This is a pretty dramatic and historic win, to say the least.  Alaska hasn’t had a Democratic United States Senator since Mike Gravel in 1980.  It also keeps the dream of 60 alive for the Democratic majority–counting Bernie Sanders of VT and Lieberman, the Democratic Senate caucus now numbers 58, with Georgia and Minnesota’s races still undecided.  Congratulations Senator-elect Begich!

“I pretty well understand anger,” said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid after the vote of the Democratic caucus.

“I would defy anyone to be more angry than I was but I also believe that if you look at the problems we face as a nation, is this a time we walk out of here saying, ‘boy, did we get even?’”

By now you know about the vote within the Democratic Caucus that allowed Republican sock-puppet Joe Lieberman to retain his seniority and his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

In a deal that was brokered behind the scenes over the weekend, Lieberman was forced to step down from his seat one the Environment and Public Works Committee. (A tiny slap on the wrist, but I will try to make a little lemonade here by hoping that this might help kill off once and for all the Lieberman-Warner global warming “effort”—which was a faux-solution designed to check off a box on a congressional to-do list without actually doing anywhere near enough.)

Of course, I, and any other honest, caring Democrats, don’t give a damn about how angry Harry Reid might have been. I’ve been angry at Joe Lieberman for a decade now because of so very many things that he has done to betray his party, his state, and his country—but anger has nothing to do with it. Neither does “getting even.”

Nor, honestly, does the possibility that Lieberman will make the 60th vote in a cloture-ific super-majority (congratulations to our latest Democratic Senator-elect, Mark Begich, by the way). That was just another straw man thrown out there by Senate leaders and media elites to distract us from what this was really all about.

Even if Minnesota’s Al Franken and Georgia’s Jim Martin go on to join the other 56 Democrats and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the Senate majority, Joe Lieberman (Party of One-CT) will never be the 60th vote on any matter of importance—and I promise you that will include attempts to end roadblock Republican filibusters. Never.

Remember, Joe was a member of the “Gang of Fourteen,” a group of supposedly “centrist” Senators that undercut Democratic attempts to stop a series of ultra-right Bush nominees from littering the federal bench.

Remember, Joe wouldn’t even vote for cloture on a non-binding resolution to condemn the lawlessness of former AG Alberto Gonzales—when even seven Republicans found the courage to do just that.

Remember, Joe was the guy who just last month warned how dangerous it would be if Democrats controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. . . and campaigned like crazy to try and prevent that from happening.

(Some talking heads like to tell us that Joe won’t matter because Republicans like Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and/or Arlen Specter will be willing to join with Democrats on a whole host of issues; color me unconvinced—I could give numerous examples of all three talking tough and then voting with their party on a litany of important issues.)

No one was seriously arguing that Lieberman should be kicked out of the Democratic caucus (because no one ever asked me), but those that understand the dynamics of power were arguing that Joe needed to be stripped of his committee chairmanship. If Democrats had done that, it would have permanently marginalized Lieberman with little effect on any majorities Dems might amass. Lieberman might have switched parties (though I don’t think that was anywhere near certain, since he had little to gain by doing so), and I expect that he will vote with the Republicans just as often as a nominal “Independent Democrat” because Lieberman has shown time and again that he has no respect for the Democratic Party or, honestly, much of what it stands for. And he has proven that he has no sense of allegiance or gratitude to those that have helped him in the past.

What Joe was never serious about was resigning his seat so that Connecticut Governor Jody Rell, a Republican, could appoint a Republican to replace him. Never would have happened. Not in a million years. I know, and you know, Joe is all about Joe (and practically nothing else), and Joe would never willingly give up the power or the fundraising prowess of his Senate seat. (Seriously, I was amazed resignation was even being discussed on the news shows—it was absurd.)

Now, thanks to Reid’s all-anger-no-action reaction, and similar behavior from a majority of his colleagues, we have the worst of all possible worlds (yes, I said possible—see above). Lieberman will never help his caucus in any meaningful way—I just know this—but he will hurt them, likely repeatedly.

As head of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Joe the Chairman could have used his position to investigate many of the misdeeds of the Bush Administration, but he did nothing of the sort (absolutely nothing). But in that same seat during the Obama Administration, just watch and see if Lieberman suddenly finds the need for scrutiny and oversight (and lo unto the Democrats if they then try to remove or silence him—not only would taking away his gavel mid-session require a Senate vote subject to filibuster, it would unleash the right wing and establishment media hounds).

Watch and see if Joe doesn’t convene some new “gang” of some number—a group of pretend moderates who only exist to thwart Obama Administration or progressive Democratic initiatives—to create for himself a sense of importance and a renewed media interest. I am expecting this, too.

And watch, because you will have no choice but to watch, as the Liar of the Senate goes on news show after news show, filling the designated Democratic seat, and then using the opportunity to bash President Obama or fellow Democrats. He did it throughout the campaign, and, indeed, throughout the last four years (or more), and that was when he supposedly had something to lose; I can pretty much guarantee this will come to pass.

For a generation now, party loyalists and pundits alike have turned with some self-assurance to the pseudo-amusing saw “Democrats never fail to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.” But with the elections of 2006 and 2008, it seemed, if just for a moment, that Democrats might have put that one to bed—but that was before Joe made Harry the Hulk angry. . . . And, I guess Nevada’s answer to Bruce Banner was right—at least for me—I don’t like him when he’s angry.

(With apologies to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)

- — - — -
cross-posted on capitoilette

She then drew a vertical axis and labeled it with “conventional” at the top and “intentional” at the bottom, making the claim that most church conflicts happen on this axis, not on the liberal-conservative one.  The example she gave was one of the most divisive issues that can be found in congregations these days - traditional vs. contemporary worship.  More churches have gone to war over whether to have organ or guitar music than over the issue of ordaining gays. 

Bass’ argument was that changing and breaking with long-held traditions is where the church faces its greatest challenges these days.  It’s not about resolving the conflict between liberals and conservatives, a conflict which has been around for over a century and which will never get resolved through arguing.  It’s about transforming traditional practices.

Much of what Bass said about church conflict can also be said about the world of politics, especially when it comes to the recent presidential election.  Certainly, there were issues in the election that fall neatly onto the liberal-conservative axis: taxes, the war in Iraq, abortion, gay marriage, etc.  But John McCain’s own adviser famously said that the campaign was not about the issues, which begs the obvious question, “OK, then, what was it about?”

It was about that vertical axis that Bass drew.  It was about “convention” vs. “intention.”  It was about doing things the way they’ve always been done vs. change.  What will history remember most about the 2008 election?  That it was a mandate to end the War in Iraq?  That it was a victory of raising taxes on the wealthy over trickle-down theory?  That it was a validation of Obama’s almost-universal health care plan?  Hardly.

Those left vs. right issues will certainly be important in the coming years, but they’re not what carried Obama to a resounding victory.  Obama won because the people wanted change.  They wanted something different than George Bush and Bill Clinton and the same old Washington political games.  McCain tried to present himself as the real option for change, but in the end, he lost because he couldn’t help but represent tradition and convention.

What will be remembered about 2008 is that Obama is the first black president.  That he is the first post-Boomer president.  That he is the first tech-saavy president.  Perhaps even that he is the first post-partisan president.  And that he ran (for the most part) a positive and uplifting campaign.  All of these things have nothing to do with being liberal or conservative.  They have nothing to do with this dichotomy that has been placed on our politics throughout American history.   They have to do with something else, something that is bubbling forth from our culture that Obama was smart enough to tap into. 

At the end of Diana Butler Bass’ seminar, she introduced a third axis into her model, making it three-dimensional.  This third axis was the movement from modernism to post-modernism.  Bass didn’t spend too much time trying to describe post-modernism and what the coming years will look like, but she assured us that the church that exists 50 years from now will bear little resemblance to the modern relic that exists right now. 

I think we can say the same for politics and for the world in general.  Whatever things look like in the year 2058, I feel certain that the Obama presidency will be viewed as the beginning of a whole new epoch - and not because of policy, but because of process.  He will go down as a great president not because he will accomplish partisan victories, but because he will transform the methods and practices by which a president governs and leads.

This morning, I downloaded the first of Obama’s Youtube addresses, a true “Fireside Chat” for the 21st century.  I wonder if John McCain even knows how to use Youtube.  I can’t help but marvel at how much things are already changing.

I began by asking Bill Ayers to respond to the controversy surrounding him in the presidential race.

BILL AYERS: We actually didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. We recognized that there was this cartoon character kind of thrust up on the screen, and I was an unwitting and unwilling part of his presidential campaign. We tried not to watch it, because, pretty much, it was distracting and kind of crazy-producing. On the other hand, as you played those, there’s so much that’s dishonest in it that it’s kind of impossible to kind of know where to enter it.

First of all, the idea that Bill O’Reilly says, you know, that I was in hiding. I wasn’t in hiding. I was teaching and speaking and writing and doing all the things I do. What I wasn’t doing was commenting on the presidential campaign to the media. And I decided not to do that. We decided not to do that when this all began, because we couldn’t figure out a way to interrupt what we took to be a profoundly dishonest narrative that, you know, had no—we had no purchase. We had no way into it.

And what’s dishonest about it, I mean, there are many things. One is, I was not a terrorist. I never was a terrorist. And the idea that the Weather Underground carried out terrorism is nonsense. We never killed or hurt a person. We never intended to. We existed from 1970 to 1976, the last years, the last half-decade of the war in Vietnam. And by contrast, the war in Vietnam really was a terrorist undertaking. The war in Vietnam was terror on a mass scale, with thousands of people every month being murdered, mostly from the air. And we were doing everything we could to stop it. So, again, it’s hard to know where to start to interrupt that narrative.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Bill, for a lot of younger listeners and viewers who may be not familiar with the Weather Underground—I remember back more than forty years ago I was in the Students for a Democratic Society with you and Bernadine—and could you talk a little bit about how the Weather Underground developed and what were its goals?

BILL AYERS: Sure. When I was first arrested opposing the war in Vietnam was the year that the United States built the war up, 1965. And at that time, I was arrested in the draft board with thirty-nine other students trying to disrupt the normal activity of the draft board. You know, one of the things to note about that arrest is, while thirty-nine of us were arrested and while hundreds of students supported us, thousands of students opposed us, because in 1965 the war was popular. Again, in retrospect, it’s hard to remember that.

In ’65, 70 percent of Americans supported the war. By 1968, 70 percent opposed the war. A lot had happened in those years. Certainly, the activism of the student movement was part of it. Perhaps more important was strong elements of the black freedom movement coming out unequivocally against the war. And perhaps most decisive was Vietnam vets coming home and adding energy to the antiwar movement, starting their own antiwar organizations and denouncing the people who had sent them there, telling us, telling all the American people, that the war was immoral, that they were asked to do war crimes on a regular basis as a part of policy, not by accident. And that just, you know, kind of deflated the whole idea of this so-called noble enterprise.

So here was this illegal, immoral war. In 1968, the sitting president announced that he would leave office at the end of his term, rather than run for reelection, in order to end the war. We felt that we had run a great victory when he made that announcement in March of 1968. Four days after that announcement, King was dead. A couple of months later, Kennedy was dead. And a few months after that, it was clear that the war was going to escalate. And the question was, what do you do? It’s 1968, there’s no end point in sight, and thousands of people are being murdered every month. People did many things. Some joined the Democratic Party and tried to organize a peace wing. Some left the country. Others decided to organize in communities. Some built communes. And we decided that we would build an organization that could resist and create a more militant response to the American misdeeds in Vietnam.

While to most of us it was obvious that the lies were not to be credited, it is good that friends I have heard from - who actually fell into a vague feeling that Obama had a questionable background - will find out that it was always entirely wrong. The wingers will never believe the truth, because it doesn’t serve their purposes. But having the truth out will help.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com )

The evidence from the 2004 election would suggest not, displaying a solid correlation between voting and income, with the higher income brackets increasingly more likely to vote for Bush and the poor voting solidly Democrat. The chart shows the real numbers as they voted.

Voting by income in the 2004 election

Apart from the clear split in voting between those that earn less than 50,000 and those that earned more, you can immediately see that the greatest numbers of votes were cast by those living in the 30,000-75,000 dollar family income bracket.

One possible explanation for this could be a much lower rate of turnout amongst lower income voters, and data from the census bureau confirms this.

Voting by Income if All Income Levels Voted at the Same Rate

So what if lower income voters voted at the same rate as all other income levels. I decided to test this and see how the election result would change if everyone voted at the same rate keeping the same percentage difference between the votes of Bush and Kerry. I created this new chart that has all income groups voting at the national average of 61.4%

The interesting thing about this chart is that even if the poor voted at higher rates, and higher income groups at lower rates, Bush still would have won the popular vote, having won the crucial 50,000-75,000 dollar income bracket, and only slightly losing the 30,000-50,000. The poor being a relatively smaller group of eligible voters would not have brought enough votes to change the popular vote in favor of Kerry.

Now these are national results, and Jim’s question was as much about income distribution as much as it was about the voting habits of the poor. Should it not be the case that in areas where lower income groups make up a greater proportion of the population, their votes carry more weight? My answer would be probably not, because as Jim’s charts also show, in areas where there are greater numbers of lower income households, there is usually greater income inequality, which means that the middle class is smaller and income is distributed more towards the extremes. As higher income people have a greater propensity to vote republican, the greater numbers of the poor are to some extent offset.

So in order to win the election, Obama had to win the 30,000-75,000 dollar income bracket, and this certainly explains Obama and Biden’s relentless talk of rebuilding the middle class.

However, it does leave the question, with poorer voters having difficulty in influencing elections, and both parties courting the interests of the middle class, are the poor left unrepresented. And are the significantly lower rates of voting amongst the poor simply a factor of having little reason to vote? If so, how can the representation of lower income groups in America be increased? I leave these questions for you all to consider

George

Two things:

1) A new CNN poll finds that “59 percent of those questioned said Democratic control of both the executive and legislative branches will be good for the country, compared with 38 percent saying such one-party control will be bad.” In other words, the American people are, contra McCain, fine with one-party rule, as long as the one party is the Democratic Party.

2) What does “one-party rule” even mean? In a parliamentary system, where the party with the most seats in the legislature is usually the one that forms the government, a party with a majority of seats can indeed rule as one. It forms the government, formally linking the executive and legislative branches, and, for the most party, can control its caucus. As members of the party require the party’s, and the party leader’s support, there are only very rarely any defections from the party line. There may be so-called “free” votes, where members are free to vote as they please, but, on major legislative items, such as the budget, or other so-called “confidence” matters (where a vote against the government means a lack of confidence in the government, generally forcing it to step down or call an election), there is strict party-line voting.

There can be no such “one-party rule” in the American presidential system. Yes, as we saw under Bush, a party that controls both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue can effectively rule as one, and there is often a good deal of arm-twisting by the whips, and defectors can be punished by the party, but, for the most part, members of Congress, both Senators and Congressmen alike, are free to vote as they please. This is why, on most votes, there is cross-over voting, with members of each party voting with the majority of the other.

Simply put, the two parties are not monoliths. This was true of the Republicans pre-2006, and it is certainly true of the Democrats now. McCain and other Republican fearmongers may talk up the Obama-Reid-Pelosi alliance, as if they are all essentially one and the same, but, though they may agree more often than not, they are not in any like the governing party in a parliamentary system. Obama is not about to do what Reid and Pelosi want without question, Reid and Pelosi are not about to be Obama’s rubber-stampers (like the Republicans were under Bush), and Reid and Pelosi are not about to unite on all matters.

What’s more, even where these three agree, there is no guarantee that they will be able to secure the support of enough Democratic members to do what they want. Consider, for example, the Blue Dogs, the coalition of right-leaning or otherwise conservative Democrats in the House. With influential members like Jane Harman and Heath Shuler, and with representation from all over the country, they are not about to go along with the party leadership on all matters. Indeed, they are likely to try to block any sort of liberal-progressive legislative agenda (or at least much of it). In the Senate, too, there are moderates and conservatives who are not about to go along with Reid. And as popular and powerful as Obama is, there is only so much he can do.

And so the whole idea of “one-party rule” is basically a myth. While the Republicans were able, more or less, to maintain party unity, especially after 9/11, given Bush’s immense popularity (for a time), the Democrats remain a divided party (in what I hope is a dynamic and productive way) with members who will not simply do what they are told.

It’s called the American way.

Michael Stickings is the founder and editor of The Reaction.

I had come to my polling-place intending to cast my vote for Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates that had not made it onto the Michigan ballot: Gloria La Riva for President and Eugene Puryear for Vice President. These are the candidates of The Party for Socialism and Liberation. As a small, mostly-marginalized political party, the names of these candidates were not listed among the options before me. So, when I approached the voting booth - ballot in hand - I meant to write-in these candidates’ names; whom I felt best represented my interests and desires for the nation at large.

In these politically nepotistic and insular times it seems that a majority of the populace cannot understand why anyone would vote off-ticket. These unnamed, third-party candidates have no real chance of being elected, after all. So why not choose one of the mainstream candidates who, at least, represent the better of the options we are presented with?

There are two main reasons that I decided to vote for Gloria La Riva. First, I wanted to encourage the party she represents. It is supremely important - in a Democracy - that we support those groups which rise to champion our beliefs on the national stage. If I cast my vote for some other party, Gloria La Riva and The Party for Socialism and Liberation would never know that I support them. They would never know that I am grateful for their efforts and wish them to continue doing the hard work of carrying my hopes and aspirations into the public limelight.

Second, I want it on the record! I want the state to recognize, even if only by a meaningless act of bureaucracy, that the options I have been presented with by this system do not represent me; that I, and those sharing my beliefs, have been marginalized by a system that drawls on endlessly about “democracy” and “freedom,” but falls short when presenting us with meaningful options.

For these reasons I stood in that voting booth looking at my ballot, wondering how to fill it out. The Presidential and Vice Presidential seats were presented to me as a unified ticket. In other words, if I wanted to vote Obama for President, I had no choice but to vote Biden for VP. The two distinct offices were represented by a single choice: “Obama / Biden.” The problem for my write-in candidates was that I couldn’t possibly fit both of their names into the empty write-in block provided on the ballot.

Unsure how to proceed, I finished filling out the rest of my choices and I approached the man supervising the tallying machine. I began to say, “I think I need a new ballot. I’m trying to write-in my choice for presidential candidate.” He interrupted me.

“You can’t write-in a Presidential choice. You have to pick from what’s listed.”

I stared at him with what must have been a supremely dumbfounded expression. After a long silence I reeled in my hanging jaw and managed to squeeze out a sarcastic, “Democracy, huh?”

He started to fumble out an excuse: “Well, if your candidates really wanted to be on the ticket then they needed to register with the state in advance. They’ve had all this time to register…”

“And that would cost them several thousands of dollars per state they registered in, right?” I fired this comment angrily toward the lanky, unsympathetic man before me.

He shrugged his shoulders and I told him I needed a few minutes to decide what I was going to do.

I had read up on Michigan’s election procedures in the days approaching November 4th, anticipating that there would be some oddities voting off-ticket. In retrospect, I’m sure I read something, somewhere that told me I couldn’t write-in candidates who weren’t pre-registered with the state. I must have just filtered it out in disbelief. I suppose I couldn’t accept - until confronted with it face to face - that my state and my nation would deny me the right of making my own voice heard until or unless they’d collected a pound of flesh from a specific candidate.

Dumbfounded as ever I stood there leaned against the wall as other voters passed happily by turning in their ballots; gleefully participating in Democracy. What was I going to do? I could, of course, just request a new ballot and only vote for the other positions and proposals that I had intended to. Or I could take a moment and choose a President from one of those “lesser of two evils” I’ve heard so much about. But there was another option wrestling with these seemingly more sensible choices deep inside my head: Don’t vote.

Here I stood, disenfranchised by a system that only allows the people to exercise any real authority over the make up and function of their government once every two years. They hadn’t allowed me to vote for the candidate I wanted. They had removed me of the option to separate my Presidential choice from my Vice Presidential choice. And as a supporter of run-off voting, campaign finance reform, and “none of the above” ballot options, I had walked in to this voting precinct carrying a ten-pound bag full of reasons to find this whole process illegitimate from the get-go.

It took me a good couple of minutes to settle on a choice and my heart pounded fast and heavy in my chest as I did. But in the end I summoned myself against the fear and intimidation I felt from these smugly self assured state-pollsters and turned again to the lanky man who placed himself between me and democracy. And before the line of waiting voters, loudly and clearly I spoke.

“I think I’ve decided not to participate in a system that doesn’t want to hear what I have to say.”

And I tore my ballot in half.

If you can believe it, the lanky man, along with another voting official, rushed to my sides, grabbed me by each arm, and attempted to restrain me from tearing up the smaller voter-registration form that is submitted with the ballot. I managed nonetheless to destroy it; my captors being quite elderly gentlemen.

These men who had volunteered their time in order to enable the functions of a democratic state, actually tried to physically deny me even of the right to protest my own disenfranchisement. In the process of attempting to cast my vote I was technically assaulted by election officials.

I didn’t report these crimes as I have no desire to see two elderly volunteers, who were simply flustered and unsure of what to do, brought before charges for the failures of Michigan’s Oakland County election organizers, who did not properly instruct or prepare them.

Nonetheless, I truly feel violated. Before November 4th 2008 I couldn’t have imagined that this would be my voting experience. I couldn’t have dreamed that I would count myself among those who have been meaningfully removed of their rights to vote, and to vote for whom they wish. In the land of the free and the home of the brave I find that I have been denied my liberty by an institution too timid to let sound my voice.

Here’s hoping your voting experience did not mimic mine.

Roy Tousignant is a writer and part-time computer repair technician with a skull cap, a borrowed bicycle, and a pocket full of miracles. In his spare time he plays drums for the Dead Letters and avoids success and decision making with uncanny skill.

But here are two more maps that throw a big wrench into these conclusions. The first shows how the electoral map would have looked had we counted only the votes from people who make under $50,000 a year - an Obama landslide. 

The second is if we counted only people who make more than $50,000 - an Obama victory, but by the narrowest of margins.

We seem to have a contradiction here.  How is it possible that the poorest states went for McCain at the same time that the poorest voters went for Obama?  Help me out, Seminal readers.  I’m scratching my head on this one.

As voters left the polls on Election Day, many were asked how they would have voted if the election match-up were between Hillary Clinton and John McCain rather than Barack Obama and McCain. 52 percent said they would have backed the former Democratic candidate; 41 percent would have voted for McCain, wider than Obama’s 7-point margin over McCain.

Interestingly, 16 percent of McCain voters said they would have voted for Clinton, the Democrat, if she had been her party’s nominee.

Now if De Pinto had simply explained the problems with using the exit polls and stated that we couldn’t draw full conclusions about the final vote if Hillary had been the nominee, then it would have been an interesting analysis of those folks who voted on election day who think that they would have voted for Hillary Clinton instead of John McCain. But by implying that these numbers show that Hillary Clinton would have won the election by a wider margin, a narrative has been created that others are repeating, including by David Shuster on MSNBC Thursday afternoon.

The problems with such a conclusion?

1. This analysis has Hillary Clinton with 52% of the vote and McCain with 41%. In the actual vote count, Obama has 53% to McCain’s 46%, so the question is what has happened to the 5% difference in the McCain vote? We don’t know from the post whether these people are simply undecided or voting for a third party. The undecideds could split evenly or go more for one candidate or another, so we really don’t know the margin.
2. These numbers are based on Exit Polls from election day. Over 31 million people early voted, or about 25% of the total of total presidential votes. We know that the early vote favored Obama by wider margins than of those who voted on election day. How do we know? A CBS News poll that shows the early vote went for Obama by a wide 57-38%. These more loyal Obama voters were not part of the Exit polls and their responses could easily change the outcome.
3. We don’t know where those Hillary Clinton crossovers live. If these voters are in California and other states where Obama won by double digits, it certainly would not have affected the outcome. Would Hillary Clinton have won North Carolina or Indiana? I would be skeptical, especially because of the next point.
4. Republican turnout was lower than expected. For example, Obama actually received roughly the same number of votes in Ohio as did John Kerry, but McCain received over 300,000 fewer than George W. Bush did in 2004. It is feasible that with Hillary Clinton at the head of the Democratic ticket, Republicans would have been more motivated to vote — and vote against a Clinton.
5. Hillary Clinton, having ended her quest at the end of the primary process, did not have to endure several months of negative commercials by the Republicans and associated groups. We do not know what kind of effect this propaganda would have had.

Now I want to emphasize that had Hillary Clinton been the nominee I think she would have won as well, and I for one would have voted for her. But this is about accuracy in reporting and poll analysis, and in this instance the CBS Horserace blog fails.