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!