Michigan Predictions

[bryant]

Romney, McCain, Huckabee; it sets up a three-way race as we head for the South, with Huckabee trailing the other two slightly. The money should coalesce behind either McCain or Romney, in the end, but I don't know who and it might be decided by Super Tuesday.

The excitement at this point is seeing if Romney and McCain can split the delegates enough to keep Huckabee significant post-Feb 5th.

Comments

[bluegargantua]

O, Rudy, where art thou?

Tom

[editswlonghair.livejournal.com]

It'll be really interesting to see if Kos et. al's attempt to get out the Democratic vote for Romney will amount to anything. I hope Romney does win and keep it a 3-way race so the bloodletting on the GOP side can continue awhile longer.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time judging whether Romney's campaign is about to end, or whether that's projection from all the pro-McCain forces that desperately want it to end.

[bryant]

I think Romney's roots in the state plus his money will have a bigger effect.

[bryant]

The problem for McCain is that Romney's preferable from the point of view of the party. McCain is grumpy, soft on immigration, and weak on torture. So while McCain's the frontrunner now, it won't take much for his support to veer back to Romney.

Michigan is pretty crucial.

[editswlonghair.livejournal.com]

Probably. But I think it's a brilliant strategy and in a tightly contested race, a few thousand votes can mean all the difference.

And it's got some GOPers crying foul, so it's hit a nerve.

[editswlonghair.livejournal.com]

"weak on torture"

isn't it appalling how torture has become one of the planks of GOP policy?!? Man, what a strange and depressing time we live in...

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

The McCain polling data is bizarre. NYT poll before Xmas, his approval/dispproval numbers were like 30/50/20 (I forget the actual numbers and am too lazy to check because I am not a journalist) and after New Hampshire they're like 50/30/20. A full 20 of the respondees went from a negative view of him to a positive one, with the undecided number not changing.

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

I think there's a tendency to coalesce behind the winner. And not to be stereotypical about it or anything, I think the tendency is stronger among Republicans.

Note also that McCain is statistically tied with any of the Democrats in "if election were today" polls, while all the other Republicans lose by double digits -- some support for him might be because he's "electable".

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that most of the electorate really isn't into "issues". If he makes the right noises, the specifics of what policies he'll actually follow are pretty irrelevant for most supporters. And that's neither a specifically-Republican nor specifically-Democratic thing. Republicans will forgive him the torture stuff because he also sang "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran", so they know he hates scary middle easterners enough to make them feel safe.

(If you need proof that issues don't much matter to most people, consider the folks who waver in their support between Kucinich and R*n Pa*l.)

[bryant]

Oh, the Democrats are just as subject to this -- note that Edwards isn't even on the list of viable candidates any more, despite having a reasonable number of delegates. I don't think he has much of a chance, but there's a lot of dismissal going on there.

In fact, at the moment, the Republican Party is admitting to three possible candidates whereas the Democratic Party is down to two.

Media + polls = closed feedback loop, for both parties.