NOTE: This is a special Potomac Primaries edition of our famous Around The Sphere link-fest: it gives you reaction to weblogs of many different viewpoints on yesterday’s primaries and the political scene. Links and quotes do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of TMV or its co-writers.
REACTION TO THE VICTORIES OF DEMOCRAT BARACK OBAMA AND REPUBLICAN JOHN MCCAIN IN THE VIRGINIA, MARYLAND AND WASHINGTON D.C. PRIMARIES:
The people in nearly 40 states have spoken and most Democrats prefer the junior senator from Illinois and more Republicans prefer McCain over the Huckster.
And 7 months out, Obama looks to be a lock in the general election.
The best the Huckster could do was lose by “only” 9 points in Virginia. McCain had majorities in all 3 states. We can talk about conservatives vs. RINOs all we want but the truth is the party does not belong only to those who pretend to speak for Ronald Reagan. A photo op with Nancy might make it clear that his name on some bad legislation aside, McCain is a conservative and has been since before Goldwater.
Obama’s campaign need not worry about superdelegates. They are like the Electoral College and will obey the will of the people of their states. They will side with him before Hillary departs this race. And Florida and Michigan will get full delegations.
She [Hillary Clinton] can’t win this on technicalities – without pitching the Democrats into a civil war. But does she even know how to concede?
I was feeling sorry for Hillary Clinton just now, when I saw the expression on her face as she waited to go onstage in El Paso. This process is so grueling. And the rejection, when it comes is so personal, in a way “normal” people never experience. Even a performer as professional as she couldn’t conceal the bone-tired, beaten-over look on her face.
But now, fifteen-plus minutes into a dreary recitation of policy-points that will do nothing to satisfy those who want her to say what her campaign is for, I am feeling less sorry. She has not had the grace to mention Barack Obama’s name, nor his existence or success…. This is not classy and does not help.
Huckabee hasn’t won more than 45% in any state, and he didn’t get to 45% in Virginia last night, either. Virginia’s winner-take-all primary was his last hope of affecting McCain’s trajectory in any meaningful way, and he lost by nine — as I had predicted earlier in the day.
McCain has already started shifting his focus to the general election. He offered nothing but kindness to Huckabee, but began challenging Barack Obama. Expect to hear McCain repeatedly dismiss Obama’s platitudes on “hope” and get him into a debate on specific policies. Obama will lose that fight, but if he doesn’t engage McCain, he’ll look like an empty suit. McCain has a lot more time to focus on Obama than the reverse, and he can do some damage to Obama’s momentum among independents while Obama tries to finish off Hillary Clinton.
Obama’s got everything going for him right now, including momentum. There’s only one thing he doesn’t have and that’s more scrutiny. Yet…Superdelegates will now come into play, but there’s also Michigan and Florida. Somebody in charge better get a firm grip, because these forces could collide….Tough going ahead for Clinton, but also for Obama as well, only for different reasons. The gloves will come off, if only subtly and more pointedly. Clinton is left with no other choice. As for Obama, he’s now going to have to tread on territory where he’s weakest. Defining himself. Better to do it now before the Republicans do it for him.
McCain now stands just under 350 delegates short of clinching the nomination, and he’ll get it by March 4th….Not only did Barack Obama sweep the Potomac Primary, he did so decisively and, in Virginia, beat Clinton in almost every demographic category. That would seem to bode well for states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. More importantly, he’s ahead in the delegate count and, as Howard Fineman argued last night on MSNBC, there’s almost no way that Hillary can win based on the pledged delegates alone
Questions For The Future
As we head into the third act of this campaign, this seems to be what people will be talking about
1. How will the DNC handle the fact that Michigan and Florida were stripped of their delegates?
2. Will the Democratic superdelegates go against the popular vote?
3. Who’s in the running for McCain’s Veep?
4. Will there be a big third-party run?Plenty to talk about, I would think.
In spite of the fact that I still think Obama is an empty suit I am leaning in his direction in large part because of Clinton fatigue.
Barack Obama did more than decisively win the so-called Potomac Primaries yesterday. I think he showed that he could win votes not just from Hillary Clinton – but from John McCain and the Republicans as well. He proved that his appeal crosses all kinds of boundaries — red states and blue states; whites and blacks; men and women; labor, professionals and management; liberals, independents and conservatives. He brought in votes from them all. This represents the realization of his electrifying 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention — and, I think, the spark of a campaign that could truly unite Americans from all backgrounds.
Last night, while watching the election returns at home in Brooklyn, I thought of a few things worth mentioning:
Read them all yourself… but he has one worth noting here:
However, all is not over yet — there is a fourth point too. I believe the November election outcome depends on three wild cards: (1) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; (2) whether there is another terrorist attack on this country; or (3) the state of the American economy. I don’t believe that any of these issues give either candidate an automatic advantage. The conventional wisdom says that the McCain benefit will benefit from an improved situation in Iraq. But conversely, I think this will lend support to Obama’s idea of a strategic redeployment and refocus on the war in Afghanistan and the larger war on terrorism. Likewise, I think that another terrorist attack may not push voters in the arms of the GOP — it may highlight the fact that the last 7 years of GOP policies didn’t stop the attack. Regardless, this story has yet to be written.
I am beginning to think my theory (by theory, I mean wild speculation) is right- they [hard-core conservatives who hate McCain] know this is going to be a blowout, and Mccain is the fall guy. How many Huckabee votes are “conservatives” offering themselves the option to say “Don’t blame me, I voted for Huckabee” after the November blowout?
—Josh Treviño has another detailed post that MUST be read IN FULL. A tiny taste 4 U:
John McCain’s sweep of the “Potomac Primaries” — that is, today’s votes in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia — delivers mixed news for his candidacy. The good news for him is that he won decisively, with none of the close margins and seesaw counts that marked the Kansas, Washington, and Louisiana votes three days back. (And, it should be remembered, he lost two of those.) Much of this must be due to the demographics of today’s votes: the electorates here have a lot in common with those of Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, all of which McCain dominated by double digits. For whatever reason, McCain the putative Westerner plays well in the places where the likes of Joe Lieberman and Mike Bloomberg thrive. If Mike Huckabee was to become the conservative alternative, he should have shown strong at least in Virginia, and he did not.
Herein lies the bad news for McCain: even though Huckabee did not make himself competitive in Virginia, he nonetheless continues to peel off the most conservative of the conservatives — the churchgoing pro-life Protestants who form the core of any successful Republican get-out-the-vote effort in November. The exit polls, as always, tell the tale
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And he also has this:
Hillary Clinton is not out yet, but barring a stunning turnaround in the March 4th primaries in Texas and Ohio, she will continue to fade. Assuming this continues, it is worth comparing McCain and Obama as they performed in the handful of states they have both won so far. It is a short list of eight, and though we cannot assess the candidates in a direct contest — yet — we can compare the turnout for each. Suffice it to say that Barack Obama’s vote totals blow McCain’s out of the water.
Read the entire piece.
–Dick Polman’s post needs to be read in its entirety, too. Excerpts:
Three more Barack Obama landslides have left her [Clinton] in a perilous position. She has coughed up her lead among pledged delegates nationwide (having lost 21 of 31 states), and, dare I skip to the bottom line, it’s hard to imagine at this point that she can even win the Democratic nomination without some last-ditch parliamentary backstage maneuvers after the primary season is over.
What happened last night was basically Obama’s dream scenario. What mattered most was not that he won big, but the manner in which he did it. He poached on Hillary’s strongest demographics in two very different states – Virginia, a longtime Republican enclave that has been trending Democratic, and reliably blue Maryland, with its solid Democratic base. (His Washington, D.C. win was more predictable.)
AND:Indeed, for Hillary, perhaps the worst indignity last night was John McCain’s decision to ignore her and focus on Obama…Hillary had better recoup quickly if she wants to enjoy the honor of coming under attack. That’s an honor generally reserved for frontrunners.
Read. It. All.
She had been told by the echo chamber and her politically “brilliant” husband, once the Teflon President, that she may not be President next year, but she will certainly be anointed by her party in 2008. And now she can see it fading from her grasp. I imagine having one’s own coronation canceled is really hurtful.
—Blogs For Victory’s Mark Noonan:
And in all honesty, Huckabee’s continued campaign now has no point and the only thing it could possibly do is weaken McCain for the fall campaign – and if Huckabee thinks the GOP electorate will reward spoiling with a future nomination, then he just doesn’t understand the dynamics of GOP politics. Now – or, at latest, a week from now – is the chance for Huckabee to retire from the scene gracefully. He fought a good fight on a shoestring, but it didn’t work out – better luck in the future (and stay away from Hagee’s church!).
UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: Huckabee, please drop out now.
Barack Obama didn’t just beat Hillary in Virginia. He didn’t just get more votes than John McCain. In “red” Virginia, Obama got 142,000 more votes than all the Republicans put together. And that was with Hillary Clinton taking 100,000 more votes than John McCain.
—Political scientist Dr. Steven Taylor:
However, it strikes me that Huckabee is the Warhol candidate of this race–his fifteen minutes of fame are almost over. Let’s not forget that he isn’t popular with the base of the GOP either, and whatever sympathy/support that he is generating at the moment is mostly the result of anti-McCain sentiment within the Republican ranks, not a load of wishes that he was the nominee. Recall, that Rush Limbaugh and his allies in the party were not keen on Huckabee, either, so it isn’t as if Huckabee is considered the true standard bearer of “conservativism” as defined by the the Limbaugh wing of the GOP.
Also, to those who think that Huckabee may still have a chance: note that Romney pulled out of the race with more delegates and a lot more potential cash than Huckabee had at the time. Indeed, even after the wins on Sidekick Saturday, Huckabee is still in third in terms of delegates.
–Sunday, Oxblog’s Taylor Owen wrote this:
The rhetoric versus substance argument between Clinton and Obama is starting to wear thin. It simply isn’t the case that she has a more developed policy platform. He just choses not to talk policy as much as she does on the stump. They both play to their strengths. I do tend to lean more to his policies than hers, particularly on foreign policy, and on many issues, they are simply so similar that it is irrelevant. On others, I don’t know enough to judge. But I find myself more willing to trust him, and the people around him, than her. I do know, however, that he looks at policy through a lens that I am sympathetic to. In the end, this is what choosing a political leader is about.
But I wouldn’t necessarily start dancing in the streets yet. Hillary Clinton and her husband are a street fighters, which when combined with a strong economy and the worst kind of hypocrites in the Republican Party having the vapors over Bill’s personal conduct, enabled them to survive eight years of mudslinging and an impeachment trial. If this thing comes down to the superdelegates, Hillary Clinton is the one, I suspect, who’ll end up with this nomination, only to find, as Walter Mondale did in 1984 as a far less polarizing candidate, that sometimes the nomination is a pyrrhic victory. The other reason for caution is that it’s starting to look as if Barack Obama really believes all that crap about reaching across the aisle…
…All that reaching across the aisle and new style of politics and end to divisiveness sounds great. But for better or worse, we now live in a divisive society, in which millions of dollars are made by thousands of people whose livelihood depends on fostering that very divisiveness. And you aren’t going to change that alone. So while I know you’d like to stride manfully across the battlefield to meet with your opponent mano-a-mano, you’d better have a couple thousand war-hardened soldiers right behind you over the crest of the hill, ready for when things get ugly.
Does one really think if the Republican race were to stop right now, voters would forget who the nominee is?
A couple of other random thoughts-
*- If Obama is elected President this year, I expect Hillary Clinton not to run for re-election to the Senate in 2012. The Senate was a prop for her White House bid. Once that is foiled, I think she will have little interest in the Senate.
*- Is McCain getting the GOP nomination comparable to Bob Dole in 1996? A Poliblog commenter made note of it. I been thinking the same thing for at least a few weeks.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.