96% is closer than 87%, But not 100%

Washington State GOP Chairman, Luke Esser, has now stopped counting at 96% of the vote. this is better than 87%, but is not actually 100%.

The details are in this SeattlePI article. Here is Chairman Essers statement on this matter. Translation to me is volunteers get to count slowly and intermittently.

As near as I can tell, there are 12,970 delegates. From the numbers on the GOP website you have the following numbers.

Name	Delegates	Percentage	Difference
McCain	3,191	24.60%
Huckabee	2,898	22.34%	293
Paul	2,665	20.55%	526
Romney	1,905	14.69%	1,286
Other	136	1.05%	3,055
Uncommitted	1,656	12.77%	1,535
Uncounted	519	4.00%	2,672
Total	12,970	100.00%

Assuming the counting errors are evenly and randomly distributed (unlikely in this situation) Huckabee need to get 60% of the uncounted 519 delegates to take the lead.

I stand by my earlier assessment that Huckabee is being jobbed here.

The Washington caucuses have lesson for us here in Wisconsin. First, a spread of 25%, 22%, and 21% for first, second, and third are not the results of a race with a front runner. Two, John McCain can be stopped.

Just don't vote for him and let the convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul decide who is the nominee. Uncommitted delagate is an option This coming Tuesday.

By waiting until the convention, McCain will either prove he is sincere or pull a McCain and piss off the GOP base. For either outcome postponement the prudent course of action is to wait until September.

An Election or Annointment?

I will be honest I am not a big fan of Mike Huckabee, but he is being jobbed in Washington by the state party chair Luke Esser.

The details in the Seattle Times are here.

Here is the gist of the article. There were about 14,400 delegates casting ballots. Chairman Esser stopped the counting after 13,000 just as Senator John McCain for the first time in tallying took the lead with 242 votes. Esser declared the count (of 87%) is "as close to 100%" as we can get.

Huckabee is correct to be hopping made. 99.9% is close to 100%. 87% is not.

Chairman Esser has learned well from "Boss" Tweed of NYC Tammany Hall fame that there is "power, power, wonder-working power in the counting of the vote".

Hopefully, now that Chairman Esser has been shamed into having an election instead of an anointment, the promised final numbers will be available by 5 pm today (Monday, February 11, 2008).

Tabletop Trebuchet

Not everything in my life is election records, reviving the Republican party, or messing with Texas.

One of the more pleasant aspects of my life is being an assistant scout master of a local boy scout troop. Recently, our troop hosted a clinic for WeBeLoS to earn their engineering activity pin. For the catapult requirement, the boys built a table top version of a trebuchet. Replacing the sling with a bucket was a simplicifation in order for 18 boys to complete the construction within 2 hours.

I thought others might enjoy pictures of the final product. The dimesions are 15.5 inches in length, 13.5 inches high, 13 inches wide, and the swing arm is 20 inches. The boys then hurled stale marshmallows all about the room.

Click on the picture see the whole Flickr set.