Let-Down Wednesday

If you’re reading this, then you appear to have survived Tsunami Tuesday. Good for you. In doing so you have accomplished a feat of absolutely no significance. Kinda like Super Tuesday. Sort of.

If you were leaning toward voting Republican, yesterday’s events more-or-less solidified John McCain as the front-runner for the nomination and set the tone for the rest of the primary campaign. If you were leaning toward voting Democratic, then yesterday’s events more-or-less told you nothing. I’ve spent most of today listening to results and analysis from pretty much anyone with access to media and I’m more confused now than I was yesterday. Let’s review, shall we? This may take a while, so fire up some popcorn and park yourself in front of the computer for a little light reading. Republicans first. Not because I like them better. Their results are just easier to decipher.

Barring a stellar implosion, divine rapture or massive coronary, Arizona Senator John McCain will take the Republican presidential nomination. It’s just a matter of time. He won big states by large margins, and in the Republican system of winner-take-all primaries, that’s really all that matters. McCain carries three of the five most populous states in his win column (New York, California and Florida) with Texas and Pennsylvania looming on the horizon. By CNNs count, McCain has 218 more delegates than his two-and-a-half remaining rivals combined, (I’m sorry, but Ron Paul can really only be counted as half a candidate), and 57% of the total number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination. And he’s accomplished all this in the face of what can only be described as vicious – if not venomous opposition from the conservative wing of the Republican Party. He has little credibility among religious conservatives, less credibility with fiscal conservatives, and no credibility with anti-immigration conservatives. Radio talk show icon rush Limbaugh has mounted an anti-McCain campaign, with help from many of his peers like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram and Ann Coulter. One might think that with opposition like that no Republican candidate could ever amount to anything in a presidential primary race. Yet McCain continues to thrive, and he’s doing it on the support of defense conservatives, moderate conservatives and moderate-to-conservative independents, whose voices are drowning out those of the more traditional Republican primary voter. Given his record throughout his time in government it’s difficult to understand why the level of resistance is so high, but I do have a theory. The traditionally vocal Republican base voter has four core issues: taxes, defense, immigration and abortion. McCain has always been pro-life, and has always argued for a strong defense and robust military budget. But in the last eight years he has committed the cardinal sins of voting against tax cuts, (which he says he felt were fiscally irresponsible at the time), and insisting on a sensible immigration policy instead of simply militarizing the borders and throwing the bums out. In the Republican Party, those are two sins for which forgiveness and redemption are very hard to come by. In addition to that, passionate conservatives, like Limbaugh and Coulter, do not believe in compromise. NEVER. The word is not part of their vocabulary. They firmly believe that independents, moderates and liberals need to be soundly defeated – not worked with. And passionate conservatives view John McCain as a compromiser. And he made his biggest compromise on the issue of immigration with the biggest liberal icon of the past 40 years, the devil himself, Ted Kennedy. If tomorrow McCain were to heal the sick, feed the hungry and walk on water, it would not be enough to atone for making a deal with the devil. Yet, in spite of all this, he continues to win primary after primary by wide margins over his more conservative rivals. This primary race seems to be exposing a shift in the balance of power in the Republican Party. A shift away from the right toward the center. A shift toward a candidate who isn’t afraid of opposing ideas and shows a willingness to work with the opposition in the interest of actually accomplishing something for the people.

Mitt Romney is toast. Butter him up, fill him with some roast beef, dip him in some au jus and chow down because he’s finished. Sure he won some primaries yesterday, but aside from Rudy Giullani – who is no longer part of the discussion, the former Governor of Massachusetts has received the least bang for his buck throughout this process. His campaign has been worth over 90 million dollars, and he has spent a huge chuck of that (including more that 37 million dollars of his own personal fortune) on political advertising and other things, only to find himself staring longingly at John McCain’s taillights through a telescope. For the sake of comparison, McCain has raised less than half of Romney’s total, and Huckabee a mere 10% of that. For a businessman, that is incredibly inefficient. Touted by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter as the only true conservative candidate remaining in the GOP field, one would think that Romney should be doing much better in many of these races. So why isn’t he? Two things. Mike Huckabee is absolutely KILLING Mitt Romney. In every state with a religious conservative voting block, the two of them split the vote – often with Huckabee capturing the lion’s share. Evangelical Christians – especially in the South, are very suspicious of any one who is not an evangelical Christian. That includes Christians of other denominations, like say, Catholics, and Mormons. Spend a few hours listening to your talk radio show of choice and pay special attention to the callers identifying themselves as evangelicals. Take note of what they say about Mormons and why they don’t feel comfortable voting for one. As long as Romney continues splitting that conservative vote with Huckabee it will be impossible for him to compete with McCain. In addition to all that, more than a few voters view Romney much the same way many people view his hair – processed. A fraud. A flip-flopper. A fake. A guy who will say anything for a vote. Only six years ago Romney ran for (and was elected) governor of Massachusetts as pro-choice and pro-gay rights. Two positions that he now adamantly opposes. I think a lot of people, (myself included) just have a hard time taking him seriously. But, he’s a sucker for punishment, and has vowed to remain in the race until the convention, at which time he will throw himself on stage in a tantrum, screaming and flailing his arms and legs until someone finally pays attention to him and offers him some candy.

What Former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee did Tuesday night was make his case for the vice presidential selection. In a surprise to just about everyone, he took Georgia from McCain, stomped all over everyone in Arkansas, and wrapped up Tennessee, Alabama, and West Virginia as well. And he accomplished all this on a shoestring budget of 9 million dollars and with Chuck Norris and Ric Flair as campaign managers. In some circles they would call that a miracle. Huckabee is a former Baptist minister and holds incredible sway with Bible Belt Republicans. He also comes off as an amiable, funny, really nice guy. Like him or not, he’s a better communicator than Romney – and perhaps even McCain - and is able to tell you what he believes and why he believes it before you get bored with him. Dyed-in-the-wool fiscal and small government conservatives still watch Huckabee out of the corner of their eyes due to his support of spending on education and use of taxes to balance the Arkansas budget. But at least they don’t throw him out like yesterdays trash the way they do some of the other candidates in this race. And with his strong showing in Southern states where the front-runner seems to lack any kind of influence, he could be a valuable asset to a John McCain general election campaign. At this point, 504 delegates behind McCain, Huckabee knows he has no realistic hope of capturing the nomination. But he also knows that at little as six months ago, absolutely no one knew who Mike Huckabee was. John McCain is old, and even if he were to become president, I think it’s unlikely he have the energy to pursue a second term. If Huckabee can get himself on the ticket and collect four years of experience, it puts him in a great position to pick up where McCain might leave off.

And now to the Democrats.

Super Tuesday produced some fairly significant victories for New York Senator Hilary Clinton. She captured the two biggest prizes of the evening in New York and California, as well as several other large-delegate states like New Jersey and Massachusetts as well as four others. There was a slightly embarrassing moment when her campaign declared a victory in Missouri, only to have to rescind that claim later when it turned out the state actually went to Obama. But aside from that, things went pretty well. Clinton is drawing female voters in huge numbers, and winning Hispanics 2 to 1 over her rival. That Hispanic vote put her over the top in California and sets her up for a big win in the upcoming delegate-rich Texas primary. But despite her achievements Tuesday night, Clinton is in no better position than she was in Tuesday morning. She did not open the gap between herself and Obama, and stories surfaced this afternoon that she may be having financial issues. Her fund-raising total for January came to approximately 15 million dollars compared to Obama’s 32 million, many of her donors have reached the contribute limit, and there is a report that she made a 5 million dollar personal loan to her campaign. And things are likely to get worse before they get better. Between now and the seemingly friendly contests in Texas and Ohio are about half-a-dozen contests which would seem to demographically favor the competition. She’s going to have to do a considerable amount of work to either hold off a surging Obama and perhaps steal wins in several states to tide her over, or try to capture some of his enthusiasm among younger voters, and convince others that her six years of experience are considerably more valuable than charisma and change. Clinton has been around for a long time and she has the battle scars to prove it. She’s tough and she’s a fighter, but this may be the most difficult battle she has ever engaged in.

If I’m Barack Obama, I’m feeling pretty good today. Not even two weeks ago the Illinois Senator trailed Clinton by 20+ points in some national polls. Fourteen days later he captures five more states than his rival, takes possibly more delegates, and performs better in her own back yard than she did in his. In many ways, the compressed schedule of the campaign, which favored Obama early on, is now his enemy. Ever since the victory in South Carolina, the Kennedy family endorsements and Edwards’s removal from the race, Obama has been quickly and steadily gaining ground on Clinton. Had Super Tuesday taken place a week later there is a very good chance he may have overtaken Clinton in places like New Jersey and California. Regardless of how this primary race turns out, Obama must be credited with bringing a huge number of people – particularly young people and independents – to a process they have until now been disinterested in. Every Democratic primary and caucus has enjoyed record turnout, and his rallies now routinely draw 20,000 people, filling arenas across the country. There is something about this man that excites and invigorates people and he’s translating that energy into votes and financial support. The longer this campaign goes, the more people he seems to win over. His Achilles heels are still low-income whites, white women and Hispanics, although a close vote in New Mexico might seem to indicate a breakthrough of sorts. I was reminded last week that there is still a segment of white voters who will not vote for Obama because he does not share their epidermal pigmentation. But there just might be enough open-minded individuals to overcome that handicap. Upcoming primaries in Maryland, Virginia, Washington and Louisiana would seem to play to the Senator’s strength, and if he is able to somehow sweep the contests between now and the Texas/Ohio primaries, he just might be able to build up enough momentum to overcome Senator Clinton’s advantage in those states. This primary race may very well come down to the rogue delegates of Michigan and Florida all well as the so called “super delegates,” which comprise 20% of all Democratic delegates and are not required to vote according to the wishes of the voters in the state in which they were elected. Why the party would create a system in which the votes of the people could easily be over-ridden by on a whim is completely beyond me, but that discussion is for another time. Make no mistake about it. If somehow Barack Obama manages to usurp Hilary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination, it will be nothing short of astonishing. For six years, everyone has known that Senator Clinton would be the inevitable Democratic candidate for 2008. For some skinny kid from Illinois to show up out of nowhere and defeat the invincible Clinton machine would rewrite the conventional wisdom of modern Democratic politics.

Finally, as much of a "dream ticket" as some voters and pundits seem to think it would be, I doubt we'll get a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton Democratic ticket. There might be a possibility for a Clinton/Obama ticket, but certainly not an Obama/Clinton ticket. Her negatives are just too high in the areas in which Obama does well. Independents and/or crossover Republicans aren't going to be drawn to Clinton, and Obama hasn’t done poorly enough in any major states to really need her on the ticket to draw out voters. My money is on an Obama/Richardson ticket. Richardson provides a significant amount of experience, credibility on immigration issues, plus strong Hispanic support, all without any of Clinton's negatives. And even if Obama were to get the nomination and offer her the Vice Presidency, I think her ego is too large to accept it. She's already played second fiddle in the white house for eight years. If she wants to go back there she will want to do it for all the marbles.

My problem envisioning a Clinton/Obama ticket is as follows. I think Obama REALLY wants to be President. If the Democrats win the election, and he were to become Vice President, and everything goes well for the new Clinton administration, he would have to wait eight years for his shot at the White House. How well did that work out for Al Gore? Part of what elected Bush in 2000 was Clinton fatigue. If the country was fatigued after eight years, imagine the level of fatigue after 16 years. And if Obama were to become Vice President of an administration that performs poorly, he wouldn’t be able to run against Clinton four years from now for the party nomination. If he were to then run again sometime in the future, he would be permanently tainted as Vice President of a failed administration. Barack Obama gains nothing by accepting a Vice Presidential nomination. If he were to lose the nomination to Clinton this time around, he would be better off finding something to occupy his time during the upcoming term – perhaps return to the Senate, keep himself in the public eye, and try again next time around.