2004 Democratic Primary

[Beet]

Ah, don't forget Delaware, that is not going to be a huge battleground due to its 3 electoral votes, but it could go either way, leaning Dem.

That having been said, no, there aren't any Southern states in contention unless Edwards gets the nomination. Actually it is not the Democrats' fault for "alienating" the south. Lyndon Johnson said he was signing away the South was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965... there aren't many politicians in America today who would dispute those watershed civil rights measures as unjustified, but the South seems to hold a permanent grudge against Democrats for giving blacks equal rights. The Democrats didn't leave the South... the South left the Democrats.

Anyways here are the states the Dems have a greater than 50% chance of holding in 2004:

Vermont
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Connecticut
New York
New Jersey
Maryland
Delaware
Illinois
Washington
Hawaii
California

I see Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, and Oregon switching to Republicans. Pennsylvania and Michigan will be very contentious and the Democrats MUST win both states if they are to have a chance. But they probably will not win both states.

[Beet]

Demrepdan, I fully agree with you that Edwards is the best candidate and has the best chance of winning. Close behind are Dean and Gephardt.

[Beet]

"Maybe we really are moving towards a two-party system" - Junichiro Koizumi, after the "opposition" party made gains in diet elections

The U.S. definitely failed at nation-building a democracy in Japan, considering it has been controlled by one party for longer than the Ba'ath party controlled Iraq or even the Communists controlled Cuba! The only time in the past 50 years it wasn't ruled by the LDP was June 1993 to June 1994... otherwise can you really call it a democracy when the same party always wins?

[Beet]

Lieberman, Edwards and Clark are definitely not liberals. The only prominent Democrat candidate to come out against the war was Dean. But I agree Dean doesn't have a change in LA.

[Beet]

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NorthernDog, I tried to point out in the topic Japan Diet elections that Japan has been exactly this way for half a century...

I agree that one party should not dominate. However it is nice that Canada has a solid liberal party in power when virtually all other countries have right-wing parties (Blair really disqualifies the Labour party) or, in the case of Germany, a left-wing party on the brink of collapse.

[Beet]

Given the U.S. annual inflation rate of 2%, the 1% federal funds rate actually represents a negative real interest rate. This is the same situation as existed in the late 1970s and for a brief period I believe in 1992-93. Anyone care to explain this?

[Beet]

Districting is really terrible. They should have proportional representatoin on the state for congress level and sequential run-off on the state for president level.

[Beet]

Under the current plurality system of determining a state's electors, you could have a candidate carry all of a state's electoral votes with only a third of it's popular vote. Thus if Perot won 33% in Montana in 1992, Bush H.W. won 33%-1, and Clinton won 33%+1, the whole state goes for Clinton even though 67%-1 voted against him! Surely there is something undemocratic about that.

Similarly, districting has made about 90% of Congressional seats uncompetitive.

[Beet]

Assuming Asian countries put their dollar reserves in treasuries, thats a $1 trillion hole right there-- 10% of GDP owed to the outside.

[Beet]

There's a difference between national debt and debt  owed to foreigners. The U.S. national debt is about 60% of GDP, but what percentage of that is owed to foreigners I don't know.

[Beet]

JMF,

Do you know of a website that shows the % of Kerry and Bush donations by income bracket?

For what it's worth, 58% of Bush's donors gave $2,000 compared to 39% of Kerry's donors.