Infected With Hamletism

Yesterday I picked up the mail and was flabbergasted to find a credit card offer from Washington Mutual! They have known since 2006 that they had too much bad debt. For at least the last two months WaMu has been in crisis mode. For the week before their seizure and sale Thursday evening they were shopping around for a buyer. And yet they were still sending out credit card solicitations. What the hell was wrong with them? One wonders if they would still be around if, in 2006, they had adopted a strategy other than simply accumulating more debt.

The front cover of Bill O'Reilly's new memoir. Is it just me or does this little kid look like an absolute dick. Once you're done gagging on the title look into his eyes for a minute. Maybe we should be thankful that he has a relatively harmless outlet for his misanthropy.

John's Olympic observations are all right on. But I'm pretty sure the Chinese aren't the only ones taken with bikinied amazons playing volleyball in the sand. Whats funny is that the male beach volleyball players (yes they exist they just don't get on TV much) all wear baggy shorts and tank tops.

All Olympic athletes wear the best in high performance gear for their respective sports. Given the huge difference in outerwear one gender must be wearing a less effective outfit for their sport. One of two things is going on here.

Either the women are wearing bikini's in order to draw attention to their sport or the men are wearing baggy shorts because no one wants to see them bouncing around in their banana hammocks.

Clinton’s inability to score a convincingly large win in the big March 4th primaries (Texas & Ohio) essentially sealed the fate of her race. The pundits hinted at the difficulty of the delegate math but no one came out and said it. With each subsequent primary the chances for a Clinton nomination got worse. After May 6th, with Obama’s big win in North Carolina and the near tie in Indiana, the political analysts and pundits stopped pretending. Obama would be the nominee.

As the process moved inexorably towards an Obama nomination the Clinton camp became more and more frantic in their attempts to keep the race alive. Blithely ignoring Clinton’s previous repudiation of the Michigan and Florida votes they decided that they must count. At the DNC rules committee meeting Harold Ickes displayed a sickening level of righteous indignation in defending the sanctity of the vote against manipulation by party leaders. At the same time the campaign makes the case that there is nothing wrong with super-delegates over-ruling the will of the electorate to nominate Clinton.

The story they have tried to push is that Clinton is the more electable candidate. This is of course based on a self serving interpretation of the facts. Obama’s clear delegate lead was to be ignored. Obama’s consistent lead in the polls was to be ignored. Obama’s unprecedented fundraising prowess was to be ignored. Clinton’s poor strategic choices were to be ignored. Most of all we were to ignore the massive level of excitement (unparalleled in our generation) generated by Obama.

When this narrative got little traction Clinton and her supporters began to cast themselves in the role of victim: Clinton, though the more electable candidate, was sabotaged by a biased media and inequitable process. Any attempt to point out the near impossibility of her winning the nomination was branded as trying to unfairly hound the best candidate out of the race. As Bill Clinton said “there’s this frantic effort to push her out, cause she’s winning the general election today and he’s not…[mockingly] oh my goodness we have to cover this up”.

Disturbingly, this victim narrative has fed the concerns of many women that sexism has played a significant role in the race. This sentiment was well encapsulated by Geraldine Ferraro’s recent opinion piece in the Boston Globe. Ferraro claims that “the truth is that tens of thousands of women have watched how Clinton has been treated and are not happy.” It is noteable that Ferraro, like most others charging sexism, fails to point to a single example of sexism on the part of the Obama campaign or its surrogates.

Clinton and her surrogates must be very careful when they blame sexism for her loss. Sexist campaign dirty tricks are very different from the diffuse sexism that still pervades society. It is easier to conceptualize the acts of individuals than general societal forces. Unless Clinton is very clear about the source of the experienced sexism many, perhaps most, will naturally blame the one she is in competition with. I suspect that this is what is behind the increasing anger being expressed by many female supporters of Clinton.

But I don’t believe that sexism was a determining factor in Clinton’s loss.

Gender and race both provide some advantages and some disadvantages to the candidates. I have always assumed that on balance Clinton’s gender and Obama’s race would hurt their respective chances for the nomination. When I analyzed the exit polls from recent primaries I was very surprised by what I found. On balance Clinton benefited from her gender and she benefited from Obama’s race.

Unfortunately the questions asked in the exit polls have not been uniform. But since at least Wisconsin they have consistently asked about the importance of race and gender in voter’s decision making. I analyze some of the bigger primaries focusing on those since April.

The first question is “was the gender of the cadidate important to you?”. The percentages of yes answers was as follows (organized by date): California 23%, Wisconsin 15%, Ohio 17%, Texas 23%, Pennsylvania 20%, Indiana 16%, North Carolina 21%, West Virginia 18%, Kentucky 16%, Oregon 17%.

Almost without exception voters who considered gender important voted for Clinton at a higher rate than the general populace voted for her. For example, in California while Clinton won 52% of the general population she won a whopping 70% of those who thought gender was important. In Ohio Clinton won 54% of the general population and won 60% of those who thought gender was important. In Pennsylvania she won 55% of the general vote but 72% of those who thought gender was important. In Texas she won 51% of the general vote but won 60% of those who thought gender was important.

Clinton also gained significant advantage in states she lost. In Wisconsin she won only 41% of the general vote but 63% of those who thought gender was important. Likewise in Oregon she won only 41% of the general electorate and 55% of those who thought Gender was important.

In Indiana, where Clinton won with only 51% of the vote, gender may have been the deciding factor. Those who said that gender was not an important issue split exactly 50-50 between the two candidates. Those who said that gender was important split 59% for Clinton.

The only places where this trend did not continue was in several small southern states. Possibly this is due to the higher than average population of African Americans in these states giving Obama a racial advantage that trumped Clinton’s gender advantage. For example in South Carolina African Americans make up 55% of the Democratic electorate. But though Obama gained an advantage where racial demographics were lopsided he was at a disadvantage elsewhere.

The second important question asked was “was the race of the candidate important to you”? The percentage of yes answers is as follows: California 17%, Wisconsin 13%, Ohio 20%, Texas 19%, Pennsylvania 19%, Indiana 16%, North Carolina 18%, West Virginia 22%, Kentucky 21%, Oregon 10%.

Some have made much of the advantage Obama has with African American voters. However, on balance the racial advantage went to Clinton. Not by as much as Clinton gained from gender but still significant.

In California Clinton won only 52 percent of the general vote but she captured 61% of those who thought race was important. In Ohio she won 54% of the general vote but 59% of those who thought race was important. The numbers were almost the same in Pennsylvania: 55% of the general vote and 59% of those who thought race was important. In West Virginia and Kentucky, where racial demographics are more white than the national average, Clinton won over 80% of those who said that race was important.

Clearly Clinton was not hamstrung by sexism. She surely lost many votes to sexism but she gained much more from those who considered her gender and asset. At the same time it seems fair to say that she gained more from racism than Obama gained from race loyalty.

I hate being put in this position. I think it happened once before but I’ve blocked it out. Yesterday I agreed with something Bush said! At least half of it anyway.

Congress’ decision to stop additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was some severely silly political pandering. Granted, doing something pointless that looks like something constructive is standard operating procedure. What rankles me on this one is that it was bipartisan. I prefer politicians that are trying to get a leg up on the competition. Seeing them come together to deceive us is disheartening.

A quick perusal of the facts. We use about 20 million barrels of oil a day. The SPR consumes about 70 thousand barrels of oil per day. This is less than half a percent of our daily intake. Put another way, it will take over 9 and a half months for the diverted 70 thousand barrels a day to equal a single days worth of US oil consumption.

A few weeks back the media was at pains to point out that Hillary couldn’t produce an economist to back her gas tax holiday idea. Is there an economist out there who can give a coherent analysis of how releasing a mere 70 thousand barrels a day will effect gas prices?

What could make a small difference in prices is for the SPR to “loan” some of its stockpile back to the market (possibly even at a discounted rate). This helped in the wake of Katrina and 9/11. The problem is that the situation we are in today is much different than those short isolated shocks.

Regional instability and a possible oil bubble could play a small role in current prices. They are not however the real problem. The current increase in oil and gas prices is a matter of normal market forces operating over the long term.

Fast developing China, India, and some other former “third world” countries are increasingly hungry for oil. Take a look at this chart of GDP growth rates by county. The former third world is racing to catch up and the faster they race the more oil they consume. A long winded way of pointing out that demand has been increasing and will only continue to increase for the foreseeable future. (I’ll trust you to know the effect of increased demand on prices).

One step back and we see that there are serious problems with production. The world’s oil infrastructure is ageing and new investment in this sector has not matched the increase in demand. Even once the oil is out of the ground we run into problems with refinement. Even were there suddenly a glut of crude to drive down prices we would still be paying a lot at the pump due to limited refinement capacity.

My point in the last three paragraphs was to highlight the issue of high oil and gas prices as systemic and necessary not contingent on transitory factors. As such releasing stocks from the SPR is not a long term solution. To the degree that it could temporarily slow the rise in prices it would merely manufacture an even steeper surge in oil prices when the SPR spigot finally goes dry.

Bush is right that stopping shipments to the SPR will do nothing. His administration is also right in proposing that we double the SPR from some 750 million barrels to almost 1.5 billion. That sounds like a hell of a lot of oil but it really only amounts to 4 months of continuous US consumption.

Right now the US is importing over half of the oil it consumes. With China on the rise, Russia resurgent, South America (an often unspoken source of oil) alienated, and the middle-east seething with belligerence there are many scenarios for finding our self isolated and bereft of oil. 1.5 billion barrels could be enough to keep the economy from melting down for a few months while we desperately work to secure imports.

Bush is of course wrong when he mentions ANWR as a possible long term answer to our oil woes. 6 or 7 billion barrels when stretched over a 20 to 30 year extraction period amounts to very little.

It has been five years since Buffy ended. Almost exactly five years in fact. Maybe this is why yesterday I spontaneously decided to watch a Buffy episode for the first time in eons. Something like the increase in psychological symptoms we see around trauma anniversaries in mental health. But I’m not the only one reacting to this anniversary.

Today’s NPR Morning Edition featured former Baghdad bureau chief Jamie Taraby reflecting on how Buffy the Vampire Slayer reflected her experience and offered her comfort in a war zone. If you’re interested, listen to it here.

Buffy still holds the imagination of fans and academics. The online Buffy communities still prosper as people discover Buffy and other Joss Whedon productions. Until some copyright happy execs put the kibosh on it crowds of rabid fans were packing theatres all over the country to participate in Buffy the musical sing alongs ala Rocky Horror. Some people actually put on full scale productions (here is an example and the original as antitdote). Scholars haven’t let up after five years either. Collections of essays continue to appear as do academic conferences (last year in Istanbul of all places).

But for me the memory of Buffy has been a bit tarnished: I fell in love with another tiny blonde ass kicker. Buffy had the superior writing and ensemble cast. However, Kristin Bell’s Veronica Mars was just as witty but smarter and an even better feminist hero. Bell herself is a wonderful actress with crack comic timing and an effortless duende that will suck you right in. Here is a promo someone created for a comic-con and an interview with Dave Letterman.

There is no scifi/fantasy element to scare you off and though Veronica is in high school this is a very adult show. Also there is wonderful class warfare element to counter-balance TV’s current ridiculous trend of worshiping the rich, stupid, and shallow. With the season finales happening and the summer TV doldrums imminent I highly recommend you check it out. All three seasons of this too soon canceled show are available on DVD.

In news of future projects Joss Whedon is currently filming episodes of a new series: “Dollhouse”. See the trailer here.

From Entertainment Weekly:

Whedon says that, like Buffy and Firefly, Dollhouse aspires to be both deep (how does society shape, influence, ''program'' the individual: discuss!) and fun. A typical episode will see Dushku cycle through three to four personas, making for a wild mix of moods and genres. ''The other day I shot scenes for a 1940s musical dance number and a Mexican spaghetti Western — just for the pilot episode”

Who knows if the series will be a success? It’ll be on Fox so it can’t survive with only the WB worthy audience that Buffy held. Also, since it doesn’t feature doctors, lawyers, or police it starts at a disadvantage. But nobody would have predicted the success of Lost or Heroes. And anyway it won’t be Whedon’s last chance. Given that Sarah Michelle Gellar’s career is going nowhere fast I’m looking to hear about a Buffy movie for TV or even the big screen

Last month I posted on the unbearable blandness of the primary race. Things have changed. Last week I was sure that Clinton was walking away with the nomination. Again, things have changed.

Obama has surged since South Carolina and is almost certain to come away with enough delegates to keep him competitive for the month of March. Then again, given the almost 10% proportion of voters still undecided we could see a major upset in either direction. You'd think that given his momentum Obama would have the advantage with the undecided. But a big part of the reason for the New Hampshire results seemed to be that women woke up that morning and decided to disproportionably vote for Clinton. It could happen again.

I've derided those that spoke of a brokered convention but it could actually happen. This is too bad for the Democratic Party. A candidate crowned by the backroom dealings of super delegate party politics will immediately lose credibility. Given that the convention is only two months from the general election there will be little time to recover.

My tenuous prediction for Super Tuesday is that, despite the probable close delegate split, whichever candidate wins an overall victory will end up winning the nomination. For Clinton a win will cement her as the leading candidate and as the tested campaigner fighting off tough challengers. The momentum that Obama gathered in the last week will be ceded to Clinton and she will start walking away with future primaries. If Obama can claim an overall victory he will finally prove himself as a credible candidate on the national level. I suspect that many undecided and pro-Clinton voters wary of a perceived lack of experience and lack of electability will flock to his banner.

I previously predicted that the Republican race could come down to who dropped out first - Giuliani or Huckabee. With Giuliani's departure after Florida McCain has the momentum and it is increasingly clear that he will be the nominee.

Nevertheless, Romney hasn't given up hope. He has made significant gains in California and could pull off an upset: the primary is closed to independents (cutting of some of McCain's support) and some of Huckabee's 10% may heed the call to jump ship towards Romney. If he secures a popular vote win in California, wins in Massachusetts, Utah, and perhaps several other small states, then he will claim that he is still viable. It is unclear if he really would be.

Unfortunately for Romney he is strongest where the delegates are awarded proportionally. McCain is ahead almost everywhere and has significant leads in a number of the important winner take all states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Arizona. It is hard to imagine the scenario where McCain does not come out of Super Tuesday with a significant delegate lead. I predict that given McCain's lead the party will close ranks behind him. Despite loud squawking by prominent ultra conservatives McCain offers a damn good alternative to Clinton or Obama.

CODA
I'm loving the irony of McCain's recent surge. In 2004 the Republican Party nominating convention was derided for so prominently featuring speeches by McCain, Giuliani, and Schwarzenegger - moderate Republicans in no way reflective of Bush's evangelical and neoconservative agenda. In 2008 Giuliani and Schwarzenegger's endorsements are instrumental to McCain's lead. The chickens have come home to roost and the Christian right is figuring out that though they are the loudest they aren't necessarily the biggest part of America or the Republican Party.