February 5, 2008 by Alpha.

Today’s going to be a hell of a day.

Check this out. While it isn’t the most accurate or fair statement, I can certainly appreciate pith in the face of fact-checkery.

A lot of what is being discussed right now is about who will win today, but I want to take a moment to consider what the win conditions are for each candidate.

Hillary Clinton: Clinton needs to shut Obama out in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Deleware AND she needs to keep California, Massachusetts and Missouri close. So long as she can claim to have won where she was supposed to and so long as Obama doesn’t blow her out anywhere other than Illinois or maybe Georgia she won’t lose much stock.

Barack Obama: If Obama can take one of the states in New England AND win two from California, Massachusetts and Missouri he can call it a great day. Note that there’s room for an outcome where nether candidate can declare much of a victory, and for a solution where both candidates can trumpet their successes. I’d bank on the latter, myself.

John McCain: A McCain win looks like a big blowout-and for good reason. While a death blow is unlikely, if McCain can win everywhere other than Utah, Massachusetts, Colorado, Georgia and Tennessee (and the already-decided West Virginia), he can be very happy with the results.

Mitt Romney: Romney needs a big night. He would need to take Utah, Massachusetts, Colorado, Georgia OR Tennessee and he would need to overperform (tie?) in California and Missouri. Even then, he can expect to come out of tonight behind in the delegate count–this isn’t about putting McCain away, it’s about staying alive while the social conservatives decide who to back and fending off Mike Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee: He’s got West Virginia, but he’ll need to kick some butts in the South–Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennesee, Oklahoma, Missouri are all states he’s competing in, mostly competing with Mitt Romney. It may be that he’s pulling for second, but if he can knock off Romney it puts a serious shine on his future, if nothing else.

Thoughts?

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February 3, 2008 by Alpha.

Alright, so I made some predictions. I think I did alright, but I made a lot of the same mistakes that most of us in the commentariat made.

I did particularly well on the Democratic side, where it was harder to screw up. I had Obama taking New Hampshire, which seemed sensible at the time. Of course, Clinton’s win there was something of a shocker all round. Someone’s going to write a very good book about it, surely.

The Republican race was more complicated, which provided me with more than ample room to get it totally wrong. I called Iowa for Huckabee, Wyoming and Michigan for Romney, but once again New Hampshire disappointed me. Really, I disappointed myself…

I made a rookie mistake: Never count out the old hand. I underestimated Hillary Clinton, to my own detriment, and I underestimated the tendency of Republican primary voters to rally around the familiar and the tenacity of John McCain. I overestimated the appeal of a social conservative like Huckabee among Neocons and Paleocons.

I am proud to report, however, that I predicted the collapse of the campaign of Rudy Giuliani, though I didn’t think he would manage so graceful an exit, and I was a little surprised at how enthusiastically he fell in with John McCain. I anticipated a more cagey response, in the vein of John Edwards and Bill Richardson.

So we are down to two Democratic candidates and two-and-a-half Republican candidates. It looks fairly likely that the Dems are going to go all the way to the convention, though Edwards didn’t take enough delegates to ensure a brokered convention. The GOP candidates are in a somewhat more vicious fight at the moment, though it looks a lot like the fighting between Obama and Clinton just before Edwards was squeezed out. Huckabee may not have long, barring some drastic shift.

Another round of  equally flawed predictions is forthcoming. I’m also rattling a large number of ideas around inside my head–I feel as though I’m on the verge of synthesizing something interesting. More to follow…

Mahalo!

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