Clinton Versus Obama: Handicapping The Democratic Primary (Part 1 of 2)

by Christopher McIntosh
03/03/2008

Everything I learned about elections I learned by watching and handicapping sporting events. And I think there's a chair next to Keith Olbermann with my name on it (I'm looking at you Dan Patrick).

Handicapping, according to most definitions, is the act of attempting to predict the winner of a contest and sometimes to lay odds regarding the likelihood of different events--events like the winner of the Superbowl, the number of points scored in a Dallas/Phoenix basketball game, the winners of all the first and second round games of the NCAA tournament.

Or, if you're like some people, it's the process of assessing and evaluating these likelihoods in the context of political contests. Some people have NCAA pools, some have Oscar pools, and some have Electoral College pools. You know who you are. Actually, you're probably on InTrade right now trying to make a quick buck on an underlay (Huckabee) in the Texas primary or waiting for the odds on Obama winning Rhode Island to drop below 7-1 (12.5%) since you think he's realistically more of a 4-1 shot to take the tiny one.

If that made perfect sense to you, go back to the track, the sportsbook, or gamblers anonymous as you may already know what follows. What is a sure thing, however, is that you don't know all of what follows.

Lots of people are interested in this here election (I'll use election and primary interchangeably sometimes because I can. And because there is no real election race on the other side so it's the only election going). Lots of people are wondering how the Democratic nomination is going to turn out.

Everybody is interested in offering their opinion on the matter, and in no small coincidence, critiquing yours. I'm guilty, too.

My proposition is simple. If you listen to the tenets of handicapping, you will understand the election more thoroughly and have a more accurate read on the future.

"Okay, I'm willing to try what you're selling. What do should I do?"

Glad you asked.

1. Identify the possible, before you evaluate the probable. If you're handicapping a horse race, it's knowing which horses can't win even if the rest of the field was taken down by sniper fire. If it's football, it's betting your alma mater. First, find the things that are automatically impossible. You can't bet on your alma mater without potentially jinxing them and you can't bet against them because, well, other alumni might shiv you right there in the middle of Hooter's as you cheer a touchdown against your team.

How does this work in politics? Think about the number of times you hear a pundit, reporter, or even candidate say, "well, they can't possibly" or "we all know...". Guess what, if we all actually knew, there would be no gambling, no online sports meccas, and no Vegas. So unless you are willing to say that there's no such thing as a $5.99 prime rib special, the answer to the statement "we all know..." is, say it with me Obamaniacs, "no... we... don't"

More specifically, any handicapper will be confused by this primary election for two main reasons. The first is quite simply that the media seems to be ignoring the fact that Hillary is less than 100 delegates behind. Out of more than 2500. That comes out to a mere four(ish) percent, people.

I realize that if you run the numbers she has to win something like 65% of the remaining delegates, but what they don't tell you is that that presumes Obama wins where he is supposed to. Handicappers don't like that. It's one thing to look at the charts, the races, and the stats and conclude that X will happen. It's another thing when the public - even ostensibly well-informed public like the media - tell them that this is the case.

Handicapping, to beat a dead horse and throw in a cliche all at once, is about beating the public. Finding an edge. Your action is smarter than everyone else's because... Maybe it's access to information no one else has - i.e., Brady Quinn is in your American Politics class and he seems quite bummed, yet the women around him seem quite pleased. Not coincidentally, word has gotten out that he's just been dumped by his long time girlfriend. Yes, I realize this scenario only applies to last year, because by this year ND demonstrated to God, Touchdown Jesus, and the secular world at large that they are no less than an athletic fraud forced upon us by the Man. Perhaps your edge is the ability to synthesize information better than everyone else - you're just a smart cookie. Maybe it comes from an ability to intuit that which others have to reason - something that I've seen happen in people with years of experience. They couldn't count to ten if you spotted them nine, but give them a list of Sunday football games and suddenly you were in the presence of a pigskin Stephen Hawking.

Most importantly, if you're a handicapper, whenever the public tells you to zig, your instinct better be to zag. Now, I'm not saying that you always should zag, but that that little red light on your brain's dashboard better go off or you just ain't doing it right. You can't be smarter than everyone else by following them around.

2. The race is not always to the swift. If it was there would be no Kentucky Derby, no mint juleps, and no gorgeous, rich (redundant I realize) southern belles (also redundant) with goofy hats the first Saturday in May. To anyone who's ever competitively run, swam, biked, hiked, or raced horses, this principle is pretty simple. As VW told us in advertising the GTI, "It's not how fast you go, it's how well you go fast."

In a race between points A and B, whoever is the fastest will win, right?

False. There are so many factors that can play into even the simplest of footraces. What type of shoes are they wearing? Is it a straight or curved course? How long is the race? Can the fastest one pass the others or do they have to start out in front? What's the weather like? Can the favorite win if it's raining and mud is being kicked up in his/her face because they're in the middle of the pack?

And I'm just getting warmed up. I like the horses, a sport premised on large animals with lawn ornaments perched atop them running around in circles. There's got to be more to it than that or else the sport would die and more importantly, I'd be uninterested. Trust me when I say that even in the simplest of races, there are things you wouldn't even think about that can matter a great deal (e.g., how and where was the grass mowed today? Is it close to Christmas and if so, which jockey's have already done their Christmas shopping (I'm not kidding).

Everyone compares the primaries and election to a "race." Sometimes they're even brazen enough to refer to it as a "horse race." Guess what?

They're right. I'll spare you the detailed analogies involving the size of a horse's foot and Clinton's inability to make any of her mudslinging stick to Obama (see above), but there are two important principles I'll leave you with.

First, favorites lose. A lot. Some stats have it estimated conservatively around 60-70%. As one put it (a little differently and I'm paraphrasing) "that's why they call it gambling."

This cuts both ways. About eight months ago Hillary looked damn near unbeatable. As of today, especially if you watch MSNBC whose anchors appear to be so deep in the pocket of Mr. Obama they can't even see another candidate, let alone admit they have a chance, most media outlets have put Hillary on life support with Obama reaching for a pen to sign her DNR order. In other words, he looks, say it with me, "unbeatable," but no one, especially in a two horse race, is unbeatable.

Second, momentum is a fickle, fickle God(dess). Obama has won eleven states in a row. ELEVEN. That's more than 20% of the country. After the election results were tallied in California, it's almost as if Obama's campaign cracked the whip, hit the stretch and all of a sudden was ahead by three, looking to increase their advantage and turn the rest of the primary season into a coronation. Now there is no doubt Obama is on a roll and that this is working to his advantage, but what happens when the music stops? To get really old school, how many boxing matches have started out with a young up and comer landing jab after jab after jab and then getting staggered with a 1-2 counterpunch and eventually floored by a punch flush to the jaw?

3. All wins are not created equal. This is the essence of any true handicapper, whether they are a professional, a part-timer, a once-a-year in Vegas with the guys (and the strippers), or are just merely solvent. The essence of handicapping is figuring out why some wins mean more than others and why some losses mean less than others. For example, Obama has won or can claim to have won 20-25 of states. Number of states won whose electoral votes exceed 10? Anyone? The answer is two. That's right, two. One is Virginia with the lucky 13 and the other is none other than the blue-est of blue Midwestern states and the home state of Barack Obama, Illinois (21).

Hillary, by comparison, has won California, New York, New Jersey, arguably Michigan and Florida, and is favored to win in Ohio. On the other hand, Obama's wins are not close. One of the more staggering stats I've heard in the past two months is the following. Wisconsin, lest we forget, was supposed to be a place where Clinton had a shot to not only keep it close, but to win. Regardless, the margin should only have been +/- 4 % win or lose. She got whipped by *17%*. But the most shocking stat is that that was the smallest margin of victory that Obama has had in his Magnificent 11 (12 if you count Democrats Abroad).

You can look at that two ways, if you've got the handicappers mentality. Either it means Obama was truly rolling and a force to be reckoned with, or it just means he was merely holding serve. As the Patriots taught us, beating the Redskins (sorry, Grandmommie, I know this is a painful memory) 52-7 or even their Superbowl opponents, 38-35 does not mean you'll do it again next time around, especially if (in the latter's case) it's in a meaningless game.

Identify the possible and the impossible. Figure out what kind of race we're looking at, and look beyond the mere wins and losses to assess ability, strengths, and weaknesses for this contest.

After all, that's the only one we're really concerned with and in tomorrow's installment I'll tell you what I think a handicapper should think.

You can read Part Two here.