Jan 18 2008
Dem Predictions For This Weekend
As I look at the latest Nevada Caucus polls at RCP for the dems I note a consistent pattern – over time Hillary is losing ground and Obama is rising fast. Check out any single poll and look at the trends. For example, looking at the last two ARG polls Hillary goes from 45->35, Obama goes from 18->32. Research 2000 has Hillary going from 45->30, and Obama going from 20->32. Mason-Dixon is a bit of an outlier, but the trend is the same. Hillary goes from 34->41, but Obama goes from 26->32.
We have all learned the polls are really unreliable this year, but trends are probably not. In addition, Hillary had a horrible time with African-Americans and “uncommitted” in Michigan. And the racial tensions between camp Obama and Clinton have not receded, they have just gone underground. I think Obama can take Hillary in Nevada caucuses as he did in Iowa. She is the establishment candidate who voted for the Iraq war, and she is struggling against the flamboyant Obama and the nightmare of continuing the Bush-Clinton-Bush feud.
In South Carolina it is not even close – Obama will take it and the black community will finally establish its independence from the strangle hold the Democrat Party establishment has held over that element of their base. Hillary losing both states will put her campaign back on its heals big time.
Yep. Obama. My slant on the racial fight between Hill and O. I don’t know who actually started it but while the media was busy reporting on the Hillary sins, I watched Obama speech he gave the morning after. I laughed because I expected him to belt out ‘I have a dream’ in The Voice. Powerful stuff he was shooting at her. He let her know that he could march the streets. Loud and clear. He has a problem because he does not know how many whites would view this as another Al & Jesse show. I am not surprised that they both stood down. I have a problem though with anyone that associates with anyone that praises Farrakhan. I don’t like it. Same as I have a problem with Rep Conyers/Farrakhan friendship.
Wow. I just watched Tom DeLay on Fox’s Cavuto. Wow. His subject was McCain and everyone needs to see it to believe it. I might not agree with his immigration hit but 100% agreement on every other thing he said. He even pointed out that McCain was now calling it the ‘McCain Surge’. He told it exactly as I have been shouting from Day 1. He said McCain fought the WH and the Party every step of the way and he laid it out. He was there. Shame SC voters will never get to see the whole picture laid out. Bravo DeLay.
Still , unless it changes Hill has large leads in Fl and Ca with a lot of delegates at stake.
Now if the health care taskforce paperwork that Judicial Watch just pried out of the Clinton Library is any indication as Capt Ed has shown with initial quotes, Hillary and Jay Rockefeller could be in for a whole lot of bad times.
The court ruling on the At Large caucus situation in Las Vegas has been seen by many to be a major boost to the Obama camp.
Trolling around the RSS feeds coming in from the left sider blogs and one first hand account of the last appearance by Hillary pretty much panned it as lackluster and not to inspiring to the crowd.
Their conclusion was that Hill is not quite as desperate as she was after Iowa and even if she loses this one in NV and then SC she has her eyes on the prize with the long view of whats up ahead as she gets to the states where her power base lives.
As far as the African American vote goes, it seems that even in congress the Congressional Black Caucus is split as to how they are viewing this whole mess on the left and being very cautious not to get to far out in front on it.
The seem to be looking a little bit with a jaundiced eye about what will come down the line as Hillary tries to balance pandering to the Blacks along with the Hispanics on the other hand.
Nobody wants to go to far out on a ledge to split things up at this point, but down the line remains to be seen.
If Hillary holds it together from Super Tuesday on, I expect few ripples because nobody would want to be on her bad side if she is the party nominee no matter what the outcome of the White House bid.
But out of what has transpired so far on the left side I look at it that NH was the important one.
No way would Hillary want to have Obama pull down all but the Michigan non event which was overshadowed by the Rep side of the race and basically look like he was running the table against her.
NH took a lot of that pressure off.
Now with Dennis K asking for a recount you wonder what he is looking for, since obviously he is not going to pull himself out of the basement in the voting there.
Couple that with some math wonk blogs and a couple of math types/political science types at a couple of major universities running the numbers in NH and suggesting that perhaps a couple of key voting places may have had the Hill/Obama tallies switched and you get a ripple in the water.
That along with the demographic switches between Ia and NH has more than a couple of eyebrows raised enough to take a second look.
Plus some local NH bloggers are talking about a whole lot of traffic heading back to Boston Town early in the evening that they had not observed in past elections.
Could be young voters heading back to college, maybe party workers heading home or then could it be new drive by voters?
Wheels within wheels.
Pure pie in the sky speculation at this point, but I have some people sending me email that I know with second and third hand stuff that seems to lean toward Dennis K having some dirt on what went on in NH and he is trolling for data in the recount to support his position.
Take all that with a whole shaker of salt, but when you look at what the whole picture would be if Obama had run the table up to Super Tuesday, you have to admit that Hillary would have reason to push the limits if she were not an ethical person that is.
Merlin: Do you think that Dennis K is acting in the interests of truth or will his actions in getting a recount be towards supporting some lie or fraud?
My sense about Dennis K is that he’s a nutcase fruitcasse yet he seems very sincere and honest.
Your opinion?
To me he is sort of like the crazy uncle nobody really wants to talk about in public.
All I have to say is since he is way out of the vote count , in fact so far that if he finished lower in the count he would have to have been beaten by a republican the only purpose here has to be a fact finding mission of some kind that somebody is willing to put up to 70K in bucks behind to figure it out.
That doesn’t sound like an expensive weekend hobby, someone has a motivation and there are only so many options of what could be the choices.
But when you look at the situation the large portion of the Dennis K supporters are from the way far left nutroots.
They don’t have a lot of love lost for Hill and would love to have a porcupine take up residence in her pantsuit.
Add that to the ivory tower academics even suggesting bs or abnormalities from historic voting patterns to say the least and statistics people sending me back to refresher readings on Anovas and degrees of freedom and you can see there are multiple groups willing to at least take a reasonable second glance without an ax to grind but strictly in the interest of integrity of the election process , that should raise a few flags with all the different ideas converging on one small place.