Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Super Tuesday Buyer's Remorse

Well, the day has finally arrived. Super Tuesday. Pajamas Media has a big roundup from around the nation and the blogosphere.

It's the day that candidates for President hope will make their campaign and assure their nomination.

Things are supposedly close in the Democrat race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and some think that the Democrats might have to contest elections for another couple of months. In any event, even the fact that Obama supporters are stumped when asked to name a single accomplishment of the guy they're championing is insufficient to deter people from voting for them. They're going with change and optimism, and that's their final answer. However, I don't think enough people will go for Obama to enable him to capture the nomination after all the results are in tonight, even though the polls are suggesting that Obama might carry some of the big states, including California. The Democrats will have to continue the fight elsewhere, although I suspect there is a real possibility that Hillary wins tonight because she has been working over the super delegates who help coronate the nominee.

For the GOP, many of the polls show McCain having significant leads in winner take all states like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which is a bad omen for Mitt Romney. Tonight will quite likely result in the coronation of John McCain as the GOP nominee. Romney is now fashioning himself as the anti-insider populist. Right. He's as connected as they come, but it isn't doing him much good at the polls.

And for many pundits who thought that the GOP would have a brokered convention and the Democrats would quickly sort out their race, they've been in for a big surprise given how things have progressed to date. I frankly don't see a brokered convention on either side of the aisle even as people continue to be undecided about their choices and the candidates themselves are uninspiring.

It may not be tonight, but it will be at some point in the next few weeks that people will begin to have buyer's remorse over what happened today. As it is, I suspect many think that they really didn't have any choices among the candidates. They had candidates with absolutely no experience or leadership assuming that they could run on good looks (Obama), great hair (Edwards), a military record from 30 years ago (McCain), experience in the White House (Hillary), or the fact that they can claim they're for change without actually providing a policy position that is coherent or workable (any of the above given that you've got party insiders and Washington elites claiming that they're going to change a system that got them where they are today). Or, they looked at candidates who ran uninspired campaigns (Fred Thompson) or bet on risky strategies that simply didn't pan out (Rudy). Of course, there were the candidates that simply never had any chance of catching on, but appealed to a small group of party faithful or the vanity campaigns.

Then, you've got the candidates who are hanging around despite the fact that they've got no chance of winning the nomination and may be considered as nothing less than spoilers who will split the votes and enable another candidate to win. I'm talking about Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul with the GOP.

Michael Barone has a state-by-state rundown of the various races. RealClearPolitics has the state-by-state delegate breakdowns along with polling.

Hot Air has predictions. I'll save mine for sports. I've done quite well taking the Giants and the points.

UPDATE:
Election Projection has a mondo roundup.

Others blogging: Michelle Malkin, Liberty Pundit, Sister Toldjah, Captain Ed, Macranger, AJ Strata, and Gaius (who notes what other insanities are on the ballot).

UPDATE:
Well, polls are starting to close on the East Coast and some of the results are already in.

Georgia has been called for Obama and Hillary of course is spinning that as though she knows that the real battle for delegates will be won or lost in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Mike Huckabee, who has stuck around despite having no chance at the nomination, played spoiler by beating out Romney in the West Virginia race.

UPDATE:
The AP is calling the following races:
AP: McCain wins N.J., Illinois and Connecticut. Romney takes Massachusetts. Obama wins Illinois. Clinton wins Oklahoma.

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