Bring Back the California Raisins

The California Raisin Marketing Board is waging war on Craisins. Apparently the dried cranberries, marketed by Ocean Spray, are cutting into raisin sales. The 'Lets Keep it Real' campaign alleges that Craisins are less healthy, featuring moms who are shocked to learn how much sugar is in Craisins. They don't mention the fact that raisins contain nearly the same amount of sugar. If you really want to compare the details, you can get the complete nutrition facts from the USDA. Overall, raisins appear to be a little more nutritious. Craisins, however, can boast that they have more fiber, less sodium, slightly more niacin and vitamin K, and a lot more vitamin E. Being from Wisconsin, where most of the U.S. cranberry crop is grown, I feel some sense of duty to defend cranberries. I would suggest that rather than negative campaigning, the California Raisin Marketing Board should reintroduce the California Raisin commercials of the 1980s.

Ratio of Democrats to Republicans in the Federal Government

There are 242 Republicans in the 112th Congress House of Representatives. This is the most Republicans in the House since 1949, but this is not the high point of Republican power in the Federal Government. During the 108th and 109th Congresses (2003-2007) Republicans had a majority in the House and Senate, as well as holding the Presidency. 

The following chart shows the ratio of Democrats in the Federal Government since 1957. A value of 1 would imply that the President and all members of Congress are Democrats. A value of 0 would imply that all are Republicans. Values are weighted with the assumption that 50% of the power lies in the Presidency, 25% in the Senate and 25% in the House of Representatives. Independents and members of third parties were ignored by excluding them from the total number of members in the respective body. The high point of Democratic power (since 1957) was the 89th Congress (1965-1967).

If Romney Loses in Michigan

The latest commentary on the Republican nominating contest goes something like this: Rick Santorum is now in the lead, and if Mitt Romney loses in Michigan then his campaign may be over. We should address the first point first; Rick Santorum is not in the lead. Santorum (44 delegates) is in third place behind Romney (123 delegates) and Gingrich (45 delegates). Even the claim that winning the most recent contests is more important than the total number of delegates doesn't clearly place Santorum in the lead; Mitt Romney won the Main caucuses, which ended February 11. Before going any further, I should note that there is substantial difference of opinion on projected delegate numbers. The Associated Press is much more bullish on Santorum, projecting 71 for him, while projecting 105 for Romney and 29 for Gingrich. CNN, on the other hand, projects 127 for Romney, 38 for Gingrich, and 37 for Santorum. Most of the discrepancy results from differing opinions on Minnesota. The Associated Press projects all 37 of Minnesota's caucus tied delegates going to Santorum. CNN is only confident that he'll get 6 of them. I'm trusting my favorite source, Wikipedia, which is between the AP and CNN projections. 

So lets say that Romney loses in Michigan. In fact, we'll suppose that he'll lose terribly, and Gingrich will win all 30 delegates. That would bring Gingrich's total up to 75. But if we're supposing that Romney will do poorly in his home state of Michigan, then perhaps we should also assume that he'll do poorly in Arizona. That is potentially another 29 delegates for Gingrich, bringing his total to 109. That is still 14 delegates less than Romney.

Jon Huntsman Quits

Jon Huntsman is now dropping out of the race. Could his decision have been influenced by one poll showing that he was behind Stephen Colbert in South Carolina (5% versus 4%)? I looked through some of the details of this poll to determine the source of such a contradiction (a fake conservative doing so well in a poll of Republicans). Are there Republicans who don't realize that Colbert is being satirical? Are the participants really just not very well informed about the candidates and just picking a familiar name from the list? The only restriction on the poll was that it was of people who say they plan to vote in the Republican Primary. Of the participants, 4% described themselves as somewhat liberal, while 3% described themselves as very liberal. I'll leave it for you to decide why these people plan on voting in a Republican Primary. But the question in this poll that really made me think was number 19: "Do you think that corporations are people or that only people are people?" 33% felt that corporations are people. I'm not concerned here with the 2010 Supreme Court decision that increased the ability of corporations to intervene in elections (which the question is probably meant to refer to). The question, upon detailed examination, appears to be an exercise in set theory. The question could have been, "Do you believe that the set A includes only the objects composing the set A, or that it also includes other objects?" Or perhaps they should have asked, "If A is the number of people in the world, and B is the number of corporations in the world, then does A+B=A?" 

Many have anticipated Rick Perry and either Gingrich or Santorum dropping out so that Romney might have a serious challenge in South Carolina. A January 13 poll shows that 12% of Huntsman supporters have Romney as their second choice (32% have Buddy Roemer as their second choice). Huntsman's departure makes it all the more inevitable that Romney will win the nomination. The Democratic Party appears to be assuming a Romney nomination. They have Many anti Romney videos on their YouTube channel, but many of them were uploaded before the Iowa Caucuses. Furthermore, their favorite attack on Romney appears to be the claim that he employed illegal immigrants. Ironically, the 28-minute anti Romney video produced by the pro Gingrich PAC Winning our Future is far more left wing than anything the Democratic Party has produced. I think the Democrats have calculated that if they can convince Republicans to endorse Ron Paul or Rick Santorum rather than Romney, then Obama will have an easy victory. The calculation that Winning our Future has made is that if they can convince Republicans that Romney will be painted as a ruthless vulture capitalist by Obama, then maybe Republicans will take a second look at Gingrich. 

Here are my predictions for South Carolina:

1 Mitt Romney 42%

2 Newt Gingrich 22%

3 Ron Paul 19%

4 Rick Santorum 14%

5 Rick Perry 2%

2012 New Hampshire Primary Prediction

My Iowa prediction was quite inaccurate, but I've refined my method a little. Here is my prediction for the New Hampshire Primary (this time with percentages):

1 Mitt Romney 53%

2 Ron Paul 17%

3 Rick Santorum 13%

4 Newt Gingrich 11%

5 Jon Huntsman 5%

6 Rick Perry 1%