Isaac Laquedem

Sanders Theater: the Democratic race after Oregon and Kentucky

Last month I modeled the remaining primaries in the Democratic contest for the nomination.  My model represented not what I expected the outcomes to be, but how quickly Senator Sanders would have to attract supporters away from Secretary Clinton in order to finish the primary season 200 delegates ahead.  I assumed that if the two candidates were about even in pledged delegates, the superdelegates would maintain their strong preference for Secretary Clinton, but that if Senator Sanders finished with a substantial lead in pledged delegates, enough superdelegates would switch their preference to nominate him.

Ten primaries and one small caucus (Guam) have been held since I modeled the contest.  In those 11 contests, Senator Sanders won about 50 fewer pledged delegates than my model required.  At this point, he has 1488 pledged delegates and 781 remain to be chosen, so if he won every remaining pledged delegate he would have 2269 pledged delegates, 40 short of the 2309 required for the nomination.  (In the unlikely event that he wins all the remaining delegates, the superdelegates would undoubtedly nominate him.)  Secretary Clinton has 1767 pledged delegates and needs 542 more pledged delegates (69% of the remaining pledged delegates) to win the nomination without superdelegates.

With the additional 11 contests now decided, what is required for Senator Sanders to win the nomination?  In my view he must not only equal Secretary Clinton's pledged delegate count, but must surpass it by a wide margin.  I've reduced the victory condition to be that he finishes with at least 150 more pledged delegates than Secretary Clinton, which may be enough of a margin for him to sway the superdelegates.  He's currently 279 delegates behind, so to finish 150 delegates ahead he must win 605 of the remaining 781 delegates -- 77% of the remaining delegates.  He would then finish with 2093 pledged delegates and she would have 1943.

If he wins 60% of the delegates in all remaining states except California (unlikely but possible) he will receive 144 delegates, and will need to win 451 delegates in California.  The hitch is that California sends only 475 pledged delegates, so to win 451 of them he will need to hold Secretary Clinton to less than the 15% threshold that is required to receive delegates.  That is so unlikely as to be effectively impossible.  If he were to win 75% of the California vote and 60% of the vote in the other remaining states, he will finish the primary season with 1989 pledged delegates, she will finish with 2047 pledged delegates, and the superdelegates will rightly cast their votes to nominate Secretary Clinton.

Barring a catastrophic event, it is no longer possible for Senator Sanders to win the nomination.

Endorsements II: Isaac's picks in the United States Senate and House races

Herewith my views on the races for Congress:

Ron Wyden is running for a fourth full term in the Senate.  Among the most liberal of the senators, he was a voice against deep involvement in Iraq and more recently has been speaking out against the government's Google-like desire to know absolutely everything about everyone.  He is the 14th most senior senator and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee; if the Democrats take control of the Senate he will become the chair.  His challenger, Medford city councilor Kevin Stine, is a serious candidate with a future in politics who has not advanced a good reason for Oregonians to change senators.  Democrats should renominate him.

Four Republicans want the chance to challenge Senator Wyden in November.  Only one has held meaningful elective office (another is a precinct committeeman).  Faye Stewart, who is the chair of the Lane County Commission, is the most practical and experienced of the four Republican contenders.  Besides his terms in elective and appointive office, he has firsthand experience in the lumber industry from his family's connection with the former Bohemia Corporation and civic involvement.  (Stub Stewart State Park, near Vernonia, is named after his great-uncle.)  Two candidates make a virtue of their lack of political experience, and the third wants to be our "constitutionally conservative" Senator, a phrase which reminds me, uncomfortably, of the ill-informed claimants to the office of "constitutional sheriff."  Mr. Stewart describes his accomplishments in office; the other candidates don't seem to understand the role of a Senator.  I recommend a vote for Mr. Stewart.

Over at the House, in the 1st District incumbent Suzanne Bonamici is challenged by Shabba Woodley, a political newcomer who did not file a statement in the Voter's Pamphlet, but whose website does describe issues that Congress can help.  I would like to see Mr. Woodley strive for the state House, but he is not ready to run for Congress.  Rep. Bonamici should be renominated.  Three Republicans filed for the 1st District nomination, Jonathan Burgess, Brian Heinrich, and Delinda Morgan.  It's hard for me to recommend one of them, because not one of them submitted a Voter's Pamphlet statement.  Mr. Heinrich and Ms. Morgan do have campaign websites -- I couldn't find one for Mr. Burgess.  Mr. Heinrich seems an engaging enough fellow, but Ms. Morgan's website does stake out positions on how she would vote if elected.  I can't say that I find her positions logical -- she wants to cut taxes and also stop borrowing to finance federal spending -- but she is trying, however awkwardly, to grapple with the issues that Congress faces.  She is the best of the Republicans' choices to lose to Rep. Bonamici in November.

In the 3rd District, Earl Blumenauer is unopposed in either party, a sensible decision by all of the would-be candidates for his seat.  The hyperenergetic congressman has for years seemingly been able to be in the Capitol and in Portland at the same time, a feat that few challengers could match.  I suspect that he's cloned himself.

In the 5th District, incumbent Democrat Kurt Schrader faces a strong challenge from Dave McTeague, who served 5 terms in the Oregon house and was later the executive director of a small state agency for 18 years.  He is capable and competent, but so is Rep. Schrader.  The district would be well-served with either man in office.  Dr. Schrader is among the more liberal Congressmen on both domestic policy (repealing the Citizens United decision) and foreign policy (opposing increasing our ground troops in the Middle East), and is well in line with Oregonians.  The 5th District is finely balanced between Democrats and Republicans, and in my view Dr. Schrader is more likely than Mr. McTeague to carry the centrists in the district.  Mr. McTeague has aligned his campaign platform with that of Bernie Sanders, which gives an easy way for voters to choose: Democrats who support Senator Sanders and who would not vote for Secretary Clinton in the general election should vote for Mr. McTeague.  Democrats who would vote for Secretary Clinton in the general election should support Dr. Schrader for another term.

Four Republicans have filed in the 5th District.  Three submitted candidate statements.  They reflect, sadly, the weakness of the Republican candidate bench in Oregon.  None has held elective office.  Colm Willis, an attorney, states that he is a "limited government, Constitutional conservative who will defend our freedoms and stand up for our rights."  He also wants to "cut taxes and stop deficit spending," two great tastes that do not go well together.  Another candidate, Seth Allan, says that the federal government "owns 53% of Oregon's land which is more than they can properly manage."  If elected he will work to transfer those lands to state and local governments or to sell the lands to private parties.  No one who has been to Josephine County or Curry County can possibly believe that those local governments have the wherewithal to manage even more land than they own now.  I find his platform inspiring and completely impractical.  That leaves Ben West, a mortgage banker who is about to receive a degree in nursing.  Although parts of his platform are politically infirm, his candidate statement does give the impression that he understands that the role of government includes providing services to people who cannot help themselves, and for that reason I invite Republicans in the 5th District to vote for Mr. West.

Republicans remember Daniel Berrigan in their own special way

Daniel Berrigan came to prominence in 1968 when he and eight others invaded the office of a draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, gathered up the registration records, took them outside, and burned the papers.  On many other occasions during the Vietnam War, protesters burned their draft cards.  The stories and images of Father Berrigan's anti-war protests came back to the public mind when he died last week at 94.

Conservative Republicans are remembering Father Berrigan in their own way, burning not their draft cards but their voter registration cards, to protest Donald Trump's securing their party's nomination.  If Father Berrigan's views on immortality have turned out to be correct, he's doubtless looking down, pleased that the means of protest that he helped to start has become bipartisan.

Endorsements I: In the Oregon presidential primary, Sanders and Bush

My ballot arrived, and unlike a Cabbage Patch doll it derives its value only when it's been used.  Herewith my choices for the presidential ballot, and why.

Eight years ago, when Senators Clinton and Obama were campaigning for the Democratic nomination and the race had not yet been decided by the Oregon primary, I wrote:

Antonio Salieri, born in 1750, was a first-rate musician and composer, author of more than 40 operas during his long career.  Prominent during his lifetime, he has nevertheless been overshadowed by the younger and more talented Wolfgang Mozart, whose operas caught the imagination of the Viennese public and pushed those of Salieri to the side.

Hillary Clinton is a talented politician, who did everything by the book in preparing, over the last eight years, her campaign to win the Presidency.  Senator Clinton has nevertheless been overshadowed by the younger and more talented Barack Obama, whose campaign has caught the imagination of the American public and pushed hers to the side.

Senators Clinton and Obama don't have many policy differences, at least, not so many that Democrats can choose between them on policy grounds alone.  Throughout their battles this winter and spring, they have both handled their victories graciously.  Where they have differed is in how they have handled their defeats.  On this score Senator Obama has the decided edge; he gives the impression that he sees the Presidency as an honor to be earned; she gives the impression that she sees it as an entitlement to be ratified.

As with the 2008 primary, the two contenders agree on much more than they disagree.  They maintain sharp policy differences on a few important issues (for example, fracking, financial regulation, and foreign military adventure) but they are generally aligned on the matters of domestic and social policy that affect our ordinary lives.  I am voting for Senator Sanders for two main reasons.  First, he is more aware than Secretary Clinton of the painful consequences that financial deregulation (a.k.a. "Let the greedy run free") has brought to Main Street America, and he has grasped the idea that financial institutions that are too big to fail should be made smaller, not stronger.  He knows what he wants to do and he is focused on doing it.  Second, he is a much stronger campaigner than Secretary Clinton.  She is deft at policy but deaf at campaigning.  Two simple examples illustrate my point.  First is her answer when asked why she accepted $675,000 to give three private speeches at Goldman Sachs:  "That's what they offered."  Second is the juxtaposition of the overseas trips that her finance chairman (Gary Gensler) and Senator Sanders took a few days before the New York primary.  Senator Sanders went to the Vatican to attend and speak at a conference on social justice;Mr. Gensler (a former Goldman Sachs partner!) went to Beijing and Hong Kong to raise money for her campaign at two $2,700/plate events.  These are small things in themselves, but they reinforce my view that Secretary Clinton is rerunning her 2008 campaign, oblivious to the fact that it's now 2016, seven years after the Great Reset.  I encourage a vote for Senator Sanders.

Democrats have the challenge of choosing between two candidates who are both familiar with governance and sound on policy grounds.  Republicans face a trilemma: the three remaining candidates include (a) a man with much bluster but no governmental experience who can't be tied to any point on the political spectrum: he is leftist on wombs, centrist on war, and rightist on walls; (b) an intelligent and educated half-term senator who speaks in far-right war cries (e.g., of ISIS or possibly most of the Middle East: "We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion. I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out!"), and (c) another far-rightist whose strongest campaign point is that unlike the other two he can behave like an adult in public. Governor Kasich's strongest point is that he isn't Mr. Trump or Senator Cruz, which, though laudable, isn't enough to merit a vote.

To my Republican friends, I recommend as a protest vote writing in Bush -- not former candidate Jeb Bush, but his father, former president George H.W. "41" Bush, one of the last survivors of an era in which the Republican leadership displayed intelligence and dignity in public without being concerned with what the radio talk show hosts would say.