Posted on 01/22/2008 10:33:03 AM PST by seanmerc
Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain scored hugely significant wins on Saturday in Nevada and South Carolina, wins which might set them on the road to the nomination.
Hillary is very likely to lose South Carolina because of the large black vote there. Had she lost Nevada too, she would have been badly handicapped going into Florida and Super Tuesday, having suffered two consecutive defeats. But now that she has won Nevada, she can lose South Carolina and still have momentum.
The run-up to South Carolina and the primary itself will feature constant focus on the African-American vote. Analysts and pundits will wonder if the wife of the “first black president” will lose to the real thing. She will. But, in a curious way, this will hurt Obama more than it will help him. It will create a racial subtext to a campaign that, until Iowa, didn’t have one. Watching blacks block vote for Obama will trigger a white backlash that will help Hillary win Florida and to prevail the week after.
McCain’s loss to Mitt Romney in Michigan, following his victory in New Hampshire, can now be written off to a hometown favorite triumphing. Romney’s win in Nevada is easily discounted because of the huge Mormon population there. Nobody else had a chance. His thrashing in South Carolina, however, severely weakens his candidacy and robs him of any momentum from Michigan.
The biggest loser in South Carolina was Rudy Giuliani. He now must face a resurgent McCain in Florida who steals his votes away. Rudy is a bit like the guy who went away to college and came home to find that some other guy had stolen his girl. McCain has used Rudy’s unaccountable absence from the campaign trail to take away the moderates and the national security conservatives to Rudy’s lasting detriment. Had McCain faltered in South Carolina, Rudy could have come on strong in Florida. But with McCain hitting the state soaring, Rudy is in bad shape.
Mike Huckabee will keep on being Huckabee and will win his share of the vote. His showing was good enough to assure that evangelicals won’t desert him and he has now gotten rid of the pesky Fred Thompson who was competing with him for southern votes. The former Arkansas governor will get his share of votes in each of the primaries and his share of delegates to go with them. Likely he will enter the convention without the nomination but with enough of a block of supporters to be a force to be reckoned with within the party. He would make a great VP for McCain.
McCain is, of course, the Republican who, apart from Rudy, would have the best chance to defeat Hillary. She can’t pull the old experience gambit on this long term Senator and his record on everything from global warming to corporate reform to campaign finance to torture to tobacco regulation to immigration reform makes it very hard for Hillary to defeat him. And, because of his appeal to Hispanics left over from his battle for the McCain-Kennedy immigration plan, he is ideally suited to take minority voters, burned by Hillary’s scorched earth policy against Barack Obama, away from the Democrats.
It’s too early to coronate McCain or Hillary but they have clearly moved to the level of front runners as a result of their victories on Saturday.
check out his predictions on Hannity for the past year and you will find consistancy is not part of his DNA.
good post...concur completely!
What Morris is saying is that McCain is more of a Democrat than Hillary is. There is no difference between them on the issues except the war and that could be a non-issue by the time the general election comes around. The question for Dems will be do we elect the RINO or the real thing?
Total BS. You know McCain head to head can easily beat Hillary. Romney and even Fred Thompson would be 5-10 points below McCain. McCain appeals to a broader group. He is a decent man and we need to support him.
Hillary is your candidate otherwise.
“Wow, if you really believe this, you haven’t been paying attention.”
I have paid attention to Morris since he began with Clinton and folowed him closely since then. He knows how to guide a candidate to victory; knows how to evaluate every candidate’s move; knows how the electorate will interpret those moves. Bashing him due to the foot fetish is to ignore his intelligence in the political arena. Many or most men have a breast fetish; his happens to be feet - that is immaterial to politics.
On immigration, they hold the same positions. If amnesty is passed, this country is finished as we know it. Everything else is like straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I’m not bashing him on his foot fetish, I’m bashing him on his predictions, which have been notriously bad, at least in the last several years. (Condi v. Hillary in 2008, Hillary will be the nominee in 2004, and many others.) Who else really believed that Condi was going to run?
Again. You would have voted against Reagan for his Amnesty plan. That’s the continuation of your logic.
Sad that you wouldn’t support Reagan and his winning of the cold war.
Wasn’t it Morris who said Hillary would never run for President?
Always on the money, aren’t you, Dick?
So.. I guess you are saying if you don’t support McCain, then you are embracing a winning strategy?
I think you haven’t thought through the impact of your decision on the race. Freepers can without their labor from McCain.. Ruth needs more of her buddies on the Supreme Court.. and Hillary has great plans for Iraq.
Either way, we’re screwed. In my younger days, I never imagined I would live to see the downfall of this country.
The two hot heads.
Your logic is crazy.
If you don’t vote, then you are not offsetting a DU vote for Hillary. In effect, by not voting, you are voting for Hillary.
Republicans will vote for him.. he is the frontrunner.
Ronald Reagan would vote for McCain.. are you better than him?
I’m a pro-lifer who is comfortable with McCain’s stand on abortion.
Snap out of it man. We are in the primaries ... not the general election...yet. McCain is a prime example of the ebb and flow of political trends and media noisemaking.
LOL, we make it through a civil war, two world wars, a cold war, a massive terrorist attack, etc....and now we will “see the downfall of the country” because we don’t like the Presidential candidates? LOL.
Is he even corrct then?
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