Feb 04 2008
McCain’s Big Day Is Coming
McCain has FL and is zeroed in on NY right now. If he takes CA that is 3 out of the 4 big states. And of course McCain will have a huge number of other smaller states in his column as well come Tuesday. While national polls are an average of the feelings in each state (supposedly) and therefore don’t reflect what will happen in each state, they do indicate which way the trends should or could break. McCain has kept growing his national lead over Romney – now at 19%. That tells me a large state like CA, while apparently close, will probably go to McCain with most others on Tuesday. That means the entire GOP race could be basically over this week – barring some major unforeseen event.
On the Democrat side Obama is still clawing his way to parity with Clinton, hoping to catch her in enough states this week to keep the Democrat race open. He has a chance, but the Democrat establishment (with their super delegates and other rules on who gets to be represented in their nomination process) have a stronger grip on their party than the GOP does. If this report he is losing support among women holds up then he has a chance. Right now it looks like Hillary will eek out more states.
It will be a fight to see which independent revolution (left or right) wins and which one doesn’t – as I noted yesterday. I think the decision is over for the GOP. The purity wars launched by an impatient hyper-partisan crowd starting with Harriet Miers has taken its toll. Now it is a question of whether the Dems are fed up with their hyper-partisans as well.
Update: According to the latest CNN poll it looks like Obama may have caught Hillary:
Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton is losing ground to Sen. Barack Obama in a national CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released on the eve of critical Super Tuesday presidential primaries and caucuses.
…
Obama, who trounced Clinton in January’s South Carolina primary, garnered 49 percent of registered Democrats in Monday’s poll, while Clinton trailed by just three points, a gap well within the survey’s 4.5 percentage point margin of error.
I will be back home after results come in from the East Coast. But what I am watching is CA tomorrow. That state is going to play a huge role in deciding the nation’s future this year.
AJ, I think CA is proportional in delegates but NJ, NY, CT are winner take all. A big day is coming for McCain and America tomorrow. If you have issues with mccain and judges, all I can say is Ted Olsen and see today’s WSJ.
It’s hard to say BCFR has deminished political debate in this country. I think the interest add prohibition went too far and was struck down. Conservatives are just angry that liberals have used 527s better then themselves. Well, who is to blame for that?
Having just done my taxes, I’m for anyone who is for repealing the AMT.
My last remaining gripe is on global warming. I don’t expect any significant tax to come from this but a cap and trade for power plant emissions is proba bly coming. GWB even supports this. Before being against this, the power industry faced this before with NOX and SOX, and mercury. See where we are today, with scrubbers, SCRs and power is cheaper than ever. The answer is nuclear and continued development of an electric power train for automobiles. All doable without crippling the US economy. As long as everyone is included, China and India, then any cap and trade will be either pro-growth or rejected by developing countries. I don’t think this is a major worry.
Obama is a demagogue.
I equate his rise to cult hero status to Germany in the 1930s.
I hope he loses.
I’d rather have Hillary.
And that is nothing to do with what AJ calls “hyper-partisans”,
He is a thoroughly bad man at a very important time,
and he has said nothing, nothing at all about what he would actually do.
Well, no matter what happens, no one seals the deal on super tuesday. There is a lot of momentum Mitt’s way — and, perhaps it is too little too late. But, the last two polls out on California yesterday had Mitt ahead of McCain and Zogby released a poll today with Mitt 8 points ahead of McCain in California (polls in several other states moved Mitt’s way also). Once super tuesday settles down, things may look a lot different and advantages could switch as the races slow down.
There is no doubt that McCain will have a huge lead at the end of the day, tomorrow. But, I am always amazed by underdogs and the things they are able to pull off.
Unlike last time, this year’s primary is restricted to only Republican voters. So aside from the Ron Paul nuts suddenly registering Republican, California’s primary should give a pretty good sense of the Republican state of mind in the Western US.
Reuters article today:
“Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, led McCain 40 percent to 32 percent in California, where the margin of error was 3.3 percentage points. A win in California, the most populous state, could help puncture McCain’s growing momentum in the Republican nomination fight.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0345866120080204
RCP (which doesn’t even list several of the latest Mitt ahead polls) currently has McCain up by 3% in CA. (margin of error). It’s only one state and one series of polls; but, it shows something happening that I don’t think we could any longer call McCain momentum.
I learned a few interesting bits about California over at RCP.
In spite of recent polls, a significant number of the ballots are
already in in Caly. I had to get my absentee ballot in by
the 29th, so did all the mail voters, so last minute changes are
less significant than they appear.
Also, the state is divided into 50 or so districts, having typically
three delegates. On the Republican side, it’s winner takes all
in each district, but the Democrats use a proportional system,
but still if a vote is nearly even, they can’t have 1.5 delegates
for Clinton and 1.5 for Obama, so the candidate with the slightest
lead will get 2 and Obama will get 1.
What’s that mean?
Hillary should squeak by and get a majority in California
and McCain will win it outright.
True. The state is trying to convert everyone to vote by mail. My “vote by mail” registration came months ago, I passed on it and am going to vote on election day this year but most of my friends have long voted … so look for Rudy and Hillary to do much better in the election than the polls are showing today.
Dave M
Scary but I think I agree with you that I had rather have Hillary. I do not know about being a throughly bad man, but I have been saying all along that he says nothing. We do NOT know this man. I am a ‘people watcher’ and I know nothing. The only thing was The Voice. I sounded the alarm in 2004 but everyone just wrote him off as if he could never compete. I named him The Voice, said somebody with big money was backing and he sounds like JFK. So am I surprised by his success? He either says nothing or favors things that scare me stiff.
Crosspatch is about where I sit in this thing except I still have a month to decide. I also do not particularly think in terms of liberal and conservative but like she said………World Government vs National Sovereignty. Yep, that’s where I live. So you would think I would be screaming with the Malkin crowd. Wrong. I am not in the same spot as AJ but that crowd makes you either for them or against them. They wipe out all compromises and solutions. Okay. I am against them.
President Bush has done a beautiful job of fighting my wars. My #1 was against the UN. Anyone remember the chants of the UN should be the Decider? The Supremes thinking that they should be a little more International in their decisions? This goes directly to World vs National Sovereignty. If they can’t get in one door, they keep coming in another………
I kept begging Hannity (before the war) to put every Senator on camera and ask the question about the war. Who should be the Decider? FOX has a tape of Carl Levin saying the UN. One tape. We needed tapes and proof and this before the war started. Just think how nice it would have been to have nailed these creeps.
Some lump Hannity in with the others. Wrong. I disagree with several of his opinions but he is NOT in the same place. He is not a hater. At least not on TV. He has very, very strong opinions but he is not a hater. I actually emailed him constantly before 2004 because he was such a McCain supporter. Say whatever, but I know what I watched when he was trying to decide about the VP slot. No one was saying a word about it when I was emailing Hannity.
I agree with Crosspatch about the personality also. I think age, health and the resentment at losing the 2000 took their toll. And I may vote for him in March. Yep.
Thank you, all you Conservatives that only worry about pork, corruption, purity and Mexicans. You sure produced great choices. But I will vote, unlike some of those spineless Wimps that talk about staying home. Some of those Conservative George W Bush bashers should consider themselves as CiC on election day. Yep. You get to be the Decider. I bet he faces the same tasty choices each day on a zillion issues. Enjoy.
I saw a poll out done by the San Fancisco Chronicle that puts McCAin ahead in California. In fact in the last few days in CA, we have had a tie, Romney ahead and McCain ahead. Obviously they can not all be right. We shall find out soon enough what will happen.
I do not see much momentum for Romney, he is just sort of stalling, but McCain has definitely moved forward.
I have no idea if Tuesday will settle things, it might.
If Rudy were to win some delegates in a state where it is not winner take or all, what happens to them?
The polls are all over the place.
Here are two putting McCain ahead in CA.
McClatchy
sfgate
Sometimes I wonder if people deliberately lie to polsters.
“If Rudy were to win some delegates in a state where it is not winner take or all, what happens to them?”
I believe they stay committed to Rudy until Rudy releases them at the convention and a new rollcall is take.
“it looks like Obama may have caught Hillary”
When I first read my first thought was “caught Hillary doing what?” and then my second thought was “nevermind, I really don’t want to know”.
Anyone listen to Rush today? He is losing me and I do like him…What he is saying is so much like what the leftists would say, imho, just the opposite side. I am tired of the “movement” people wanting to be in control to the point that they would help elect a global socialist sorosite democrat. Unacceptable and will never be forgotten.
Left By Owl, I might remind you that McCain voted for the Specter amendment, which provided that the government of Mexico, among others, would have to be consulted before building physical barriers along the southern border. Six months later, McCain says he was wrong.
http://dailypundit.com/?p=29500
Well, atleast he said he was wrong. Or, was it a flip flop? Don’t mean to make you feel any worse. It’s a bad election for all of us.
This also haunts me from the same link I gave above,
“I believe my party has gone astray. I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and in their philosophy.†– John McCain
Rush is just an overweight Bill Clinton with bad hair. It’s always all about him. They’re both narcissistic.
McCain Plays Down California
excerpt:
For at least one candidate, though, California will not be the story. John McCain, once an afterthought, then the front-runner, is seeing his poll numbers in the Golden State sink again
The news may be worse than that. A tracking poll for C-SPAN and Reuters, taken by Zogby, shows distinct movement toward McCain’s chief opponent in California, Mitt Romney. After taking the lead yesterday, Romney is now up by eight points. A victory by such a small margin would only give Romney a few extra delegates — the state allocates most of their Republican delegates in a winner-take-all by Congressional District fashion.
In anticipation of such a result, McCain’s team has started downplaying expectations and California’s relative importance. “We’re going to do very well in the winner-take-all states in the Northeast,” spokesman Brian Rogers told Politics Nation today. “California is a toss-up that, at the end of the day, won’t be the big story [as long as] we pick up some delegates.”
Rogers promoted the importance of states like New York and New Jersey, which award delegates to the statewide winner and in which McCain is far ahead. In fact, if Romney wins a majority in each of California’s districts, he would win 170 convention delegates, twelve short of what McCain would win from victories in those two states and his home state of Arizona.
Even if a win in California left Romney at a disadvantage in the rest of the country, it would be a huge boost for a candidate who has looked, if not resigned to his fate, at least on the ropes and badly in need of a victory. A Golden State win could prove to the former Massachusetts governor that a one-on-one race against McCain really could turn to Romney’s advantage, and in the end, that could make for a renewed interest in a long-term crusade against the Arizona maverick.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/politics_nation/2008/02/mccain_plays_down_ca.html
Frogg:
McCain has said he will make border security a priority. That is not a flip flop, he is just accepting the reality of what people want.
Romney went from supporting Bush to supporting Tancredo, that is a complete roll over.
As for California, we will know soon enough. But if it is not a winner takes all state, then no matter who wins or loses it the loss and/or the gain will be mitigated.
I read somewhere that the delegates are divided out of CA, with the winner getting a 11 delegate bonus.
Owl:
I will tell you something that really bugged me about Rush. Back in 2000 when McCain ran there were all sorts of attacks going out against him, one of them was actually directed at his wife. She had a history of a problem with pain killers or something. It was some time back. That was something that some on the right used to smear McCain. He had a weirdo wife.
But when Rush had the same problems to the extent that he actually had a brush with the law, well…that was different.
I found all that stuff a tad unnerving. Distasteful. Tacky. Going after the man’s wife? I don’t think so.
Frogg
I glanced at that list but did not bother to read it all………..heck, I could have written most of it. Told you, McCain held my attention through the years because we all admired him. I have been very disappointed. Very. Very. There is not another politician I can name that has made me more angry. And it was not about immigration. But voting is about doing your duty and being CiC for a day. I may still vote for McCain.
Terrye
The Tancredo thing with Romney bothered me also. Think it was a poor decision even though he knew it would never happen.
I agree about McCain’s first wife smear and also the slime about his capture. All that stuff is pure SLIME. What is it with some that they must take it to such extremes? I think that is what the Left thought was happening with Kerry. It was not. They were too young to have witnessed it with their own eyes.
I can’t remember ever being this torn over the choices. I keep repeating to myself that the #1 first goal is to win. Look at what our Congress and our Pundits did in 2006 to themselves. I personally think those that talk about staying home, etc are nuts.
Think I am more like the Anchoress in that Romney needed to make his case. Loved that she said you could not use the word McCain in doing so. I have watched him and he just never closes the deal. I am still undecided.