwiched on a rush-hour subway train in the heat of summer.  But if the oil-price spike keeps up, the idea won't be so far fetched.

Night Shift (spoilers for those about to have extended hospital stays)

You have good reason to be afraid of hospitals in the middle of the night, suggests an article in the latest New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. David Shulkin, CEO of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, writes that reduced staffing in the wee hours may mean a "stark discrepancy in quality between daytime and nighttime inpatient services." From "Like Night and Day: Shedding Light on Off-Hours Care":

The consequences of service deficiencies during off-hours include higher mortality and readmission rates, more surgical complications, and more medical errors...

Financial constraints play a role in the lack of provider services. Shrinking reimbursements from government programs and third-party payers make it economically prohibitive for many hospitals to fully staff their facilities 24 hours a day. ... Another major obstacle is the nursing shortage. More-experienced nurses understandably choose desirable day shifts. As a result, night and weekend shifts are filled with a greater percentage of temporary or agency nursing staff, many of whom have less training and less familiarity with the hospital.

So if you're in for a long convalescence, perhaps it would be better to commute from home. Perhaps there's a nurses' carpool you can join.

Hat tip:  A Healthy Blog.

"Flip book" subway ads old news in Boston but a big deal in L.A.

The Los Angeles Times has a story on subway billboards that appear as videos to the passengers gliding by them:

On Tuesday, commercial messages on mass transit in the Southland reached a new frontier when subway riders began seeing a 15-second video floating outside the train's window in a dark tunnel near Universal City.

The first ad was a short promo for the film "Speed Racer," featuring the main character's car zipping and flipping about. An ad for Target began showing later in the morning, complete with dancing models.

A few people in the Times story find the billboards "intrusive." I link to it for two reasons. First, it's not often that Boston can brag about being ahead of Los Angeles in glitzy forms of advertising; we've seen moving ads for Target stores, cruise lines, and (of course) luxury cars for years on the Red Line. Second, it's charmingly naive that the Times headline describes video billboards as a "big payday" for the Los Angeles transit authority. Have they made much of a dent in the MBTA's debt?

Dueling landslides by Clinton and Obama

The New York Times Book Review has a piece on the "clustering" of people with similar political views. The Big Sort, by Bill Bishop and Robert G. Cushing, explains (in possibly alarmist terms) how geographic mobility in the United States is leading to almost monolithic communities of liberal Democrats (or conservative Republicans). One statistic mentioned in Scott Stossel's review is that only 26 percent of the population lived in "landslide counties" during the 1976 presidential election but nearly 50 percent of us fell into that category in 2004. (Stossel doesn't define "landslide.")

The 2008 Democratic primaries certainly support this thesis, though racial divisions explain much of the divide between Clinton counties and Obama counties. Looking at primaries and caucuses where both candidates were on the ballot (i.e., excluding Michigan) and county-by-county results are available, we see that Obama has won 827 counties by more than 10 points and Clinton has won 1,229 counties by more than 10 points. The candidates were separated by less than 10 points in only 539 counties, or only about one-fifth of the counties that have voted so far in what is, overall, an extremely tight popular-vote race.

In the following states, there was a swing of more than 100 percentage points between the strongest Clinton county and the strongest Obama county. Differences may be more exaggerated in caucus states, since turnout depends more on get-out-the-vote efforts by the campaigns. (Except where noted, numbers are percentages, not raw votes.)

ALABAMA primary: Clinton wins Winston County (northwest) 85-13; Obama wins Macon County (outside Montgomery) 82-16.

COLORADO caucus: Clinton wins Kit Carson County (Kansas border) 64-27; Obama wins San Miguel County (Utah border) 86-13.

GEORGIA primary: Clinton wins Murray County (Tennessee border) 81-14; Obama wins Clayton County (outside Atlanta) 82-17.

IDAHO caucus: Clinton wins Lewis County (panhandle) by 10 caucus votes to 7; Obama wins Clark County (east) with all 6 caucus votes.

LOUISIANA primary: Clinton wins Cameron Parish (Texas border) 69-18; Obama wins Orleans Parish (New Orleans) 75-23.

MISSISSIPPI primary: Clinton wins Tishomingo County (northeast) 82-13; Obama wins Jefferson County (Mississippi River) 88-11.

MISSOURI primary: Clinton wins Dunklin County ("the Bootheel") 78-18; Obama wins the city of St. Louis 71-27.

NORTH CAROLINA primary: Clinton wins Graham County (Tennessee border) 77-18; Obama wins Durham County 75-23.

TENNESSEE primary: Clinton wins Grundy County (South central) 86-7; Obama wins Shelby County (Memphis) 70-28.

TEXAS primary: Clinton wins Starr County (Mexico border) 83-16; Obama wins Waller County (outside Houston) 67-32.

VIRGINIA primary: Clinton wins Buchanan County (Kentucky border) 90-9; Obama wins the city of Petersburg (near Richmond) 84-15.

State of the Race: May 15

The Boston Phoenix's Steven Stark says that if the presidential election were held today, Barack Obama and John McCain would each get 269 electoral votes, throwing the election into the House of Representatives. Stark arrives at this conclusion by replicating the 2000 election map and shifting just one state, moving Colorado to the Democrats.

The website FiveThirtyEight.com also shows a virtually tied race at this point. They give McCain an impossible 269.3 electoral votes through some formula too complicated to describe here. But their state-by-state predictions differ from Stark's only by giving Nevada to Obama.

In the chart below (download here), I took FiveThirtyEight.com's predicted breakdown of the two-candidate vote (based on both recent polls and on the past accuracy of polls in each state) and applied it to the vote turnout of 2004 to see how the popular tally might end up. Right now, it shows Obama narrowly losing the popular vote even while narrowly winning the Electoral College. This situation probably won't hold in November: Turnout will almost certainly be up, and I think Obama will win heavily Democratic states such as Massachusetts and New York by a bigger margin than polls now indicate. But the possibility of another split in the popular vote and Electoral College remains a real possibility.

Tax breaks and transparency in Quebec

New Brunswick Business Journal columnist David Campbell notes the reputation of Québec as a "bad boy" in terms of stealing jobs from other provinces (and, presumably, the United States) by offering generous tax incentives and grants to private industry. But he lauds the Québec government for releasing generous amounts of public data about the effectiveness of these business incentives. ("Despite offering the most lucrative business incentives in Canada, Investissement Québec claims to have a cost-benefit ratio of 3.74 to 1. In other words, for each tax dollar spent by the Quebéc government it collected $3.74 in tax and incidental tax revenues.")

Indeed, the Investissement Quebéc website is a bountiful source of information on the government's efforts to lure business to La Belle Province. It includes a 112-page annual report detailing the agency's 1,451 "financing operations" over 2006-07, which supposedly created 10,959 jobs and "retained" 10,722 jobs.

As far as I know, Massachusetts does not have an equivalent source of data (though the Department of Housing and Economic Development touts infrastructure grants and other resources for new businesses). But perhaps more transparency about the benefits of business incentives would mean more political support for them.

CommonWealth editor Bruce Mohl asked whether the state is coming out ahead from tax breaks for the film and life sciences industries in our Spring issue; read his cover story here. 

Obama's rural peaks and valleys

As other bloggers have noted (see Al Giordano), Barack Obama's weakness among rural voters seems most pronounced along the Appalachian Mountains, though the map below suggests that the anti-Obama region extends farther west to take in Oklahoma and northern Texas.

West Virginia, which went overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton last week, seems to represent the absolute nadir of rural support for Obama; southern Ohio wasn't much more hospitable. But notice that he was more competitive in the rural counties of Indiana and Missouri, which accounts for the tight races in those states' primaries. And Obama's strong showings in the West and upper Midwest so far means that he can probably count on victories in the Montana, Oregon, and South Dakota primaries. Whether he can be competitive in a state like Montana in the general election is another question.

Elitist Republicans, rube Democrats

Over the past few decades, Democratic presidential candidates have done increasingly well in urban areas and Republicans have strengthened their hold over rural areas. The map below shows the major exceptions to this trend in 2004, showing which counties were both significantly more urban and more Republican than the national average, or more rural and more Democratic.

Most of the rural Democratic counties in the South are majority African-American, while a good number of the rural Democratic counties in the West are mostly Hispanic or American Indian (but there are also several resort areas in California, Colorado, and Idaho). White rural Democrats are concentrated in New England and the upper Midwest. In order for the Democrats to win in November, they probably need to carry at least a few more heavily rural counties. Barack Obama may be able to do this in the West and in states like Iowa; he probably can't do much to stop the withering away of white rural Democratic counties in Kentucky and West Virginia.

Conversely, Republican candidate John McCain can't afford to lose more urban Republican counties. They still exist in Florida and Texas, but they are few and far between in the Northeast and Midwest.

Elaboration, please: Sexist attacks on Hillary

The Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi has a typically clear-eyed column on the refusal by many of Hillary Clinton's female supporters to concede the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. But one paragraph warrants elaboration:

The final book on the 2008 presidential campaign will record a great deal of gender bias. The Hillary Nutcracker, a product whose name says it all, is one example. The emphasis on Clinton's cackle and depictions of her as a witch are others. Dean and other top Democrats did nothing to discourage blatant sexist attacks, and, for that, they are paying a price with Clinton's female supporters. [Italics added]

There has certainly been sexism in the media's coverage of the Clinton campaign, but have "blatant sexist attacks" come from within the Democratic Party? It would be nice to have an example. What attacks did Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean fail to prevent or repudiate?

Over?

The consensus in the mainstream media is that Hillary Clinton lost any chance for the Democratic presidential nomination yesterday, thanks to a big defeat in North Carolina and only a wafer-thin victory in Indiana. Yesterday's results pretty much mirror the primary season as a whole: Barack Obama's victories have tended to come with wider margins than Clinton's, and that means more delegates for the Illinois senator.

In retrospect, the biggest disappointment for Clinton over the past five months may have been that her win in California, the biggest state to vote on Super Tuesday, didn't make her the prohibitive front-runner. Instead, Obama raised eyebrows with his landslide victories in the Super Tuesday caucuses, including Colorado, Kansas, and Minnesota. As I've noted before, elections are almost always won by the candidate with the fewest geographical "black holes" -- states, counties, or cities where he or she gets absolutely walloped. Obama had a couple of states like that (Arkansas, Oklahoma, Rhode Island), but Clinton had a lot more (including the belt of states from Maryland to Louisiana and most of the Rocky Mountain states).

More analysis to come in the next few weeks...