Super Tuesday

I have now had some time to mull over the results from yesterday, and offer an assessment of the current situation for the nomination for both parties. Let us start with the Democrats first.

For the second time, I thought that Obama might carry the day. I thought, based on the latest polling, that Obama had a decent chance here in California, and several other spots as well. I didn't expect him to sweep her away, but I did expect him to beat her by a small but noticeable margin. As things stand now both are roughly equal in terms of states won and delegates won. Right after the results came in many people, including yours truly, thought that we might be heading for a brokered convention for the Democrats, or at least, a situation where the Super Delegates decided the eventual Democratic nominee. Such a situation would probably help Hillary out the most, as she has the greater number of machine connections, and personal favors owed. In such an event, the Democratic nominee would be dogged by rumors of back-room deals and could be handicapped in the general election.

However, there are some signs this may not come to pass. My thoughts even just a few hours ago were that this situation would probably repeat itself. It would look as if Obama would finally surge over Hillary, but in the end her Machine would save her to fight on. Now come rumors that her campaign staff are not getting paid. This is very ill news indeed for her campaign. She has apparently loaned her campaign 5 million dollars, yet another bad sign. Meanwhile, Obama looks set to raise 30 million dollars. I said long ago, well before this blog was created, that Hillary would likely win a short, furious nomination race but lose a protracted race. I believed that her high unfavorables, coupled with the re-airing of dirty laundry from the Clinton years, would help galvanize support against her. That may yet come to pass. She does have a hefty machine behind her, but if she runs out of money... well, like a car that runs out of fuel, her campaign may stutter then stall.


Now for the Republican race. I think that there were two significant events last night. First, Mike Huckabee did well in the South. He won fives states, all southern. These wins did several things. They gave Huckabee a nice bunch of delegates, giving him some clout come the convention. Secondly, his wins denied Romney a chance to show he can do well in primaries where has hasn't lived for a while, and that he can win in the south. Lastly, these wins give Huckabee a compelling reason to stay in the race. Its true that he is still a regional candidate, doing well only in the south and areas with lots of Evangelicals. However, he can still pull critical votes away from Romney across the board.

The second most important event was really two events: John winning in Missouri and California. These two wins, especially the later, give John a delegate lead that is essentially insurmountable. At this point, Mitt Romney can only realistically hope to create a brokered convention. Which would, I think, only result in Mike Huckabee leveraging his votes for a VP slot. I suspect that Mitt will stay in for a week or two, test the waters after the effects of Super Tuesday have filtered out, then "stop active campaiging", if you will. That way he can jump back in should things change somehow. At this point John's primary goal will be work on uniting the party and bringing movement conservatives into the fold.