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.
How many electrons will needlessly die because of Dick Morris running his mouth?
The toe sucker hath spoken.
I would have if I knew then what I know now. The 1986 amnesty was a big mistake. The government projected that one million would apply for amnesty and the number turned out to be three million. Today, the government estimates that we have 12 million illegals, a conservative estimate from others like the Bear-Stearns report that estimates that there are 20 milliom
Even if the number is 12 million, they will be able to sponsor another 66 million LEGAL immigrants thru chain migration, i.e., family reunification. These are enormous numbers when you consider that we will add another 167 million to our population in 50 years without these additional 66 million. The cost estimate is $2.6 trilllion for the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill at the same time that our entitlment programs are going down the toliet, Medicare in 2013 and SS in 2017. We can't assimilate these kinds of numbers.
Sad that you wouldn’t support Reagan and his winning of the cold war.
Phony strawman and flawed logic. We may have won the cold war and lost our country if McCain has his way.
Again.. voting libertarian is a vote for Hillary. You are not offsetting a DU vote for Hillary.
We need every vote to defeat hillary. Surely Reagan’s vote would not be wasted like yours will be. He would be happy to support John McCain. I have no doubt on that.. jeez.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
-George Orwell, Animal Farm
Great election cycle. Can we just skip this election and go to the next?
So even with the mistake of Amnesty, Reagan still was not the person to vote for in 1980/1984?
I don’t think any of you “real conservatives” even have the ability to think 2 or 3 moves ahead. It’s almost like you are so mad at McCain that you will prefer to elect Hillary at any cost.
McCain is everything that is wrong with my once proud party.
I will never pull the lever for him, even if Reagan came up from the grave to command me to it.
There is no comparison between the Amnesty of 1986 and the Amnesty of 2007. The orders of magnitude are very different. Reagan made a mistake, which is why we have the problem we have today. The 1986 amnesty was supposed to be a one time event that would solve the problem. It didn't because we granted amnesty but didn't implement the rest of the act, namely enforcement. Doing the same thing again and expecting a different results the definition of insanity.
I don’t think any of you “real conservatives” even have the ability to think 2 or 3 moves ahead. It’s almost like you are so mad at McCain that you will prefer to elect Hillary at any cost.
If amnesty passes, everything else is meaningless. That is what is called thinking ahead. By 2050, without amnesty, one in four residents of this country will be Hispanic. Non-Hispanic whites will have declined to 50% of the population down from 89% in 1965. Hispanics made up 1 % of the population in 1965. We run the risk of a Balkanized country along cultural and linguistic lines.
Romney is now advertising like crazy and is acting like a born-again right winger. His ads don’t say anything about Gay Rights and letting Gays in the Boy Scouts.
Does anyone know why?
It really doesn’t matter. Its Romney, Huckabee or McCain. Romney’s probably the best choice.
H
I like Rudy better than McCain, but think McCain is the stronger candidate against Hillary.
The New York liberal media despises Rudy and will harass him forever on his personal transgressions. McCain they can’t touch. Romney is so phony, I don’t he plays well anywhere except maybe Utah, Michigan, and Nevada, his “home” states.
Do you have any idea why so many FReepers are so resistant to facts? Romney's poll numbers have been nonstop pathetic, even in red states, yet there is a steady stream of fantasy postings about how he will win both the primary and the general.
I didn't want McCain either, but he's our only chance. It's either this war hero and his exceedingly elegant wife or a re-run of Mr. and Mrs. Yale-educated Trailer Trash.
I've yet to meet the Thompson voter who will now go for Gomer Huckster. Yeah, I'm sure there are a few, but I'm betting that at least 75% will go for Romney as the least awful of the remaining 4. That's how I'm going.
Hillary v McLame?
“Eeny Meeny Miney Mo...”
Looks like it will be Mitt vs. Obama :)
Then hildebeast will be POTUS. McCain can’t win.
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