Posts by Neil Morrison
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But whatever the numbers say, I can see them battling this out until the convention, trading wins and losses all the way down the line. And that is something I'm not too keen on, because I think they need to be attacking McCain, not each other...
yeah the polls are a bit variable, the ABC has both Clinton and Obama beating McCain with Obama by a bigger margin. But these are national polls that don't indicate how the electoral college might go. The popular vote as we all know is not the determiner. It's who can win in states like Ohio and Florida.
But the poll analysis begins with
A surge of Democratic allegiance is boosting Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton alike in match-ups against John McCain
so maybe the drawn out campaign isn't a handicap.
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Yes, if Clinton loses the popular votes, scores fewer delegates and gets the nomination thanks to a clot of unelected and unaccountable party grandees...
A popular vote that included many Republican and independent voters that turned up on the day to vote for Obama. That's the rules and Obama benefits from that particular anomaly.
Those unelected grandees actually include many elected Democrats - such as John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi. If the superdelegates turn out to favour Clinton then that's the rules and she benefits from that particular anomaly.
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If she plans to seek the nomination without winning the delegate count, then the floors of the Democratic convention will surely be quick with blood …
and Obama would do the same. I think the odds favour Obama but at present he's more likely to loose against McCain than she is and she's gone back to having the lead nationally. (the oscillation of the lead is quite something). So if it's about choosing a candidate who will win then those superdelegates might have a bit of thinking to do.
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They are deeply undemocratic, and should go. And I don't accept that only Maori have a right to decide on them.
In a sense they are undemocratic but democracy should have a degree of fudge about it - real life with all its various conflicts can be too complex to nail down with an ideal of Democracy.
Sometimes it's just the least worst option. I think NZ would be in a far worse situation now without the Maori seats - I'm sure we would have had an armed seperatist movement. The seats do play a role in dealing with the colonial legacy. But at some point they should go - and with MMP there is less need for them.
I'm not sure about the AIA. Cullen seems to be trying to be a bit too clever about this - manouvering Key into a tricky poistion. Seems to have worked. But I would have prefered Labour to deal with the issue more straight forwardly. Key looks bad but for me Cullen comes off slightly worse.
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I don't have a clear view on whether Young's edit was appropriate, although its removal is equally questionable. What do you think?
I find it a bit troubling. Young is a journalist with particular positions on some issues that would be at odds with those of Bill English. He's grinding axes rather than trying to put the public record straight.
That's not a good look for a journalist especially as he's doing it annoymously. I also wonder about what motivates some one to do this. Why bother. It's just Bill English, that last thing I'd do with my spare time is edit his Wki entry.
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It's another one of those really weird things in American politics...
As far as I can make out the story with Florida was -
1. Florida Dems decide they want a bigger share of the action and move to legislate their primary forward.
2. That legisaltion gets to be an amendment to a very import piece of state legislation aimed at sorting out their parlous voting system.
3. The DNC threaten sanctions.
4. Florida Dems try to amend the legisaltion to stop their original amendment.
5. The Republicans decide to put the cat among the pigions and refuse to vote for the new amendment (they are a majority).
6. The Dems have to vote for the legislation in full or risk being seen to vote against legislation of vital importance to the electoral process.
7. That means they are forced to vote for the primary to come forward even though they don't want that anymore.
8. The DNC put the punishment in place.
entertainment of a sort.
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The Florida Dems have maintained that it was the Republicans that got them into trouble with the DNC and it's quite hard to find out what exactly went on but on Obama's web site there's this -
According to the Florida Democratic Party's website it was the amendments filed in an effort to change the January 29th date to forestall the DNC's sanctions that were turned down by the Florida Republicans.
So they may have a case to be seated.
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you can't change the rules to suit you after the game has started
ah but you can - all you have to do is put this before the Rules Committee - they can decide to seat Florida - that's well within the rules.
Certainly the Dems have an idiosyncratic method for determining a candidate. Obama has much to thank the fact that independents and Republicans can vote in some primaries. But in the end it's not an election, it's a selection process a lot of which is like an election.
If the contest remains close then the supers will have to decide and that's just the way it is. Obama and Clinton are both trying to game this to their advantage.
Besides, is Obama's success not a good indicator of "who has the better chance of taking the White House?".
Not necessarily - it depends partly on which states either do well in. It's the electoral vote that counts not the popular vote. Clinton did well in Florida which is a must win in November. Obama did very well in many states that the Dems just won’t pickup.
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i've been trying to decipher the line
Thus, the increased benefit for extremely depressed patients seems attributable to a decrease in responsiveness to placebo, rather than an increase in responsiveness to medication.
is this implying that the placebo effect is masking the drug effect in less severly depressed people?
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found the link
In the depression guideline (National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, 2004a), for example, comparing the efficacy of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants with placebo in the treatment of mild to moderate depression, there was a statistically significant difference, with SSRIs being superior in reducing depression scores; but the mean reduction in depression scores associated with SSRIs was only marginally greater than for placebo. The GDG considered the additional benefit from SSRIs to be too small to be of clinical significance.
That was back in 2004.