Home Stretch

[bryant]

A little less than two weeks until Super Tuesday. We'll come out of that one knowing who the nominee is going to be on both sides.

Huckabee is out of cash, and his campaign is not holding on. Short of a very surprising result in Florida, he's out of it. Even with a boost in Florida, he's low on money and won't have the cash to campaign across Super Tuesday's states.

That leaves Romney and McCain. Either can continue past a strong second place finish in Florida. McCain appears to be picking up votes from the Giuliani collapse. I don't know who's benefiting from Thompson's departure; Thompson's image as an heir to Reagan doesn't match well with the maverick McCain or the governor who presided over universal health care... but if I had to bet I'd say Romney gets those votes, and Florida polling bears that out.

But! Romney is not going to get a lot of Huckabee's voters. So when Huckabee's support slips away, that'll help McCain.

Who wins Florida? I dunno, it's neck and neck. Romney and McCain are both trending upwards. To maintain my record of flawed predictions: McCain. And I expect McCain to win the big Super Tuesday states.

Meanwhile, the Democratic primaries are simply weird. Florida votes don't count, since Florida lost its delegates for having an early primary. So who cares? Not Obama, who's focusing on South Carolina. Clinton wins Florida by a lot. (Edwards is still third.) Meanwhile, Obama clearly wins South Carolina, but he's supposed to do that, so will people care? I dunno. The only drama there is whether or not Edwards overtakes Clinton for second place, which seems unlikely. In fact, I predict it doesn't happen.

After that it's Super Tuesday. Clinton has huge leads in New York, New Jersey, and California. Obama ought to do well in Illinois, but that's 153 delegates compared to the 709 represented by the other three states. Excellent showings in the southern states help make up for that, but not enough.

Which means I don't see how Obama can come out of Super Tuesday on top barring very sudden changes in the landscape over the next week and a half. Which can happen, but... unlikely.

Thus: McCain vs. Clinton in the general, with a moderate degree of confidence. Will revise post-Florida.

Comments

[rfrancis]

Ignoring quibbles with the details, I'm saying the same thing about the results. Furthermore, I think McCain's strong in that matchup -- Clinton energizes the base, but sadly, it's McCain's base, and McCain, if he can keep his fool mouth shut (BIG if), doesn't have the same effect on the Dems and moderates. His Iraq position is bad to many, but Clinton's in no position to attack him strongly on it (while, apparently, he already feels free to take shots at her super-liberal stance on Iraq, which is hilarious, but oh well.)

Kucinich is officially out, I just read, with the announcement tomorrow. I'm leaning towards Edwards as a "stop beating each other to death" protest vote or something.

[urnesha.livejournal.com]

This has absolutely nothing to do with your post but I wanted to let you know that I friended you recently (no obligation to friend back). :) Just figured I needed to complete the trio. :)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

McCain vs. Clinton in the general, with a moderate degree of confidence.

Which is what it looked like a year ago, before all the shouting. :)

[vampyrusgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, everything between then and now has just been a sham to keep people from getting bored. :P Probably had the opposite effect, though...

[death-by-monkey.livejournal.com]

Wait - what? The Giuliani collapse?

/sarcasm off

Cracks me up that it's taken the media this long to come to grips with Giuliani falling behind in the polls.

[drivingblind.livejournal.com]

They didn't seem to beat each other up too much in the last debate (at least what I saw of it on the Daily Show, heh).

Clinton badly needs someone with some Elvis in him in her VP spot, for pretty much the reasons you're pointing at.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

I realize this is not what you meant but for a split second I thought you were lumping in Bryant's LJ with "the media," as if he were Joe Klein or David Brooks, and I laughed at the thought for it was humorous to me.

[death-by-monkey.livejournal.com]

What? He's not? What kind of hack pundit have I been reading here, then? ;)

[bryant]

An unpaid one. What's up with that?

[bryant]

Won't be Edwards, either. Which doesn't surprise me; he doesn't wanna be the perpetual VP candidate. I hear a rumor about the AG spot in an Obama administration.

Man, I dunno who'd make a good Clinton VP.

[bryant]

Obama won SC by a /lot/. That'll help him more than I thought. Meanwhile, Clinton is being exceedingly tricky about Florida, in a nice bit of political theater.

The Republican race may come down to Florida, but I think that as long as it's tight, McCain can win Super Tuesday still.

More after Florida.

[death-by-monkey.livejournal.com]

Good point - have you ever thought of charging a subscription?