Dean Christakos« Let's see that play again | Main | Happy Fourth of July »
February 6, 2008
My Super Tuesday Observations
There was no big blowout on either side. Obama didn't make the knockout blow that he could have had he won California. This spared my neighbors the prospect of listening to me play the Obama Reggaeton song over and over again at high volume on my stereo.
Here are the big stories:
- First, for all the enthusiasm about Obama and good press he gets, Clinton is still the "default candidate." She's the candidate that low-information voters and non-activists are immediately drawn to, meaning that Obama is still an insurgent challenger. While one person derisively wrote, "Hillary Clinton really is like the McDonald's of the Democratic candidates. No good god-damn reason to go there except you've been there before and you know the brand," McDonald's is the place advertising "billions and billions served," and people are going there in much larger numbers than they patronize Le Pain Quotidien (which I recommend, by the way).
- The flip side is that whenever Obama sets his sights on a state and organizes the hell out of it, he wins, or at least fights to a tie.
- Whatever happens, Democrats are turning out in much, much larger numbers than Republicans.
On the other hand, Obama has moved his South Carolina and Missouri staffs to Ohio and Texas, putting a lot of boots on the ground in order to do what his campaign does best: organize voters and boost turnout to drive him to victory. Plus, Obama has raised almost $6 million just on Wednesday. Clinton, meanwhile, had to loan her campaign money for the next month while her staffers are voluntarily going without pay. Next week, Obama is favored to win at least 2 of the 3 primaries in Maryland, DC, and Virginia.
Personally, I'm a bit skeptical of Obama's chances. Clinton's built-in base is huge, and the candidate who gets her base almost always wins the nomination, and she proved her formidability on Tuesday, turning back strong challenges by Obama in Massachusetts and California and crushing them. If she does the same in Ohio and Texas, she wins, and the thing is that she probably will win if she just treads water. It would take an implosion of her campaign of catastrophic proportions for her to lose Ohio and Texas.
Most importantly, one reason that Obama is likely to lose -- or even why he should lose -- is as a means of giving those who express such youthful idealistic enthusiasm about his candidacy a necessary growing experience. You see, as a veteran of the Howard Dean campaign, I know what it's like to watch an insurgent campaign full of youthful enthusiasm get stamped under the boot-heel of establishment support and skepticism of the aged. It was one of those formative experiences that have helped me evolve into the cynical cranky old man that I am today and allows me to really appreciate a certain amount of Machiavellian viciousness in my candidates. Sure, I like Obama, but I'd hate to see all of his young volunteers miss out on what it's like to have their dreams squashed like a bug.
Posted by Dean at February 6, 2008 11:45 AM
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