A two horse race loses for Clinton.
Thinking about the post below, what happens if Edwards is effectively ruled out by the time we get to South Carolina, or Florida, or the Feb. 5 tsunami?
My guess is that Edwards voters will likely break towards Obama. As a thought exercise, imagine chopping up about half of the Edwards support and distributing it 2 to 1 to Obama.
+3 or +4 to Obama presents a very different race.
My guess is that Edwards voters will likely break towards Obama. As a thought exercise, imagine chopping up about half of the Edwards support and distributing it 2 to 1 to Obama.
+3 or +4 to Obama presents a very different race.
posted by mikevotes at
11:27 AM
4 Comments:
I think it would be higher than that. Assuming it wasn't a "horse race" and people were just thinking about candidates. If Edwards was out of the pictures his supporters might disperse to other candidates like Kusinich, Obama, maybe Dodd and Richardson too, thus diluting the Obama:Clinton spread.
But is is a horse race. And even more so when we get past NH. IF Edwards is a long shot third out of Iowa and NH, and if he's lost in the Dodd, Kusinich statistical weeds by 5 Feb, then I see the bulk of his supporters hitching up to the Obama camp. I'd venture a guess that it would be closer to a 4:1 spread.
Hillary seems to be suffering from the same campaign management infrastructure problems that dog many inside players (Kerry?): too many political-industry consultants (hack knowitalls) all with giant egos and focused on polling and marketing and not enough on honest credibility. Let Hillary be Hillary and she'll do fine, I think. But this smugness of inevitability -- if it's her true self-belief or not -- will doom her with primary voters.
By
-epm, at 2:13 PM
I didn't want to overstate and go that far because I have nothing but gut feeling to back it up.
(You have to figure that some of the Labor support Edwards has might go to Clinton.)
I just don't have a sense how much of the support is anti-Clinton. I don't think there's that much that says "I'll vote against Clinton," but it's my sense that there's a subconscious undercurrent in the Dems that feels the need to vote against authority/frontrunner/whatever, a need to overthrow power.
And, in the primary election for the Dems, she represents power.
And, "inevitability" is a strategy designed for June and July, to beat your opponents early and cut off their organization and fundraising and win the election there.
By
mikevotes, at 3:33 PM
I am, of course, speaking from sheer intuition and not education... still all this is just a thought exercise on a couple of cascading "ifs".
I think you may have something regarding the various union endorsements, but I just don't know how much endorsements have to do with votes anymore.
I like Clinton. I think she'd be an effective president, but I'm not convinced she'd be a great president. The I-believe-in-Santa kid inside of me what's a president that will help deliver a sea change not only in policy, but in the whole course of American political power and the exorcise thereof. I'm sure a President Clinton will deliver new and better policies. I don't believe she'd bring a new mindset regarding the political landscape.
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-epm, at 8:35 AM
Agreed on the unions.
I agree on your assessment.
I've said this from day one. Clinton is very smart, very capable, and well versed in the inside baseball of Washington. She'd be a fine president.
She would be very limited, though in the scale of any initiatives she wanted to launch. The Republicans in Congress would have a ready reserve of resistance in the country to backstop them.
By
mikevotes, at 9:27 AM
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