A modest proposal

So, we're not really out to make a huge deal out of this. But I proposed to Alma on Friday and she said yes. There's still some way to go before we're actually planning on getting married - at least a couple years - but we're officially engaged, after almost five years of dating. Hooray!

Why We Fight

I imagine some of you wonder why I get so annoyed by bad MVP votes and the like. It's for the same reason why I don't think intelligent design deserves to be taught in public schools alongside evolution. We have scientific methods and data that can tell us things we're not always capable of guessing or perceiving on our own - but some people actively disdain these methods. Saying that people who believe in the importance of stats don't like or can't adequately appreciate baseball, as many anti-stat types do, is really no more intellectually valid than saying that a belief in evolution means I don't like or can't adequately appreciate the majesty of the earth. It's ridiculous. And, more specifically, because sometimes there is an MVP ballot so monumentally dumb that it suggests that its associated voter should not only be stripped of his right to vote for postseason awards, but dragged out into the street and beaten like Carlo Rizzi. Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's ballot for 2008 NL MVP:

1. Ryan Howard, Phil
2. CC Sabathia, Mil
3. Manny Ramirez, LA
4. Carlos Delgado, NY
5. Aramis Ramirez, Chi
6. Prince Fielder, Mil
7. Albert Pujols, Stl
8. Ryan Ludwick, Stl
9. Ryan Braun, Mil
10. David Wright, NY

My first thought: Tom Haudricourt was awakened from a coma on July 1st.

1. Ryan Howard, Phil

I mostly went over this one yesterday. Ryan Howard is the MVP only if you believe one of the following three things:

(1) There is nothing more important than hitting a lot of home runs
(2) There is nothing more important than having a ton of RBIs
(3) There is nothing more important than getting hot in September

(3) is maybe, kinda, sorta true, although if you were absolute shit for the first three months of the season, and then again in August, I don't think a hot September should outweigh that. (1) and (2) are nonsense.

2. CC Sabathia, Mil

Sabathia pitched extremely well for the Brewers. He also did not pitch for them before July. Unless you put up full-season stats in half a season, you cannot be an MVP for half a season. There are no such things as extrapolation points.

3. Manny Ramirez, LA

See above. Ramirez played for the Dodgers for two months. He was a really, really good hitter during that time, but he still only played for them for two months. Mercifully, Ramirez finished "only" fourth in the balloting this year, suggesting that at least most writers were only so swayed by the "Manny has turned this team around!" narrative.

4. Carlos Delgado, NY

Remember the first half of the season, when Delgado was hitting .248 with a .328 OBP and everyone was talking about how washed up he was? Tom Haudricourt doesn't.

5. Aramis Ramirez, Chi

Dear God. At this point there can be no doubt that Haudricourt is focused primarily on team accomplishments; Ramirez had a nice season, of course, but it doesn't compare with Albert Pujols' even if you love counting stats.

6. Prince Fielder, Mil

Decent year. Better year than Albert Pujols?

7. Albert Pujols, Stl

And finally we get to the real MVP. The guy who Tom Haudricourt does not even think was a top five most valuable player candidate because his team was mediocre. Tom Haudricourt was voting for the MVPOATTAMTPOALGCTTCDBOEHCDGOHB Award, the Most Valuable Player on a Team That Also Made the Playoffs or At Least Got Closer Than the Cardinals Did Because Otherwise Explain How Carlos Delgado Got on His Ballot Award.

Who's ready for some stupid justification?

I had an MVP ballot and voted for Howard first because he almost single-handedly carried the Phillies to the playoffs by batting .352 with 11 homers and 32 RBI in September. I like to weight my voting to teams in the playoff hunt because I think that puts more pressure on players and separates the men from the boys. There's little pressure on players having big years if their teams aren't playing for anything at the end.

First of all: no. Okay, Howard had 32 RBI in September. Even if you give him full credit, as an individual, for driving in all of those important runs, the Phillies scored 138 runs. That's less than a quarter that were driven in by Howard. Maybe the other 77% of runs that were knocked in were also kind of important? Also, maybe if Howard hadn't been such a non-factor for four months, he wouldn't have needed to have such an enormous September just to "carry" the Phillies to the playoffs. Maybe?

With the Cardinals finishing fourth, I voted Pujols seventh on my ballot. I don't consider MVP to be "the most outstanding player" award and therefore don't just go by who had the best stats. I like to credit players for lifting their teams to the post-season or at least keeping them in the race until the very end.

At least he, unlike Thomas Boswell, admits that Pujols had the best stats. Then he goes ahead and ruins it by pretending that individual players are capable of "lifting" otherwise mediocre teams to the postseason. Remove Pujols from the Cardinals and they lose 13 wins if you just stick any AAA guy in his place; rather than finishing four out of the wild card - a respectable if not successful season given how low the team's expectations were in March - they finish seventeen out of the wild card and drift behind the Reds into fifth place in the Central. Why Pujols is to be punished because the rest of his team wasn't that good is beyond me. Certainly writers like Haudricourt do not seem to be able to grasp the idea that elevating any team's performance by 13 wins is "value," and it's not his fault that the Cardinals had a shitty bullpen that blew literally dozens of leads, and had it blown five fewer the Cardinals would have made the playoffs and guys like Haudricourt would be lining up to tell us how amazing a season Pujols had. But because Jason Isringhausen blew five saves that turned into losses, Pujols finishes seventh on Haudricourt's ballot. Are you capable of seeing why this makes no fucking sense? At all? Pushing the guy with the best stats to seventh on your ballot because his team's bullpen sucked is madness.

I understand that the Cardinals would not have been even close to the wild-card berth without Pujols, but I still like players who elevate their game in crunch time and lift their teams to new heights. And I thought Ryan Ludwick had just as much to do with keeping the Cards in the hunt as Pujols did. St. Louis did stay in the wild card race until mid-September, but mainly because the Brewers and Mets were gagging at the time.

I swear to God, if I ever run into Tom Haudricourt on the street, I am going to punch him in the face. Albert Pujols' on-base percentage was .462. With RISP he hit .339/.523/.678. In "late and close" situations he hit .314/.444/.600. In "high leverage" spots as defined by WPA, he hit .392/.492/.725. For the month of August, as the Cards were desperately trying to stay afloat in the playoff race, he hit .398/.491/.745. Oh, but I guess he only hit .321/.427/.702 in September. What a fucking choke artist. (Ryan Ludwick: Nice season, especially considering. But he gives up 87 points of OBP to Pujols, and was no doubt aided by the fact that he spent half the season hitting in front of Pujols, giving him better pitches to hit, and the other half hitting behind Pujols, boosting his RBI chances since Pujols was on base twice a game.)

Also, none of this explains why Carlos Delgado finished three spots above Pujols, considering that he was teammates with David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes, all of whom are at least as valuable as Ryan Fucking Ludwick, and his team also failed to make the playoffs. If Pujols didn't elevate his game in the last two months it's only because he played at a ridiculously high level all season. So what Tom Haudricourt is saying is: Playing great all year is less valuable than playing shitty for half the year and great for two, three months tops. And also, playing great for a team that doesn't have a lot of other great players is somehow less valuable than playing pretty well for a team that does have a lot of other great players. Jesus Christ. This is the dumbest shit ever. Tom Haudricourt wrote this down and thought, "This will make sense when people read it."

It's a subjective vote and every writer has his own preferences. That's why I voted for Sabathia second and Ramirez third because even though they played in the league only half a season they were primarily responsible for putting their teams in the playoffs.

Some preferences may be stupider than others. Like yours, for example. Also, don't lean on subjectivity as an excuse. The vote should not be nearly as subjective as you've made it. And when you put two other Brewers in your top ten, that damages the argument that Sabathia was "primarily" responsible for putting the Brewers into the playoffs. How many guys can be that valuable for a team that slipped in by the skin of its teeth (and then in large part because their final weekend opponent had long since clinched)?

I voted Fielder higher than Braun because Fielder had a much better September when the Brewers were clawing to get in the playoffs. Braun was ailing, as we discovered, and did have the homer that put the Brewers in the playoffs, but I just felt Fielder did more down the stretch.

I know in this last paragraph he's comparing Fielder and Braun. But remember that he voted Fielder 6th and Pujols 7th as well.

Prince Fielder, September 2008: .316/.398/.600
Albert Pujols, September 2008: .321/.427/.702

Prince Fielder's team, September 2008: 10-16
Albert Pujols' team, September 2008: 12-13

Prince Fielder: more valuable than Albert Pujols.

Tom Haudricourt: IQ of a can of garbanzo beans.

Fire Thomas Boswell

Although I haven't read much of Thomas Boswell's work, I know him by name as something of an authority figure among newspaper columnists who write about baseball. Then I saw a post he made on the Washington Post blog yesterday. Since the estimable Fire Joe Morgan has boarded up the windows, let's take a crack at this one.

MVPs: Howard & K-Rod, Not Pujols & Pedroia

Not off to a very good start here. Feel free to quibble with Pedroia, I guess, but Pujols was pretty much the hands-down selection in the NL, and anyway Boswell's alternate selections are kind of appalling.

Thirty years ago, I created the statistic Total Average. Now I'm almost ashamed to have been one of the original baseball geeks. Where did we go wrong?

Clearly your Total Average statistic didn't account nearly enough for "saves records."

This week, Albert Pujols won the NL MVP Award. Why? Mostly because he had a better OPS and VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) than Ryan Howard. Say what? Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Phils' first baseman had 48 homers and 146 RBI to Pujols' 37 homers and 116 RBI.

As "one of the original baseball geeks," shouldn't you be better than resorting to hoary clichés like "OPS and VORP? Those sound funny!"? Also, please note that your own statistic of Total Average does not take RBI into account (as it shouldn't), and furthermore that it favors Pujols by a margin of 1.278 to 0.885. This isn't even close! And you're going to lean your entire argument on home runs (Howard admittedly hit a lot of them, although he didn't hit much else) and RBI? Fucking RBI? Were you hit on the head on your way to the office yesterday?

Earth to my baseball writing buddies: We all love the new numbers, but lets not worship false idols. When I published my Total Average numbers, I'd always emphasize that while stats were wonderful, common sense was better. When stats WILDLY contradict common sense, always doubts the stats. In the case of the goofy gap between Pujols' VORP of 96.8 and Howard's 35.3, my reaction is "Time to revisit VORP. If it can be this wrong, it's not as good as I tought it was."

Several [sic]s in that paragraph. Anyway, no. When the stats wildly contradict a "common-sense" notion that most thinking people have already realized is bullshit - namely that RBI is the best judge of a player's individual value, which anyone with half a brain can realize is wrong simply by thinking about how much individual input a player has into whether or not there is a man in scoring position when he bats (that is to say: zero) - then it goes to show you even more that that "common-sense" notion is, in fact, incredible bullshit.

It's said that, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a modern baseball writer, unfortunately, reality often looks like an excuse to apply statistics and then torque our opinions to fit them.

Ryan Howard is a fine player. He was also hitting under .200 as late as May 21, and under .230 as late as August 29. Average doesn't tell us much, of course - Howard's OBP on August 29, when he was hitting .229? Oh, it was .321. For most of the season, Ryan Howard was Mr. Three True Outcomes (homer, walk, or strikeout). This is a charge that is also frequently leveled at Adam Dunn, who was hitting just .241 on August 29. The difference? His OBP was .389. (Albert Pujols' BA and OBP on August 29, for good measure: .356 and .464.) All this is reality. Not reality: "Albert Pujols was a worse player than Ryan Howard because he had fewer at-bats with RISP."

All of the encompassing offensive stats __and there's little difference between Total Average, Runs Created, OPS and others__ run the risk of overvaluing walks and singles while undervaluing the bases-clearly game-changing power of extra base hits. So, sometimes, you have to underline the obvious; for example, a first baseman with 146 RBI is "more valuable," especially when he plays on a first-place team, than a first baseman (Pujols) with 116 RBI on a fourth-place team.

Siccity sic sock. This paragraph makes me sad, because it proves that Boswell does not even understand the statistics he's referencing. OPS, a raw addition of OBP and slugging percentage, is often criticized by statheads for overvaluing slugging. The Wikipedia entry for Total Average notes that it intentionally overemphasizes walks... and extra-base hits. You created that statistic, T-Boz. Also, feel free to look at the raw slugging number, which emphasizes the "game-changing power of extra base hits": Pujols .653, Howard .543. How about just a raw count of extra-base hits? Pujols had 81; Howard had 78. Oops! Honestly, you didn't look any of this up at all, did you? You saw the RBI number and you ran for a keyboard.

We then get into the whole "quality of team" idea, which is another mark for Pujols, who did not play with Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley or Pat Burrell or Jayson Werth or Cole Hamels. In addition, the Cardinals had more blown saves than any team in baseball this year, while the Phillies had a closer who blew no saves. Give the Cardinals Brad Lidge and they might very well have made the playoffs, and then where's the argument? I guess it's Pujols' fault for not taking the mound in the late innings often enough. If you're the best player on that team you should be carrying them to the playoffs any way you can, goddammit!

Let's get another thing straight: Ryan Howard had a very good September, but that doesn't mean he carried the Phillies to the playoffs by himself. Chase Utley's enormous April and May - a period in which Ryan Howard was about as valuable to the Phillies as I was - were at least as important. How can sportswriters, especially those of Boswell's pedigree, get sucked so easily into such lazy decisions as wanting to call a guy an MVP because his one really big month happened to be the last, as though wins in September count double?

Oh, you've got more?

Don't analyze beyond that.

You'd like that, wouldn't you?

True, Howard can't field (19 errors). And Pujols outhit him by .357 to .251. Howard strikes out a ton while Pujols walks constantly. But none of it outweighs Howard's RBI total, built on his .320 average with runners in scoring position. For what it's worth, Howard wasn't even in the top half dozen in baseball in runners-on-base when he came to the plate. His 146 RBI wasn't a fluke. He's Mr. Multi-Run Homer.

Ryan Howard did, in fact, hit .320 with RISP. In all, he hit .309 with men on. He also hit .196 with the bases empty. Now, there are three possible reasons for this. One is that Ryan Howard actually walks to the plate when no one is on and says, "Shit, who cares what I do right now? If the bases aren't juiced I can't help the team effectively. I might as well strike out." Which he did 111 times with the bases empty, well over half his total Ks. And then, conversely, he comes up when people are on and says, "Now I'm going to hit a home run, to live up to the nickname that Thomas Boswell gives me in a mid-November column in the Washington Post." Reason #2 is that it just might be easier to hit when runners are on because most pitchers are not looking to put you on with a walk and have to throw more strikes. Reason #3 is that it's just statistical noise. For his career, Ryan Howard hits .266 with no one on and .282 with RISP, which is a pretty miniscule difference over 1658 at-bats.

Also, in an almost identical number of plate appearances for the year, Howard hit 22 home runs with no one on and 26 home runs with someone on. He's Mr. A Couple More Multi-Run Homers, By Chance. Also also, if you're going to give him credit for some sort of magical clutch gene that allows him to rocket balls out of the yard when runners are on, you should also consider that he hit .158 in "Late and Close" situations.

By the way, guess what Albert Pujols hit with RISP? .339. But clearly the lower RBI total is his fault, because he's the one who kept writing Skip Schumaker's name into the leadoff spot.

Ironically, Pujols complained two years ago when Howard won MVP ahead of him even though their team's positions in the standings were the opposite of this year. Maybe they should just meet quietly this winter and exchange MVP trophies. Who'd know?

Pujols was wrong to complain and came off like a whiner. Of course, he was more valuable that year (11.8 WARP3 to Howard's 9.7), but he was wrong about why, suggesting that players from non-playoff teams shouldn't win the award. It's odd that Boswell considers it okay if they exchanged trophies, though, since 2006 Ryan Howard had 58 home runs and 149 RBI, even more than 2008 Ryan Howard! And 2006 Ryan Howard actually hit .313, with a .425 OBP! Ryan Howard plays for a team that scores a lot of runs. Part of this is attributable to him, but not as large a part as Thomas Boswell wants to think.

As for Pedroia, I'd pick him over his main competitors --Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer of the Twins. Pedroia and Mauer won gold gloves at valuable defensive positions __second base and catcher. Morneau is just a first baseman. Besides, Pedroia's Red Sox made the playoffs, the Twins didn't.

And the only measure of value is your team making the playoffs. Ugh.

But in 30 years, nobody is going to remember anything Pedroia did this year. Howewver, Francisco Rodriguez saved 62 games for the first-place Angels may still be the MLB record. I know this argument is hopeless. The retort that almost always wins the debate is: "Relievers have their own award." They are not "players," as in MV"P". However, convention also holds that, if the best reliever's season utterly dominates the best season by any player, as Dennis Eckersley's did in '92, then he's the long-shot MVP.

Siccity doo. Frankie Rodriguez isn't the MVP not because he's a pitcher (Cliff Lee had a case), but because he wasn't even that valuable a pitcher. The save is an absurd stat that depends as much on context as on actual pitching performance. F-Rod had a good season, but in terms of his career it was actually right there with his worst - in his sixth full season as Angels closer, he recorded his lowest strikeout total and highest WHIP. Do you know why he saved 62 games? In large part, it's because he had 69 save opportunities. Second place in all of baseball was Jose Valverde of the Astros with 51, meaning that even 100% conversion would have left Valverde 6 shy of Thigpen and 11 shy of Rodriguez. Just like Howard's RBI totals, Boswell thinks that Rodriguez should be the MVP because of the fact that his team put him in a certain situation on a lot of occasions. I mean, obviously it's impressive that he came through all those times, but it's likely that most top-level closers (Lidge, Rivera, Soria, Nathan, Wood, Papelbon, Jenks, etc.) could get 58 saves - i.e., the record - if given 69 shots at it. There's a decent chance that Rodriguez's save record could still be standing in 30 years, but that's because 69 save opportunities is an enormous number of chances, not because Rodriguez is some kind of immortal being. I forget where I saw it, but there was some stat showing that only like four or five guys since Thigpen had even had as many as 58 save chances (i.e. enough to break the record had they converted all of them). 69 chances is a number we might not see for 30 years, hence 62 saves is a number we might not see for 30 years. That doesn't make 62 saves worthy of MVP status.

Even besides all that, the idea that a guy who pitches fewer than 70 innings is an MVP is ridiculous. It's just not enough of a contribution. I'm not even touching the idea that Rodriguez should have won because Dennis Eckersley won in 1992 (one previous vote that also might have been questionable counts as "convention" to Thomas Boswell, apparently).

I won't fuss about Pedroia over K-Rod.

"Except for just now, where I fussed about it."

But Pujols over Howard is nuts.

You are nuts. There are literally two stats in which Howard outperformed Pujols this year: home runs and RBI. And it's not like Pujols hit 15 home runs and knocked in 80. You're going to bitch about 37/116 when Pujols was such a comprehensively better player than Howard? Enormous edge in VORP, 98.7 to 36.6. Pujols was first in the majors by a long shot; Howard barely cracked the top 50. I'm sorry, I don't see that and think there's something wrong with the stat. Not when the difference is that significant. Anyway, don't like VORP? Too nerdy? How about Pujols' huge edge in batting average (106 points), OBP (123 points), slugging (110 points), his 34 more hits in 86 fewer at-bats, his 104/54 K/BB ratio (Howard's was 81/199), the fact that even with an 11-homer deficit Pujols had more total XBH than Howard? You cannot make a case for Howard that does not begin and end with "But, but, the RBIs!" And since RBIs have been thoroughly discredited as a way to seriously judge value, you are a moron.

At least Ryan got three homers in the World Series and a parade.

Which I'm guessing was more important to him than an MVP trophy, especially since he already has one anyway. Did you have a point?

Time keeps on slipping into the future

I don't know what everyone else's experiences have been, but I'm not sure that age 26 is usually the time when people start feeling kind of weird about their lives. I don't mean weird in a bad way, here - it's just strange to think about, if not how old I'm getting, the fact that everything around me makes me feel old. Not everyone I know is married, but a pretty sizable percentage are at least engaged; Rudnik, who's just two years ahead of me, will be a father in a few months. Even the people who aren't engaged are often in long-term relationships that could well be headed in that direction, as Alma and I are. We've been together almost five years now - five years in January - which really is as long as I've ever done anything. I only spent four years at any given school, for example. She makes me happier than anything in the world, and I know I'm going to spend the rest of my life with her. I guess it's still just a little strange to think of myself as being ready for that step, but I do work a full-time job (even that has been more than three years now, although I wasn't officially full-time for all of that) and all that stuff. I'm pretty sure I'm more or less of a grown-up. And at any rate, we probably won't get married for another 2-3 years or so, at which point I'll be almost 30. Now that's old.

All of this was brought on by (what else?) something I saw in the elevator today, which is that the state quarter program is finally reaching its end with the release of the Hawaii quarter. Seems like an odd thing to trigger a quarter-life crisis, I know, but think about it - the first state quarters were released in 1999, when I was still a junior in high school. Think about how long ago that was! When the first state quarters were released on January 4, 1999, I:

* Was a year and a half away from going to Australia and New Zealand
* Was nine months or so away from applying to college
* Had not met almost any of the people with whom I regularly talk nowadays
* Had not ever had a serious girlfriend
* Was almost a year and a half away from converting BigFlax.com to a dated entry format
* Had never seen The Shawshank Redemption

That is a long fucking time ago. Bill Clinton was still two years away from leaving office. 9/11 was more than two and a half years in the future. Hell, George W. Bush was still five months from even declaring his candidacy for president, and was still known only as "that Texas governor who used to own the Rangers and whose father was president" to the nation at large. The Star Wars prequel trilogy was months from starting in theaters. The Daily Show had just been taken over by a young comedian named Jon Stewart previously known mostly for a string of failed late-night talk shows; his first show would air on January 11.

Ten years is a long time, but when you really think about it - at least when I really think about it - it's kind of amazing. I was already in college by the time Bush was "elected," but it virtually feels like he's been president my entire life (we only have had four presidents in 26 years, with Obama about to be the fifth), possibly because he's effectively been the president for my entire adult life - the first election I voted in was 2000. The idea of that not being true anymore is pretty appealing, to say the least.

I had originally intended to do a review of all 50 state quarters now that the program is coming to a close, but I think that's way more than anyone could possibly be interested in. So, instead, a few quick comments on what I thought were some particularly good and particularly lame ones:

Delaware



The first state; the first state quarter; also one of the lamest. Some dude on a horse? Well, it commemorates the ride of Caesar Rodney, a delegate to the Continental Congress who cast the deciding vote for independence in 1776 after riding 80 miles. This would be fine if not for the fact that the nation already has a pretty famous horse ride around that time, and who outside of Delaware has ever heard of Caesar Rodney? On the other hand, what else was Delaware going to put on a state quarter?

West Virginia



By contrast, here's West Virginia, accurately taking pretty much the only thing it's known for - and a pretty awesome feat of engineering at that - and slapping it on the quarter. It's not the single most exciting reverse I can think of, but it's a combination of attractiveness and simplicity that, really, a lot of these quarters just don't have. (There are quite a number which just cram way too much onto the back, though I don't address them specifically here.)

Kansas



"Dah-hurr, we got sunflowers... and a buffalo." Is Kansas known for its buffalo? It is known for its sunflowers, but the sunflower is kind of a second-class citizen. Again, of course, it's Kansas - they can't exactly show a majestic mountain profile.

Utah



Another good one. Look at that great golden spike driving right in between the trains! It may or may not be what Utah is most famous for, but it's not like you can just put a bunch of Mormons on the quarter. (One of the finalist designs was of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Yeah, that's real timeless.)

Arizona



Possibly the best quarter there is - nice image of the Grand Canyon (certainly the most famous thing in the state), pictures of the saguaros and prickly pears, and the sunset (or sunrise?) in the background. Classy all the way.

Montana



"Montana: Where Things Go To Die!" Really, Montana? Really? That's how we're doing this one? What came in second, a picture of the cabin that Ted Kaczynski lived in? A bunch of camo-clad militiamen?

Post-election stats wonkery

I'm a big nerd. So here are some stats I found interesting relating to the election:

The most Democratic county in the nation was Prince George's County, Maryland. Fully 89.1% of the vote in PG went to Obama, beating even the 88.7% of Shannon County, South Dakota, which was the most Democratic county in the nation in the 2004 election. (92.9% of the District of Columbia voted for Obama, but that's not really a county since it's not a segment of a state.)

The only state without a Democratic county was Oklahoma. The New York Times, where I got the stats, doesn't have county-by-county breakdowns for Alaska, but among the lower 48 and Hawaii, only Oklahoma didn't have a single county turn blue. By contrast, six states - Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire - didn't have any red counties.

The county map still shows mostly red, but that doesn't matter. After the 2004 election, I recall seeing a map showing how most of the counties in America were red and how this was somehow proof that the Republicans were dominating the country. While a look at the '92 and '96 electoral county maps does show that many more counties are red now than were red even just 12 years ago, it's kind of important to know which counties are red. And the fact is that most populous counties went to Obama. Of the 49 states for which the Times has county results, Obama won the most populous county in 40 of them, and often by huge margins: he won Los Angeles County by 40.5%, Denver County by 52.1%, Cook County by 53.2%, Orleans Parish by 60.1%, Kings County (Brooklyn) by 58.7%, and Philadelphia County by 66.7%. All told, of his 40, Obama won 25 of them by at least 20 points. McCain's nine were the biggest counties in Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming; only two of them he won by more than 20 points (Greenville County, SC and Laramie County, WY). Even in some of the states that Obama lost, he won the biggest counties by sizable margins, including Orleans in Louisiana; Hinds County, MS (which he won by more than 40 points); Shelby County, TN (27.6 points); St. Louis County, MO (almost 20 points); and Fulton County, GA (35 points).

What's more, of the 50 most populous counties in the entire country (which, oddly, is the same as the list of counties with 900,000 people or more), Obama won 46. The only four he didn't? Maricopa County, AZ (home to McCain's base of Phoenix), Orange County, CA (rich people), Tarrant County, TX, and Salt Lake County, UT (reliably Republican Mormons, although McCain won this county with less than 50% of the vote and by just 0.5 points). Obama also won many of the 46 quite handily, taking at least 60% of the vote in 25 of the 46 and more than 70% of the vote in ten of them. Even in McCain's most commanding win of his four, Tarrant County, he took just 55.6% of the vote.

And even besides that, Obama's most motivated counties were more populous than McCain's in most states. In fact, the county that gave Obama the highest percentage of its vote among the counties in its state was often the largest or one of the few largest in its state (this includes Cook in IL, Wayne in MI, Philadelphia in PA, Bronx in NY, Suffolk in MA, San Francisco in CA, Multnomah in OR, King in WA, Ramsey in MN, Essex in NJ, Cuyahoga in OH, and Shelby in TN), whereas McCain's most motivated supporters were usually found in more rural and/or less populated counties. In only seven states was McCain's most motivated county more populous than Obama's, and only in Hawaii - where the most "staunchly" McCain county, Honolulu, gave him a full 29% of the vote - was the county that gave its biggest percentage of the vote to McCain the biggest county in its state.

The greatest percentage of votes in one county was 93.2%, going to McCain in King County, Texas. I love this one mostly because of how few voters there were in King County (the third-smallest county by population in the US). 151 people voted for McCain, and eight voted for Obama. Eight??? I love it. Who are these eight people and why do they live there?

Nearly every state got more Democratic. Indiana went from +21 GOP to +1 for the Democrats, amazingly. And it's not just the ones that switched - already blue states got bluer. California, for example, went from +10 for Kerry in 2004 to +24 for Obama. Hawaii went from +9 for Kerry to +45 for Obama. Even Kerry's home state of Massachusetts went from +25 to +26. The only states that got redder? Arkansas (+10 to +20), Louisiana (+15 to +19), and Tennessee (+14 to +15). Oklahoma and West Virginia stayed the same.

Obama got 52.6% of the popular vote. It's the most of any candidate since Bush I in 1988, and the most for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, also the last time the Democrats won Indiana and Virginia. Of course, this part you probably already knew. I bring it up more to point out how hilarious it is that conservatives have jumped right on the "This isn't a mandate for the Democrats" wagon. This is the same party that bragged about Bush's "political capital" after he won 2% less of the popular vote and almost 80 fewer electoral votes than Obama got this year. (In case you didn't buy that the results of the election aren't a mandate for Obama, some conservatives have started to argue that he's "center-right" and that his policies resemble Dwight Eisenhower's. Anything to avoid the fact that this election was an absolute destruction of the Republican party.)

January 20 can't come soon enough.

With apologies to Snow Patrol

Take back the country for yourself tonight
I'll take back the country for me
Take back the country for yourself tonight
Whoa oh oh

God knows you've put your life into its hands
And it's both cradled you and crushed
But now it's time to make your own demands
Whoa oh oh

It's a mess, it's a start, it's a flawed work of art
Your country, your call, every crack, every wall
Pick a side, pick a fight, but get your epitaph right
Or you can sing 'til you drop, 'cause the fun just never stops

I love this country tonight
I love this country always
It bares its teeth like a light
And spits me out after days
But we're all gluttons for it
We know it's wrong and it's right
For every time it's been hit
Take back the country tonight.

We did it. Now let's just look forward to four (or eight) years of governance that we can actually be proud of for a change.

Self-explanatory.

Did you?

The Official BigFlax.com Presidential Endorsement

I know that a number of you have been waiting patiently to see which candidate this blog would endorse for President in the upcoming election. So here's your answer: Barack Obama.

I usually try not to be too political here, mostly because people get bored by that kind of stuff rather easily, and also because if you agree with me you don't need much preaching to, and if you don't you're probably not interested in my opinion. But I think we can all agree that after eight long years - emphasis on the long - it's time for a change.

John McCain might have been that change once. I know that some people who remember his 2000 campaign and his early opposition to the Bush tax cuts still think of him fondly as a maverick. But look at his record since then. He has drifted to the right on many issues, including now suddenly taking a hard line stance on abortion, his suggestion that he would extend the Bush tax cuts, and his selection of a far-right evangelical Christian with no national political experience as his running mate. 2000 John McCain wouldn't have won the Republican primaries, but 2008 John McCain can't win the general election. He's moved too far right at a time when that's clearly not what this country needs.

Even if you believe that McCain has only behaved this way to get elected, why should that be encouraging? Do you want a president who's willing to compromise everything he believes in just to win the office? Furthermore, his decision-making during the campaign has been severely questionable, and even if he were to turn back into Maverick McCain the second he was sworn in, it's unlikely that he would suddenly surround himself with better, smarter advisors, and Sarah Palin would still be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and I speak with no hesitation when I say that I find her the most unpleasant, least intelligent person to grace a presidential ticket in my lifetime.

By contrast, consider the case for Obama. While his enemies on the right charge that he is inexperienced, he has fashioned from nothing - with the help of talented advisors - possibly the greatest electoral machine this country has ever seen, one that swallowed up not one but two candidates who were sure the presidency was theirs for the taking. For all of Sarah Palin's posturing regarding executive experience, the mobilization of the Obama juggernaut is far more impressive to me than two years in charge of parceling out oil revenues. Throughout the entire campaign Obama has remained level-headed while McCain and Palin have increasingly frothed at the mouth; while he has misstated McCain's record at times to score points with supporters, he certainly has done nothing that has risen anywhere near the level of the far more personal attacks the right has leveled at him (and in fact many of his misstatements of McCain's record have later been corrected, suggesting that they may be misunderstandings rather than deliberate attempts to deceive in at least some cases). The right has run one of the dirtiest campaigns in history against Obama - and coming on the heels of two GEs with Karl Rove in charge of the GOP's sleaze machine, that's saying something - and Obama has not just weathered the storm but largely risen above it.

Obama's promises may seem to some like pie-in-the-sky, but most campaigns are like that. With a Congress that will be controlled by the Democrats (who still have a slim chance at a supermajority in the Senate), Obama certainly has a much better chance to enact his policies than a President McCain would. In that scenario, the only reason to vote for McCain is if you prefer inaction, but given the support Obama has been getting, it appears that much of the country prefers his plans to reverse the recession, fix health care, and deal with education, among others. Certainly I do - at the very least, considering how Republican policies have failed to do these things over the past eight years, what could be wrong with letting the Democrats have a turn? If they mess up, I'm sure people will be lining up to vote them out in 2012, if not sooner.

Finally, an Obama presidency ensures a Supreme Court that continues to have balance. A Republican president - even one with McCain's supposed moderate streak - is likely to nominate more conservative judges to fill the inevitable vacancies, and while the Senate will be in position to block any Robert Borks or Harriet Mierses after tomorrow, they'll have a tough time holding out forever. A Republican president means the Court is lost to the conservatives for a generation, legitimately putting Roe v. Wade at stake (while this is a decision that should probably have been left to state courts in the first place, it's become too important as a national issue to allow the decision to fall by the wayside).

Many of you have probably already voted, but for anyone left, I urge you to vote Barack Obama tomorrow. A vote for Obama is a vote against the fearmongering and divisive politics of the right, and a vote for a legitimate chance to save the country's reputation at home and abroad. If the future of the country genuinely means more to you than scare tactics and race-baiting, there's only one choice to make.