...and on, and on...
What if they held a presidential nominating contest and nobody ever won?
Actually, I don't know what the big hurry is. Whoever decreed that the arbitrary date of March 4th is when we should determine our presidential nominees - when the general election isn't for another nine months? I find this primary season rather exciting, and fascinating, and it appears record numbers of voters do, too, so why not let it entertain us for a few more months? As Oscar Wilde once said, "The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts!"
Hillary Clinton came dangerously close to ending it Tuesday, but instead pulled off the Clinton family's latest miracle comeback, turning Sort of Super Tuesday into just another milepost on the long 2008 campaign trail. She won a predictable landslide in blue collar Rhode Island, took Ohio by a surprisingly impressive margin, and pulled out a nailbiter in the Texas primary. At this writing (almost 2am in California; it's been a long night!), the Texas caucus results are coming in by Pony Express or something, so all I can tell you is that Barack Obama has a narrow lead in the after-hours portion of the Texas voting. Obama did wallop Clinton in Vermont, but that too was a foregone conclusion. For his trouble there, I think Obama wins eight delegates, a new bong and a lifetime's supply of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey.
(By the way, we have a lifetime's supply of sound from last night's festivities, including Hillary Clinton's rousing victory speech, Barack Obama's tepid "But I'm still winning" speech, John McCain's nomination-clinching valedictory, and Mike Huckabee's farewell comedy routine, er, I mean, concession speech. Not to mention analysis galore, from the likes of San Francisco State whiz Joe Tuman. By morning, I'm sure we will have heard from Marc Sandalow, Carla Marinucci, Phil Matier and many others, so check the KCBS home page or Sovern Nation Featured Audio for the very latest interviews).
(And while I'm on this ADD digression, did you know you can download all our audio, including our hit songs, on iTunes, for free? If you subscribe to the Sovern Nation podcast there, they even download automatically to your computer so you never miss any...)
And now back to our primary.
Later today, John McCain will go to the White House, where he will be anointed with oil by President Bush, officially commencing the fence-mending portion of the Republican primary process. You can bet the Democrats will TiVo every bear hug and smile-for-the-cameras grin of the Bush-McCain lovefest, to display this fall for the 70% of voters who think Bush is a lousy president. But for now, McCain has no choice but to gladly accept the endorsement of the man who savaged him in 2000 with some of the lowest blows in modern American politics. He still needs to reassure the conservatives who don't trust him. He will also gain instant access to the apparatus of the Republican National Committee, including the Bush family's fundraising database, which will be invaluable to McCain if he's able to opt out of public financing.
Meanwhile, Clinton and Obama go on to Pennsylvania, for what amounts to Iowa and New Hampshire redux, except this time in a state that is much more representative of the rest of the nation. It's big, it's diverse, it's urban, it's rural. It's got manufacturing and farms, street gangs and Amish, Polish Catholic steelworkers and patrician Main Line WASPs. If the Dems brawl like Eagles fans, it will certainly help McCain, who will be busy marshaling resources for the fall and honing his November message. If they can stay civil (say, more like Packers fans), then at least the Democrats will benefit from an awful lot of free media attention and the concentrated focus of all these engaged voters. They will have the spotlight to themselves, so they'd best use it wisely.
But no matter who wins Pennsylvania - I assume Obama will win Wyoming this Saturday and Mississippi next Tuesday, but they're not that consequential - this thing probably won't be settled, even after the last Democrat in Puerto Rico votes June 7 (please write to my news director, urging him to send me to P.R. to cover that one!). By our reckoning, there are 1088 delegates left to give out - but only 745 of them will be determined by the voters. The rest are uncommitted superdelegates. At this hour, Obama needs at least 513 to win the nomination; Clinton needs 602. That makes it virtually impossible for either one of them to clinch this at the polls. If they split the remaining delegates, and the supers divide evenly, then Obama wins. But if Clinton gets on a little bit of a roll, she could easily claim enough delegates to keep Obama from being the nominee, while still falling short herself. You can see how the math could work for either of them still - or, more likely, neither one - leaving the nomination in the hands of the dreaded superdelegates.
Is the bloom off the rose for Obama? Did he peak too soon? Are the voters having second thoughts? I was going to explore those questions here, but it's long past time to put me to bed - even if we can't say the same yet for the Democratic presidential race.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Do I Hate All Women, or Just Hillary?
That's what an emailer asked me last week, after hearing my latest parody song, this one about the Clinton-Obama race, and seeing me opine on CBS-5 TV that the media are saying negative things about Hillary Clinton simply because there is bad news to report about her. Another asked "when will the misogyny end?" Every time we report anything negative or even mildly critical about Clinton, the newsroom phone rings off the hook and the email box fills with vitriol.
Believe it or not, folks, I don't hate women. Ask anyone who knows me and they'll laugh at the idea. Really hard. And, whether the humorless critics who get so incensed at our reporting want to accept it or not, our news coverage is not based on the gender, race, ethnicity or any other physical or innate attribute of the people we cover, unless it's germane to the story in some way.
Reporting that Hillary Clinton has lost 11 straight nominating contests, or is shaking up her staff, or is falling behind in the polls, or has gone from frontrunner to underdog, is not sexist. Any more than it is racist to report that Barack Obama has questionable ties to an indicted Chicago developer, or that Louis Farrakhan's endorsement of him makes some Jews uneasy, or that he's still a little vague on some critical policy questions and doesn't do enough interviews with the media. And yes, we have reported on these things, even though the Clinton crowd refuses to believe it.
Are the media "nicer" to Obama and harder on Clinton? I really don't think so. There are a lot of factors at play: he's a relative newcomer to politics, so there's less to pick on. She has a long, and controversial, history. He's had a remarkable streak of success and good luck the last two months, while she's had some stumbles. No one raised this issue when she was way ahead and presenting herself as the inevitable nominee. When we all did stories on how women loved her, I got no complaints. But as soon as Obama started to pull ahead, and draw massive crowds, and generate this extraordinary buzz, the nasty comments started coming. People need to step back and see the bigger picture. Have you met some of those people who hate Hillary Clinton, in an irrational, visceral way? They don't hate her because she's a woman. It's because of who she is, what she believes, or who she's married to. Most of the people who represent me in government - my City Councilperson, my County Supervisor, my Congresswoman, both of my U.S. Senators - are women. Nobody seems to resent their gender. They're all strong, powerful, outspoken women. I know them all well. Rarely do I hear anyone hate on them - well, except Barbara Boxer, some conservatives really detest her. But the point is, I think the anti-Hillary sentiment is just that - anti-Hillary. It's not misogyny. And it's not coming from the reporters who are covering this campaign, many of whom are smart, high-achieving women themselves.
In other news - and I apologize for not blogging for a little while - Ralph Nader is in again, and this time he's got former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as his running mate (you can hear our live KCBS interview with Gonzalez here). Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote in the New York Times that he is not going to run for president. But former Atlanta Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is, and she's likely to win the Green Party nomination.
What's it all mean? It means maybe three percent of the vote siphoned off the left, which will hurt the Democratic nominee. If Clinton comes back to beat Obama, then Nader and McKinney could do even better, attracting disappointed progressives. But if Obama is the nominee, I don't think they're likely to make that big a difference. Now if the disenchanted conservatives run a fourth-party candidate, that could really hurt John McCain, but right now I just don't see who that candidate would be.
Lots of other things in the news - including the spat over Hillary's "red phone" commercial, Congressman and superdelegate John Lewis switching from Clinton to Obama, John McCain accidentally calling himself a liberal - and you can read or hear all about those on the Sovern Nation home page.
We'll be back to cover the Texas Two-Step and the Ohio showdown (poor Vermont and Rhode Island are being ignored, but I promise they won't be by me, especially since I lived in the Ocean State for six years), Tuesday night on KCBS and on the website too.
Believe it or not, folks, I don't hate women. Ask anyone who knows me and they'll laugh at the idea. Really hard. And, whether the humorless critics who get so incensed at our reporting want to accept it or not, our news coverage is not based on the gender, race, ethnicity or any other physical or innate attribute of the people we cover, unless it's germane to the story in some way.
Reporting that Hillary Clinton has lost 11 straight nominating contests, or is shaking up her staff, or is falling behind in the polls, or has gone from frontrunner to underdog, is not sexist. Any more than it is racist to report that Barack Obama has questionable ties to an indicted Chicago developer, or that Louis Farrakhan's endorsement of him makes some Jews uneasy, or that he's still a little vague on some critical policy questions and doesn't do enough interviews with the media. And yes, we have reported on these things, even though the Clinton crowd refuses to believe it.
Are the media "nicer" to Obama and harder on Clinton? I really don't think so. There are a lot of factors at play: he's a relative newcomer to politics, so there's less to pick on. She has a long, and controversial, history. He's had a remarkable streak of success and good luck the last two months, while she's had some stumbles. No one raised this issue when she was way ahead and presenting herself as the inevitable nominee. When we all did stories on how women loved her, I got no complaints. But as soon as Obama started to pull ahead, and draw massive crowds, and generate this extraordinary buzz, the nasty comments started coming. People need to step back and see the bigger picture. Have you met some of those people who hate Hillary Clinton, in an irrational, visceral way? They don't hate her because she's a woman. It's because of who she is, what she believes, or who she's married to. Most of the people who represent me in government - my City Councilperson, my County Supervisor, my Congresswoman, both of my U.S. Senators - are women. Nobody seems to resent their gender. They're all strong, powerful, outspoken women. I know them all well. Rarely do I hear anyone hate on them - well, except Barbara Boxer, some conservatives really detest her. But the point is, I think the anti-Hillary sentiment is just that - anti-Hillary. It's not misogyny. And it's not coming from the reporters who are covering this campaign, many of whom are smart, high-achieving women themselves.
In other news - and I apologize for not blogging for a little while - Ralph Nader is in again, and this time he's got former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as his running mate (you can hear our live KCBS interview with Gonzalez here). Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote in the New York Times that he is not going to run for president. But former Atlanta Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is, and she's likely to win the Green Party nomination.
What's it all mean? It means maybe three percent of the vote siphoned off the left, which will hurt the Democratic nominee. If Clinton comes back to beat Obama, then Nader and McKinney could do even better, attracting disappointed progressives. But if Obama is the nominee, I don't think they're likely to make that big a difference. Now if the disenchanted conservatives run a fourth-party candidate, that could really hurt John McCain, but right now I just don't see who that candidate would be.
Lots of other things in the news - including the spat over Hillary's "red phone" commercial, Congressman and superdelegate John Lewis switching from Clinton to Obama, John McCain accidentally calling himself a liberal - and you can read or hear all about those on the Sovern Nation home page.
We'll be back to cover the Texas Two-Step and the Ohio showdown (poor Vermont and Rhode Island are being ignored, but I promise they won't be by me, especially since I lived in the Ocean State for six years), Tuesday night on KCBS and on the website too.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Aloha Hillary
I'm just back from a much-needed mid-campaign vacation in Kaua'i. Not that I could completely escape the race there; Chelsea Clinton was campaigning for her mom in Hawaii, and Barack Obama's half-sister, who lives in Honolulu, was stumping for him. But there wasn't the same election buzz in Hawaii as there's been elsewhere. The Aloha State caucus was a slam dunk for native son Obama, and, at least on laid-back Kaua'i, the surfers and neo-hippies seemed far more interested in wave breaks and rainbows than delegate counts and poll numbers.
But now that I'm back in the mix, it's pretty clear that Obama is sucking all of the air out of the Democratic race. His rallies are packing basketball arenas: he drew 18,000 in Houston yesterday, 17,000 more in Dallas tonight. He is closing in on one million campaign donors, an astonishing and unprecedented number, and most of those people have given $100 or less. Obama t-shirts and buttons are on back order on his website. His surge of momentum is extraordinary. Even Bill Clinton said it today: if Hillary Clinton doesn't win the Ohio and Texas primaries March 4, she is done.
And Texas will be a tall order. They do things in a weird way in the Lone Star State. First of all, districts that had larger Democratic turnouts in past elections are rewarded with extra delegates. That means funky college town Austin has more delegates than megalopolis Houston and metroplex Dallas. It also means largely black urban centers have more delegates than rural Latino areas, making the delegate math tough for Clinton. Then, after the primary voting ends at 7pm, anyone who voted gets to vote again, at special caucuses, awarding even more delegates to the most motivated and organized. That all sounds like another win for Obama to me.
We talked with Nancy Pelosi today about the campaign, and she downplayed the potential role of the superdelegates. I agree with her; I think this race will be decided by the voters, long before the convention. In fact, it may have been already. When someone wins ten primaries and caucuses in a row, they're usually headed for the nomination. A successful candidate simply can't say, well, these next ten states aren't good for me, but I'll cherry pick a couple big ones after that.
Hillary Clinton has two weeks to save her campaign, somehow. She starts in Thursday night's debate in Austin. She hopes to demonstrate her command of the issues, expose Obama's areas of weakness and inexperience, and somehow slow the Obama Express. But it may be too late. People - not white or black people, old or young, men or women - but simply, people - are responding to Obama's message of hope, in a visceral way, and when that happens in politics, no strategy shift or staff shakeup can stop it.
We have a new satirical song airing Thursday, about Mike Huckabee. You can hear it here. And here is last week's McCain number, in case you missed that one. We are Equal Opportunity Offenders at Sovern Nation.
Speaking of McCain, there is breaking news tonight, from the New York Times, which reports that some of Senator McCain's 2000 presidential campaign staff were deeply concerned about his relationship with a lobbyist, and believed they were having an affair. You can read the Times story here. The newspaper has been working on this story for a long time; there's been some scuttlebutt about it out in the field, and from what I've heard, there was bitter disagreement in the newsroom about whether to run it. Apparently, other news organizations were investigating the rumors too, and the Times may have been worried about getting scooped. McCain vehemently denies any affair, and says he has never betrayed the public trust or his guiding principles. This could become a huge story for a few days - or it could backfire and further erode the public's trust in the Times' judgment. The newspaper still has some of the best reporters and writers in the business, but having started out there, once upon a time, as a copy boy, I know that it has made some shameful mistakes that never would have happened on Punch Sulzberger and Abe Rosenthal's watch. I hope this isn't another one of them.
But now that I'm back in the mix, it's pretty clear that Obama is sucking all of the air out of the Democratic race. His rallies are packing basketball arenas: he drew 18,000 in Houston yesterday, 17,000 more in Dallas tonight. He is closing in on one million campaign donors, an astonishing and unprecedented number, and most of those people have given $100 or less. Obama t-shirts and buttons are on back order on his website. His surge of momentum is extraordinary. Even Bill Clinton said it today: if Hillary Clinton doesn't win the Ohio and Texas primaries March 4, she is done.
And Texas will be a tall order. They do things in a weird way in the Lone Star State. First of all, districts that had larger Democratic turnouts in past elections are rewarded with extra delegates. That means funky college town Austin has more delegates than megalopolis Houston and metroplex Dallas. It also means largely black urban centers have more delegates than rural Latino areas, making the delegate math tough for Clinton. Then, after the primary voting ends at 7pm, anyone who voted gets to vote again, at special caucuses, awarding even more delegates to the most motivated and organized. That all sounds like another win for Obama to me.
We talked with Nancy Pelosi today about the campaign, and she downplayed the potential role of the superdelegates. I agree with her; I think this race will be decided by the voters, long before the convention. In fact, it may have been already. When someone wins ten primaries and caucuses in a row, they're usually headed for the nomination. A successful candidate simply can't say, well, these next ten states aren't good for me, but I'll cherry pick a couple big ones after that.
Hillary Clinton has two weeks to save her campaign, somehow. She starts in Thursday night's debate in Austin. She hopes to demonstrate her command of the issues, expose Obama's areas of weakness and inexperience, and somehow slow the Obama Express. But it may be too late. People - not white or black people, old or young, men or women - but simply, people - are responding to Obama's message of hope, in a visceral way, and when that happens in politics, no strategy shift or staff shakeup can stop it.
We have a new satirical song airing Thursday, about Mike Huckabee. You can hear it here. And here is last week's McCain number, in case you missed that one. We are Equal Opportunity Offenders at Sovern Nation.
Speaking of McCain, there is breaking news tonight, from the New York Times, which reports that some of Senator McCain's 2000 presidential campaign staff were deeply concerned about his relationship with a lobbyist, and believed they were having an affair. You can read the Times story here. The newspaper has been working on this story for a long time; there's been some scuttlebutt about it out in the field, and from what I've heard, there was bitter disagreement in the newsroom about whether to run it. Apparently, other news organizations were investigating the rumors too, and the Times may have been worried about getting scooped. McCain vehemently denies any affair, and says he has never betrayed the public trust or his guiding principles. This could become a huge story for a few days - or it could backfire and further erode the public's trust in the Times' judgment. The newspaper still has some of the best reporters and writers in the business, but having started out there, once upon a time, as a copy boy, I know that it has made some shameful mistakes that never would have happened on Punch Sulzberger and Abe Rosenthal's watch. I hope this isn't another one of them.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Mitt Out
When I was a barista in college, we sold a drink called Kaffe Mit Schlag, which means coffee (espresso) with whipped cream, in German. Whenever someone came in and ordered Kaffe, we always asked "Mit? or Mit Out?"
Well, now Mitt is definitely out, as Mr. Romney "suspended" his presidential campaign this week. Readers of this space shouldn't have been too surprised, since I wrote on Super Monday (the day before Super Tuesday) that if Romney didn't win the California primary, he would drop out on Wednesday, in Boston. It took him another day to do it, and he did it at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, but it was clear Romney couldn't win the Republican nomination, and as a smart investor, he knows when to cut his losses.
So now what? John McCain will be the GOP nominee - and we've got a new song about that coming up on KCBS Tuesday morning - be sure to bring your earplugs to work that day - but Mike Huckabee will hang around for a little while. Some of the conservatives will fall in line behind him as their last best hope, even though they consider Huckabee as liberal as McCain on taxes and immigration. The televangelist James Dobson, who said last week that a Clinton-McCain matchup would be the worst choice of his lifetime, so he wouldn't vote at all - has endorsed Huckabee now. The affable Arkansan will probably pick off a couple more wins in conservative states, but it won't be enough to derail the Straight Talk Express. He's angling for the vice presidential spot now, but I'm still not sure he brings enough to the party for McCain to give it to him.
On the Democratic side, Obama's definitely gaining steam, and he will gain more, because he has natural advantages in many of the states voting in the next ten days. Louisiana, DC, Virginia and Maryland have large black populations. He has family ties to Nebraska and Hawaii (well, Nebraska's next door to Kansas anyway). There are a lot of progressive Democrats in Wisconsin. Obama could win all of those states. Clinton's best shot is probably the Maine caucus, on Sunday. The overall delegate count will stay close, but Obama will keep raising more money, and generating more excitement, and he could start to pull away. Clinton's next firewalls are Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania - huge states built a lot like California, as far as Hillary is concerned - and if she sweeps those, she will probably still be the nominee. But if not...
For more on how the superdelegates work, and the role they could play, listen to the story I did on them Friday.
We've added a new widget to the Sovern Nation home page, with the latest delegate count. And we've updated our Primary Calendar, to show who's won what so far, and how many delegates each remaining state has. Check it out!
Finally, a clarification: When I wrote about Mike Huckabee promising to sit in with the Eyewitness Blues Band, I mentioned that Bill Clinton "stood us up" last year when he declined to play the sax with the band at an event in San Francisco. Imagine my surprise last week, when I arrived at the Ferry Building to cover Bill Clinton campaigning for his wife. No, he didn't whip out his horn - but a Clinton staffer came up to me and told me I was "just like every other reporter....The President did not stand you up, because he would have had to make a commitment for that to be true, and he never said he would play with you!" I was stunned - but thrilled and flattered that someone from the Clinton campaign was actually reading my blog. So she's the one...
I promised her a clarification, just to prove I am not just like all the other newsboys. So here it is - former President Clinton never promised to play with us. We just hoped he would, so we rented a sax for him to play, and learned his special song just in case, and were told he might...but when we asked him backstage, he glared at us and said "nice try." Of course, he did promise afterwards that he would bring his sax and sit in with us the next time he was in town, and he's been here a few times since, and that hasn't happened. So there.
But we've been playing pretty well Mit Out him.
Well, now Mitt is definitely out, as Mr. Romney "suspended" his presidential campaign this week. Readers of this space shouldn't have been too surprised, since I wrote on Super Monday (the day before Super Tuesday) that if Romney didn't win the California primary, he would drop out on Wednesday, in Boston. It took him another day to do it, and he did it at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, but it was clear Romney couldn't win the Republican nomination, and as a smart investor, he knows when to cut his losses.
So now what? John McCain will be the GOP nominee - and we've got a new song about that coming up on KCBS Tuesday morning - be sure to bring your earplugs to work that day - but Mike Huckabee will hang around for a little while. Some of the conservatives will fall in line behind him as their last best hope, even though they consider Huckabee as liberal as McCain on taxes and immigration. The televangelist James Dobson, who said last week that a Clinton-McCain matchup would be the worst choice of his lifetime, so he wouldn't vote at all - has endorsed Huckabee now. The affable Arkansan will probably pick off a couple more wins in conservative states, but it won't be enough to derail the Straight Talk Express. He's angling for the vice presidential spot now, but I'm still not sure he brings enough to the party for McCain to give it to him.
On the Democratic side, Obama's definitely gaining steam, and he will gain more, because he has natural advantages in many of the states voting in the next ten days. Louisiana, DC, Virginia and Maryland have large black populations. He has family ties to Nebraska and Hawaii (well, Nebraska's next door to Kansas anyway). There are a lot of progressive Democrats in Wisconsin. Obama could win all of those states. Clinton's best shot is probably the Maine caucus, on Sunday. The overall delegate count will stay close, but Obama will keep raising more money, and generating more excitement, and he could start to pull away. Clinton's next firewalls are Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania - huge states built a lot like California, as far as Hillary is concerned - and if she sweeps those, she will probably still be the nominee. But if not...
For more on how the superdelegates work, and the role they could play, listen to the story I did on them Friday.
We've added a new widget to the Sovern Nation home page, with the latest delegate count. And we've updated our Primary Calendar, to show who's won what so far, and how many delegates each remaining state has. Check it out!
Finally, a clarification: When I wrote about Mike Huckabee promising to sit in with the Eyewitness Blues Band, I mentioned that Bill Clinton "stood us up" last year when he declined to play the sax with the band at an event in San Francisco. Imagine my surprise last week, when I arrived at the Ferry Building to cover Bill Clinton campaigning for his wife. No, he didn't whip out his horn - but a Clinton staffer came up to me and told me I was "just like every other reporter....The President did not stand you up, because he would have had to make a commitment for that to be true, and he never said he would play with you!" I was stunned - but thrilled and flattered that someone from the Clinton campaign was actually reading my blog. So she's the one...
I promised her a clarification, just to prove I am not just like all the other newsboys. So here it is - former President Clinton never promised to play with us. We just hoped he would, so we rented a sax for him to play, and learned his special song just in case, and were told he might...but when we asked him backstage, he glared at us and said "nice try." Of course, he did promise afterwards that he would bring his sax and sit in with us the next time he was in town, and he's been here a few times since, and that hasn't happened. So there.
But we've been playing pretty well Mit Out him.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Wait And See Wednesday
It was a veritable bacchanalia of ballots. An Obama orgy. A Hillary hoedown. A Huckabee hullabaloo. A McCainapalooza. Yes, it was Big Fat Super Tuesday - Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Election Day pretty much everywhere else. And who won?
Well, for the actual results, check all our links and tables and numbers on the Sovern Nation home page.
But here's a thumbnail of what I think, at 1-something in the morning in Sacramento, where I covered the California primary tonight. I mean, last night.
As expected, the battle for the Democratic nomination was not ended by Super Duper Tuesday. Barack Obama won 13 states, but Hillary Clinton will end up with slightly more delegates, thanks to her wins in New York and California. I was surprised by her margin of victory here; all the polls pointed toward a closer race in the Golden State. Obama did carry San Francisco, beating Clinton there, 53-43. He did well among white men, African Americans and younger voters. She did better with women and Latinos. There was a 26-point gender gap in California; Hillary beat Barack by 18 points among women, but he had an eight-point margin among male voters.
But neither of them even has half the delegates needed for nomination, which means the fight goes on, to the next wave of voting in Louisiana, Virginia, Washington D.C. and Maryland - and ultimately, to what now loom as huge primaries in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. States that were supposed to be anticlimactic are now going to be all-out delegate scraps, with blanket media coverage and 24/7 punditry. Obama has more money, but Hillary's not exactly going begging. Will she go negative again? Probably not as long as she's still got the delegate lead, and the edge in superdelegates - Democratic officeholders whom she doesn't want to alienate further by getting nasty. If Obama can build on his momentum - and he's likely to gain more by winning the next few primaries, all in areas favorable to him - he may be able to wrest the nomination from her.
On the Republican side, John McCain is clearly the prohibitive frontrunner now, as we expected Super Tuesday would confirm. Mitt Romney has been mortally wounded by Mike Huckabee. Is it really a surprise that Bible Belt Southerners would prefer a Southern Baptist preacher to a Boston Mormon? Yet in many of these states, even ones that McCain won, two-thirds of Republican primary voters preferred someone else. That doesn't bode well for McCain in November. More and more conservatives are talking about sitting this one out, if McCain is their nominee. They can't seem to rally behind either Romney or Huckabee though, so McCain's going to win the nomination by default. As my brother Mark points out, McCain polled best Tuesday in Blue States - places the Republicans will be hard-pressed to carry in November, even with McCain's appeal to moderates and independents. There's little Red State enthusiasm for the Arizona Senator. The silver lining for the Republicans is that the Democrats are likely to have a much more protracted, and potentially divisive, nomination battle for the next two months, while McCain consolidates the GOP behind him.
I did my own number-crunching in the wee hours to see how the California delegates pencil out, and the way I add it up, right now McCain wins 164 of our GOP delegates, Romney gets the other six...and Hillary beats Barack for delegates here, 199 to 171, but the Democratic numbers will certainly change a little bit.
One thing is certain: the party's just getting started for the Democrats, while they're ordering up McCain banners for the Saint Paul convention down at the Republican National Committee.
Well, for the actual results, check all our links and tables and numbers on the Sovern Nation home page.
But here's a thumbnail of what I think, at 1-something in the morning in Sacramento, where I covered the California primary tonight. I mean, last night.
As expected, the battle for the Democratic nomination was not ended by Super Duper Tuesday. Barack Obama won 13 states, but Hillary Clinton will end up with slightly more delegates, thanks to her wins in New York and California. I was surprised by her margin of victory here; all the polls pointed toward a closer race in the Golden State. Obama did carry San Francisco, beating Clinton there, 53-43. He did well among white men, African Americans and younger voters. She did better with women and Latinos. There was a 26-point gender gap in California; Hillary beat Barack by 18 points among women, but he had an eight-point margin among male voters.
But neither of them even has half the delegates needed for nomination, which means the fight goes on, to the next wave of voting in Louisiana, Virginia, Washington D.C. and Maryland - and ultimately, to what now loom as huge primaries in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. States that were supposed to be anticlimactic are now going to be all-out delegate scraps, with blanket media coverage and 24/7 punditry. Obama has more money, but Hillary's not exactly going begging. Will she go negative again? Probably not as long as she's still got the delegate lead, and the edge in superdelegates - Democratic officeholders whom she doesn't want to alienate further by getting nasty. If Obama can build on his momentum - and he's likely to gain more by winning the next few primaries, all in areas favorable to him - he may be able to wrest the nomination from her.
On the Republican side, John McCain is clearly the prohibitive frontrunner now, as we expected Super Tuesday would confirm. Mitt Romney has been mortally wounded by Mike Huckabee. Is it really a surprise that Bible Belt Southerners would prefer a Southern Baptist preacher to a Boston Mormon? Yet in many of these states, even ones that McCain won, two-thirds of Republican primary voters preferred someone else. That doesn't bode well for McCain in November. More and more conservatives are talking about sitting this one out, if McCain is their nominee. They can't seem to rally behind either Romney or Huckabee though, so McCain's going to win the nomination by default. As my brother Mark points out, McCain polled best Tuesday in Blue States - places the Republicans will be hard-pressed to carry in November, even with McCain's appeal to moderates and independents. There's little Red State enthusiasm for the Arizona Senator. The silver lining for the Republicans is that the Democrats are likely to have a much more protracted, and potentially divisive, nomination battle for the next two months, while McCain consolidates the GOP behind him.
I did my own number-crunching in the wee hours to see how the California delegates pencil out, and the way I add it up, right now McCain wins 164 of our GOP delegates, Romney gets the other six...and Hillary beats Barack for delegates here, 199 to 171, but the Democratic numbers will certainly change a little bit.
One thing is certain: the party's just getting started for the Democrats, while they're ordering up McCain banners for the Saint Paul convention down at the Republican National Committee.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Sunday Flashes
STUNNING NEWS:
California First Lady Maria Shriver delivered a surprise endorsement of Barack Obama today. She appeared unexpectedly at the big Obama rally at UCLA, led by Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and Caroline Kennedy. Hear her 8-minute endorsement speech here. Shriver hinted at the trouble her decision could cause at home, joking about how "scary" it was to break publicly from her husband, Governor Schwarzenegger, who's endorsing John McCain. It's not the first time the two have disagreed publicly on politics, but if Obama wins the nomination, it sure raises the prospect of a fascinating fall campaign, with Schwarzenegger stumping for one candidate and his wife for the other.
TOO CLOSE TO CALL:
You can feel Obama's momentum on the campaign trail, and now you can measure it. Three new polls show him closing what was once a yawning gap with Hillary Clinton. She had a 30-point lead in California's Field Poll six months ago - now it's just two points. Meanwhile, Zogby and Rasmussen say Obama has pulled ahead - and Zogby polled through Saturday, while Field quit calling on Friday. So Zogby's numbers may be tracking late-breaking voters more accurately. We talked with Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo about his numbers, in both the Democratic and Republican races - hear the interview here.
The Clinton campaign, trying to stop the hemorrhaging in a must-win state, is scrambling to bring the First Husband-in-waiting back to a place that still loves him: Bill will barnstorm California on Monday, from Orange County to San Francisco, to try to sway those undecided and Edwards voters, and keep Obama from stealing the Golden State. Hillary insists she's not worried; if you missed our exclusive interview with her Friday night, here it is.
We'll break down those Super Tuesday races tomorrow - too much going on today to keep up!
California First Lady Maria Shriver delivered a surprise endorsement of Barack Obama today. She appeared unexpectedly at the big Obama rally at UCLA, led by Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and Caroline Kennedy. Hear her 8-minute endorsement speech here. Shriver hinted at the trouble her decision could cause at home, joking about how "scary" it was to break publicly from her husband, Governor Schwarzenegger, who's endorsing John McCain. It's not the first time the two have disagreed publicly on politics, but if Obama wins the nomination, it sure raises the prospect of a fascinating fall campaign, with Schwarzenegger stumping for one candidate and his wife for the other.
TOO CLOSE TO CALL:
You can feel Obama's momentum on the campaign trail, and now you can measure it. Three new polls show him closing what was once a yawning gap with Hillary Clinton. She had a 30-point lead in California's Field Poll six months ago - now it's just two points. Meanwhile, Zogby and Rasmussen say Obama has pulled ahead - and Zogby polled through Saturday, while Field quit calling on Friday. So Zogby's numbers may be tracking late-breaking voters more accurately. We talked with Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo about his numbers, in both the Democratic and Republican races - hear the interview here.
The Clinton campaign, trying to stop the hemorrhaging in a must-win state, is scrambling to bring the First Husband-in-waiting back to a place that still loves him: Bill will barnstorm California on Monday, from Orange County to San Francisco, to try to sway those undecided and Edwards voters, and keep Obama from stealing the Golden State. Hillary insists she's not worried; if you missed our exclusive interview with her Friday night, here it is.
We'll break down those Super Tuesday races tomorrow - too much going on today to keep up!
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Hillary and Huckabee
There's never a dull moment at Sovern Nation. In the last 36 hours, we chatted about bass-playing with Mike Huckabee and did an exclusive interview with Hillary Clinton.
Huckabee came to San Francisco, not exactly I Heart Huckabee territory, and spoke at the Commonwealth Club. He was charming, engaging and affable, with a tremendous personal backstory. He talked about his hardscrabble childhood, getting a job in radio at age 14, marrying his high school sweetheart at 19, making it through her battle with spinal cancer just one year later, and becoming a Baptist minister and ultimately, a very successful politician. His wife Janet was with him (she's been in fine health for years now), furiously working her Blackberry while her husband was campaigning (actually, I think it was his Blackberry and she was answering emails for him).
Huckabee was interrupted by hecklers from Code Pink, a feminist anti-war organization in the Bay Area. He handled them deftly, celebrating the disruption as an affirmation of American freedoms, pointedly reminding the demonstrators that in some countries, "they'd be taken out and shot" for interrupting him. The women were dragged out of the room and released. Our audio of the episode was picked up by the Drudge Report, and man, does that site have readers. We've had over 160,000 hits on Sovern Nation and KCBS.com since then - many, many times more than normal.
Most of Huckabee's positions are anathema to San Franciscans. He is staunchly anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, anti-gun control, and wants to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage and abortion. But he told the crowd at the Fairmont Hotel, that he doesn't always think Democrats are wrong, and he doesn't always think Republicans are right. He considers himself a conservative but admits that Rush Limbaugh thinks he's too far to the left on some issues.
He told me afterwards that he really still thinks he can win the Republican nomination, and that if he wins enough delegates on Super Tuesday, while Mitt Romney falls short - then it will be Romney who drops out next Wednesday, leaving him as the only remaining conservative alternative to John McCain.
We also talked for a while about playing the bass - something we both do. He got quite technical, talking about action and intonation and neck woods. We discovered our bands play some of the same songs - Mustang Sally, In the Midnight Hour - and when I told him about Bill Clinton standing us up last year when he was supposed to sit in on the saxophone with the Eyewitness Blues Band, Huckabee promised to come back and jam with us if he's the Republican nominee. And, displaying remarkable flesh-pressing skills, when I mentioned that the cameraman who'd shot an interview with him two hours earlier was the drummer in my band - a guy he met only in passing - he remembered his name, saying "Oh, Zack is your drummer?" Now that's a smooth politician.
Hillary Clinton is one, too. She finally called in to Sovern Nation to do a long-awaited interview. Maybe you already clicked above and heard it. She said she would consider Barack Obama as her running mate, if she's the nominee - although the way he's closing on her, it may be him choosing a Veep, and I don't see him selecting her. I do think, even though it goes against conventional wisdom, that he would make a tremendous running mate for her - simply because that Democratic Dream Team would generate enormous enthusiasm and turnout, especially among women, blacks, Latinos and young voters. Some of those Obama supporters really don't like Hillary, and may not vote at all in November if he's not on the ticket. Put him on there, and their support might just be enough to put another Clinton in the White House.
You can also hear our interview with Senator Ted Kennedy about his endorsement of Obama by clicking here - excellent questions by my colleagues Patti Reising and Jane McMillan. Still waiting for Obama himself to grant us an interview - I'm hoping it will happen before Super Tuesday.
In my next post: some analysis of what to expect Tuesday, and how all those delegates could shake out.
Huckabee came to San Francisco, not exactly I Heart Huckabee territory, and spoke at the Commonwealth Club. He was charming, engaging and affable, with a tremendous personal backstory. He talked about his hardscrabble childhood, getting a job in radio at age 14, marrying his high school sweetheart at 19, making it through her battle with spinal cancer just one year later, and becoming a Baptist minister and ultimately, a very successful politician. His wife Janet was with him (she's been in fine health for years now), furiously working her Blackberry while her husband was campaigning (actually, I think it was his Blackberry and she was answering emails for him).
Huckabee was interrupted by hecklers from Code Pink, a feminist anti-war organization in the Bay Area. He handled them deftly, celebrating the disruption as an affirmation of American freedoms, pointedly reminding the demonstrators that in some countries, "they'd be taken out and shot" for interrupting him. The women were dragged out of the room and released. Our audio of the episode was picked up by the Drudge Report, and man, does that site have readers. We've had over 160,000 hits on Sovern Nation and KCBS.com since then - many, many times more than normal.
Most of Huckabee's positions are anathema to San Franciscans. He is staunchly anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, anti-gun control, and wants to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage and abortion. But he told the crowd at the Fairmont Hotel, that he doesn't always think Democrats are wrong, and he doesn't always think Republicans are right. He considers himself a conservative but admits that Rush Limbaugh thinks he's too far to the left on some issues.
He told me afterwards that he really still thinks he can win the Republican nomination, and that if he wins enough delegates on Super Tuesday, while Mitt Romney falls short - then it will be Romney who drops out next Wednesday, leaving him as the only remaining conservative alternative to John McCain.
We also talked for a while about playing the bass - something we both do. He got quite technical, talking about action and intonation and neck woods. We discovered our bands play some of the same songs - Mustang Sally, In the Midnight Hour - and when I told him about Bill Clinton standing us up last year when he was supposed to sit in on the saxophone with the Eyewitness Blues Band, Huckabee promised to come back and jam with us if he's the Republican nominee. And, displaying remarkable flesh-pressing skills, when I mentioned that the cameraman who'd shot an interview with him two hours earlier was the drummer in my band - a guy he met only in passing - he remembered his name, saying "Oh, Zack is your drummer?" Now that's a smooth politician.
Hillary Clinton is one, too. She finally called in to Sovern Nation to do a long-awaited interview. Maybe you already clicked above and heard it. She said she would consider Barack Obama as her running mate, if she's the nominee - although the way he's closing on her, it may be him choosing a Veep, and I don't see him selecting her. I do think, even though it goes against conventional wisdom, that he would make a tremendous running mate for her - simply because that Democratic Dream Team would generate enormous enthusiasm and turnout, especially among women, blacks, Latinos and young voters. Some of those Obama supporters really don't like Hillary, and may not vote at all in November if he's not on the ticket. Put him on there, and their support might just be enough to put another Clinton in the White House.
You can also hear our interview with Senator Ted Kennedy about his endorsement of Obama by clicking here - excellent questions by my colleagues Patti Reising and Jane McMillan. Still waiting for Obama himself to grant us an interview - I'm hoping it will happen before Super Tuesday.
In my next post: some analysis of what to expect Tuesday, and how all those delegates could shake out.
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