Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Ireland - FF vs SF
Along with media statements today, I've decided to take a close look at the new crop of Independents. It turns out they are far more right-wing as a group than I'd been lead to believe.
McNamara, J. Collins, Pringle, Connolly, Fitzmaurice, are all socialistic in one way or another.
Grealish, M. Collins, and Murphy are anti-immigrant or otherwise right-wing
Nolan, and Aontu, are Anti-Abortion but otherwise left-friendly
Fitzpatrick, Lowry, and Naughten are former FG members
Harkin sat with the Liberals while a MEP
McGrath, and O'Donoghue, are a former members of FF
Berry is a former solider who campaigned on the disconnect between the everyday solider and the department of defence, but otherwise seems left-friendly.
Michael and Danny Healy-Rae are generally right-wing.
Canney has a slightly right-wing voting history.
Shanahan is seen as centrist but left-friendly.
6 - left (SF friendly)
3 - neo-nationalist
2 - left but anti-abortion
4 - centrist (FF friendly)
5 - right-wing (FG friendly)
Combined with what seems to be the prevailing trends, this makes a FF-FG coalition, or, at minimum, deal to support governance, much more likely.
Monday, February 10, 2020
Ireland election results
Results are as follows:
SF has done extremely well.
Results, in terms of seats, and first-preference votes, is as follows:
38 - FF - 22.2%
37 - SF - 24.5%
35 - FG - 20.9%
12 - Grn - 7.1%
6 - Lab - 4.4%
6 - SD - 2.9%
5 - Sol - 2.6%
1 - Aon - 1.9%
20 - Ind - 12.6%
What the leaders say to one another, say in public, and who they decide to spend time talking with, tomorrow (The 11th), will determine the shape of the next government. It is difficult if not impossible to narrow down the variables until then. However, here is a summary of the possibilities:
FF, FG, and someone else
FF and FG are, even combined, short of a majority. They would thus need additional members or parties to hit 81 members for a majority.
FG has done poorly enough that it can't make a strong argument to continue in government, as such, Varadkar, the sitting PM, is out. Micheal Martin, FF leader, would then become Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and lead this government. There are two questions however.
First, is what relationship would the parties have. Keep in mind that 90 years ago they were trying to kill one another in a civil war, and that wounds take a long time to heal. Would they be willing to form an outright coalition, or would FG have to settle for some kind of "support" deal.
Second is where would they find the additional members they'd need to make a majority, and, what price will those members demand.
SF and 'everyone else'
Surprisingly this is perhaps the most likely result at the moment. Solidarity/PBP would not be willing to work with a FG-FF coalition, and the other parties, SD, Labour, and the Greens, all lean to the left and thus have quite a bit more in common with SF than they do with FF or FG. Aontu could be seen as right-wing due to its anti-abortion stances, but a lot of the remaining issues they campaign on could be seen as friendly towards the left. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of the Independents are far more Left than they are Right.
The main difficulty here is the math; it only takes one of the other parties (Labour, Greens, or Social Democrats) to turn in order to put a FF-FG government into office, and any group of 5 or more Independents can achieve the same.
FF and SF
This is not likely. Comments made earlier today make this somewhat unlikely and unless FF takes a 180 on the issue tomorrow, I can't see this happening. If it somehow does happen, I can see SF demanding the big chair due to their popular vote victory.
SF has done extremely well.
Results, in terms of seats, and first-preference votes, is as follows:
38 - FF - 22.2%
37 - SF - 24.5%
35 - FG - 20.9%
12 - Grn - 7.1%
6 - Lab - 4.4%
6 - SD - 2.9%
5 - Sol - 2.6%
1 - Aon - 1.9%
20 - Ind - 12.6%
What the leaders say to one another, say in public, and who they decide to spend time talking with, tomorrow (The 11th), will determine the shape of the next government. It is difficult if not impossible to narrow down the variables until then. However, here is a summary of the possibilities:
FF, FG, and someone else
FF and FG are, even combined, short of a majority. They would thus need additional members or parties to hit 81 members for a majority.
FG has done poorly enough that it can't make a strong argument to continue in government, as such, Varadkar, the sitting PM, is out. Micheal Martin, FF leader, would then become Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and lead this government. There are two questions however.
First, is what relationship would the parties have. Keep in mind that 90 years ago they were trying to kill one another in a civil war, and that wounds take a long time to heal. Would they be willing to form an outright coalition, or would FG have to settle for some kind of "support" deal.
Second is where would they find the additional members they'd need to make a majority, and, what price will those members demand.
SF and 'everyone else'
Surprisingly this is perhaps the most likely result at the moment. Solidarity/PBP would not be willing to work with a FG-FF coalition, and the other parties, SD, Labour, and the Greens, all lean to the left and thus have quite a bit more in common with SF than they do with FF or FG. Aontu could be seen as right-wing due to its anti-abortion stances, but a lot of the remaining issues they campaign on could be seen as friendly towards the left. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of the Independents are far more Left than they are Right.
The main difficulty here is the math; it only takes one of the other parties (Labour, Greens, or Social Democrats) to turn in order to put a FF-FG government into office, and any group of 5 or more Independents can achieve the same.
FF and SF
This is not likely. Comments made earlier today make this somewhat unlikely and unless FF takes a 180 on the issue tomorrow, I can't see this happening. If it somehow does happen, I can see SF demanding the big chair due to their popular vote victory.
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Ireland projection, based on current tallys
Teddy's current Ireland projection, based on current tallys:
42 FF
39 FG
38 SF
11 GRN
5 LAB
4 SOL
3 SD
1 AON
1 CC (speaker)
16 IND
In Ireland they like to only report results once final, as in the UK, but they have a tally that shows the count results from most boxes (it does not report boxes with under 50 votes to protect the privacy of the voter)
Based on results, tallys, and my own ratio method applied to the seats without any tally, I've determined a basic result. Within that is a dozen seats I can't make heads or tails of; applying some basic guesstimation to that, and you get the above.
42 FF
39 FG
38 SF
11 GRN
5 LAB
4 SOL
3 SD
1 AON
1 CC (speaker)
16 IND
In Ireland they like to only report results once final, as in the UK, but they have a tally that shows the count results from most boxes (it does not report boxes with under 50 votes to protect the privacy of the voter)
Based on results, tallys, and my own ratio method applied to the seats without any tally, I've determined a basic result. Within that is a dozen seats I can't make heads or tails of; applying some basic guesstimation to that, and you get the above.
Saturday, February 8, 2020
Ireland, exit poll shocker!
Exit polls are out and all three major parties are tied!
22% for FG, 22% for FF, and 22% for SF.
You can find more details here.
My thiking as a result of this is as follows:
40 FF
35 FG
34 SF
12 Grn
6 SD
5 Lab
4 Solidarity
23 IND
However that's just a quick guesstimation.
Counting starts tomorrow morning, and I'll update everyone by tomorrow evening on how things look!
22% for FG, 22% for FF, and 22% for SF.
You can find more details here.
My thiking as a result of this is as follows:
40 FF
35 FG
34 SF
12 Grn
6 SD
5 Lab
4 Solidarity
23 IND
However that's just a quick guesstimation.
Counting starts tomorrow morning, and I'll update everyone by tomorrow evening on how things look!
Friday, February 7, 2020
Dumbest political move in recent history.
In October of 2019, the german state of Thuringia held elections. the results of those elections were as follows:
29 - Linke (Socialist)
22 - AfD (Neo Nationalist)
21 - CDU (Christian Democrat)
8 - SPD (Social Democrat)
5 - Grn (Green)
5 - FDP (Business Liberal)
The existing government was a Red-Red-Green one (Linke+SPD+Greens) and these three parties won a combined 42 seats, short of a Majority.
This is where the numbers get a little complicated.
In trying to put together a minority, the Incumbent was able to receive 43 votes on the first ballot, and 44 on the Second. Where these additional members came from is unknown to me. On the first ballot, the CDU candidate took 25 votes, and on the second, 22. 22 people abstained on the first ballot and 24 on the second.
Someone clearly didn't vote with the party, multiple someones.
The third ballot, however, is where everything started to go nuts.
The FDP leader ran, instead of the CDU leader, and managed to win, 45 votes to 44, with 1 abstention.
It is here I should divert to point out that in 1952, Reinhold Maier, a veteran of the first world war, was elected as Premier of the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. He lead a SPD-FDP coalition despite coming third in the election. He was, up to 2019, the only FDP member to be a state Premier.
After the first two rounds of voting to elect the new Premier in Thuringia in which the CDU nominated their own candidate, who lost in both the rounds, the FDP nominated it's leader as its candidate. He then won, with clear AfD support in the secret ballot for Premier among the members of the Legislature.
It should be noted that 17 of the 21 CDU members had earlier signed a letter saying they should consider working with the AfD, and that it is quite likely there was co-ordination on this, as opposed to the FDP leader 'unknowingly' managing to be elected by the AfD.
This broke the long-standing cordon sanitaire around the AfD. Many people consider the AfD to be similar to the NAZI party, however, as someone who has looked at political parties and the things they do, say, and promise to do, the AfD is much closer to the DNVP, the far-right nationalist party that literally sat in coalition with the NAZI party, and helped it pass the Enabling Act, which gave it dictatorial powers. The NAZIs then removed the DNVP from power 3 months later. The DNVP would then participate in the July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler. The AfD is not Hitler, the AfD is, at its worst, Hitler Enabling.
Regardless, the party is widely viewed as a danger by many within and outside of Germany. Working with them thus caused widespread protests, and condemnations from all parties - including the federal CDU and FDP.
The FDP leader, facing 3 days of this, announced he would be calling snap elections.
So. You may see the basics, but I want to go over exactly why this was the dumbest political move in recent history.
Lets go take a look at the position of the 3 parties in question at the last election:
22 - AfD (Neo Nationalist)
21 - CDU (Christian Democrat)
5 - FDP (Business Liberal)
This is with the anti-AfD agreement in place, with the assumption from many voters, that the AfD would never be allowed to get near government, and, despite that, the AfD managed to beat both the CDU and the FDP.
Additionally, keep in mind that simply allowing the AfD to back them, has harmed them among many more progressive voters; who otherwise could vote for the parties for social or economic reasons. The FDP in particular only passed the threshold by a handful of votes, and now, faces the worst backlash.
Lets assume for a moment that for the FDP this all "worked". What is the most likely result? For one, the FDP could be expected to grow by a few points, and, if everything "works" that means it has been a good government, and as such, the CDU too would see a bump in their vote total.
What then of the AfD? In all honesty, with the 'fear' removed, the AfD vote could be expected to rocket. Even with the best FDP-CDU government, the AfD would still outpoll them in the next election, and thus, such a government would still need their support. Alternativy, perhaps they considered themselves devious, trying to get the AfD to vote them into power but then do all the things that would make SPD and Green voters happy. Great, now you've only given more reason for right-wing voters to vote AfD. Even in the best circumstances, the AfD gets a huge boost from this.
So what happens back in reality, where this blew up in their faces as it always was going to. The AfD comes off as huge winners. While other parties can still claim they'll 'never' work with the AfD, this event points to them, at some point, being removed from the cordon the same way formerly cordoned parties such as Norway's Progress Party, or the Austrian Peoples Party, or Germany's own Left party, which is now regularly welcomed into coalitions.
Not only does the AfD gain from this, but the FDP will now lose likely half of its vote, putting it far below the threshold, and the CDU itself is liable to drop as well. The AfD could rise to 30 seats.
Additionally, all of this would have been very easy to predict from the start. Having the FDP leader be the one who 'wears it' puts that party out of action, and is likely why the AfD likely demanded such a thing happen.
I have no idea what either the FDP or CDU were thinking in this state, but they've managed to pull off the dumbest political move in recent history, and should all be sent back to a Politics 101 course.
29 - Linke (Socialist)
22 - AfD (Neo Nationalist)
21 - CDU (Christian Democrat)
8 - SPD (Social Democrat)
5 - Grn (Green)
5 - FDP (Business Liberal)
The existing government was a Red-Red-Green one (Linke+SPD+Greens) and these three parties won a combined 42 seats, short of a Majority.
This is where the numbers get a little complicated.
In trying to put together a minority, the Incumbent was able to receive 43 votes on the first ballot, and 44 on the Second. Where these additional members came from is unknown to me. On the first ballot, the CDU candidate took 25 votes, and on the second, 22. 22 people abstained on the first ballot and 24 on the second.
Someone clearly didn't vote with the party, multiple someones.
The third ballot, however, is where everything started to go nuts.
The FDP leader ran, instead of the CDU leader, and managed to win, 45 votes to 44, with 1 abstention.
It is here I should divert to point out that in 1952, Reinhold Maier, a veteran of the first world war, was elected as Premier of the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. He lead a SPD-FDP coalition despite coming third in the election. He was, up to 2019, the only FDP member to be a state Premier.
After the first two rounds of voting to elect the new Premier in Thuringia in which the CDU nominated their own candidate, who lost in both the rounds, the FDP nominated it's leader as its candidate. He then won, with clear AfD support in the secret ballot for Premier among the members of the Legislature.
It should be noted that 17 of the 21 CDU members had earlier signed a letter saying they should consider working with the AfD, and that it is quite likely there was co-ordination on this, as opposed to the FDP leader 'unknowingly' managing to be elected by the AfD.
This broke the long-standing cordon sanitaire around the AfD. Many people consider the AfD to be similar to the NAZI party, however, as someone who has looked at political parties and the things they do, say, and promise to do, the AfD is much closer to the DNVP, the far-right nationalist party that literally sat in coalition with the NAZI party, and helped it pass the Enabling Act, which gave it dictatorial powers. The NAZIs then removed the DNVP from power 3 months later. The DNVP would then participate in the July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler. The AfD is not Hitler, the AfD is, at its worst, Hitler Enabling.
Regardless, the party is widely viewed as a danger by many within and outside of Germany. Working with them thus caused widespread protests, and condemnations from all parties - including the federal CDU and FDP.
The FDP leader, facing 3 days of this, announced he would be calling snap elections.
So. You may see the basics, but I want to go over exactly why this was the dumbest political move in recent history.
Lets go take a look at the position of the 3 parties in question at the last election:
22 - AfD (Neo Nationalist)
21 - CDU (Christian Democrat)
5 - FDP (Business Liberal)
This is with the anti-AfD agreement in place, with the assumption from many voters, that the AfD would never be allowed to get near government, and, despite that, the AfD managed to beat both the CDU and the FDP.
Additionally, keep in mind that simply allowing the AfD to back them, has harmed them among many more progressive voters; who otherwise could vote for the parties for social or economic reasons. The FDP in particular only passed the threshold by a handful of votes, and now, faces the worst backlash.
Lets assume for a moment that for the FDP this all "worked". What is the most likely result? For one, the FDP could be expected to grow by a few points, and, if everything "works" that means it has been a good government, and as such, the CDU too would see a bump in their vote total.
What then of the AfD? In all honesty, with the 'fear' removed, the AfD vote could be expected to rocket. Even with the best FDP-CDU government, the AfD would still outpoll them in the next election, and thus, such a government would still need their support. Alternativy, perhaps they considered themselves devious, trying to get the AfD to vote them into power but then do all the things that would make SPD and Green voters happy. Great, now you've only given more reason for right-wing voters to vote AfD. Even in the best circumstances, the AfD gets a huge boost from this.
So what happens back in reality, where this blew up in their faces as it always was going to. The AfD comes off as huge winners. While other parties can still claim they'll 'never' work with the AfD, this event points to them, at some point, being removed from the cordon the same way formerly cordoned parties such as Norway's Progress Party, or the Austrian Peoples Party, or Germany's own Left party, which is now regularly welcomed into coalitions.
Not only does the AfD gain from this, but the FDP will now lose likely half of its vote, putting it far below the threshold, and the CDU itself is liable to drop as well. The AfD could rise to 30 seats.
Additionally, all of this would have been very easy to predict from the start. Having the FDP leader be the one who 'wears it' puts that party out of action, and is likely why the AfD likely demanded such a thing happen.
I have no idea what either the FDP or CDU were thinking in this state, but they've managed to pull off the dumbest political move in recent history, and should all be sent back to a Politics 101 course.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
US Impeachment - Just the numbers
I'm not going to wade into the debate over impeaching Presidents. Instead, I am simply going to present the numbers and let you make up your own mind. Note that in the event of multiple articles of impeachment, I am posting either the most available number, or, the one that is the "worst" for the President. Independent Senators and Congressmen are counted with the party which with they caucused. In the event the Independent member in question does not caucus with either party, they is counted with the party that, in majority, voted the same way they did.
ANDREW JOHNSON (D)
House vote:
Yea: 122 R / 4 D
Nay: 45 D / 2 R
Senate vote:
Yea: 35 R
Nay: 10 R / 9 D
Result: Not removed from office.
RICHARD NIXON (R)
Committee Vote:
Yea: 21 D / 7 R
Nay: 10 R
Result: Resigned before a House vote could take place.
BILL CLINTON (D)
House vote:
Yea: 223 R / 5 D
Nay: 201 D / 5 R
Senate vote:
Yea: 50 R
Nay: 45 D / 5 R
DONALD TRUMP (R)
House vote:
Yea: 228 D
Nay: 192 R / 1 D
Senate vote:
Yea: 47 D / 1 R
Nay: 52 R
Summary:
Trump, along with the hypothetical successful Nixon, are the only ones to have their own party's Senators vote against them. Additionally, the two are the only ones not to have at least one senator from their opposition party back them.
ANDREW JOHNSON (D)
House vote:
Yea: 122 R / 4 D
Nay: 45 D / 2 R
Senate vote:
Yea: 35 R
Nay: 10 R / 9 D
Result: Not removed from office.
RICHARD NIXON (R)
Committee Vote:
Yea: 21 D / 7 R
Nay: 10 R
Result: Resigned before a House vote could take place.
Assuming Republicans would have broken 7-10 as they did in Committee during the Nixon impeachment, the results could have been as follows:
Yea: 241 D / 79 R
Nay: 113 R
Senate vote:
Yea: 56 D / 18 R
Nay: 26 R
In such a case, the vote would have been successful.
BILL CLINTON (D)
House vote:
Yea: 223 R / 5 D
Nay: 201 D / 5 R
Senate vote:
Yea: 50 R
Nay: 45 D / 5 R
DONALD TRUMP (R)
House vote:
Yea: 228 D
Nay: 192 R / 1 D
Senate vote:
Yea: 47 D / 1 R
Nay: 52 R
Summary:
Trump, along with the hypothetical successful Nixon, are the only ones to have their own party's Senators vote against them. Additionally, the two are the only ones not to have at least one senator from their opposition party back them.
Monday, February 3, 2020
Irish election - no projections?
I had been hoping to look through a dozen different projections of the Irish elections, made by people in Ireland, but, alas, I can't find any. The only projections I can find are from the Europe Elects twitter account. I've taken those and averaged them, as well as made some of my own adjustments, and I have the following:
48 - FF
35 - FG
34 - SF
12 - Grn
6 - SD
5 - Lab
4 - S/P
3 - I4C
12 - Ind
1 - CC (speaker)
The adjustments I've made are basically to increase FF by taking 1 seat from the 4 largest parties, then lowering SF, which results in FF and FG going up.
So, why increase FF?
Simply it feels like they have 'the big mo' - IE momentum. I think undecided voters will break for them.
Why decrease SF?
The party is still controversial. FF and FG are attacking each other by accusing each other of being willing to work with SF. Keep in mind that Ireland uses a multi-member STV system, this means that transfers between parties is important. From the voters prospective, this means that SF gets ranked low on the ballot. As a result, not as many voters transfer to SF as could transfer to FF or FG.
Lastly, how accurate is this?
Not very. I could make it far more accurate, but doing so would take quite a bit of time. To do so I'd need to start with the last-election results in each seat, consider how many candidates each party is running this time in each seat (which is very important) applying my usual methods to calculate vote change, and lastly, taking transfer values from the last election and doing the math.
It is all quite possible, but it is also quite time consuming, and even in Ireland they are saying that this election isn't grabbing attention the way elections normally do.
Regardless, I'll try to refine the above projection to be better before the election on the 8th
48 - FF
35 - FG
34 - SF
12 - Grn
6 - SD
5 - Lab
4 - S/P
3 - I4C
12 - Ind
1 - CC (speaker)
The adjustments I've made are basically to increase FF by taking 1 seat from the 4 largest parties, then lowering SF, which results in FF and FG going up.
So, why increase FF?
Simply it feels like they have 'the big mo' - IE momentum. I think undecided voters will break for them.
Why decrease SF?
The party is still controversial. FF and FG are attacking each other by accusing each other of being willing to work with SF. Keep in mind that Ireland uses a multi-member STV system, this means that transfers between parties is important. From the voters prospective, this means that SF gets ranked low on the ballot. As a result, not as many voters transfer to SF as could transfer to FF or FG.
Lastly, how accurate is this?
Not very. I could make it far more accurate, but doing so would take quite a bit of time. To do so I'd need to start with the last-election results in each seat, consider how many candidates each party is running this time in each seat (which is very important) applying my usual methods to calculate vote change, and lastly, taking transfer values from the last election and doing the math.
It is all quite possible, but it is also quite time consuming, and even in Ireland they are saying that this election isn't grabbing attention the way elections normally do.
Regardless, I'll try to refine the above projection to be better before the election on the 8th
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