More Primary Analysis: McCain Inevitable And Clintons Ready To Pounce?
Arizona Senator John McCain will be the last man standing in the Republican battle for the 2008 Presidential nomination. And if Senator Barack Obama felt Senator Hillary Clinton’s camp played hardball in Nevada, just wait until he sees what awaits him in South Carolina. That’s the view of of two top Internet pundits.
The first contention is New York Political Scientist Dr. Steven Taylor, whose periodic “Toast-O-Meter” takes a look at which candidates are cooking nicely and which are toast and why. The second is by Pajamas Media’s Stephen Green, aka Vodka Pundit, whose “live blogging” of political events is exciting and often quite perceptive.
While the mass of contests on February 5th could yet reshuffle the stack, I continue to think that McCain will be the nominee…(a position have had for some time, and wrote about on the 17th of December). There were three separate posts that I read this week that are of interest in this regard. Perhaps the most interesting was by Charles Franklin1 who wrote about what he saw in the polling as An Emerging Republican Consensus. Specifically he noted (and this was pre-SC), that the trends all pointed towards a coalescing around McCain that started before New Hampshire.
Among other things, data shows that McCain has the smallest number of Republicans who said they would vote AGAINST him than any other candidate — which flies in the face of angry denunciations and mockery of McCain by talk show host Rush Limbaugh and many conservative pundits and bloggers. Go the link and his links to find out more. He adds this:
The stunning numbers in that list are McCain’s and Romney’s, because they are the top tier candidates at the moment. McCain’s number is fascinating, because the argument has long been that he had burned too many bridges in the GOP to be elected, but that more and more appears not to be the case. The fact that Romney has turned off a fifth of Republicans is devastating and explains, in part, why he has struggled to emerge as a true front-runner in a crowded field.
So it’s likely the battle in coming months will be whether McCain can solidify and consolidate key GOP establishment figures behind him or whether Romney can gobble them up.
Taylor gives his assessments on where each of the candidates stand. Among other things, he believes former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has not shown widespread appeal and even couldn’t win in South Carolina, Romney has won in states where he didn’t have really tough competition, actor Fred Thompson now seems in “denial,” and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is “toast.” (There’s more so read the post).
On the Democrats:
At the moment, the momentum is Hillary’s, partially due to the coverage of yesterday’s Nevada caucus, with the focus on vote count instead of delegate count (it would seem that Obama, despite less votes, will get more delegates, although the delegate allocation will not take place until April, meaning no one knows for sure who won how many). Next Saturday, Obama has a key chance to steal back that momentum, but it is clear that neither has the upper-hand at the moment. One thing that is clear is that Edwards is toast, whether he wishes to publicly (or, even, privately) acknowledge the fact or not.
One of the more concerning and, I would argue, unhealthy elements of the current Democratic race is the way in which is becoming charged with identity politics and seeming attempts to utilize race as a blunt and cynical tool by the Clinton campaign and their allies.
It’s easy to predict that party unification will be a challenge for the Clintons, if Hillary Clinton wins. If the campaign gets much uglier (a distinct possibility) the only solution to bring the party together will be a Clinton-Obama ticket (or an Obama-Clinton ticket).
What to watch on the Democratic side: after Obama’s win in Iowa there seemed to be a parade of Democratic bigwigs announcing their support for him. Will that continue in coming weeks? If not, it’s a sign that Democrats feel his 2008 moment has passed.
Additionally, the so-called Super Delegates will be VITAL at the campaign — and Clinton is reportedly way ahead of Obama on that front. Conventions are NOT about who has the most charisma; it’s about who has the most delegates.
Meanwhile, Green’s “live blogging” must be read in full. But here’s one of his final entries:
After tonight, Fred Thompson’s campaign is over. (Reminder to self: Don’t endorse candidates you like, you jinx.) And Mike Huckabee has peaked. As Bill Kristol said on Fox, if Huckabee can’t get 50% of the South Carolina evangelical vote, then tonight is the highwater mark of his campaign. Which leaves the Republicans with McCain, Romney, and Giuliani. And if Giuliani doesn’t win — and win convincingly — in Florida, then he’s out, too. This is looking more and more like a two-man race.
On the Democratic side, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. If you think the Clinton Machine unloaded on Obama in Nevada, wait’ll you see what they have in store for him in SC next week.
Clinton doesn’t need SC, but if she can beat Obama there, he might be viewed as the Not Quite Candidate. And in that case, just go ahead to the coronation of Queen Hill in Denver. So, yeah, it’s gonna get nasty next week. Fun!
If the previous pattern IS a definite pattern, then Green is correct. There will be some kind of outrageous statement raising some non-issue “issue” about Obama, and the campaign will distance itself from it or there will be an apology.
Or — just as we have seen twice now — right before the vote there will be another appearance of a red-faced Bill Clinton hurling verbal bombs and accusations at the Obama campaign, being strongly denounced in some quarters (including TMV, which does not encourage that kind of campaigning) and then in post-vote analyses, officials close to the Clinton campaign will be quoted as saying that Bill C actually helped.
But then, maybe the campaign in South Carolina will focus strictly on issues. (If you believe that, can I sell you THIS?)
Conservative blogger Sister Toldjah writes this:
What’s happening here isn’t rocket science. Barack Obama represents a changing of the guard, while the Clintons represent the old guard. The Clintons have both been involved in Democratic party politics for so long, with so many Democrats looking to them (more so Bill than Hillary) for political advice and endorsements, and help with campaign strategy, that it’s almost like they feel like they are “owed” the nomination as a reward of sorts for all the work they’ve done for the Democratic party. You’ve got this young upstart in Barack Obama, who threatens their hold on a party whose modern day version they helped build up, and naturally you’re going to see them fight to try and maintain their status as king and queen of the Democratic party.
Hillary Clinton had such an advantage in most of the polls going into the caucuses and primaries that she and her husband probably assumed that the race to the nomination was going to be a cakewalk. But they’ve found out that rather than it being handed to them they’re having to work for it, because the competition isn’t the pushover that they had anticipated. They fiercely resent having to work for a nomination they felt should have been in the bag as a payback for all they’ve done for the Democratic party. As a result, expect more Bill Clinton outbursts in the weeks to come, especially after what I anticipate to be a loss by a sizeable margin to Obama in next Saturday’s SC Dem primary.
And, indeed, in Nevada the overripe campaign tactics were in full aroma as some Nevadans got a robocall repeatedly referring to “Barack Hussein Obama.” The caller made no mention of Clinton or former Senator John Edwards (a further sign of its sleaziness)– but it was some group pushing the bigotry button about Obama.
MSNBC has a transcript of the call (reported by The Politico first) provided to it by the Obama campaign:
“Hi, I’m calling with some information about Barack Hussein Obama that you don’t know. Barack Hussein Obama says he doesn’t take money from Washington lobbyists or special interest groups, but the record is clear. He does. In fact, Barack Hussein Obama has taken millions of dollars from federal lobbying firms, Wall Street fat cats, big oil and pharmaceutical companies. It’s all there on the record, the facts are clear. We just can’t take a chance on Barrack Hussein Obama.”
Don’t you kind of get the feeling that caller was trying to tell voters that Obama’s middle name was “Hussein”?
