| Feb 8 2008; 4:42 PM | |
editor: Will
While everyone recognized that 2008 was going to be a watershed year in American politics, no one had any idea what great theater it was going to be as well. Over just the last week or so we saw a good man withdraw from the Democratic race, witnessed one of the greatest televised debates in the history of American politics, and bit our nails as we awaited the results of some of the closest primary races of all time. As of Tuesday night, the pundits were saying that it was not decided. The Democratic candidates had squared off and ended up dividing the delegate pie evenly and John McCain had not pulled away from his rivals enough to secure the Republican nomination. By Thursday afternoon that had all changed dramatically.
On Tuesday night, John McCain won 12 states and had 703 delegates (out of 1191 needed to win). Mitt Romney had 11 states and 269 delegates while the surprising Mike Huckabee had notched 6 states and 190 delegates. While he had a commanding lead, McCain had not won the knockout victory he felt was within his grasp and it looked like it was going to be a hard fought campaign for at least another month. The rhetoric between McCain and Romney heated up immediately (if that was possible after the almost visceral animosity between them during the California debate) and Huckabee was poised to be the spoiler (and potential Vice Presidential candidate).
But on Thursday, Mitt Romney, tired of putting his own millions into a losing campaign, surprised everyone by pulling out of the race and implicitly endorsing John McCain for the nomination in his speech to the Conservative caucus. So instead of the long and bitter battle everyone predicted just days ago, there are now only two contenders for the Republican nomination (all you Ron Paul supporters knew he was just in it to make a point didn’t you?) and one of them has no chance of getting any delegates outside of the South. The man who was written off last August as a sad relic and a has-been is going to be the candidate for his party for President of the United States.
On Monday, the airwaves were filled with the rumors of an Obama tidal wave that was going to sweep Hillary Clinton out of the race. But by Tuesday night (or early Wednesday morning for us in the east) Hilary had won not only her home state of New York, but Massachusetts and California despite the best efforts of the Kennedy clan on both coasts. But the split in delegates was almost 50/ 50 with Senator Clinton picking up 739 (for a total of 1000) and Senator Obama picking up 706 (for a total of 902). If the Republicans were going to have a tough battle, the Democrats were in an all out war of attrition.
By Wednesday however, it was revealed that the Clinton campaign was in financial difficulty and the Senator was forced to loan her campaign $5 million dollars after asking her senior campaign workers to forgo salaries for the next month to ensure they had the money they needed to stay in the race. Hillary Clinton was loosing the support of the major financial backers and the much vaunted Clinton fundraising machine was spinning its wheels as the Chardonnay and Volvo crowd moved their allegiance to Obama. In addition, the upcoming primaries and caucuses in Louisiana, Washington, Maryland, Virginia and DC are heavily favored to go to Obama which would destroy any momentum Clinton had and even derail her chances in Texas and Ohio in March. Unless a miracle happens so the pundits said, Hillary’s quest to be the first female President of the United States was coming to a sad end. The Democratic “sure thing” would be out of the race.
Now let’s all take a deep breath, relax and think this through. John McCain may have the Republican nomination sewn up, but he sure as heck doesn’t have the allegiance of die hard conservatives who drive the Republican election campaigns. Bill O’Reilly has started a campaign to find a “true conservative” candidate and such intellectual heavyweights as Anne Coulter are saying that a vote for McCain would be the same as voting for Obama or Clinton. If the radical fringe of the Republican Party is as stupid as they appear (and I have to take them at face value on that point at least) they will hand the election to an already rejuvenated Democratic Party that is looking for revenge.
But John McCain wants the presidency he thinks was stolen from him by the Bush crowd and he knows how to build fences with people he doesn’t like. Hell he has been doing it for years with the Democrats. More importantly, McCain has learned how to be mean and nasty in the political arena and he will throw everything he has into securing the nomination and defeating whoever is the Democratic nominee. Like him or not, even Neanderthals like O’Reilly are going to have to hold their noses and support the only candidate they have who can possibly win.
On the Democratic front, while I would never underestimate the ability of Hillary and Bill to come back from adversity (haven’t we all seen that movie before?) I think it is going to be a very hard hill for them to climb this time. The chattering classes have turned against them (which is no real surprise), but even more importantly, the smart money in the Democratic Party has shifted to Obama. He started this campaign as an almost naive idealist, but one of the advantages of fighting the Clintons is that to survive you must learn how to get down in the trenches and gouge with the best of them. While he still has his charisma, he has added a toughness that should carry him over the top and get him the nomination.
And then the fun and games will really begin. The nastiness of the primaries will look like a pillow fight compared to what will be thrown around both camps. There will be negative ads, viral campaigns and whispered slanders all over the place. Lou Dobbs will have a field day taking shots at both parties and Fox News will be apoplectic. But the American electorate will be faced with two radically different candidates for the first time since the late 60’s. Hopefully this time they will get it right. | | 2 Comments add a comment | | | | louis vuitton: Jun 7 2010, 5:29 AM
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