Wolf Howling: presidential primaries

Showing posts with label presidential primaries. Show all posts

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Coming to Obama & The Ascension of the Huckster

Its Obamamania in Nebraska, Washington and Louisiana, as Clinton gets crucified. On the Republican side, the Huckster takes Kansas and Louisiana, while McCain has a small lead in Washinton state.

As much as I would love to watch the Democrats go to a contested convention on Labor Day, I think there is a good chance that the writing is on the wall. Obama swept the three primaries held today winning Nebraska 68% to 32%, Washington state 68% to 31%, and Louisiana 56% to 37%. None of the races were close. The delgate count among Democrats is now approximately even. I do not know what the national polls are saying, but Obamimania is a mindless force at this point, and I will be surprised if Clinton can pull this out. I think the Tuesday "Potomac" primary of Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. will be crucial.

On the Republican side, the Huckster won Kanasa easily and Louisiana by a small margin. He trails slightly in Washington. Now this really is irony of the highest order. The people suffering McCain Derangement Syndrome because of McCain's alledged lack of conservative credentials are apparently buying the Huckster's snake oil and treating him as the conservative alternative. The irony of course is that, while Huckabee is off the charts as a social conservative, he is anything but a fiscal and foreign policy conservative.

Fox News has a thorough breakdown of the voting by demographic.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Mitt Romney Ends His Presidential Bid

I posted in the wake of Super Tuesday that Romney would likely end his campaign. He has done so today. He is quoted in the USA Today:

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or (Barack) Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Romney planned to say in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

"This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters ... many of you right here in this room ... have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming president. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country."

Read the story here. And as I wrote earlier this day, it is time for Republicans to rally around McCain.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Hillary and Romney in Nevada, McCain in South Carolina

The Republican race got just a little tighter, with a decisive victory for Romney in Nevada and a squeaker for McCain over the Huckster in South Carolina. The only Democratic race today was in Nevada, and that one turned out to be a pyrrich victory of sorts for Clinton.

The next scheduled primaries are January 26 in South Carolina for the Democrats and then January 29 for both parties in Florida. Those votes are followed by February 5 Super-Tuesday, with 22 states in play.

Now, to read the entrails, consult the oracles, and make my own SWAG's:

On the Republican side, the field probably just narrowed to three viable candidates - Romney, McCain and Giuliani.

Romney stays viable and very much in the running with his victory in Nevada. And as the economy becomes more of an issue, Romney's stellar economic credentials may be a decisive consideration to many voters.

McCain has two big wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina - but both wins have relied heavilly on independents and cross-over votes. As we move into states that have strict party primaries, the question is will the base still hold McCain's previous heresies against him? I'll tell you on February 6. I happen to like McCain for his national security credentials and his promise not to approve any spending bills that contain earmarks.

Giuliani - the wild card. A win in Florida puts him very much back in the running. And I have no idea whats going to happen in Florida.

The Huckster - He just lost in a friendly Southern state with a very high concentration of Christian fundamentalists, which has been his only demographic to date. He will join Ron Paul as a side show from here on out.

Fred - On July 3rd, the Republican race was Fred's to enter and win. He looked like the strongest possible candidate to me. But he has fumbled and bumbled ever since. It really is too bad, but Fred is no longer in the running.

The Democratic primary in Nevada was pretty fascinating on several counts:

- Hillary won the "caucus" count pretty decisively, despite the strip's biggest union coming out for Obama. What does this say about the power of the Unions?

- Obama may well spin this as a victory - and with some reasonable basis for so doing. While Hillary may have won the "caucus" count, the way votes are weighted by region in Nevada, Obama actually won one more delegate than Hillary.

- The allure of Obama until ten days ago was that he was an African American candidate who transcended race. Then, ten days ago, he embraced the race card against Bill and Hillary. Was that a fatal mistake? It may well have been. While white progressives have spent decades joined with the black civil rights establishment in portraying as racist any conservative criticism of their post-civil-rights-era agenda, its probably another thing entirely when the penultimate white progressives - Bill and Hill - are getting carded. I am not of the white progressive persuasion, so I can only speculate on this one.

Obama will likely take South Carolina, with its large black population. And if Obama stays as far away from the race card as possible between now and 5 February, perhaps this might still be a race. Otherwise, after this bit of drama, I think Hillary retakes the mantle of inevitability.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Interesting News From Around The Web

Walid Phares assesses the state of terrorism around the world. "In short, there are several "wars" on terror worldwide. . . . America is leading the widest campaign, but efforts around the globe are still dispersed, uncoordinated, and in many cases, contradictive."

At NRO, a symposium on Pakistan with a wide variety of views on Bhutto’s assassination and how we should interact with Pakistan, including this assessment from Victor David Hanson: "Pakistan is a nuclear dictatorship, with a thin Westernized elite sitting atop a vast medieval Islamist badlands that it cannot control."

Bhutto’s 19 y.o. son is expected to be named the successor as head of her political party. If he actually wins in the Pakistani election, this seems like it will lead to the sort of "palace intrigue" not seen since the days of Cardinal Richelieu.

More reflections on fallout from the Bhutto assassination here. And the Telegraph has an incisive article on the Frankenstein’s monster of terrorism nurtured by successive Pakistani governments, including Bhutto’s, that now threatens to overtake all of Pakistan. Former PM Sharif, an Islamist with Saudi support, is not what we want to see in charge of Pakistan. For some good background, see this Stephen Cohen article on the jihadi threat in Pakistan. And this from Tariq Ali on the Saudi connection to the madrassahs and terrorists in Pakistan.

Michael Ledeen examines more State Department pro-Iranian spin.

2007 was "a year that strode boldly into the stall of human events and took a wide stance astride the porcelain bowl of history." Read David Barry’s hilarious year in review.

A politically incorrect Aussie’s wish list for 2008.

Classical Values has some thoughts on our rather insane primary system that gives special weight to Iowa and New Hampshire.

A New Years Resolution for Congressional Republicans that all conservatives can get behind. End the earmarks.

And some late blogging of things I did not have time to get to earlier . . .

Hillary Clinton almost takes the cake for sublime idiocy. The last thing Pakistan needs at this point is further destabilization, but we have Hillary calling the current government illegitimate and demanding an international tribunal to investigate Bhutto’s assassination. While Obama does take the cake – finding that Bhutto’s assassination was caused by our prosecution of the Iraq war. If only we had surrendered earlier to al Qaeda, perhaps this would not have happened. Even the incredibly cynical John Edwards called that one a bit of idiocy.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Benazir Bhutto Murdered in Pakistan

Pakistan, already a deeply troubled country facing a growing threat from the Deobandi and Salafi Islamists, just took a big turn for the worse. Harvard educated opposition leader and former PM Benazir Bhutto has been murdered in Rawalpindi. The precise details are still unclear. Initial reports are that she was shot in the throat and chest by a suicide bomber who then detonated himself.

It is not clear who was responsible for this attack, though the initial speculation is that the Deobandi and Salafi Islamists of the Taliban and al Qaeda are responsible. They had repeatedly threatened Bhutto's life over the past several months. Bhutto had been an effective opponent of the Islamists when she had previously held the position of Prime Minister of Pakistan. Further, she was campaigning for PM in the current election on a promise to crack down on the spread of these Islamists if elected. Bhutto herself had previously expressed the belief that her life was threatened by a combination of these Islamist groups and several individuals in the Pakistani government who supported these groups. Bhutto's death comes 12 days before national elections that she was widely expected to win.

Further details from the Washington Post here. See also NY Times; CNN, Fox News & the BBC

The Telegraph has a brief biography of PM Bhutto. And see this at CNN.

See this post from Bill Rogio on the past assassination attempts on Bhutto and background on the tenuous security situation in Pakistan.

What this means for Pakistan, democracy, islamic militancy and the world are all open questions at this point. The same can be said about the potential this event has for catapulting concerns with the war on terror back to prominence in the upcoming presidential primary votes. In any event, it seems clear that the world has become a more dangerous place and that it has lost both a strong proponent of democracy and a staunch opponent of the rising tide of Islamic militancy.