WIN WITH A ROOMIER MIDDLE, DITCH SOCIALISM

If anyone says American socialism isn’t possible, point them toward the bowling shoe. ~ Hari Nef   

It seems Thomas Hobson could become a choice in the Dems’ presidential election candidate sweepstakes. It’s not a happy feeling because like most people I’ve never liked having to make a Hobson’s choice, aka my way or the highway.

Now that the chimera of impeachment has evaporated, the only way to get rid of this thoroughly hazardous president is by tried-and-true-blue voting him out of office – and assuming he’ll thereby vacate the White House.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ steady advance in New Hampshire’s polls together with his virtual first-place tie with Pete Buttigieg in Iowa has me concerned. Why? Because Bernie is #45’s best hope for an opponent in November.

A presidential ballot choice between Bernie and #45 seems all too Hobson for me. I’d vote for Bernie if it comes to that, but it will seem feckless – socialism v. egoism.

We’re a long way from choosing a candidate that can beat #45. Although it’s not obvious when listening to the media, which has been in “today’s the day that will influence everything” status for all too long. It’s about five months until the Dems’ National Convention. Nevertheless, the Dems’ now not-so-latent schizophrenia between selecting a radical progressive versus a moderate is becoming ever-more palpable. Alas, Thorazine isn’t appropriate for treating alleged widespread and early-stage political psychosis.

Hence, the primaries must appropriately provide a voter-based choice. I expect that the media’s relentless focus on the utterly squishy concept of ex ante “electability” will thankfully dissipate. Electability will be determined ipso facto from the actual primary election results of real voters, not by confused, inconsistent polls.

We’ve just witnessed the first of the 57 rounds (that’s right, 57) of Dem primaries and caucuses. This initial round in the farmy, app-seizured state of Iowa was unexpectedly exasperating. Under 9% of voting-age Iowans attended the 1,681 Democratic caucuses last Monday. So much for participatory democracy and Bernie’s mantra of bringing more voters to his and the Dems’ table. Pete Buttigieg unexpectedly eked out an ever-so-slender win over Bernie in terms of the Iowans’ obscurely-determined state delegate equivalents (SDEs). So slender that Pete and Bernie are now uneasy co-winners. Sen. Elizabeth Warren came in a distant third and Joe Biden badly batted clean-up.

The quadrennial political spotlight shone brightly on Iowa and its caucuses, at least before they actually occurred. As we now know, the Iowa Democratic Party failed to provide timely, accurate results of their convoluted caucus process.

During the past months we once again learned a smidgen about Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and even Muscatine. Due to the media’s obsessions, we’ve heard about all manner of things Iowan for close to a political eternity – even about the alleged “predictive power of Indian food.”

Yup, this story in the New York Times posited how Iowans’ apparent preferences for Indian food, say tasty tandoori tofu, can predict their political choice, specifically people who’ll vote for Bernie in the caucuses. This is another fine example of copy-desperate journalists falling on their cum hoc ergo propter hoc swords. According to this story, 71% of Bernie backers have eaten at an Indian restaurant (in the last decade!), as contrasted with only 40% of people who support Joe Biden. So all one had to do is ask folks going to the caucuses if they’ve eaten Indian food within the last 10 years to determine who won the caucuses. OMG, please stop; tandoori tofu won’t help you on any campaign trail, including Iowa’s.

I offer congratulations to Pete and Bernie. They managed to physically traverse not only most of Iowa’s 99 counties, but the intricacies of its byzantine, opaque caucus system. It’s a system that next to no one beyond Iowa’s border understands, or cares to. To confuse things even more, the Iowa Democratic Party provides three different sets of results for their caucuses: state delegate equivalents, the final caucus vote total and the initial caucus vote total. It’s so complicated we waited for four days to get complete, hand-on-Bible/Torah/Koran-accurate results. As one Iowa caucus secretary said, “It’s just so absurd.” Exactly.

What happened to simple, straightforward voting with a private ballot? Fortunately, that’s what the New Hampshire primary offers. It’s even smaller and whiter than Iowa – referring to both its people and its snow-covered ground. Oh well. Taking a thoroughly non-electronic, time-tested approach to voting, the Granite State's procedure uses no apps or machines; just paper ballots and pencils. Onward in lead-based security. 

Hawkeye State denizens are now back in their usual non-media-fixated political penumbra, without non-stop political ads. Ah, what a relief it is.  Meanwhile the Iowa Democratic Party attempts to cure its critically-wounded system for next time(?), while weathering much-deserved criticism.

The New Hampshire primary vote is tomorrow. At this point, according to the polls, the semi-native son Bernie is 6 points ahead of Pete Buttigieg, with Joe Biden nipping a bit at Pete’s heels. Unfortunately semi-native daughter Sen. Elizabeth Warren hasn’t fared as well. But not to worry Liz or Joe or Amy or Andrew. South Carolina’s Dem primary is just three weeks away, on leap-year day, a much-shortened eternity you all have been preparing for, right? Four days after that there’s the 15-state, Super Tuesday Armageddon – March 3.

The chart below provides several characteristics of the first three states where the Dems’ primaries-caucuses are being held, plus California the largest state in the Super Tuesday marathon. I haven’t mentioned here Nevada’s caucuses on our first president’s birthday; I’m caucused out.

PRIMARY STATES’ CHARACTERISTICS

Characteristic\State	US	Iowa	New Hampshire	South Carolina	Calif-ornia
Population (1000s)	328,240	3,155	1,360	5,149	39,572
Population Growth	6.3%	3.6%	3.3%	11.3%	6.1%
Percent of US Population		1.0%	0.4%	1.6%	12.1%
Median Age (years)	37.8	38.1	42.7	39.0	36.1
Persons under 18 years	22.4%	23.2%	19.0%	21.8%	22.7%
Persons 65+ years	16.0%	17.1%	18.1%	17.7%	14.3%
White	76.5%	90.7%	93.2%	68.5%	72.1%
Black/African American	13.4%	4.0%	1.7%	27.1%	6.5%
Hispanic/Latino	18.3%	6.2%	3.9%	5.8%	39.3%
BA or higher degree	31.5%	28.2%	36.5%	27.4%	33.3%
Median Household Income	$60,293	$58,580	$74,057	$51,015	$71,228
Persons in Poverty	11.8%	11.2%	7.6%	15.3%	12.8%

Iowa and New Hampshire have much whiter, less ethnically diverse populations. South Carolina and California have the most ethnically diverse populations of the four. California’s Hispanic/Latino population is more than twice the US average. New Hampshire represents well under one percent of the US population, and it’s much older having the highest median age of these states. New Hampshire has fewer people living in poverty and under 18 years old, and a higher share of folks who’ve gotten at least a college degree. Granite Staters also have the highest median household income, over 20% more than the US average. South Carolina has the fastest growing population during the past decade of any of these states, growing almost twice as fast as the nation.  
As seen in the chart and unsurprisingly, no individual state exactly compares to the nation, despite journalists’ superficial attempts every four years to plug their favorite substitute for Iowa or New Hampshire. Nevertheless, using the characteristics shown in the chart, California is overall the most “similar” of these states to the US characteristics.

Bernie’s (and Liz’s) “Big Structural Changes” that they advocate will not be incremental, by design. He has been consistent and clear about this for a long time; which means he’s “authentic,” an attribute the media believes 2020 Dem voters may place key importance on. There is nothing incremental, or inexpensive, about Bernie’s goals, including Medicare for All [that will provide free, government healthcare to everyone (near and dear to Dems), including illegal immigrants (not so near and dear)], eliminating all student debt, providing free tuition for public college education, or implementing the Green New Deal.

Bernie’s program appeals to big-time progressives, folks who want big-time change and those who are less concerned about how these fantasy goals (see here) could be achieved in the actual world of political and fiscal limitations. They’re not troubled about significantly expanding government that will be required to implement his vision. Bernie’s stated goals will create a form of democratic socialism that will be broader in many ways than any Nordic or European nation –encompassing over 50% of the nation’s GDP and doubling government employment. In the US, all levels of government account for about 38% of GDP. About 15% of the US labor force now works in government.

Nor are his acolytes fretful about his programs’ sizeable costs, because they haven’t read the fine, fiscal print or considered the nation’s existing financial condition, which will make his vision’s high costs a barrier to implementation. Bernie’s progressive devotees believe his political dream has got to be better than what’s happening now. These progressive stalwarts have a very low threshold for fury when anyone proposes some less than a 100% Bernie-true programmatic idea; witness Liz’s demise in polling. I strongly doubt general election voters will see Bernie’s ideas the same way as his puritanical followers do.

The president has already characterized any Democrat running for office as a “socialist” in honor of Bernie’s inescapable affiliation. More to the point, #45 and his cronies are discharging to the public that if elected, the Dems will take away your choices (e.g., private health insurance) and increase your taxes. That’s certainly a possibility if Bernie occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Our economy continues its decade-long growth cycle with unemployment very, very low (3.6%) and workers’ real wages finally edging upward. That’s wonderful news. Unfortunately, if they continue such macroeconomic advantages have favored the incumbent president in the past rather than his challenger, especially if the challenger’s support is not broadly-based.

Should we be wishing for a significant recessionary trend to materialize to “help” the Dems? No. But regrettably, the Dems have yet to broadcast clear-cut, convincing, economics-based arguments that voters can adopt in choosing the Dem candidates to continue and increase our economic growth. The Dems‘ focus is on how it is divided, not enlarging the pie. They have to own our decade-long success. The Dems simply aren’t talking about it. That’s a large mistake.

The Dems’ political prospects will likely change again, after New Hampshire and South Carolina hold their primaries. And then change again after Super Tuesday. But no matter which Dem hopeful ends in the lead after Super Tuesday and ultimately the convention, he or she will need to swiftly consolidate their support to be as broad, roomy and inviting as possible to win in November. That’s assuming there will soon be a unique multi-primary winner, which at the moment seems a large-ish assumption. That consolidation will be most difficult for Bernie, in no small part because of how narrowly he’s defined his authenticity and how he behaved after he lost the 2016 Dem presidential candidacy.

I’m not a purist or a puritan. I consider myself a realist. My over-riding goal is for the Dems to beat #45 as decisively as possible. There aren’t enough socialists, even democratic ones, in our voting public for Bernie to win. That will happen with a roomier, centered candidate, perhaps even an “extreme moderate.” Here’s hoping… 

Here are my post-NH primary observations (2/12/2020).

Bernie did as expected in New Hampshire yesterday. He won his next-door primary besting Pete, but without the anticipated margin of victory, which was an ever-so-slender 1.3% of the total vote. Both of them were awarded the grand sum of nine delegates, meaning Bernie only needs an additional 1,969 to secure his nomination. And like the fractured Iowa caucuses, Bernie did not induce hordes more voters to the polls. On that note, his goal of persuading many more “disaffected” and young voters to the polls has yet to be realized. Maybe his third try, in Nevada, will be a charm. The surprise that this hasn’t happened is itself a surprise.

Perhaps Bernie’s lean victory happened because of the plethora of names on the ballot. Amazingly, 33 different Dems were listed on the New Hampshire primary ballot; including many who have already dropped out but nevertheless received a smattering of votes.

Oh well, the media now sees Bernie as the Dem (oops, Democratic Socialist) to beat at this very early point in the primary season. He’s king for more than a day; indeed for 10 days, until the Nevada caucuses end. The big media play now is Amy’s unexpected “win” (actually her third-place finish) in tiny New Hampshire. As if primaries are a horseshoe game where near-enough to the winning stake actually counts. I guess it does, Amy now has six delegates.

The Dems’ quandary – who can actually beat #45 – remains, and will continue until the number of moderates, I’ll call them the “Mod Squad” [Pete, Amy, Joe, Tulsi, Deval (Patrick), Tom (Steyer) and Michael], slims way, way down so their votes don’t get spread around to as many folks as they do now. Even though 19 Dems have already dropped out of the race, at this point (Michael Bennett and Andrew Yang departed yesterday), nine still remain. Seven of these nine are members of the Mod Squad.

Having nine candidates in the Dems’ primaries is as confusing as the famous John Lennon song, Revolution 9 on the White Album, that entirely consists of strange, continuous loops. It’s too many loops, and candidates.

The too-large number of Mod Squaders predictably makes it easier for Bernie to win with a minor plurality, now that Liz’s star continues to fade. As the media has now continuously reminded us, Bernie’s tiny winning margin and his 25.7% share of the New Hampshire vote is the smallest in decades, and way below his winning 22% margin (and 60% share) against Hillary in 2016. Those were different times, principally because there were only two Dem candidates.

Unfortunately, winnowing down the Dem field of dreaming candidates will not happen soon. The lagging Mod Squad members, say Tulsi and Deval and likely Amy and (OMG) Joe, understandably aren’t willing to simply draw straws to see who departs now. Although the “weakest” of them might succumb before South Carolina, my bet is we’ll have to wait for nearly another month, after the March 3 Super Tuesday marathon.

The fiscal and logistical requirements for winning the 17 contests between now and Super Tuesday is staggering and will precipitate drop-outs. Other than the leaders, very few Dem candidates now have money in their political wallets or the field staff for this 17-ring circus. Will that be soon enough for the numbers-diminished Mod Squad to rally vote-wise against Bernie? I hope so. Many Dems, including me, are nervous about this answer.

MODERN MONEY ILLUSION

Money is an abstraction, a political confection, a set of castles built on air. ~Sebastian Mallaby  

The aura of money has existed for a very, very long time. Ecclesiastes 10:19 asserts: Money answereth all things. During the course of human history many objects have been used as money to transact sales and pursue commerce including cocoa beans (in Mesoamerica) and cowrie shells (in Africa, India and China). Paleo-economists believe the first precious-metal coins were used as money in several places about the same time, around 600-500BC; in China’s Yellow River valley, in India’s Ganges River valley and by the king of Lydia in western Asia Minor (modern Turkey). In 1024, the Chinese government started issuing paper notes in standard denominations, which showed that banknotes (paper currency) could be a viable and facile form of money. The first European banknotes were issued in late 17th century Sweden.

But what about money here in the United States (US)? Glad you asked. In the 17th and much of the 18th centuries each of the original 13 American colonies issued their own banknotes (paper money). Thus, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island each had their own distinct currencies. Understandably, this was a hindrance to trade between the colonies, probably promoting a fair amount of barter exchange. Foreign coins, including the Spanish dollar, were also widely used as currency in the US until 1857. After a previous and unsuccessful attempt to create a useful, single currency for the new country, the US Continental Congress authorized the issuance of the US dollar in July 1785, backed by gold and silver.

US Federal banknotes were issued as the currency of our nation in 1863 to finance the Civil War. We finally discarded the Gold Standard in August 1971; meaning the government no longer officially backed its banknotes with gold bullion stored at Fort Knox and the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Somehow, we’ve survived much to the surprise of the gold “bugs.” After 1971, the only “promise” the government offers for your $20 Hamilton bill is another $20 bill.

Naturally, not everyone was happy about this lack of precious metal “backing.” Remember William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech? It’s what’s lurking somewhere behind Martin Amis’ quote: Money is a fiction, an addiction and a tacit conspiracy. So it goes…

In January 2020, the US economy has $1.75 trillion circulating as Federal Reserve banknotes and about $245 million in coins. Interestingly, the $100 bill – with the almost-smiling Ben Franklin on its front side – is the most common bill now in circulation, just ahead of George Washington’s $1 bill. There were 13.4 billion $100 bills circulating at the end of 2018, representing over 75% of the total value of our currency.

As much as 80% of all our Ben Franklins is being used outside the US, making them one of our largest, and unreported, exports. Economically-ruptured Venezuela is the latest nation to become more “dollarized,” given that its peso is next-to-worthless. In fact, Ecuador and Zimbabwe officially use US dollars (especially $100 bills) as their currency. Other countries, including Panama, Cambodia, and the Bahamas, use the US dollar alongside their own currencies. Ben Franklin has taken many foreign excursions.

Now there’s a panoply of alternative “currencies” beyond cash, including credit cards (the pioneering Diners Club card was first used in 1950), debit cards and various electronic forms, including the (in)famous Bitcoin, as well as Apple Pay. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, US consumers use credit and debit cards for 34% of their purchases, electronic payments for 34%, checks for 20% and cash for only 9% of (mostly low-value) purchases.

Because money is such an elemental part of any economy, economists have spent lots of time thinking about it over the years and examining how the amount of it and its use affects economic conditions. Concepts such as the “velocity of money” and “money illusion” have sprouted from lofty ivory towers. We’ve come a long way from just using cowrie shells and precious-metal coins.

Money illusion was first discussed over 90 years ago by Yale professor Irving Fisher who observed that most people believe the illusion that the face value of their money (say the $20 value of Hamilton’s bill; the bill’s “nominal value” in econ-speak) represents its actual purchasing power. That’s not necessarily true. Such people aren’t aware that money’s purchasing power depends on general price level changes, the $20 bill’s “real value.” If overall prices rise due to inflationary forces, the $20 bill’s actual purchasing power is reduced; it doesn’t buy as much as it used to. Thus, this money illusion is present if there’s underlying broad pressure affecting many goods’ prices, but not (yet) changing people’s income/wage levels.

After 1990 the US average annual inflation rate has been very low, 1.6% per year, despite the vociferous, misguided fears of many conservatives. That’s in stark contrast to 1974 and 1980 when the OPEC-induced oil price shocks pushed our annual inflation rate to 11.0% and 13.5%, respectively. Those were the days. Not.

I believe there is a newer version of Prof. Fisher’s money illusion. It has arrived along-side several progressive Democrats’ plans for dramatically changing the scope and operations of the federal government.

Bernie Sanders and, to a lesser degree, Elizabeth Warren have expansive ideas about reprioritizing domestic policies to guarantee every man, woman and child their “basic economic rights” (BERs). Bernie has stated, “We must take up the unfinished business of the New Deal.” His unfinished BERs consist of:

Quality health care	As much education as needed to succeed	A good job paying a living wage with 12-weeks family leave
Affordable housing	Living in a clean environment	A secure retirement

The possible costs of providing Medicare for All, “free” college tuition, elimination of student loan debt, government-guaranteed jobs, increased Social Security payments, renewed environmental protection and other, unstinting progressive programs have been dutifully estimated. One guesstimate stated these programs could cost $42.5 trillion (T) over the first decade.

This titanic sum, $42.5T, would almost double the size of the federal government’s current expenditures. In the current fiscal year the government has budgeted $4.75T for all its expenditures, which represents about 21% of our GDP. Possibly doubling the size of the government over a fairly short period would be a very big deal that so far doesn’t seem to have garnered very much real (or nominal) discussion; it’s an illusory topic.

In a sense, because these costs are so profuse, and in the future, we seemingly don’t have to worry now. This thinking is consistent with the liberal Modern Money Theory which suggests that the government can pay for its expenditures and achieve full employment by issuing more money.

The above sum does not include undertaking the extensive Green New Deal (GND) programs announced last February by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markley. If implemented, the GND endorses a “ten-year mobilization” that would include large-scale, national social programs like universal health care, food security and government-guaranteed jobs as the “new deal” portion of the GND. Its substantial Green initiatives portion would include creating net zero emissions energy production from both a thoroughly updated, totally non-fossil-fueled national electricity grid and an electrified national transportation network.

Ten-year cost estimates for the GND programs by Doug Holtz-Eakin, previously director of the Congressional Budget Office and very familiar with government fiscal programs and expenditures, are $52T to $93T. Mr. Holtz-Eakin believes the bulk of the estimated costs would be faced in implementing the GND’s new deal programs, although the Green initiatives would also have a very substantial price tag due to their inclusive scope and tight schedule.

The trillions of dollar sums for the progressives’ programs and the GND are unimaginably large, and thus subject to a more modern type of money illusion, principally because of these programs’ size, complexity and span.

If we arbitrarily assume there’s a 25% overlap between the GND’s new deal programs and Bernie’s BERs programs and use the mid-point of the mentioned GND cost estimates, the grand total of the combined efforts of the GND and BERs for ten-years would be $97,000,000,000,000 or ninety-seven trillion dollars. It’s nearly five times as big as our current GDP, the world’s largest.

To get a better visual sense of just how large $97T is, imagine Ben Franklin $100 bills that have been tightly stacked upright on their long side, so we can answer the question; gee, how long a heap of such Franklin $100s would equal $97 trillion? Not how large is $97T; how long is it? This stack would go around the world about 2¼ times at its circumference; a bit more than 56,400 miles of $100 bills. That’s a lot of money.

Our inability to sense just how large these numbers (and the programs’ expenditures/activities) could be is likely why we can’t fathom exactly what is being proposed. It’s a next-to-impossible illusion to imagine in much detail because it’s so big. Certainly, the Law of Unintended Consequences will be functioning throughout these efforts, as always.

This very progressive political vision would be very distinct from others that are now being promoted by different candidates. But should we as a nation try it? That’s what the true left-field progressives pretty much demand. When asked, how can we afford this? They evasively reply, how can we not afford it; continuing the illusion. Our collective answer is what this year’s primaries and election, in a mere 285 days, will hopefully help decide. The inaugural Democratic caucuses and primaries begin in a mere 12 days across farmy Iowa. 

Not to worry if you don’t get to Des Moines in time. After Iowa there are 56 more Dems primaries and/or caucuses, including the Northern Mariana Island caucuses, the Democrats Abroad primary and last but certainly not least, the US Virgin Island caucuses on June 6. No wonder we call it a party. I hope our money and programmatic illusions will be at least partially dispelled after mid-July’s convention. As Adam Smith aptly stated, all money is a matter of belief. So is politics.

GOLDEN MEDICARE FOR ALL

Will it be another Democratic Cross of Gold?

Oh my, until Tuesday we again faced a Republican radical alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). One more repeal effort with great feeling, but no wisdom.

This time the Republican folly was the Graham-Cassidy bill, which had virtually nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with febrile efforts to resurrect states’ rights, block grants, keeping donors contented and passing anything that has “healthcare” somewhere in its first sentence or two. The announcements that Senators Rand Paul, John McCain and Susan Collins would not support this latest Republican effort to dismantle the ACA is what passes the low threshold of good news for the 319 million (M)  people who have some type of healthcare coverage.

However, Graham-Cassidy is not the only radical idea that Congress has for replacing the ACA. Nope, on September 13 Senator Bernie Sanders introduced his “Medicare for All Act of 2017” proposal that would end the ACA, replace it by expanding Medicare and provide it to every American, not just to those of us who are 65 or older. It would also increase the services now provided by Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing aid coverage. In 2015 (the latest year data are available) Medicare covered 43.3M people, representing 13.4% of Americans. The goal of expanding healthcare coverage to be universal is worthy; it’s the objective of the ACA.

The progressive left-side of the Democratic Party has enthusiastically supported Sen. Sanders’ new, universal healthcare proposal for the nation. These supporters include 16 other senators who are co-sponsoring his proposal, six of whom are up for election next fall, and 119 Democratic Representatives in the House. Sen. Sanders’ proposal, like the previous one he created nearly four years ago, has zero chance of being considered in this Republican-led Congress because by themselves the minority Democrats have no legislative power.

Nevertheless, his 2017 Medicare for All plan is rapidly becoming a necessary political talisman for liberal Democrats, reflecting a leftward shift of the Democratic Party. Its supporters are a rising political clan that has defiantly stuck its single-payer healthcare flag into the political sandbox. These Democrats reflexively prefer the Medicare for All designation rather than “single-payer” because Medicare is a well-regarded, very popular government program; even right-wing Tea Partiers have usually avoided directly denouncing Medicare. In contrast, single-payer frankly connotes BIG government, something that may appeal to long-devoted progressives, but far fewer others. So Medicare for All it is.

These are relatively cheery times for Bernie’s single-payer healthcare backers. Because it has yet to be an actual piece of legislation, no one needs to provide many details about how it would be structured or financed and no one needs to round up Congressional votes.

The proposed bill proffers nothing about how Medicare for All would be funded. His proposed Act says that American healthcare will be greatly improved, offers a basic description of the plan and how this improvement would be implemented. As now described, Bernie’s plan would phase in the provision of universal healthcare to these hundreds of millions of people over a four-year period. To say this four-year implementation effort would be a challenge is to significantly downplay the extent of the new healthcare market’s likely turmoil.

Sen. Sanders has separately provided funding “options” that added up to $1.62 trillion (T) dollars per year during its first decade. I’ll talk about these later. Critics say this funding level is wholly inadequate. They have a point, in 2015 the US spent $3.2T on healthcare ($9,990 per person), representing an all too impressive 17.8% of our GDP. Sen. Sanders’ funding options would cover just 50.6% of current healthcare expenditures.

I believe Bernie’s’ new Medicare for All plan can serve an important purpose to muster Democrats into action amid the Republican’s fusillade of ill-considered efforts to replace Obamacare. The Graham-Cassidy bill is merely the latest and most contemptable, which is saying something, but not the last. However, I fear that by making Medicare for All the official Democratic plan for fixing American healthcare (that in this case means completely retreating from the ACA), it could become a modern-day Cross of Gold for Democrats in next year’s elections.

At the July 1896 Democratic National Convention William Jennings Bryan delivered one of the greatest political speeches in American history, his Cross of Gold speech. The defining issue of that year’s presidential campaign was how to get the American economy out of the continuing, severe depression that starting in 1893 and bring the nation back to prosperity. The Bank Panic of 1896 (when many depositors simultaneously asked for their checking account funds in cash) was emblematic of the severe economic troubles that beset most Americans that year. The previous three years were equally bleak. There was a bank panic in 1893, one-quarter of US railroads – then the new technology sector – declared bankruptcy (including the Pennsylvania Railroad), Wall Street stocks dropped precipitously, a series of violent labor strikes occurred and unemployment rose to between 12% and 14.5% in the election year, unemployment in some cities was twice as high. And we think the 2007-09 recession was bad.

William Jennings Bryan was a populist who supported “free silver,” farmers and factory workers. He decried big business and the gold standard that he believed had largely caused the bank panics and depression. His mesmerizing nomination speech at the Convention concluded with the often-quoted phrase, “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

His speech propelled him to the Democratic presidential nomination. He lost to Republican William McKinley on November 3 by 95 Electoral College votes. William Harpine, a noted historian who has studied Bryan’s candidacy and the 1896 campaign, said “Bryan's speech cast a net for the true believers, but only for the true believers. By appealing in such an uncompromising way to the agrarian elements and to the [American] West, Bryan neglected the national audience who would vote in the November election.” In a real sense, Bryan’s populist Cross of Gold speech was the glittery vein that led to the realigning 1896 election, which kept the Democrats outside the White House for 28 of the next 36 years.

The 2016 election was certainly a realigning one, at least in the initial nine-months of Mr. Trump’s besotted presidency. If the Democrats rearrange their policy priorities around a progressive, true-believer single-payer healthcare system, I find it all too straightforward to believe it would inimically affect their electoral chances in 2018 and perhaps beyond.

As a slogan, Medicare for All sounds more enticing than any of the Republicans’ ideas to “enhance” healthcare. But in many ways it’s a far more radical departure from ACA than any alternative yet considered. It would fundamentally restructure our healthcare system by placing the federal government completely in charge as the “single payer.” In its expanded role, single-payer healthcare will require far more tax revenues.

Under Medicare for All the 178M people who have healthcare plans either through their employer or the individual market and the 112M on either Medicare, Medicaid or another public program, there would no longer be health insurance companies or the current health exchanges providing it. Private health insurance companies like Aetna, UnitedHealth, Kaiser and Anthem (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) would entirely disappear and the over 500,000 people who work in the health insurance industry would mostly be out of their jobs. When implemented, only the federal government would provide and pay for individuals’ healthcare. Most beneficially, the 29M people who remain uninsured would receive healthcare (it’s “for All,” after all).

With Medicare for All, doctors, nurses, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and their customers would face a completely different market with one supplier, different stakeholders, incentives, operational requirements and regulations. Despite the potential benefits that supporters proclaim, with a brand-new national healthcare system, the psychic pain and frustration during its initial operation will be substantial. If you doubt this, just remember the flawed roll-out of the ACA’s website access to HHS health exchange.

Under Sen. Sanders’ plan, individual’s health insurance premium payments would drop to zero for virtually all people and businesses who offer health insurance for their employees. This is good, very good. In their stead, the government would pay for all healthcare expenses via higher taxes.

Unfortunately, these clear savings may not be that obvious for many people. That’s because the millions of employees whose healthcare is connected with their job, don’t directly write a monthly premium check to their healthcare provider. Instead, it’s indirect and automatically deducted from their paycheck, via the firm’s payroll system. Virtually all (96%) of US employees receive their paychecks from a payroll service’s direct-deposit service.

If employers decide to increase wages/salaries by the full amount of their premium savings, take-home pay would be larger, less the increased federal tax withheld.[1] This is good. But it’s not apparent in Sen. Sanders’ Act that employers would be obligated to do that. Thus, the premium savings may not be all that obvious. However, increases in nearly everyone’s federal taxes would be much more noticeable, if only from the media’s likely substantial attention.  

How does Sen. Sanders suggest his Medicare for All plan would be paid for? Federal taxes would broadly expand and rise for almost everyone and every business, substantially for some higher-income people and businesses. The payment options Sen. Sanders’ proposes include a 7.5% payroll tax increase paid by businesses (except for small businesses) that could likely reduce people’s premium savings, a 4% personal income tax premium, probably more for high-income households, a broader and increased estate tax, a new “wealth tax” levied on the Top 0.1%, a financial transactions tax and a “one-time” tax on overseas corporate profits.

Unlike now, his Medicare for All program would operate with an annual budget, a significant change. Establishing a yearly Medicare budget represents a fundamental modification that would soon force tradeoffs between services offered and expenses, to stay within budget. Such a Medicare budget would be subject to political forces that have been highly skewed away from cost-cutting or limiting what medical procedures are available to patients. Additionally, because 80% of US healthcare system spending is on medical care provided by doctors and hospitals, it’s likely that cutting healthcare costs will be as torturous and painful as it has been under ACA. Because of their prominence, reductions in doctors’ and other healthcare processionals’ compensation would be prime targets for savings.

The American Medical Association (representing doctors’ interests), the American Hospital Association (representing hospitals’ interests) and other medical/health lobbies have been very effective in preserving their clients’ well-being for decades. As an example, an American family doctor’s average salary is $207,000, about 160% higher than an English general practitioner’s operating within the UK single-payer system. Effecting cost reductions and improved efficiencies with Medicare for All will be exceptionally tough, just as it has been with ACA. For these reasons Bernie’s Medicare for All will likely remain fairly pricy.

Thus, if Medicare for All ever sees the legislative light of day, the adage, healthcare policy always involves tax policy will hold. Creating the required new and increased taxes will be highly contentious and broadly disliked. It is the rare citizen who gladly pays more taxes, especially new ones.

Governments have imposed taxes since at least Egyptian times, when Pharaohs used tax collectors then known as scribes to amass needed money, including from taxes on cooking oil. More recently, American history is replete with citizens protesting taxes, including the famous Boston Tea Party in 1773, when the words were uttered, “no taxation without representation” to dispute British taxes on tea. Our Revolution started two years later.

In June the media broadly announced the results of a Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll that indicated there was a modest increase in the public’s support for single-payer health insurance to a majority; 55% of respondents said they were in favor of a government-based national health plan (single-payer/Medicare-for-all), 40% were opposed. Less reported was that the slim, “in favor” majority was quite fragile and disappeared when those people in favor were told that opponents might state such a plan would either ”give the government too much control over healthcare” or “require many Americans to pay more in taxes.” Respondents in favor of Medicare for all then changed their mind; opposition to single-payer increased and became a 62% majority of respondents (from hearing about more government control) and increased to 60% (from more taxes).

Significant popular opposition to single-payer healthcare and its perceived large costs have halted each of three liberal, blue states – California, Colorado and Vermont – from implementing their state-wide universal healthcare plans. A single-payer bill, the Healthy California Act, was introduced in the California Legislature this spring but was later dropped after the bill’s hefty anticipated costs – $400B per year – became known and opposition grew. I have previously discussed California’s fractured initial foray into single-payer healthcare. A Colorado single-payer referendum last November was decisively voted down 79% to 21%. Issues included an additional 10% payroll tax to fund ColoradoCare and how Medicare patients would be served.

Finally, in 2011 Bernie’s home state legislature passed the structure for a Vermont single-payer healthcare system, the first and only state to do so at this point. But three years later the legislature abandoned the effort because they couldn’t figure out how to finance it. Experts had estimated that the system would require state taxes to double, roughly $2B in extra tax revenues.

Could Medicare for All be another Democratic cross of gold? I believe it’s a risky, radical policy position for Democrats to take because it would run completely counter to the tamer, more broadly-accepted approach of improving the existing ACA. Appealing to voters for at least a $162B tax increase for the initial decade of Medicare for All will be an election-losing fantasy that, like William Jennings Bryan’s defeat, could lead to longer-term negative consequences. Democrats should remember what happened 121 years ago. Lashing themselves to a cross of golden healthcare is a mistake.

---

[1] It’s not clear whether the Medicare for All Act’s increased payroll tax would preserve the substantial tax-break businesses have long received by paying for employees’ healthcare expenses with pre-tax dollars. This tax-break has been estimated to be $250B per year, probably the government’s largest single subsidy, more than 60% larger than the mortgage interest deduction subsidy. 

BERNIE WHO?

A revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall. ~ Che Guevara 

The Republican and Democratic presidential primaries have finally ended. Whew. So now we’re witnessing the Republicans’ presumptive nominee Donald Trump and the Democrats’ presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton starting to circle each other (near the rope-lines) in the first round of the up-coming election prize fight – only a mere 140 days away. But wait, Bernie (coulda-been-a-contender) Sanders hasn’t yet thrown in his towel and insists he’ll be running for president forever. Really? Meanwhile his most fervent “Bernie or bust” followers had a gathering in Chicago this past weekend to drum up an alternative something, such as finding like-minded candidates to run for office somewhere and sometime. That's all well and good. I’m all for having people with political beliefs organize and seek an enhanced society.

But by not now pledging his support nor endorsing Hillary, Bernie seems myopically oblivious to the dangerous wild elephant now prancing in the political ring – Donald Trump.

Perhaps Bernie wants to continue the high he’s been riding for a while, but the reality of the lows of his actual political performance (based on the number of actual votes his followers managed to provide in California and DC, among other primaries) won’t allow it to continue.

Bernie’s youthful followers have been impressive in their attendance at his rallies, but many of them forgot to actually vote for their leader. Oops. Almost 16 million people voted for Hillary Clinton, 12 million voted for Bernie Sanders. Of the Democratic primary/caucuses held in the United States, he won 22, she won 29. He lost, fair and square.

So what really happened with the much-discussed and pontificated younger voters that Bernie appealed to as a central cohort of his campaign? As I’ll show, the 2016 democratic primary voting patterns for youth participation are not much different from primaries in the past. Younger people simply didn’t vote in sufficient numbers to lift their candidate (this time, Bernie) to victory. It’s a familiar story. So much for the media-hyped “revolution” of Bernie Sanders.

Hillary’s victory was due to many factors, but demography was a key one, just like it was Bernie’s demise. This is illustrated in the table below.

Bernie Sander’s Phantom Revolution (Percent of total voters by age group)

	Voters under 30 years old		40-64 years	45-59 years	65+ years	60+ years
State	2016	2008	2016	2008	2016	2008
Florida	15%	9%	46%	33%	25%	39%
	[64%]
Illinois	17%	15%	46%	32%	22%	23%
	[86%]
North Carolina	18%	14%	49%	34%	20%	26%
	[72%]
New York	18%	15%	45%	33%	19%	30%
	[65%]

Numbers in brackets represent percent of voters under 30 years old who voted for Sanders.Source: USNews.com

This table shows that young voters, here characterized as people under-30 years old based on exit polls, accounted for at most only 18% of all 2016 voters in these 4 states. I did not find age-based primary state voter information except for these states. Nevertheless, they do represent a range of geographic and political characteristics. As you can see, middle-aged and older voters account for far larger proportions of actual voters. Middle-age voters represent between 2.5 and 3 times as many actual voters as young voters. Also illustrated in the table is that despite much media attention to Bernie’s youth “revolution” the percentage of youth voters in 3 of the 4 states didn’t significantly increase in 2016 from 2008. Surprisingly, young voters in Florida, which is usually associated with much older people, almost doubled in 2016.

Sen. Sanders captured very large majorities of youth voters in these states, as shown in the table – from 64% in Florida to an astounding 86% in Illinois. But percent of voters who were young (under 30) who voted for Bernie was very low; ranging from 9.6% in Florida to 14.6% in Illinois because of their low voter participation rates mentioned above. Despite receiving 86% of young voters’ preference in Illinois, he lost the state to Hillary.

It’s always puzzled me why the media, marketers and politicians continuously emphasize the importance of “youth” and seem to neglect older people who have both more resources (aka, money) to spend on stuff and vote far more regularly and reliably. Sure, the vast majority of young people eventually become income-earning adults who exhibit behaviors (like voting) that youth don’t, but as the table shows “middle-age” people substantially out-vote young people.

This important age-based distinction holds even when you normalize by how much of our 2010 population was in each of the 3 age groups shown for 2016 in the table. The ratio of the average share of voters for each of the 3 age-groups in the 4 states’ primaries shown in the table divided by that age group’s share of the US population shows the oldest age group (65+ years old) voted 70% above their population share; the middle-age group (40-64 years old) voted 40% above their share. The under-30 year old group voted only 10% above its population share, which is fine, but hardly noteworthy.

From a media perspective, it comes down to middle-age voters aren’t “revolutionary”; they’re simply once again exercising their constitutional prerogative. Yet when less than one in five young people actually votes, it’s headline worthy.

For Bernie, young people have been very willing to attend rallies with thousands of their cohorts probably as a social event, but not at all interested in actually voting as a political act. In this strange way, perhaps the multitudes of Bernie backers are socialists – with a small “s” – participating solely in an exciting communal social activity believing there was no other obligatory action required (like casting one’s vote on election-day). Go figure.

So why are young people seemingly so reluctant to vote? No one really can explain it, but Russell Dalton (a professor at UC/Irvine) has examined political engagement among various age groups over the past few decades. His assessment concludes that young adults just aren't as engaged as they used to be. Dalton says if politicians want young people to vote, they need to incentivize them. Wow. Conversely, older folks are much more engaged. Dalton portrays this divergence as constructively as possible by referring to millennials’ lack of voting caused by “the long slope of differences by life stage is getting steeper, with less involvement in youth and more involvement in later life.” The long slope of differences by life stage? That makes no sense at all; mostly because the act of voting is neither difficult nor arduous.

So Bernie, you’ve retreated to Burlington and taken a well-deserved rest, perhaps even hiked in the beautiful Green Mountains. Now you need to formally quit your campaign and say good bye to your Secret Service guardians. Finally and most importantly, you need to start actively and unqualifiedly assisting Hillary to defeat The Donald. If you wisely give her campaign the resources she deserves, you’ll get at least one more spotlight’s worth of attention and thanks. If you don’t, it will be “Bernie who?” Oh, he’s the old man who decided not to help when the Democrats needed it.

If you don’t, you will have failed to make Che Guevara’s apple really fall and the 85% of American citizens who are older than 30 will wonder and blame you for why you haven’t taken any action to defeat Donald J. Trump, the insidious threat to our precious democracy. Do the right thing Bernie, and stay relevant. 

July 12, 2016 Addendum, Bernie's endorsement.

Why did this take soooo long? Today, Bernie finally endorsed Hillary.

I’d say it’s taken this long because, to no one's surprise, Bernie’s played-hard-to-get with Hillary. And her weakness as a candidate probably augmented the importance of his endorsement. Her difficulties remain the continued challenge of “explaining” her disastrous email server issue that won’t go away even on Nov 9 when she’s hopefully been elected president.

Her negotiations with Bernie during the past month or so to get his endorsement only really matters to inside-the-beltway Democratic potentates and princesses (P&Ps); and only for the next 16 days, until the Dems’ convention ends.

No other folks except these P&Ps give a damn about what’s in the Dems’ (or the Repubs’) platform. Furthermore, as this blog showed, his core supporters include young “idealistic” people who haven’t ever pulled their voting weight in any national election. It’s not likely that these people, on the margin, are worth that much effort to harvest for Hillary. If I were Hillary, I'd put Bernie solely in charge of this task. 

No one knows how many Bernie backers will vote for Hillary. You get wildly different answers, depending on which poll you cite. On the one hand, “Recent polls show that only a small fraction of them would support her...” But another poll says that “The vast, vast majority of those who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary will support Hillary Clinton in the general election.” Go figure.

In fact, her leftward turn to induce the Bernie or Busters’ reconciliation and votes makes me concerned about her judgement. His most fervent backers seem so “principled” that they feel “betrayed” by Bernie’s endorsement as well as Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s public endorsement of Hillary. These Bernie backers are barely tangentially-related with the real world of politics and political progress. Their disdain for actually casting votes speaks for itself.

As for the fantasy idea that Hillary should offer Bernie a place on the Democrats ticket as vice president, OMG. According to poll fielded in May, “You're going to hear a lot in the days ahead about possible vice presidential candidates, but when it gets right down to it, voters don't place a lot of importance on the person in the number two slot. Most say a presidential candidate's running mate is somewhat important, but just a third of voters rate the vice presidential nominee as Very Important to how they will vote in the upcoming presidential election. The sentiment is generally the same among both Democrats and Republicans.”

Bernie is a failed candidate. His campaign was interesting, provocative and worthy. Now, like all losers in the presidential primary process, he’s mostly forgotten but not yet gone. He’s a loner with a germane but narrow message that appealed to a small part of the electorate that (as my blog demonstrated) doesn’t vote much.

Despite the media’s proclamations, Bernie won’t be much remembered in 4 months, let alone a year from now. His “revolution” wasn’t. Perhaps his endorsement will provide some lift to Democratic pols, but party “unity” seems a much over-sold virtue as far as actual American voters are concerned. Get on with it Hillary, keep campaigning hard and pick a VP who’s not a Senator from a state with a Republican governor (like Elizabeth Warren), who would be replaced by a Republican. 

GETTING RID OF THE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES’ CHAFF

A lot of people criticize the primaries, but I think they are absolutely essential to the education of the President of the United States. ~ Pierre Salinger 

To no one’s surprise we’re being bombarded by never-ending media accounts of the status of the 2016 US Presidential campaigns, primaries and caucuses. Most of this onslaught involves chaff rather than wheat buds. Thus, diminishing returns set in for me a while ago. This blog attempts to unearth more wheat buds rather than chaff.

The challenges facing the Democrats and Republicans – especially the Republicans – have been manifest, especially the fantasy of a “contested” convention in mid-July for Republicans in Cleveland, Ohio. Doesn’t even Cleveland deserve better?

The concept of a contested or brokered convention solely rests on none of the candidates having the requisite number of delegates needed to assure him (or her, perhaps for the Democrats) for the nomination on the first round of votes. For Republicans this magic number of delegates is 1237; for the Democrats, it’s 2382. The voting procedures and delegate rules for each political party are obscure and byzantine – probably initiated during the Crusades. Virtually no one seems to understand these rules, probably just the way each party wants it.

Currently, (Mar 31, 2016) Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Repubs, has 736 pledged delegates (501 short of the magic number). He has greatly benefited by nearly $2 billion in free media exposure so far; $400 million just in February, which is about as much as Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz received together. Hillary Clinton, the Dems front-runner has 1243 pledged delegates (1139 short of the magic number, not including the Dems’ super-delegates, who may be some politico-combination of Superman and Batman as near as I can tell, although I haven’t yet seen “Dawn of Justice,” so I remain uninformed.

My take on all the machinations surrounding the alleged Olympian importance of delegate counts and up-coming possibilities for the conventions is that they’re mostly chaff-like self-aggrandizing activities designed to promote the Dems and Repubs, the candidates, and of course the media itself.

But I’ve decided that a straightforward summation of each remaining candidate’s delegates by state can be improved to be a more insightful indicator, a wheat bud if you will, of the eventually November election. If you’re listening only to the media the election seems imminent, but it’s actually 221 days from now.

Table 1 shows the basic delegate numbers by state and candidate that I will modify below.

TABLE 1: DELEGATE COUNTS for 2016 US Presidential Election

		Number of Delegates (as of 3/30/16)**
		Democrats		Republicans
State	2012 Election Winner*	CLINTON	SANDERS	TRUMP	CRUZ	KASICH
Alabama	R	44	9	36	13	0
Alaska	R	3	13	14	0	0
Arizona	5-10R	44	30	58	0	0
Arkansas	R	22	10	16	15	0
California	D
Colorado	5-10D	28	38
Connecticut	D
Delaware	D
Washington, DC	D			0	0	9
Florida	U5D	141	70	99	0	0
Georgia	5-10R	73	29	42	18	0
Hawaii	D	8	17	11	7	0
Idaho	R	5	17	12	20	0
Illinois	D	76	73	53	9	5
Indiana	R
Iowa	5-10D	23	21	7	8	1
Kansas	R	9	24	9	24	1
Kentucky	R			17	15	7
Louisiana	R	37	14	18	18	0
Maine	D	9	16	9	12	2
Maryland	D
Massachusetts	D	46	45	22	4	8
Michigan	5-10D	63	67	25	17	17
Minnesota	D	31	46	8	13	0
Mississippi	R	32	4	24	13	0
Missouri	5-10R	34	34	25	15	0
Montana	R
Nebraska	R	10	15
Nevada	5-10D	20	15	14	6	1
New Hampshire	5-10D	9	15	11	3	4
New Jersey	D
New Mexico	D
New York	D
North Carolina	U5R	59	45	29	27	9
North Dakota	R
Ohio	U5D	81	62	0	0	66
Oklahoma	R	17	21	13	15	0
Oregon	D
Pennsylvania	5-10D
Rhode Island	D
South Carolina	R	39	14	50	0	0
South Dakota	R
Tennessee	R	44	23	33	16	0
Texas	R	147	75	48	104	0
Utah	R	6	26	0	40	0
Vermont	D	0	16	8	0	8
Virginia	U5D	62	33	17	8	5
Washington	D	9	25
West Virginia
Wyoming
Total Delegates		1231	962	728	440	143
**Winner of primary shown in bold italic.
*D=Democratic win in 2012 presidential vote; U5D=under 5% Democratic win in 2012; 5-10D=between 5 to 10% Democratic win in 2012. R=Republican win in 2012 presidential vote; U5R=under 5% Republican win in 2012; 5-10R=between 5 to 10% Republican win in 2012.
Sources: RealClearPolitics and Wikipedia.

The total delegate counts shown in the above table for each candidate are not the same as the official counts. That’s because for reasons of geographic and political efficiency I haven’t included the delegate allocations from primaries in the Northern Marianas Islands, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands. I offer consolation to you islanders, but we can certainly get the general drift of which of the 5 remaining candidates are doing well or not at this point without these geographically far-flung primaries. As further justification for these places’ omission, no resident of these areas can actually vote in the US presidential election. Go figure.

In case you’re wondering, the Northern Mariana Islands had their presidential primary on March 15, where the winners were Clinton and Trump. These 15 islands are officially known as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; Chamorro: Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas) and is one of 5 inhabited American insular areas. It is one of two territories with US "commonwealth" status; the other is debt-ridden Puerto Rico. With Guam (to the South), these islands comprise the Mariana Islands archipelago, in the north-western Pacific Ocean. The capital, Saipan, is 5700 miles from San Francisco. From SFO, it takes a mere 25 hours of flying and 2 stops, to get to Saipan’s beaches. The 2010 US Census counted 53,833 people in the CNMI. So now you know.

But back to the mainland primaries. Using the information in Table 1, I ran a scenario to see how robust each party’s candidates’ delegate votes are; to mimic an actual open election. I assigned a likelihood of each of the current candidates actually receiving election-day votes in each state, based on the 2012 Presidential election results shown in the table’s second column. In this way, I weighted the delegate counts by the 2012 election outcomes to provide a clearer, wheatier sense of how close (or far) each party’s candidates are from one another.

Here are my assigned weights. I gave full weight to delegates earned by candidates in the party that won the state by more than a 10% margin in 2012, labelled D or R in the 2nd column. If the 2012 vote margin of victory was between 5% and 10% (labelled 5-10D or 5-10R), I gave a 90% weight to the winning party’s 2016 delegates and a 67% weight to the 2012 losing party’s delegates. If the 2012 vote margin was less than 5% (labelled U5D or U5R), I gave the winning party’s delegates a 95% weight and an 85 % weight to the 2012 losing party’s 2016 delegates.

Even though Hillary Clinton decisively won the Mar 1 Democratic primary in Alabama (she won 44 delegates versus Bernie Sanders’ 9 delegates), because the Democrats categorically lost Alabama’s 2012 Presidential election (by over 20%), I counted neither Clinton’s nor Sanders’ delegates in their weighted total delegate counts for Alabama. Similarly, I didn’t count Trump’s, Cruz’s or Kasich’s delegates in Hawaii, a reliably blue/Democratic state. Now look at Florida. In 2012 Florida voters gave Barack Obama a win, but the margin of victory was under 5%, so I gave a 95% weight to Clinton’s and Sander’s 2015 delegates, and an 85% weight for Trump’s, Cruz’s and Kasich’s delegates. This weighting protocol emphasizes winning delegates for the party’s candidates in states where it won (or nearly won) the 2012 election. Despite its limitations this weighting serves to “un-primary” the results and makes sense if you want to simulate possible general election results by using primary contest outcomes.

So what happens to total delegate counts for each candidate using this weighting scheme? Table 2 shows the total unweighted delegates (from Table 1) and the total weighted delegates for each candidate, using the above protocol. [If you have an alternative weighting scheme, let me know and I’ll run it in my model. It’s very easy to examine alternative weights.]

TABLE 2: TOTAL DELEGATE COUNTS for 2016 US Presidential Election

	Number of Delegates (as of 3/30/16)
	Democrats		Republicans
Total Delegates	CLINTON	SANDERS	TRUMP	CRUZ	KASICH
Unweighted	1231	962	728	440	143
Weighted	729	636	567	378	92
Difference (%)	41%	34%	22%	14%	35%

Table 2 shows that Hillary Clinton is most affected by the weighting, losing 41% of her pledged delegates. The least affected candidate is Ted Cruz, who lost just 14% of his pledged delegates. This result is mostly due to Sec. Clinton’s primary victories in 10 states that were won by Mitt Romney in 2012, the largest delegate trove from Texas. In contrast to Sec. Clinton, Sen. Sanders won primaries in 6 much less delegate-rich states that Romney won. In fact, the total delegates he won from all 6 of these states (UT, OK, NE, KS, ID and AK) represent less than 80% of the delegates Sec. Clinton won in just Texas. Thus, what seems good for gaining the nomination may not be useful for the election.

In contrast, Sen. Cruz has won delegates in states that voted overwhelmingly for his now-consort Milt Romney, so he is the least affected candidate by the weighting. His primary victory in Maine is an anomaly. The most affected Republican candidate is John Kasich for the straightforward reason that 46% of his pledged delegates to date, and his only victory, come from his home state Ohio, which voted for President Obama in 2012. Donald Trump’s total delegate count is not that affected, a 22% loss, again mostly due to his appeal in blue states and states where the 2012 election win for Pres. Obama came from a fairly small margin. Perhaps this provides some basis for his campaign’s declarations of his broader, beyond traditional GOPers’ appeal. Then again, his campaign (and certainly the candidate himself) makes so many fallacious, ever-changing assertions that it’s now impossible to believe any of them. But that’s another realm.

Based on this sensitivity assessment of the candidate’s delegates, I’d say Sec. Clinton may be most exposed and now needs to focus more on winning convincingly in blue-ish states, something Sen. Sanders has been doing since day 0 in his campaign. Gov. Kasich, who’s mischaracterizing himself as a “moderate,” needs to return to Columbus and spend some quality time watching the Buckeyes play baseball and softball. Sen. Cruz needs to keep doing his very cherry red-state thing, and not expect any victory travel to Cleveland. Let the games continue…

UPDATE to my March 31, 2016 Blog.

Shown below is the updated, May 5 version of Table 2, Total Delegate Counts by candidate that includes primary results since Apr 5 (WI, WY, NY, MD, CT, DE, PA, RI and IN).

TABLE 2B: TOTAL DELEGATE COUNTS for the 2016 Presidential Primaries

	Number of Delegates (as of 5/5/16)
	Democrats		Republicans
Total Delegates	CLINTON	SANDERS	TRUMP	CRUZ	KASICH
Unweighted	1657	1314	989	513	152
Weighted	1100	931	635	401	92
Difference (%)	34%	29%	36%	22%	39%

Sec. Clinton is now within 30% of the (unweighted) delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot, despite Sen. Sander’s win in Indiana. Compared to the original Mar 31 Table 2, Sec. Clinton has widened her lead in weighted delegates over Sen. Sanders as well as reduced the percent difference between the unweighted and weighted delegates, indicating she has won proportionally more delegates in states that were either won or almost won by President Obama in 2012. After Indiana and the departures of both Sen. Cruz and Gov. Kasich from the race, Donald Trump has now become the Republican’s purported candidate for President. Oh my.