For All Nails #40: That All the World Should be Counted

Press Release from MacMillan Publishing, New York
15 January 1973

We are pleased to announce a second printing of Robert
Sobel's acclaimed dual history of the CNA and USM, _For
Want of a Nail_.  This new printing corrects a number of
errors in the political results and population figures in
the original printing, introduced during the editing process
and no fault of Professor Sobel [1]...

**********

From the 1973 _Herald Almanac_:

CNA Population by States, 1930-1970:

State   OTL[2]  1930    1940    1950    1960    1970    Seats

NC      36.2    43.5    47.8    52.4    57.5    62.9    35
SC      23.2    35.7    42.1    49.7    58.6    69.1    39
IN      25.1    32.1    35.9    40.2    45.0    50.4    30
SV      10.8    13.9    15.3    16.8    18.5    20.3    15
NV       7.3    11.3    12.4    13.6    15.0    16.5    13
MB       4.0    16.1    17.7    19.5    21.4    25.8    18

CNA    106.6   153.6   172.4   193.7   217.8   245.0   150

Results of the 1968 CNA National Election [3]

State  Seats    PC (Monaghan)   Lib (Winters)   PJP (Volk)

NC       35       16              10               9
SC       39       22              15               2
IN       30       13              15               2
SV       15        8               6               1
NV       13        8               4               1
MB       18       13               4               2

Total   150       80              53              17

*********

Partial Transcript of Vitavision Interview on
Confederation Public Affairs Network (C-PAN),
15 January 1973.  Moderator (and C-PAN President) Brian 
Agnello speaks with Paul Markey, a political consultant
from Burlington, NY, NC.

A:  So.  To sum up the overall picture, then?

M:  If the election were held today, and there was no change
    in relative turnout of different groups from 1968, the
    Governor-General would increase his majority by five to ten
    seats, with the PJP taking about twenty.

A:  It's in the bag for him?

M:  You can't say that, of course.  Any sudden event that swings
    as much as four percent away from the PC wipes out the gain.
    A swing of eight or ten and Monaghan loses his majority.

A:  And what happens then?

M:  The _bazaar_ opens, I would guess.  The PJP would have the
    balance of power, in theory, but they're so far from the other
    two parties on military and foreign policy they could only bargain
    on domestic.  They'd demand a wholesale sacking of the leadership
    of the CBI, for starters, and probably a criminal investigation of
    this overhearing business [4].  To forestall that, I'd expect the 
    other two parties to consider a coalition.  Either that, or a few
    Liberals would vote to re-elect Monaghan in exchange for specific 
    favors.

A:  You're saying the Liberal total could be as low as forty seats.
    Wouldn't that be a disaster for Governor Skinner?

M:  Not necessarily.  After last time there was serious doubt as to whether
    the Liberals could remain the chief opposition party after the split.
    That's no longer in doubt.  The PJP has recast itself as a major regional
    party -- they may well get shut out outside of Manitoba and the NC, but
    they're not the national opposition Mason and Volk envisioned.  The next
    non-PC government of this country will be Liberal, or a Liberal-led 
    coalition.  The Liberals will gain seats in the SC, which is the state
    that is growing fastest in overall population, and they have a strong
    leader from there.  If you look deeper than the total-seat numbers, as 
    well, the Liberals will run second in most of the PC seats.  Any swing 
    away from the PC next time largely benefits them.  I think Governor 
    Skinner would be happier than you'd think with forty seats, much less 
    fifty.

A:  You were mentioning electoral alliances before...

M:  Yes -- the Governor-General has been lucky that his opponents haven't
    been able to take full advantage of tactical alliances.  In my own 
    province of New York, for example, an agreement was worked out between
    the PJP and the Liberals so that in several ridings there's only one
    candidate.  That's going to cost the PC four, maybe five seats.  The
    same deal in Indiana could have cost them _ten_, which would make the
    majority really problematic.

A:  Your firm, Markey Research.  You use calculating machines.

M:  Yes, we do.  _Combined with_ well-designed voter surveys and
    detailed knowledge of local trends, they're tremendously useful.
    There's simply a whole lot of arithmetic to be done, and the machines
    we've obtained from General Computing can do incredible amounts of
    arithmetic very quickly.  And that can start to help you to look at
    the information in new ways --

A:  Like what?

M:  Well, take the effect of race on voting patterns.  Frank Rusk, one
    of the smartest guys in the business, wrote that in 1968 race was
    gone as a factor in CNA politics, along with region.  Well, how could
    a smart guy like that say something so stupid?

A:  Is it so stupid?  Monaghan's approval ratings are pretty much the same
    for whites and Negros.

M:  Yes, but when you look deeper, that similarity is really the net 
    cancellation of a lot of differences.  Look, Negros in SV are still
    small farmers to a large extent -- natural Liberal voters.  Both the
    Negro farmer in SV and the white farmer in NV tell you that they like
    Monaghan but wish he'd protect their markets.  But the Negro, and not 
    the white man, goes and votes for the PC candidate.  Take New York and
    Brooklyn City, pretty much the same in income, employment, what have you.
    New York has a more Negro population, a Negro mayor, and votes PC.
    Brooklyn has fewer Negros, a solid core of more radical voters, 
    a woman mayor, and votes PJP.  If you know how, with one of these
    calculating machines you can take bigger surveys, break the results into
    more categories, and potentially spot smaller trends.  You'll be seeing
    a lot more of them around, and not just in politics.

A:  Where, then?

M:  Well, the problem that GC has as a business is that there's only so 
    much arithmetic being done that they can replace.  They've moved into
    those markets pretty well -- computing odds for racetracks, scientific
    and military engineering work, and accounting of all kinds.  The next
    step is to make the case to people that they need to be doing calculating
    that they're not doing now.  GC has a subisidary now called Integrated
    Business Management.  They come to a large firm and show them how they
    can put all their accounts on one machine -- personnel, marketing, sales,
    suppliers, and make connections between them.  You can't just buy a GC-3
    and start using it for something like that, unfortunately, because there
    aren't yet enough people with the right experience.  But IBM is training
    more all the time, and there are now programs at Champlain University to
    prepare students for this kind of work.  It's having a big impact on our
    economy in Northeast New York.  You should get someone from GC on your
    program --

A:  We may very well do that, but for tonight we're out of time.  Paul Markey,
    of Markey Research, thanks for joining us.  Tomorrow night, New Granada.
    Michael Murphy from the Liberal Party will join us to discuss the latest
    developments there, and no doubt will tell us why they're the government's
    fault.  Good night.
     
Notes:

[1] In general FAN contributors should be very hesitant to change
    facts stated directly in Sobel, but after discussion we find
    the state population figures insupportable and probably not well 
    considered.  The "OTL" column in the table below is the approximate
    1930 population of the OTL area corresponding to each CNA state.
    Accepting Sobel's figure of 153.6 for the CNA, we have felt the 
    need to redistribute this somewhat, while maintaining the general
    spirit of Sobel's CNA.  For example, we have given Manitoba four
    times its OTL population rather than eight.  We also have given 
    the SC a _much_ greater population.  The earlier deurbanization
    in the CNA should _accelerate_ the movement of population to the 
    Sunbelt that is the major factor in OTL's figures.  Sobel seems 
    to have not considered the tendency of a free people to move to
    warmer climes...

[2] This column is not from the _Herald Almanac_ and is only included for
    the convenience of OTL readers.

[3] Each state gets five automatic seats in the Council -- the other
    120 are divided according to population.  As described in #25, each
    state is divided into "ridings" of roughly equal population.  Oddly,
    the strict insistance on "one man, one vote" in the OTL USA does not
    even extend to OTL Canada (it was a response to race-based unfair
    voting practices in the South).  In OTL Quebec, ridings for the 
    National Assembly (provincial parliament) differ in population by as
    much as a factor of two.  It seems to be an accepted principle that
    MNA's from far-flung rural ridings should have fewer constituents...
    This table gives the same overall 80-53-17 result as Sobel's, and 
    has about the same relative performance in each state. 

[4] The PJP firmly believes that Liddy's CBI has been placing wireless
    overhearing devices in its offices, as part of a general program of
    surveillance of opponents of the government.  As of 15 Jan 1973, a 
    month before the election, no impartial source has confirmed any of
    these charges...

Dave MB