Sunday, January 20, 2008

Is a Clinton Candidacy a recipe for defeat?

I cannot escape the feeling that the Democrats are about to pull steaming defeat from the jaws of victory again. Consider for a moment the republican race has chrystalized down into a two horse race --- John McCain and Mitt Romney. Neither candidate interests the evangelical segment of the republican party, in fact both are generally disliked by the this groups, McCain for undercutting blessed Bush and Romney for daring to be Mormon. There is only one name that will mobilize those people to vote for either candidate --- Hillary Clinton.

Additionally both Republican front-runners do well with moderates, while Hillary Clinton only polls well with the long-time Dem faithful and has the highest negative rating in the race.

This seems a recipe for disaster. Obama on the otherhand is the darling of independents and the disenfranchised. If he beats Hillary, the democratcic base falls in line behind him to give him the Dems 30% and a large portion of the independent vote ---say 20%. Now figuring that the evangelicals (say 10%) stay home or run their own candidate, the Republicans are at best going to get 25-30% republican + 15% Indy. That seems to be the only winning strategy vs. the republicans.

I have spent the last 24 hours considering the possibilities for my own vote. I am a regular voting, anti-Iraq war moderate with a strong liberal lean. I cannot envision a scenario that has me voting for Hillary Clinton as I find her the most morally questionable of the 4 likely finalists based on the cheap shots she has taken at Obama and the fact that she has not shown any leadership in this campaign when there were tons of opportunities for her to do so in this election. She has invariably taken the safe route to protect her candidacy from potential pitfalls and has shown herself to be the standard Democratic candidate. As of today I am thinking I will vote republican if Hillary is the Democratic candidate.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Clinton, Romney run away with nevada

The results at the moment suggest Romney will destroy the feild, capturing 53% of the repulbican vote with the next candidates, RON PAUL (!!!) and John McCain, capturing a mere 13% of the vote. Landslide victories generate real momentum. If SC was next week for the republicans instead of today, Romney might run the table.

Clinton winning Nevada is damaging to Obama as Clinton has now won 3 states in a row and Obama is in danger of becoming a one-state wonder like Huckabee. Obama had prior to the election tried to downplay the Nevada election stating that Hillary's lead might be too much to overcome. On a promising note for Obama, Edwards got smoked, netting only 4% of the vote. That strongly suggests that Edwards is becoming irrelevant and will carry huge negative momentum into South Carolina. If Edwards doesn't win SC, he will drop out or become totally irrelevant and Obama will be the receipent of the Anti-Hillary vote en masse in the Democratic party and among the independents. My gut feeling is that Obama will win SC even though he is carrying negative momentum, due to his Oprah numbers in SC and because his back is to the wall there. I think Obama will win black votes for much the same reason Hilalry won NH --- because the black voters in SC won't want to kill his candidacy --- and will win the women voters becuase of the Oprah effect.

Considering this deeper, I think there is so much pressure on the Clinton and Obama camps, that Edwards will have an extremely difficult time winning more than 12% of the SC vote. He will be politically irrelevant in terms of being e legit candidate entering florida, with his only potential impact being a guy who can swing 4-5% of the vote in Florida against Obama. Will he deal? Hard to say. Obama and Edwards seem to legitimately not like each other. Edwards might think he has a little more pull with the Clinton camp, but IMO that would be incorrect. Clinton is a political opportunist trying to claim the title of change candidate and Edwards is yesterday's news. She may give him something, but it won't be high profile or important. My gut feeling is that is a lot more than Obama is personally willing to offer.

Friday, January 18, 2008

What does the Romney victory in Michigan mean?

It could go either way. If Romney capitalizes on this and wins Nevada and finishes second or even a close third in SC, he could run away with the nomination. Romney's resume perfectly positions him to run as the economic "fix it" candidate. That's what he ran as in Michigan and frankly if that had been the focus of his campaign he'd probably have already secured the nomination. One would hope for his sake that he recognizes the message worked for him. He also got a healthy bounce by people loyal to his dad.

This could put John McCain nearing the rocks again. He will probably win SC. so he will be in top 3 entering SuperDuper Tuesday, but he cannot be considered the favorite anymore. In Michigan, McCain was unable to land much of the independent vote at all. It strongly suggests that his New Hampshire victory was more of an isolated phonomenon and that indys are tuning him out. That would make a McCain overall victory only possible if the vote is splt so much that the winners of most states are getting in the low 20's and the insiders push McCain. The problem for McCain is that the powerbrokers like Romney too.

Two other things to consider. Turnout in Michigan was extremely low. The indications are that only republicans voted, and at that in very small numbers. That suggests that independents are leaning againsts voting for a republican (not that they will vote democrat en masse -- they may not vote --- but if the economy continues to tank it certainly doesn't bode well for the republicans.) Secondly, There was a public call from the fringes of the democratic party for Michigan residents to vote for Romney to futher cloud the republican's choice of candidate. It is unclear that this did not give romney a little bump. It is possible that those independents that did vote were not as forcefully McCain voters as last time for that reason. I think the michigan results in themseleves mean almost nothing, but theyy do mean a ton in terms of neutralizing McCain's momentum and galvanizing Romney and his supporters into thinking they can win.

On the democratic side, do not be so quick to write off michigan. Since Hillary was the only candidate officially on the ballot, she won almost 2/3rds of the vote. Now the idea is that the Dems won't allow those votes to be cast since Obama and Edwards were not on the ballot, but do not be suprised if Hillary loses a narrow nationwide vote, if her people challenge the party's right to block those votes. If this election is close, IMO Hillary has the tie breaker in Michigan.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Romney should buck conventional wisdom and fight on

Pundits have said that Romney is on his last legs. "If he loses Iowa and New Hampshire he is done." I was part of that group, but now I am convinced that is exactly the wrong advise. Under the radar, Romney quietly won Wyoming going away. Most candidates simply didn't have the money to campaign there and weren't all that interested in their small delegate count (12). Romney went in and took 8/12. Add in the fact that romney has had two disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire and now Romney has 19 delegates out of the 61 decided delegates, second only to Huckabee's 31 on the republican side. McCain has 7, Thompson 3, and Paul and Guiliani have none.

Romney has apparently taken this quite hard as he spent a ton of money trying to convince Iowa he was a freshly converted true conservative. I think that ended up hurting him in the more liberal Northeast, where voters really knew his history and he seemed especially disingenuous.

But Wyoming... Romney stepped in and media blitzed them to victory. They met him and then it was time to vote. No time for second thoughts. No time to meet the other candidates. And no other candidate had the money to advertise against him.

Why is that relevant? It is relevant because that is going to be the exact dynamic of Superduper tuesday. No candidate besides Romney on the republican side can affort to advertise in all 22 (or whatever states). His cheif rivals, Huckabee and McCain are financial peasants. Guiliani has had no positive momementum for the last 45 days and in politics as in sports you can't turn it on. His opponents will be focusing on the large states. Romney could easily win all of the smaller states with media blitzes and stay with the pack in the large states.

In the last few days Romney quietly pulled the plug on his future campaign spending. He clearly is feeling very rejected. He spent more time and money in Iowa than anyone and they tossed him away for a sexier suitor. He lost in his own back yard where people really knew him. It must feel like he was betrayed by family. And now it looks like he may lose the state in which he was born and where his dad served. This must be crushing to him.

That said, He really needs to rethink giving up, even if he comes in second in Michigan. If I were advising him, I'd try to get the vote out, but I would change the message being spread in Michigan to be one that states a firm belief that he will win. He should back that message with delegate numbers. He should state that in his post primary speech. He should say a win would have been ideal, but the goal was to get alone into second place at this point leading into SUper Duper Tuesday where our message will resonate with a national audience.

Consider what happens if he loses a close battle with McCain. If he loses a close battle to McCain say 27 to 29% with Huckabee getting 14%. I would think McCain would get 9 delegates, Romney 8, and Huckabee 4. That would give Huckabee 35, Romney 27, McCain 16 delegates. That is in GREAT shape considering his financial advantages and the compressed timeframe for super duper tuesday.

When you think about it is shows what an acceptable candidate he is to finish no lower than 2nd in any of the primaries. That should be part of the message. Romney is no Hillary Clintonesque lightning rod. His finishes strongly suggest the Mormon thing is not a campaign killer.

I think Romney and his advisors have wrongly evalutaed him as a candidate. By rejecting everything he stood for in the past, he actually does worse as people get to know him (which I am sure is not how he would like to think of himself.) In this compressed election, with these opponents, he is the kind of candidate who can steal victory.

I think he can start softening the social aspects of his platforms and focusing on the financial message and he will have a ton of growth potential.

But he has to stay in the race. He has to spead the delegate numbers message tomorrow and he has to start advertising in all of the smaller super tuesday states in the next week.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Wyoming GOP Primary results

I didn't even know the Wyoming Republican primary happened. It is downright criminal for the media not be reporting this more.


http://abcnews.go.com/politics/elections/

Republican Primary ResultsSaturday, January 5
Real-time Race Results: Updated January 5, 2008 - 7:37 PM (all times Eastern Standard)
Precincts Reporting 100%
Candidate Votes Vote % Delegates Projected Winner
Romney 8 67% 8 Winner
Thompson 3 25% 3
Hunter 1 8% 1
McCain 0 0% 0
Paul 0 0% 0
Uncommitted 0 0% 0
Giuliani 0 0% 0
Huckabee 0 0% 0

Thursday, January 10, 2008

First Letter to the Denton Chronicle editor

"Bill Richardson finally dropped out of the Presidential race. Long overdue, IMO. His campaign had only lost momentum in the last 4 months. I wish fringe candidates like Duncan Hunter, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, and Alan Keyes would get out too and stop wasting government supplied matching funds.

I applaud candidates like Tom Tancredo and Joe Biden who got their issues out there and then dropped out of the race as soon as it became obvious they were not seen as viable candidates. (Tancredo wanted immigration discussed as a major issue. Once that came to pass, Tancredo left the race.)

Pollsters saw a chance for foreign relations expert Biden to have a very strong finish in Iowa that he could then use to become a legitimate player in New Hampshire. When it didn't happen in Iowa, Biden immediately got out. (I am personally sad to see Biden out, inspite of his non-candidate status. His analytical mind and sharp tongue made him the rare fringe candidate who could impact front runners. When Biden said “there’s only three things he [Guiliani] mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.” he took the only oar from the Guiliani Campaign canoe. Since then, "Mayor 9/11" has not been able to mention 9/11 without media ridicule and has slid from soft front runner to fringe candidate).

IMO, the fringe candidates I listed have nothing to contribute to this race. They should quit wasting our time and taxpayer matching funds feeding their egos."

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

New Hampshire Primary Results


http://abcnews.go.com/politics/elections

"Estimated Delegates: 30Democratic Primary ResultsTuesday, January 8
Real-time Race Results: Updated January 10, 2008 - 1:30 PM (all times Eastern Standard)
Precincts Reporting 100%
Candidate Votes Vote % Delegates Projected Winner
Clinton 112,251 39% 11 Winner
Obama 104,772 37% 12
Edwards 48,681 17% 4
Richardson 13,249 5% 0
Kucinich 3,919 1% 0
Biden 628 0% 0
Gravel 402 0% 0
Dodd 202 0% 0
.
Estimated Delegates: 12Republican Primary ResultsTuesday, January 8
Real-time Race Results: Updated January 10, 2008 - 1:30 PM (all times Eastern Standard)
Precincts Reporting 100%
Candidate Votes Vote % Delegates Projected Winner
McCain 88,466 37% 7 Winner
Romney 75,343 32% 4
Huckabee 26,768 11% 1
Giuliani 20,395 9% 0
Paul 18,303 8% 0
Thompson 2,886 1% 0
Hunter 1,220 0% 0"