Edwards is done. Guiliani is said to be done as well.
Sen. Patty Murray, who declined to endorse any of the candidates is backing Clinton. While that hardly has the punch of having a Kennedy talk about how Obama carries the promise the Kennedy president did, it could be part of a trend that stops the momentum the younger senator was enjoying.
My own thought on the two parties essentially being down to two viable candidates each is that it increases the chance that the Washington caucuses and primary will be little more than a beauty contest.
The Republican side, with many states going winner-take-all, had a higher potential for that anyway. With Rudy gone McCain has a real opportunity to all-but-mathematically lock the thing up on Feb. 5. I’m assuming alomst all of Rudy’s voters would go to McCain, which isn’t certain. Huckabee doesn’t appear to have a strong shot at winning anymore, but as long as he stays in it probably hurts Romney more than McCain.
On the Democratic side I thought if Edwards stayed in it increased the chance of the race not being clinched by the convention. Whoever carries Super Tuesday now doesn’t have to worry as much about the third place finisher being the spoiler. My hunch is that’s bad news for Obama, but I could be convinced otherwise.
In fact, I could be convinced otherwise on all of this. Any thoughts?
Some thoughts and questions? Why is it bad news for Obama? Say it–not ready for a black man for President? Well, who’s left to run? A black man, a white woman, a white male Mormon, a white male quasi-conservative military hero/patriot, and a white evangelical Christian. The evangelicals won’t vote for a Mormon, and don’t want a black or a woman. Will McCain and Clinton be our only choices? Since Clinton is female, I guess that is bad news for her. Will enough people vote for Romney despite his religion as enough people voted for Kennedy despite his religion, and will that be bad news for McCain?
My sense that it’s bad for Obama is based on the idea that the less things are decided by the convention, the better it is for him. I think Obama was a stronger candidate when he wasn’t the only one taking on Clinton. I think more Edwards supporters will now go to Obama than Clinton, but I don’t know that enough of them will.
On the Republican side, if you saw the exit polls last night the evangelicals were pretty well split on Huckabee-McCain-Romney. I think a lot has been made about the anti-Mormon vote, and there is some validity to it. I wonder, though, if the bigger problem for Romney is that people just don’t like him. If they liked Romney more, I think he’d win, because he does appeal more to conservatives than McCain. That said, he could roll on Tuesday.
The problem for most of us here in Washington in making a prediction as to what will happen Tuesday is that we haven’t had the experience of serious campaigning that the states in play have had. So we don’t get to stick our fingers in the air and see which way the wind’s blowing, because the breeze here just isn’t strong enough. And even if we could, the polls so far have been so wrong as to render them useless. We don’t know anything until the polls close, which perhaps is as it should be.
Well I guess we might see a Ron Paul vs Mike Gravel face off this November right?
Senator Obama has an impressive list of accomplishments and should not be marginalized, judged or sorted by the color of his skin.
So far the prognosticators have generally been upstaged by the voters. It really isn’t over until the fat lady sings, and I would not be surprised to see the conventions being the places where the nominations are wrapped up.
As someone ready to caucus for Edwards, I’m having to choose a less worthy candidate and will throw my vote to Obama. It’s widely known that Edwards differed too much on economic issues from Clinton. Clinton is see as rolling in corporate money, something Edwards disdained.
Of course, if Obama is as smart as they say he is, he would scoop Edwards up fast. VP, or Attorney General. If Obama is JFK, Edwards is Robert Kennedy. I, for one, am very proud of him, his grace in stepping out of the race and is commitment to the issues that matter.
He has what the others do not have, a huge heart for the poor and downtrodden. He’s a lovely man in all ways.
Last I heard the Democratic Governor of Kansas who delivered the Democratic response to the State of the Union address was on the short list with Bill Richardson of NM to be Obama’s VP.
Actually I’ve heard the rumor that there is going to be a deal to offer the Attorney General job in the Obama administration to Edwards.
Edwards was the Democratic VP ticket once and he picked up ZERO states in the south because of it. Name me one single state the John Kerry won in 04 because of Edwards.
I think we’ll end up McCain v Clinton…
Sharon O’Hara