At this point I’ve only watched the first hour out of the four hours of debate tonight. And only about 45 minutes of it was actually debate. And this is of course only the Republicans, the Democrats come later.
But I’ll say right now that the format for this first 45 minutes… Very few interruptions from the moderator, just occasional questions to get conversation started… and a lot of interaction between the candidates… and long form answers without buzzers or time limits… this is by far the most substantive and informative debate I have seen so far this election cycle. And at this point I have watched ALL of them. 17 Democratic debates and 14 Republican debates. Most of them sucked. Most of them just let the candidates make little speeches, or posture for the sound bites.
In this one I’ve seen the candidates interact with each other in a far more natural way. And I’ve seen them have the chance to spend several minutes explaining themselves, and then ask questions of each other, which were then answered in turn. There were some chaotic moments at times, but even then one learned something.
I gather the rest of the Republican debate will not have this same format. That is a shame. This is how all debates should be. I look forward to seeing the Democrats in the same sort of format once I watch the rest of the Republican debate.
I just needed to go ahead and post this now, because I was somewhat dumbfounded that, for once, I was actually seeing a real debate with some real content too it where I actually had the possibility of learning something new about the candidates.
3 hour delay aside, good job ABC and Charles Gibson. Bravo.
For once I was going to watch some debates live rather than weeks later on the Tivo. Until I find out that stupid ABC is delaying the West Coast feed by 3 hours like they do with all kinds of crap. The debates start in 3 minutes. I won’t get to see them for 3 hours and 3 minutes. Pisses me off. Makes me not want to bother watching it “live” after all, because of course it won’t be.
I need to get an extra Slingbox and Tivo to send to someone on the East coast just to avoid this kind of nonsense garbage. Bleh.
OK, I’m going nuts with posts tonight, mainly because I can’t do my other normal evening work because I am spending the evening in the living room with Brandy who is recovering from some medical tests she had Thursday rather than spending the time in my office where I have access to my normal stuff.
So a few more thoughts. And yes, I know I haven’t posted anything but presidential stuff for awhile now. Tis the season and all that. Although other things may come back soon, this is my main topic of interest at the moment.
Anyway, a reminder that of course in all this it is really number of delegates that count. And despite all the Iowa hype, Hillary is still ahead in delegates due to superdelegates that have already committed (of course they can change their minds).
I went looking for a place that had definitive delegate counts. CNN has pages for this. (It was just the first one I found…. it may or may not be the best such page.)
I’ll be bookmarking those, or something like it if I find a better source…
Anyway, current standings as of this moment:
Democrats (2025 needed to win):
169 – Clinton
66 – Obama
47 – Edwards
19 – Richardson
17 – Dodd
8 – Biden
1 – Kucinich
Republicans (1191 needed to win):
20 – Huckabee
18 – Romney
3 – McCain
3 – Thompson
2 – Paul
1 – Guiliani
Of course, of these Dodd and Biden have already dropped out. Usually candidates who drop out either release their delegates to vote for whoever they want to, or ask them to please vote for someone that they specify. In this case though Biden and Dodd have dropped out so early that it doesn’t really matter. Now, they could theoretically still get more delegates, as they will likely still be on the ballot in a number of states, and could get enough votes for more delegates to be awarded to them… but in reality they had low support to begin with, and people rarely vote for the people who have dropped out, so that will also be a very minor effect if it happens at all.
Of course, one important thing to note is that even though a very small percentage of the delegates have already been awarded… and if we were in a world where each primary was indeed an independent event and was not influenced by the results of the previous primaries, then the results so far would be pretty insignificant and meaningless. But in the real world, the results of these early states is much more influential than the results of later states. Because of them candidates start dropping out. And the ones who do well get more money, to better compete in later states, and the ones that do less well get less money, and so are disadvantaged… plus people have a tenancy to get on the bandwagon and start voting for the winners. They stop voting for people who look like they are losing. So the later in the process you get, the less people vote for the people they really agree with or think would be best, and more start doing the “well, everybody else likes them, so I should too” sort of thing… Which is why Iowa and New Hampshire get this kind of attention.
If somebody (read Obama) starts running the boards and winning state after state, this could be over quickly (at least on that side). If on the other hand we start getting different winners in different states, then it could last longer. This could happen on the Dem side, but it seems the biggest chance for it lasting longer is on the Republican side. Huckabee in Iowa. McCain in New Hampshire. Maybe Romney manages to pull it out in South Carolina (although Huckabee is looking good there right now). Giuliani in Florida. Etc. That could just drag things out nicely…
If after Super Duper Tuesday on February 5th nobody has a commanding lead, then the rest of the season will (for once) be interesting. We shall see I guess. And before very long too.
There is only occasional off handed mention of the Wyoming caucuses tomorrow. They are very small, and pretty much none of the candidates has spent any time campaigning there or worrying about it. I don’t even know which places will be reporting the results and when. But I’ll be looking for it. It should be an interesting blip. Maybe precisely because it HAS been ignored.
Going to be a little mean here, but… as I mentioned in my pre-Iowa comments, and felt even more strongly now, I think Hillary will not get the Democratic nomination. I now further predict that within 12 months of her officially admitting defeat she will no longer be married to Bill Clinton. I think she will know that she won’t be trying this again in 4 or 8 years, and she won’t need him any more as a Senator. And she will be very bitter. And so the two of them will go their separate ways.
I was going to do this on the next podcast, but then realized there would be debates before then, so here are a few thoughts.
For Clinton… and from what I’ve read about what she did on Friday, so far she is following this… resist the temptation to go negative. Contrast all you want, but if you actually start going negative, it will completely backfire. You will be done.
For Obama… at the debate this weekend, if Hillary crosses the line and gets even slightly mean and negative… just look over with that look you do and saw “Now Now Hillary, you don’t need to do that, you’re making yourself sound desperate.” She will get flustered and defensive. OK, it is a little condescending, but if you do it right, you’ll come out better.
For Edwards and Richardson… time to go home. Kucinich and Gravel too.
I was going to add some thoughts for each of the Republicans too, but I realized I don’t have many for them. Other than for Huckabee to stick to being himself and not try to pander, because the this is a nice guy who says what he believes, even if you disagree with it thing is his one possible source of appeal outside the evangelicals, and he needs that.
I was a bit frustrated as I wasn’t able to get somewhere that I could listen to returns (on CNN and Fox via my XM radio in my car) until about 01:30. They had already called it for Huckabee on the Republican side. And by a wide margin. Just a few minutes ago they called it for Obama on the Democratic side… margin still to be determined, and who comes in third, Edwards or Clinton still too close to call as I write… But this looks good for an interesting New Hampshire and beyond… and, so far, for my predictions. :-)
OK, forget about who I prefer… time for going out on a limb and making predictions… predictions which could very well be made close to impossible as soon as tomorrow depending on how Iowa comes out, let alone New Hampshire a few days later. I will of course adjust predictions if what I predict today becomes unlikely due to events as they play out… but as of right now, before Iowa and before the first votes, here would be my best guesses… but frankly, with so much in the air right now, and with so much in play… anything can still happen. These are my predictions, but I can’t say I’d put down too much cash wagering on it… things are just too unsettled.
Anyway…
Republicans. I think Huckabee will peak and then start dropping. The evangelicals have his back, and he does have some general appeal, but I think the other parts of the Republican coalition will ultimately be too uncomfortable with him and I don’t think the religious wing has enough strength to nominate him on their own. Giuliani is self-destructing, and the more people find out about him, the less they like him… and despite some of his super right wing tendencies in some areas, in others he is far too liberal for most of the party. Romney is losing momentum in the two early states where he is strong. We will of course see how that plays out in the next few days. But if he doesn’t win both of them, I think he will sputter out soon after. Absent a major surprise, I think Thompson will probably be out of the race before too much longer. Before he got in it was all about what he might be. Once he got in in was more about “Oh, is that all there is?”. I think he is done. With the strength of his internet support, Paul will stay in it the whole way I think (unless he bails to officially go 3rd party). But within the Republican world I don’t think he’ll ever manage to break the 15% barrier. Maybe not even the 10% barrier, although that might be possible as some of the others drop out. I do think he will out perform expectations though (perhaps even mine) due to the sheer determination of his supporters to get out the vote and keep on plugging. They are a stubborn bunch. But who does that leave? Unless we get the brokered convention scenario and someone coming into play that isn’t even running, that leaves McCain. He had been consistantly losing support for the last year. But he has leveled out nationally, and has actually been regaining strength rapidly in both Iowa and New Hampshire in the last month or so. I think this is a show of the Republican candidates slowly ruling out everybody else on one point or another. McCain is a shadow of his former self from 4 years ago. And he also has problems which make many Republicans uncomfortable. And I don’t think he’d be a strong candidate in the general election. But I think he is the one candidate that a majority of Republicans will end up being able to say “Well, he’s not great, but he’s OK, he’ll do.” And, in true Republican fashion, it is “his turn”. I think we’ll see slow and steady McCain slowly grab the support from the others. If he is lucky he will come in 3rd in Iowa. And he has a real shot at winning New Hampshire. If he does that, he will be on the road to consolidating an overall win. I think in the end he will pull it out. But it will be a weakened and divided Republican party that he presides over.
Now the Democrats. Nationally Hillary is still way ahead in polls by a large margin. (45% to Obama’s 26%.) If she actually manages to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, she will walk away with the rest and be the “inevitable” nominee so many people have thought she has been all along. But her weakness is indeed those first two states. If she loses both of them, she will be in real trouble. She might be able to make it up. She still has very strong leads in all other state polls I have seen. But she has lost some momentum in South Carolina and may be weak there too. If Iowa and New Hampshire fall, her leads elsewhere may start evaporating quickly… or she may manage to hold them, although it would be difficult. But these two states are critical. And I do not think she will be able to hold them. I think in Iowa the “second choice” votes for the under 15% folks will fall toward Obama and not Hillary or Edwards. Edwards is surging in Iowa and he may be able to pull off a surprise win, but I think Iowa is going to go for Obama. (Of course, as I said above, this is a hunch, the actual evidence of polls and such just gives a big fat “it could be any of them”.) If this happens, or, I think, even if Obama just comes in “close”, it will boost him to a win in New Hampshire. He has been rising there for three months while Clinton has been falling. It is now neck and neck. Anything other than a solid win for Hillary in Iowa will show Obama is viable and electable and all of that, and I think push him over the edge to a win in New Hampshire. In that scenerio I see Obama rapidly narrowing the gap in South Carolina and winning that, and then proceeding to build momentum, eventually taking the nomination.
Right after Obama’s 2004 convention speech, I sent this email to a couple of friends:
Subject: Obama
Date: 28 July 2004 14:43:38 GMT+00:00
Missed it last night, but just watched Obama’s convention speech off the C-Span website. He hit it out of the park. Came off VERY well. I liked him a lot. I’ll go out on a limb and say that he WILL be on a presidential ticket (not saying top or bottom) in 2008 or 2012.
I’ll stick by that, and go a bit further now. Yes, predicting today, even though Hillary is still ahead almost everywhere, and nationally by a huge margin, I’d say that Obama will get the Democratic nomination. This time, not in 2012. And he’ll be at the top of the ticket, not the bottom.
And if these come true and it ends up being Obama vs McCain in the general election? Well, first of all there might be some interesting effects if Paul ends up running 3rd party. (As much as I’d like this, if I had to bet right now I’d say he won’t… I think it is clear he does not WANT to… although if his followers make enough of an uproar once he is eliminated from contention on the Republican side, I could see him maybe reluctantly agreeing.) Bloomberg, Dobbs and others are also rumored to be considering it. The right combination of people running might produce interesting things. But frankly, most of the names mentioned as possible 3rd parties would all pull more from the Republican side. And even if a left wing 3rd party candidate entered the fray, I think most people on that side of the spectrum are frightened by the “Nader scenerio” and would stick with the Democratic candidate. (Although I disagree with the contention that Nader and his voters are responsible for the Bush presidency as some folks believe.) So I think pretty much any third party possibility only hurts the Republicans further. And they will already come into this weak I believe.
In terms of both the nomination and the general election though I think it is going to be Obama for more “heart” reasons than “head” reasons.
There is charisma and energy there and the message of hope and unity, etc is compelling. Obama represents a turn to the future and away from the past. It would be a generational shift that would push beyond the old conflicts of the last century. (This would be especially clear if it did end up being Obama vs McCain.) He represents the best of the “American Dream” of yore. The story of his family and his life is inspiring. His energy is contagious. Seeing him speak just makes one catch that optimism and want to follow him. I don’t remember a candidate like him since I have been old enough to be following presidential races closely. Historically he has the vibe of a JFK… or perhaps actually even more so he reflects the way in which I have heard people describe their feelings about RFK before his run for president was cut short.
This is relevant, so for the first time ever I’ll do the embedded YouTube thing here on this blog…
Yes, most of that is from his four year old convention speech, but this does get to the heart of it… This is powerful moving stuff. It is a good message. It will appeal to a lot of people. Will it convince hardcore Republicans to vote Democratic? No. They will mock this sort of thing, not be drawn to it. But it will rally the Democratic base, and it will bring in moderates and independents. And that is what it will take to win. Obama has the charisma and appeal to bring it together and to win this thing. (Absent of course any currently unknown revelations that would damage him later on.) The type of compelling oratory and vision that Obama has is well fitted to the types of media campaigns of today. There may or may not be substance behind it. But you don’t need substance to win. You need to inspire people and make them like you and make them think you are a good person who they can trust to do a good job… even if they may disagree with you on some things. Obama will be able to do that quite nicely. And with a good VP pick to balance out the “experience” criticisms… my guy Biden maybe… he would be very solid. Not saying that it still wouldn’t be a race. I’m not willing to predict a landslide. 2008 may not end up being as close as 2000 or 2004, but it probably still will be somewhat close. But I think Obama would win.
So there we go. My prediction is Obama vs McCain (and maybe one or 2 third party candidates) in the general election, with Obama winning it in the end.
Now, of course that is saying nothing about how I think an Obama administration would actually GOVERN, because being President is a very different thing than running for President… but I think he has what he takes to win. And I think he will.
Of course, as I said at the top, making any predictions this early is foolhardy, and things are so incredibly unsettled that really ANYTHING can still happen… but these are my predictions as of right now.
Of course, if Obama fails to win either Iowa or New Hampshire, and Hillary does… or McCain fails to show decently in both Iowa and New Hampshire… and we’ll of course know all of that very shortly… then everything I said goes out the window completely.
But hey, I thought I’d give it a shot. Worst case, I’m completely wrong. And that happens all the time, so I’m not too worried about it. :-)
