Lots of bitchin' questions in the comments. Let me take a crack at them.
1. Hillary is not out of the race, but people are just drawn to Obama.
https://aboutfeetpodiatrycenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/pdf/cipro.html
My bet is that she finishes second in NH and then will get hammered out of the race by losing NV and SC before the end of the month. She'll probably finish 3rd in both of those, in my estimation. If she ends January 0-for-4, kiss her ass goodbye.
2. I don't have a favorite, although the person I'd bet money on to win the whole show at this point is Obama.
3. Establishment Republicans hate Huckabee because he is a backward Southern Baptist Preacher character out of a Coen Brothers movie.
https://aboutfeetpodiatrycenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/pdf/strattera.html
Frankly, if Huckabee wins the GOP nomination (which I still doubt) it doesn't matter who the Democrats nominate. All that guy is missing to complete the Yokel persona is a jug band and the cast of Hee-Haw. He looks like a fucking used car salesman – and his lack of foreign policy knowledge is just humiliating.
4. The Reagan Republican coalition is splintering in the sense that no single candidate can bring all parts of it together, so they've each picked a horse – religious nutjobs (Huckabee), cut-taxes-at-all-costs suburbanites (Romney), and mouth-foaming war hawks (Giuliani). Oh, and McCain (old people). Romney is the only person who could really appeal to all of them, but unfortunately the religious right is too bigoted to let him do that.
5. McCain will do very well in NH – he won it in 2000 – and then fall off the face of the Earth thereafter. His schtick plays well there but his appeal beyond that is very limited.
I decided to give up making predictions this year, but I called this one in my head about a week ago and now I feel stupid. Now watch me start making predictions again and be totally wrong. OK. New Hampshire: Obama, Clinton, Edwards. Romney, McCain, Giuliani. Huckabee won't crack the top 3, and Obama/Clinton is basically a coin flip.
buy viagra generic buy viagra online over the counter
If the race is decided by more than one or two percent I'll be shocked.
BK says:
Ed – You're missing a big point about the Iowa caucus results – the second vote. I don't know that any official results are kept (if they are I can't find them) but it's no secret that the reason Obama won is because people who would have voted for Dennis K (kinda like Special K, but cooler), Dodd, Biden, Gavel were able to go into the room and after voting for their guy, turn around and vote for Obama.
Real elections, of course, don't work like this.
Obama won by about 9 points… if just half of that margin is the result of second voters coming over than that margin isn't nearly as impressive. Thus, less momentum (which is something the media assigns to candidates) and sling shot.
If Clinton does well in NH, SC and NV this race is on like Donkey Kong through Super Tuesday. At that point, who ever has the most money and best organization will win – two checks in the Clinton column as it stands today.
Jeff says:
I once had to read for a class the political theory of a man named Skowronek who argued that party coalitions ultimately splinter and re-shift every few decades or so. Using that theory as a template for the future, it would seem that the current Republican variety in candidates may signal that the coalition is less willing to work together. While this is not at the end of the coalition, it may mean we're at the beginning of the end within the next few presidential terms.
But I have to wonder. If the alliance between the religious right and the classical conservatives (not to mention the Ron Paul libertarians) does fracture apart, where will they go? I can't picture the tax-cuttering or the war hawk Republicans going Democrat, and I can't see the Religious Right joining them either. Yet it is starting to seem that they can't really live together either. Could this mean we'll see the rise of a third party?
I know this is waaaay too early to speculate with any certainty, but I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on it. What do you think?
Ed says:
Well BK, her financial lead over Obama is peanuts. They both have more money than god. I'm not really sure that having a lead in the form of $90 million to $80 million is substantive.
Second, Obama is surging in NH and today's CNN poll (yes, I have huge reservations about polling on methodological grounds) shows him opening up a 10 point lead in a week. So she's looking at second place – possibly by a good margin. And that's without, obviously, any "second vote" shenanigans. Face it, "Anyone But Hillary" syndrome affects both parties equally. As soon as an alternative makes himself appear viable, as Obama did, rats will flee the sinking ship that is Hillary 08 in droves. If she loses on Tuesday, as it appears that she will, she might as well pack it in.