Author: JP

I don’t know whether it’s driven by innate curiosity, or whether I’m just wired that way: I learn best by watching someone do something. And, because of that bias, I believe in using examples wherever possible, stories, analogies, screenshots, whatever. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a picture with a few supporting words could be worth ten thousand.

Most readers of this blog are by now well aware of Google Maps, of mashups, of Twitter, maybe even of Twittervision, some less than others. No matter. As long as you’re curious about what these terms mean, and, more importantly, what they can mean for you. How you can derive value from them, as a person, as an enterprise.

Well, thanks to Super Tuesday, here’s your chance. Go here and see what’s happening; if your timezone permits you, and if you’re interested, watch the activity from 8pm EST, as the polls close and the results start pouring in. It will give you an idea of three things:

The power of combination, of “mashing”: how “static” data (like a map) can be overlaid with “volatile” data (like conversations)
The power of context, of “enrichment” : how it is possible to take a “firehose” of information and break it down to capillary size, just by using tools that embed the information in context
The power of collaboration, of “many”: how individuals operating with modern tools can provide us with detailed information as it happens

Here’s a screenshot of what’s happening now, but to get the real value, take a look at the site after 8pm EST. An aside. Some people hold the opinion that CNN made its bones on Desert Storm. It may well be that Twitter makes its bones on this election. The tool could not have been timed better.

Now that the Super Bowl‘s over and done with, attention switches back to the 2008 Presidential election, particularly the caucuses and primaries due to be held tomorrow, on what is termed Super Tuesday.

After reading Seven Days in May when I was around 12, I decided to read everything that Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey had ever written. Which included a book called Convention, reading which spurred me to follow the US Presidential election quite closely ever since. I have no idea why, I guess there’s something about the byzantine process that makes me feel at home; somehow, it manages to leave the bureaucracy of the Empire, Raj and even Writers’ Building quaking in its wake.

[Incidentally, I love the Knebel quote in Wikipedia: “Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics“.]

In conversation a few days ago, someone asked me to explain what Super Tuesday was, and for that matter how the US President was elected. I wasn’t happy with my explanation, and decided I’d blog it; that way I learn by putting myself through the discipline of writing it down, I learn from my mistakes, I learn from your comments. And maybe some of you will learn something as well.

So here goes:

Elected by electoral college, not by popular vote 

The President of the United States of America is actually elected indirectly, via an electoral college, on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. [Technically, if the electoral college does not produce a majority winner, with at least 270 votes, then the process passes to the House of Representatives who then vote to elect the President, but this is an arcane amendment].

As a result, what we know as Election Day, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, is not actually the day on which the President is voted for. It is actually the day when the electoral college is elected. The votes of the electoral college, however, are normally already pledged by then, state by state, party by party, through a process of caucus and primary and national convention. [Again technically, the electors have no legal requirement to vote as directed in the caucus or primary. But they do].

It is therefore possible for a candidate to win “the popular vote” in the November election (where the presidential candidate names do appear on the ballot) while still losing the election proper (which is based on the pre-pledged voting intentions of the candidates gaining election to the college of electors). This has happened, even as recently as 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote, yet failed to get majority in the electoral college. John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B Hayes and Benjamin Harrison, like George W Bush, all became President while losing the popular vote.

Delegates selected for national convention by caucus or primary

The actual selection of the presidential candidate by a party takes place at that party’s national convention, usually held in the August preceding a presidential election. Caucuses are local meetings which select delegates to district meetings which select delegates to regional meetings which select delegates to state meetings which select delegates to the national convention. Primaries compress all this and select delegates to the national convention.

Both caucuses as well as primaries can be closed (only available to registered party members) or open to all. Both caucuses as well as primaries can pledge delegate votes on a proportional basis or on a winner-take-all basis. There is also a concept of a semi-closed primary, open but requiring prior registration.

National convention selects presidential candidates as well as party platform

The party’s candidates for the electoral college are already known by the time the national convention comes along, so the objective of the convention is simple: nominate candidates for president and vice-president, sort out the party platform, do the necessary rah-rah to unify the party: remember that the convention follows maybe 18 months of bitter fighting within the party, as candidates battle against each other.

So. Razzmatazz. Caucus or Primary. National Convention. Election of Electors. Election of President. And that’s it.

Please do tell me what I got wrong, so that I can understand the process better.