Welcome the Ides of March?
Believe it or not, I am actually holding back most of my thoughts on the election. Most of my writing is funneled to comments sections on political blogs. These noble blogs are taking a bullet for you so you can have more YouTube videos and LOL catz, the latter of which I just found out that my friend Kate pronounces so completely wrong that she seriously should not even bother to argue with me about it.
I feel like I should put myself out there with a prediction though. It’s easy to call most conventional wisdom B.S. when you don’t offer your own prediction. So here it is.
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that all this talk about the fight for super delegates and a nomination battle up to the convention is political masturbation. Unless Hillary Clinton has a tremendous showing in OH and TX, the super delegates will shift en masse to Obama by the middle of March and effectively end the nomination race. They are looking for an excuse to declare a winner and avoid a divisive and resource-draining nomination process while McCain is able to husband his resources and define his opponents while they are too distracted to fight back.
By tremendous showing, I mean win OH and TX by a combined 25% or more. Ohio is especially important because it is a swing state in the general election, and Clinton will need to be able to point to the results and make the argument that Obama cannot win in Ohio as part of a general argument that she is more electable than he is. This prediction is based on Obama winning in the next primary, Wisconsin, which Obama currently has a slight edge in.
FYI: Clinton currently has a poll average of an 18% lead in Ohio. Strangely, there are no polls yet for Texas but the conventional wisdom is that the state significantly favors Clinton . If the election were held today, Clinton would clear the 25% mark. If that happened, there would be a huge conventional wisdom battle on the question, “Who is most electable?” I can’t predict who would win that battle, especially at this point.
You all have permission to rub this in my face if I am wrong, although I will probably beat you to the punch. Because I like punch, It’s fruity and reminds me of the colorless people of Hawaii, who make the punch and have funny hair.
Update: This is a good summary of the situation. I’m not sure if John Lewis officially switched, but the important point is that he is publicly giving credibility to the idea of switching. Clinton can still win, but she’ll have to show that she is the better candidate in a clear way, through more total votes and pledged delegates. Unsolicited campaign advice for Clinton: I’d drop the attacks against Obama and draw on the compassion of her supporters. Her few successes this year were when she allowed herself to show she was vulnerable–tearing up in New Hampshire, loaning money to her campaign (she got a record number of donations after people saw she needed the money). I think she would get more out of saying, “My back is against the wall. I need you.” than any attack or other campaign tactic.
We are at a point in American politics where being a woman or black isn’t necesarrily an overall negative. These traits have an equally positive side, but you have to be clever in how you negotiate them. The double standards aren’t fair, but they exist and can be worked around. Obama figured this out long ago. Will Clinton?
Mike said,
February 15, 2008 @ 9:37 am
You’ve got guts, kid. The last prediction I heard before the DC/VA/MD primaries by a pundit was prefaced by “Now, I know we’ve all learned a lesson from the caucus states that we can’t make accurate predictions based on polling numbers, but…”
Also, do you know if superdelegates have played a critical role in past elections? Like in the 2000 election, did superdelegates favor Gore or Bush? When an election is won, pundits always talk about a “mandate”. If the majority of delegates, and popular votes, side with Obama, while the superdelegates side with Clinton, I don’t think Clinton could consider that a mandate at all. I think she could call that winning by the skin of her teeth.
Mike said,
February 15, 2008 @ 9:48 am
By which, of course, I mean: enamel.
p.s. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=4295602&page=1
Jason said,
February 15, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Hi Mike,
The word “mandate” is used to describe a strong victory in the general election, not a primary election, so it doesn’t really apply here. To my knowledge, super delegates don’t exist for the general election. They are a function of the Democratic primary process only. The Republicans are missing out on all the fun.
You’re right though that if Clinton won that way, she wouldn’t be able to claim strong support by her party. Then again, if Obama won in a squeaker, he wouldn’t either. I don’t see it getting to that point though.