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Electoral Excitement, All Over Again

Erin Drankoski — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:38:00 -0500

Not too long ago, I predicted that a solid recent history of the 2008 election (Richard Wolffe's "Renegade") was likely to be the final word until President Obama wrote his own version of those storied events. A few months later, it appears that the conveyor belt is just getting started and that we will be reading about 2008 for a while to come. My bad!

If Bedtime Is Book Time, Let's Make Morning Time for Math

Erin Drankoski — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:47:00 -0500

Bedtime = book time. Parents know that equation by heart, or at least they're supposed to. The drill goes like this: Just before the goodnight kiss, we snuggle up with our young kids, open a book, and read with them. Okay, so maybe at first we have to beg them to just settle down. And maybe the baby is more prone to eat the pages than look at them. But still, we try. We're the ones responsible for these little human beings. It's part of our job.

Mathematics, on the other hand, that's not on the must-do list. Reading may be part of the raising-kids routine. Math -- not so much.

A Nutrition Box for Internet service? | Washington Post

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:09:00 -0400

New America Foundation has proposed a Nutrition Fact box for broadband. Instead of calories, carbs and fiber, the broadband box would break down data on ...

After Obama | Washington Post

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:20:00 -0400

Every Wednesday, Reihan Salam examines the ideological struggle for the future of American conservatism and how to revitalize the Republican party. ...

Surviving Obama (Oct 14) | Washington Post

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:22:00 -0400

Every Wednesday, Reihan Salam examines the ideological struggle for the future of American conservatism and how to revitalize the Republican party. ...

Obama Annnounces Proposed Cuts to Federal Budget | WashingtonPost.com

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:23:00 -0400

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's Marc Goldwein takes your questions about the proposed federal budget cuts announced earlier today...Original article

TV's Not the Big Bad Wolf | WashingtonPost.com

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:15:00 -0500

"This study is really good news for parents," says Lisa Guernsey, the author of "Into the Minds of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children From Birth to Age 5." "It’s a study about how much parents matter in some ways. It’s basically telling us that TV used at these very young ages is not having a significant effect for good or for ill if it’s a relatively low amount of TV watching.

Obama vs. the Washington Establishment | WashingtonPost.com

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:14:00 -0500

"'He's going to get it from all sides,' said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington budget watchdog group." The New York Times warns of problems from both sides of the aisle. Peter Baker writes: "Some ...

New America Foundation in Newsweek, WashingtonPost.com | 'The Emerging Interfaith Youth Movement'

Communications — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:55:00 -0400

One of the remarkable things about the gathering at USIP [United States Institute of Peace] was the diversity of stakeholders represented. Here’s a snapshot:

Think tanks - including the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Brookings, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the New America Foundation and the Center for American Progress.

Policy makers from the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

Representatives from faith-based organizations, including the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Islamic Society of North American and the Muslim Public Affairs Council...LINK

Why Tuesday Won't be So Super

Ron Tang — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

With Super Duper Tuesday looming on Feb. 5, the presidential horse race is about to move into its mid-game. At the end of this process, we may end up with the first president in history who is a woman, or an African American, or a former prisoner of war, or a Mormon or an ordained Southern Baptist minister.

Beyond the headlines and election results, when you lift up the hood of our nation's nominating process, you see a pretty gnarly sight. There's nothing simple or easy to understand about it, in fact it has evolved into a complex, chaotic snarl with a number of oddities that, in a close contest, could make the difference in who wins.

On the Democratic Party side, there is this little business of what is called "superdelegates." Superdelegates are members of the House, Senate, governors and other party leaders -- party insiders -- who are a virtual state unto themselves, voting for whomever they like.

There are nearly 800 superdelegates, about 20 percent of the total delegates (and 40 percent of the number needed to win the nomination). Being party insiders, the assumption is that Team Clinton will reel in the lion's share, making most of these votes Hillary's to lose. Current estimates are that Hillary has 187 or so of these delegates, Barack Obama 93 and John Edwards 27, according to the 2008 Democratic Convention Watch. But the unpledged superdelegates can change their choice at will, so nothing is yet in the bank.

Another factor to watch in the Democratic primaries is who is allowed to vote, according to the rules of each state. In all states but South Carolina, so far Clinton has led or tied Obama among registered Democrats. Obama has been drawing tremendous support from independents and even Republicans in the open format of Iowa and New Hampshire. But in the closed primary formats like that used in many other states, where only Democrats can vote, Clinton may fare much better.

Democratic primaries that are closed to independents include some of the largest states, like New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arizona and North Carolina, as well as Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington D.C., Maryland, Nebraska, South Dakota and West Virginia.

On the Republican side, delegates are selected differently than in the Democrats' process. On the positive side, they have only a handful of superdelegates, which means party insiders don't have as much pull. On the negative side, many states use a "winner-take-all" allocation of delegates, meaning that the candidate with the highest number of votes -- even if far less than a majority -- wins all of the delegates for that state.

In the recent Florida primary, John McCain won only 36 percent of the vote, but as the frontrunner he was awarded 100 percent of Florida's 57 delegates. Most of the largest, most delegate-rich states -- California, New York, Michigan, Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio and Virginia, in addition to Florida -- use a winner-take-all allocation. On Feb. 5, 15 states will use a winner-take-all election to dish out delegates, as will many states after Feb. 5.

The practical effect of this is that a candidate with a small core of support but not a broad base can walk away with the nomination. This becomes especially operative in the GOP split field, where no candidate yet has reached 40 percent.

Complicating matters, different candidates may be more popular in certain regions and state -- McCain in states with more moderate Republicans, such as in New York and New Jersey, and Huckabee in the Bible Belt. With winner-take-all rules, this kind of sectionalism could lead to fractured results and a nominee who cannot unite the party behind his candidacy.

A better GOP selection process would be to use the proportional allocation used in the Democratic primaries, where each candidate wins a share of delegates that matches their proportion of the statewide vote. The Republicans do that in a few states, but not enough.

With Super Duper Tuesday looming, nearly half of the delegates needed for the nomination will be decided on a single day. Having a single primary day with so many states give great advantage to those candidates with the most campaign cash and name recognition to compete in so many states simultaneously.

It creates a virtual wealth primary in which some candidates will be quickly eliminated, even though half the states will have not yet weighed in. Certainly this was a big factor in John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani and other candidates dropping out recently. Hardly super duper, this fiasco should be called Super Stupid Tuesday.

A national primary system with four separate primary days, where the 13 smallest states go first followed by the medium states and finally the largest states, makes a lot more sense and would ensure that all states and all voters have a say in the nomination process.

Given all these procedural oddities from state to state, it's unlikely any single candidate will deliver a knockout blow on Feb. 5. We still have a ways to go, and it's hard to know at this point whether the preacher, the prisoner, the woman or the ethnic minority will win. Some surprises may still await, especially with such murky rules for selecting the nominees to become our nation's most powerful political leader.