LA/NE/WA/ME (D) and KS/LA/WA (R) post-mortems
February 12th 2008 07:14
There were seven primaries and caucuses held this past weekend. Here are the results (Saturday and Sunday):
Democrats --
Obama won all four contests (Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, and Maine) by large margins.
Republicans --
Huckabee won two of the three Republican contests. He won Kansas by a very large margin and he narrowly won Louisiana. In Washington, McCain was named as the projected winner after 87% of the votes were cast. Apparently, the Washington State GOP opted to stop counting votes at that point with McCain only leading by a small margin. Huckabee is challenging that decision to stop counting the votes. His justifiable claim is that the narrow McCain lead was not insurmountable and that 13% of the GOP electorate was being disenfranchised.
Takeaways:
Democrats --
Obama seems to have all the momentum at this point. None of his victories this past weekend were remotely close. Clinton has now made some staff changes after the poor showing. While Obama has the momentum, his and Clinton's delegate totals are still nearly identical. This race could very well go all the way to the convention. Again, as I mentioned in my Super Tuesday post, keep an eye on the issue of the superdelegates. If they throw the election to the candidate who doesn't get a majority of the total votes or states or vote-based delegates, there could be a real meltdown at the convention.
Republicans --
While McCain is still the presumptive nominee, Huckabee's strong showing this weekend reflects continued dissatisfaction with McCain -- especially by conservatives. I still don't think McCain could lose, but strong showings by Huckabee could impede McCain's already-difficult task of unifying the GOP heading into November.
Up next: DC, Maryland, and Virginia
Democrats --
Obama won all four contests (Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, and Maine) by large margins.
Republicans --
Huckabee won two of the three Republican contests. He won Kansas by a very large margin and he narrowly won Louisiana. In Washington, McCain was named as the projected winner after 87% of the votes were cast. Apparently, the Washington State GOP opted to stop counting votes at that point with McCain only leading by a small margin. Huckabee is challenging that decision to stop counting the votes. His justifiable claim is that the narrow McCain lead was not insurmountable and that 13% of the GOP electorate was being disenfranchised.
Takeaways:
Democrats --
Obama seems to have all the momentum at this point. None of his victories this past weekend were remotely close. Clinton has now made some staff changes after the poor showing. While Obama has the momentum, his and Clinton's delegate totals are still nearly identical. This race could very well go all the way to the convention. Again, as I mentioned in my Super Tuesday post, keep an eye on the issue of the superdelegates. If they throw the election to the candidate who doesn't get a majority of the total votes or states or vote-based delegates, there could be a real meltdown at the convention.
Republicans --
While McCain is still the presumptive nominee, Huckabee's strong showing this weekend reflects continued dissatisfaction with McCain -- especially by conservatives. I still don't think McCain could lose, but strong showings by Huckabee could impede McCain's already-difficult task of unifying the GOP heading into November.
Up next: DC, Maryland, and Virginia
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Comment by S.L. Bradish
Comment by PopulistConservative
Angry Electorate
I still think Clinton will win. She's like the undead. Just when I think the country can turn the page on the Clintons, they pop up again...and again...and again.
I don't think McCain's veep will matter. Everyone knows that McCain does what McCain wants to do. A veep won't have any influence and anyone who knows anything about McCain knows that he is the ultimate "decider".
Regardless, though, I don't see a way that the GOP can win this fall. The party can't even rally it's own base because of years of mismanagement of the conservative brand.
Comment by S.L. Bradish
Otherwise, I have to agree that the Clinton "bad pennies" keep coming back. I thought at one time the whole country had had its fill of "Clinton fatigue." But there seem to be some who are gluttons for punishment...
Comment by PopulistConservative
Angry Electorate
With that being said, one veep pick that would make me pay attention is Tom Coburn. He's one of the best Senators we have right now and is a McCain supporter. He's pretty young and he's a strong across-the-board conservative. Honestly, I was surprised when he came out for McCain.
I don't like the GOP's policy of nominating the "next one in line". They should always let the people pick and stop pushing the pick of the party's elites on us (through financial or other support).
Comment by S.L. Bradish
Not to play the race card (or the gender card, either) but J.C. Watts, Alan Keyes or Condi Rice could provide him with a better chance of victory. A Hillary/Obama ticket wouldn't surprise me at all. So a GOP ticket including a younger, conservative female/black might take the wind out of the dem/lib sails. They wouldn't be able to guilt people into voting for them if the opposition had a similar ticket.
Comment by PopulistConservative
Angry Electorate
I would like Watts or Rice. I think Keyes is just not popular enough. I also think Michael Steele would fit the bill. I think that strategy would be more effective against Clinton than Obama, though.
Comment by S.L. Bradish
I like Michael Steele, too. After the way the dems/libs treated him in his gubernatorial campaign, that would be a "black eye" for them, for sure! lol