| Romney today, in addition to adjusting to the fact that he ain't going to get to the promised land in 2008, is taking calls from the anti-McCain mujahideen- my friend Rick Santorum, Dobson, Limbaugh, Coulter, DeLay, Glenn Beck, etc.- begging him to stay in the races- that they put a last-ditch effort to get to a brokered convention. Huckabee is thinking about that whole VP thing, and is no doubt waiting to see what McCain offers and what Romney does before making any more decisions. If both of those guys stay in, and if the aforementioned right-wing megalomaniac brigade put resources into a master strategy, there is still a chance, albeit pretty small, of keeping McCain below 50% ,but we should obviously be planning for him to be the nominee. It's likely that folks will consolidate around him, the establishment will rally around him, etc. A deal in terms of McCain and Huckabee in terms of President/Vice-President could end this thing quickly rather than less, although Huckabee would probably stay in the race to keep Romney from consolidating the right-wing support. If Romney and Huckabee both keep going, it will be fascinating to see how the Limbaugh and DeLays and Coulters of the world position themselves going into the next round and whether they keep consolidating behind Romney and pushing Romney.
On the Dem side, both sides are spinning their asses off, and they should be. Both sides have reasons to claim victory. It was kind of an amazing night that way. The fact that they came out almost dead even in terms of delegates won is really remarkable. At least at this moment, not having done all the analysis I would like to do yet, I would agree with the emerging conventional wisdom that Obama is much better positioned to win going forward. The money edge that he has, not only his cash-on-hand, but his ability to keep raising even more money online could really hurt Hillary as we go into the next phase of the campaign. And the next few states are definitely tending towards Obama. Having said that, Hillary and her people keep surprising me. Every single day of this campaign that they have done well, I have gone into Election Day thinking they were in trouble. I thought that in NH like everyone else in the world. In Nevada, I thought that the Culinary Workers' Union would matter more than it did, and I thought Obama would edge her out there. And I went into yesterday thinking Obama had the momentum, was on the rise, and that she was going to get beat in most of the big states. Every single time, she's come back and beaten my expectations, and I think that's a tribute to how well-organized her campaign is and how tough she is as a candidate and the fact that she's been able to hang onto white women voters, even though women voters big change voters, far more then men.
It looks like Hispanic voters stuck with Hillary. It doesn't surprise me that she won them, but it does surprise me that they stuck with her in as high as percentage as they did, given the Kennedy endorsement and some of the big radio and Latino newspaper endorsements that came out in the last few days. I thought her hanging onto such a big portion of the Latino vote was such a big story. And in general, her winning very big and important states like CA, NY, NJ and MA in spite of the Obama momentum, and winning by the margins she did, was a very big deal.
On the other hand, you have to give the Obama campaign credit for really going in and organizing all of these different caucus states and all of these different states that he was paying attention to. He cleaned her clock in a bunch of very small white states that Hillary paid no attention to whatsoever: states like ND, AK, ID, and KS (which was easier because it was his home state). The fact that he was able to win in places like that- states where there are hardly any black voters- is a testament to his campaign's organizational ability. And the fact that they end up scoring victories in places like CT, MO, and maybe NM was very impressive. Given how far Hillary was ahead a few short days ago in the nationwide polling a few days ago, how well he did in this national primary was really a hell of an accomplishment.
So both campaigns have lots to brag about, and both have a lot to worry about. Neither campaign has consolidated anything. Going forward, Obama has the edge in money and in the next few states, both organizationally and demographically. Look for Hillary to really make a major push in contesting Virginia. That's her best shot over the next couple of weeks. It's a state that demographically looks a bit more like Tennessee than it does Alabama. It's the one place in next week's "Potomac Primary" where she has a chance. She's got to dig in somewhere between now and March 4 (OH and TX), because one loss after another is really going to hurt her. So look for her to really make a stand in Virginia and to find another state someplace where she can really dig in. On the Obama side, they have to figure out a Hispanic strategy. With Texas looming on the horizon, they are going to get murdered in that very big state if they don't figure this out fast. And I don't know why that campaign hasn't figured out why to organize Hispanics earlier. They should have done it a long time ago. They should have done it in Nevada, if nowhere else among the early states, but I think it's been really stupid on their part to not do more with Hispanics. But they've got a month now before Texas to really focus on that constituency. Kennedy helps there, but clearly not enough. And the Obama campaign is really going to have to dig in. The campaign has to really target that community to have any chance in Texas.
Also, the Clinton campaign has targeted the hell out of white women voters and has done a great job turning them out. The Obama campaign will never win them, but has got to figure out how to improve that percentage.
This will be very interesting going forward.
Final note: I have one big question I need help figuring out from the OpenLeft.com community: what the hell is the deal with CT vs. MA? MA has more students and more creative class liberal types, plus it had the big three endorsements. Why did Obama get his ass kicked in MA and win CT? |
