Snap Political Analysis
Some brief thoughts about the US presidential election after Super Tuesday:
-The biggest winner from the Republican side is Mike Huckabee. No, he won't be the party's nominee, but Huck's ability to win in the deep South could make him a viable VP candidate. If not, Huckabee will undoubtedly gain a lot of momentum in his political career after this win and will be a major voice on the Elephant side regardless of what happens in November.
-The biggest loser, undoubtedly, is Mitt Romney. The Republican media establishment backs him, but he simply hasn't been able to match the gravitas of John McCain or the Christian appeal of Mike Huckabee. He's exactly the sort of candidate who looks good on paper but can't perform when it counts. If he drops out soon, which some are predicting, the libertarian wing of the Republican Party will face a very unappetizing choice between the other two.
- As for McCain, Romney's bad night solidifies his status as the inevitable nominee. But his inability to win in the former Confederacy is troubling; will he have to take a Huckabee on board to placate social conservatives? A Mac and Huck ticket would not go over well on Wall Street.
-The Democrats, as expected, are even. For Obama, this is good news only in the sense that no one will refer to Hillary Clinton as the presumed frontrunner anymore. Yet Clinton took the night's biggest prize- my home state of California- which could portend her strength as a national candidate.
In political terms I'm a pessimist by nature; two successive Bush victories taught me never to get my hopes up too high. But I have to say that the Democrats should be feeling pretty good about themselves right now. Overall, their turnout has been consistently higher than the Republicans has, indicating a high degree of enthusiasm for the election. While both Clinton and Obama are flawed candidates, neither has serious problems with their party base a la Huckabee and McCain. Should Clinton eek out the nomination, as most people expect, forming a ticket with Obama would be a serious possibility- and serious trouble for the Republicans.
But as a pessimist would say: there's still time for things to go wrong!
February 7th, 2008 - 23:43
Here is the nightmare scenario for the Demos: Neither Clinton nor Obama win enough delegates in the primaries to secure the nomination and the determining factor is the vote of the “super delegates” (or worse yet, the vote of the Florida and Michigan delegates) who nominate Clinton. This reeks of old line power politics and turns off the energized youths and independents. Since conservatives ultimately care most about their pocket books, they hold their nose and vote for McCain. Result: President John McCain and imperial America spreading democracy and moral values throughout the world via military involvement continues for at least another four years. And you think you are a pessimist.