Which candidate will flame out?

It is early in the election season and so far it looks like Hillary or Obama (although Edwards may be making inroads even if the stats don't reflect it) vs. Guliani or Thompson (with a chance of a McCain resurgence still floating out there).


But hold on. People forget about the flameout factor. In almost every Presidental election, one candidate flames out famously after seemingly wrapping things up. Think about it. Dean in 2004. McCain in 2000. Perot in 1992. Hart in 1988.

Let's review.

Dean was an outsider who was running away with the Democratic nomination with his narrow focus demolition of George Bush. His attacks in large part helped Bush's public support crumble to below 50% --- a historically guaranteed benchmark that foretold certain Republican failure. Then Dean made a weird noise that was recorded on tape. The Democratic establishment saw their opportunity to replace Dean with one of their own. The Democratic establishment rolled Dean up like old carpet and laid down John Kerry. Kerry, in spite of (because of?) his war hero past, simply couldn't deliver the biting Bush critism that Dean provided and his choice of a relative unknown who delivered no tangible benefits for vice president lead the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory.*

But...I digress. Dean is the story here. He was too inexperienced to hold the crest. When he encountered a bad patch he and his advisors were unable to turn the tide.

John McCain seemed likely to wrap up the Republican nomination in 2000, then Karl Rove and his hatchet men spread stories of McCain having a half black child out of wedlock. (I think it turned out to be an adopted child or something totally innocent like that.) The story was not addressed immediately and properly by McCain and his staff. It festered. McCain fell behind Bush. To this day, he still doesn't seem to have recovered from the experience, seeming every bit as shellshocked as the day he lost to Bush.

Ross Perot was well on his way to winning the election of 1992 over the unpopular incumbent George Bush and unknown democratic candidate Bill Clinton when if Perot is to be believed --- and I don't see why not --- someone on the Republican side threatened to kill his family members if he stayed in the race. Apparently Perot felt this individual/group had the means to do it. He quit the race. Then he thought better of it and rejoined the race. At that point a good part of his support decided he wasn't just eccentric --- he was also flaky. He came in a distant third. (Perhaps he could take some solice that the candidate of the people who allegedly threatened him did not win.)

Gary Hart was the overwhelming favorite to capture the democratic nomination when he was caught with his girlfriend Donna Rice. It was just stupid, but some political collapses are like that.


So that leads us to today's feild. Who will suffer the horrendous flameout? Here are my odds.

Hillary - 10%
Obama - 10%
Edwards - 30%
Guliani - 60%
Thompson - 50%
McCain - 25%

I think in terms of flameouts this feild is promising, but not at the top of the Democratic feild. I think Hillary's camp wants to play from the frontrunner position allowing her to spend her time acting presidential and practically benevolent to her competitors. She will not allow any candidate to seem more hawkish than her when discussing combat, but on the same token her benevolence towards her fellow Democrats is helping the onetime "harpy" look almost grandmotherly. If she is constantly in the public presence and constantly putting out that tea and cookies vibe, eventually the hope is the public's high negative rating of her will enventually diminish. It isn't a bad plan at all.

Obama is a veteran politician with polished handlers too. I am frustrated by Obama's slow play, but I understand it. The Clinton handlers are the Democratic versions of Karl Rove. When Obama pushed close to Hillary a few months ago, Hillary and her handlers panicked and attcked pretty hard. It came back to bite Hillary, but next time it might not. Obama's handlers are pretty smart to let hillary have a comfortable (but not insurmountable) lead now, 6 months before the elections. That keeps the dirty tricks put away. I think the plan is probably to slowly chip away at the clock. As the election grows nearer, the smaller candidates will drop out or become so marginalized that their voters will abandon them. Obama's handlers are right to think that those voters are probably (with Hilary's 40 % negative approval rating) picking their favorite non-Hillary flavor and Obama will be their second choice. I think the plan is to pick up those votes and put on a feirce charge in the last 45 days, hoping Hillary and her handlers panic and make another mistake that may prove catestrophic. Again, not that bad of a plan, just pretty unsatisfying to me personally.


I rate Edwards at a 30% to meltdown, but that is misleading. Edwards isn't a frontrunner, so can he actually meltdown? I think Edwards has a handful of things working in his favor and a handful of things working against him. He has the legitimacy of and the experience from being a VP candidate. People know him and he has a better feel for what people want. He has good messages even if they are slightly too complex for his target audience. He has more than a little simpathy due to his wife's regrettable condition. On the negative side, he ooses pansy. I am sure I am not the only one who wonders if he is closeted. He is a bit of a fancy lad. As W proved in the last election, if you can't do anything else right, be predictable, dim, and painfully and consistently unrefined. Americans do not like to think and interpret candidates like W as "honest". I think that is maybe ingrained in us, since Hoover ruined being smart. Edwards is trying to make it a 3 person race so he can essentially decide the democratic nomination and use that to become VP. If he can consistently finish a strong third and maybe win some southern states, (Hillary and Obama are Yankees afterall) he could essentially demand the VP job with his delegates' votes. I find his campaign to be one of the more interesting stories on the democratic side as I think Obama REALLY doesn't like him and Hillary might be wise to grab New Mexico Governor Richardson as her running mate --- something I am sure her advisors have considered. It is in both candidate's interest to marginalize Edwards.


Guliani is the Howard Dean of this election. He has probably the greatest positive rating of any candidate among the entire voting electorate, but he is a green presidential candidate and simply is not conservative enough for his base. Like Dean, the Republican Party will do their damnedest to replace him with someone they like (Thompson). He is a very soft front runner.

Like the Dems with Kerry, the Republicans should be careful what they wish for in Thompson. He is a tough badger of a man ala Dick Cheney, but has that great mix of being unknown enough not to have gobs of enemies, but known enough to be seen as the savior of the party. Not so fast though. More than one account by people who know him well question whether he has the heart to go through the race. The very way he is holding off entering the race until essentially the last second possible (rumored to declare July 4th) could indicate that while he may want to be president he is not in a hurry to have to go through all the abuse to get there. Make no mistake about it, Guliani's may be a weak front runner but every politician at that level (ok, not named John McCain) knows how to go negative. And I totally see Mitt Romney brutalizing both front runners with his fat election cash. Thompson's people seem capable and the hard core conservative republicans are begging him to get into the race probably promising that it will be fairly easy, but if Thompson's heart really isn't in it and it turns out to be too much of a fight, I could see Thompson bailing before the primaries are over and throwing his support behind his friend McCain. The aftermath of that would really be something to see.

Like Edwards a true meltdown doesn't seem likely for McCain at this point --- although you could argue it already happened when he adopted the Iraq war and gave it a matching comb over at the start of his campaign. (I still think that approach will not end up burning him quite as badly as most thought at the time, because one of the only real constants in life is that people change their minds. What was hideously unpopular today might be marginally acceptable tomorrow. Look at bell bottoms and Bill Clinton.) At this point it seems like McCain will either peter along and maybe land enough support to become someone's VP or will be the veteran campaigner who capitalizes on someone else's mistakes or collapses to win the nomination in some bizzare finish.

I think Romney is done, so there is no meltdown rating on him. Like Edwards he sets off gaydar with his soft hand gestures. On the Republican side of the house voters are MUCH more sensitive to that, and I think that has a LOT more to do with his lack of traction than his Mormon faith. I don't think the republicans have put it together beyond "there's something I don't like about that guy". (The funny thing about it is that if he had run as a democrat he might have been the favorite right now. Now mind you jumping parties and running for office is not a simple thing, but think about it. He is Gary Hart without the girlfriend. He is tall and polished. He is financially conservative, but has always been socially progressive up to now. He could have run as what he (probably) is and has been, instead of what the voters want him to be. He isn't black or female which makes him an easier candidate for the American public to accept than Hillary or Obama. He would have been a stronger, more accomplished, more impressive version of John Edwards.)



* "And who would have been better vice presidential candiates than South Carolina's John Edwards?" Well, Howard Dean for one. When you really get down to it, Edwards did a fair job of holding his own in a debate against VP Dick Cheney and did a decent job being the ticket's attack dog --- allowing Kerry to look somewhat presidential staying above the frey for the most part, but Edwards at that point in his life just wasn't a pit bull. Dean would have been relentless in wrecking bush. Other candidates who a halfway decent manager and presidential candidate similar to Kerry (without the rocks in his head) might have selected would include former NATO commander and four star general Wesley Clark or former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham. Clark would have turned the election into a choice of two military heroes vs. two chicken hawks to run the war in Iraq. His presence on the ticket would have, in essence, validated Kerry's military resume. Clark's platforms also were much more substative than Kerry's and frankly Clark with his experience in world affairs probably would have at least broken even with Cheney in the VP debate. With Clark on the ticket, the military vote would have gone to Kerry --- that would have been enough. Graham also probably would have delivered the presidency. Graham had been governer and a senator in Florida and in his time in politics had NEVER LOST a florida election. It doesn't seem a big stretch that he could have delivered enough additional voters to capture Florida's 27 electoral votes.