chromodynamics

I’ve been quiet the last few days, mainly because of how busy I was, but also because most of the news hasn’t really been above the level of minor bickering. Still, today’s Junior Super Tuesday with contests in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont should be significant.

On the Democratic side:
Hillary has had a few good days, but whether that translates into votes is yet to be seen. Her campaign feels that they have some momentum, and her appearance on SNL and The Daily Show, along with the “phone-ringing” ad, has certainly kept her with plenty of press coverage. They are hoping for some unknown event to change the tide, but what exactly that is has yet to be defined. The campaign is also hinting that it will stay in no matter what the outcome of today.

Obama has had some so-so days recently, especially with Hillary fighting him on NAFTA aided by the whole Canadian affair. Further, the expectations game is now focused on him and whether he will win Texas and Ohio (which is interesting considering Hillary lead both states by double digits just a few weeks ago). Still, recent polls have him leading by a few in Texas, and just a few behind in Ohio. Further, while Hillary took in $35 million in February, Obama took in over $50 million.

On the Republican side:
The big question today will be whether he wins enough delegates to clinch the nomination and end the race. Still, there is a lot of concern on the Republican side, especially since McCain appears to have raised $12 million in February against the combined Democrats netting $85 million. The McCain campaign is definitely rooting for Hillary in hopes that the Democratic race will continue.

On the Democratic side:
Sen. Dodd is going to endorse Obama today.

The latest polls seem to indicate that Texas is all tied up, though the latest SurveyUSA poll (an organization that I feel does the most accurate national polling, which I will have to go into later) has Obama up 49% to Hillary’s 45%.

Drudge is reporting that Clinton staffers are attempting to smear Obama by showing a photo of him in native Somalian garb.
It is unclear yet if this was distributed by the Clinton campaign as part of a plan for Hillary to sharpen her attacks against Obama in an attempt to convert the last-minute undecideds.

Both:
I haven’t posted in a few day, but obviously the big news from the weekend was Nader announcing that he will run for president again.

Here is an article talking about the veepstakes, and specifically which governors are most likely for each side.

On the Republican side:
The DNC has filed a complaint with the FEC asking for an investigation into McCain’s withdrawal from the public financing system.

McCain is attempting to “clarify” his remark that the U.S. may need to remain in Iraq for another 100 years.

On the Democratic side:
The Democratic debate last night had a few zingers, but was for the most part pretty sedate. Most reviews I have read have the debate really close, with Hillary slightly ahead on points, but certainly nothing that will change the current state of the race.

There have been a lot of questions lately about how far Hillary will go if Obama continues to be ahead or increases his lead in delegates. I think her last statement of the debate is very telling about her future actions: “And, you know, no matter what happens in this contest -- and I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored. Whatever happens, we're going to be fine. You know, we have strong support from our families and our friends. I just hope that we'll be able to say the same thing about the American people, and that's what this election should be about.”

On the Republican side:
The big news continues to be the fallout from the NY Times ethics story about McCain. So far, the right has lined up behind McCain to attack the Times. However, I’ve read several pundits who think that further information will be revealed about McCain’s relationship with the lobbyist by either the Times or another organization.

Newsweek discusses the facts behind the story here.

Finally, another interesting article from Newsweek: The End of Conservatism.

On the Democratic side:
Obama won both contests yesterday, winning in Wisconsin (58-41) and Hawaii (76-24).

Obama continued to cut into Hillary’s base, while Hillary’s recent negative attacks (like the whole plagiarism debate) did not blunt Obama’s momentum.

Both:
This article thrills me to no end. It is a comparison of [Obama vs. Hillary] vs. McCain to [Santos vs. Russell] vs. Vinick, the contest in the final two years of the series The West Wing.

On the Republican side:
McCain won both contests, winning in Wisconsin (55-37) and Washington (49-22).

McCain is only about 200 delegates away from clinching the nomination, so it is likely that the Republican contest will end on March 4th. However, his win in Wisconsin continued to be because of a strong showing among moderates and those who are “somewhat conservative”, not an increase in his showing among the “very conservative.”

On the Democratic side:
Hillary shakes up her campaign, bringing in a new campaign manager.

Interestingly, the results on the primary in New Mexico on Feb. 5th are still unknown as party officials continue to analyze provisional ballots.

Both:
From the weekend contests, Obama wins big and Huck is a thorn in McCain’s side. Obama wins in all five contests: Louisiana (57-36), Nebraska (68-32), Washington (68-31), the Virgin Island (92-8) and Maine (59-40). Huck won in Louisiana (43-42) and in Kansas (60-24). McCain has been called the winner in Washington 26-24, but there appear to be some irregularities going on.

This is a fun article on how kids love this year’s campaign.

The veepstakes speculation begins (or continues).

On the Republican side:
Newsweek has an excellent article on McCain’s difficulties with the right.

If you did not watch A Daily Show last night, I highly recommend going to the website and watch the first 7 minute clip. Jon Stewart discusses Romney’s departure speech in what I think is the best work he’s done since he came back from hiatus.

On the Democratic side:
I forgot to mention this yesterday, but a group of Obama advisors did a prediction of how the races would go from here, and came up with almost a tie in pledged delegate counts for Obama and Hillary, meaning the race would be decided by the super-delegates. (I sure hope this isn’t the case.)

Though the nomination race is still on, the Democrats are already gearing up to start hammering McCain.

In the money race, Clinton has raised $7.5 million since Feb. 1st (it seems releasing that she gave her campaign a loan has helped in turn made people aware that she needed money). Of course, Obama has raised that same amount in the 36 hours following Tuesday. Incidentally, McCain raised about the same amount during the entire month of January (Obama has over $30 million and Hillary raised $13.5 million).

On the Republican side:
Romney withdrew to boos at the CPAC, and McCain made appeals for party unity at the same conference (and also to boos).

Huckabee will continue in the race, and looks forward to Texas. It will be interesting to see if he can rally the right-wing.

On the Democratic side:
Hillary won in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

Obama won in Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Utah.

So in the end Super Tuesday didn’t really prove decisive. Obama won more states, but it look like Hillary will win more delegates (though they are still counting so the total number hasn’t been decided yet). It looks like both campaigns accomplished what they hoped: Hillary took the more delegates but Obama is very close. Hillary won large among Hispanics and women; Obama won large with African-Americans, and seemed to take a lot of the former Edwards support.

My impression is that in the expectations game, Hillary wins, but by the slimmest of margins. She lost Missouri, which she hoped to win, and New Mexico, though both were extremely close. But she took Massachusetts even after Obama’s Kennedy endorsement, as well as Arizona. Obama’s camp had hoped for close contests in California and New York, but Hillary came out strong in both. We will see what further analysis by the pundits has to say, especially after the delegate counts are solid, and how Obama’s momentum is affected.

Both:
Surprisingly, the Super Tuesday results showed few surprises. The next few days will be spent analyzing the numbers for the subtler changes that may affect the race.

On the Republican side:
McCain won in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma.

Romney won in Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah.

Huckabee won in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

McCain clearly had a good night, even though he didn’t completely capture the nomination. Despite some recent polls, Romney wasn’t close in California. I think the only surprise of the night was how well Huckabee did in the south; both Romney and McCain would have like to have taken one of these states. The result is that this will continue to be a 3-way contest, which in the end means that McCain will eventually win, just not as soon as he would like.

I think the big loser of the night was Romney. He really needed to take California, or a few states in the conservative south, to gain the momentum, force Huckabee out, and really challenge McCain. He will continue, but it is unlikely now that he will gain the nomination. McCain for his part still has to worry about the conservative, who split for Huckabee and Romney in most cases. McCain will really need this vote come the general election.

On the Democratic side:
Obama is showing movement in the polls, and many of the states have tightened up. Yesterday he received a surprise endorsement: Maria Shriver, Mrs. Schwarzenegger. Also, there continue to be many stories in the media about Obama’s appeal to independents and Republicans (Obamacans as Newsweek has dubbed them).

Did Bill Richardson endorse Hillary? Apparently NPR reported that he did yesterday, and Cokie Roberts repeated the assertion on NPR this morning, but no other major media outlet has reported this and Politico is saying that it won’t happen. It is clear that Richardson and Bill Clinton watched the Superbowl together yesterday, so maybe an endorsement will come today. This would certainly be a boost for Hillary, especially out West.

The New York Times has an interesting article about how the choice between Clinton and Obama is splitting many Democratic families, not just the Kennedys.

Both:
Super Tuesday is tomorrow. Expect every media outlet to have some sort of special coverage, theme music and all.

On the Republican side:
McCain has said that the race on the GOP side could end Tuesday with him as the nominee. However, many hard-line conservatives are trying to rally behind Romney.

Romney won the Maine republican caucuses, though this was a very small primary contest and not covered with much fanfare by the media.

The Field poll has McCain up by 8 in California, but Zogby has Romney by 3 (the Field is accepted as more accurate by most pundits). Could the race in California be tightening? Both candidates think so, as evidences by last minute stops planned by both in the state.

On the Democratic side:
So who benefits most from Edwards withdrawal? I had always assumed it would be Obama, as most of the Edwards supporters I knew of where progressive and therefore better fit with Obama, but the pundits are not so sure. Though supporters in this situation usually give their support to the candidate that has the most momentum at the time, much of Edwards demographic has been shared with Clinton, not Obama, so basically it is a wait-and-see situation.

Gallup’s national tracking poll shows a bounce for Obama following South Carolina and the Kennedys endorsements, though Clinton still leads. The most recent events, Florida and Edwards withdrawal, won’t start having an affect (if they do) until this weekend.

Both:
This article talks about how important endorsements have been to the campaigns so far.

On the Republican side:
There was a debate last night, in which McCain played the role of the front-runner, and Romney did little to stop him. Schwarzenegger is expected to endorse McCain today, and recent polls already show McCain with a lead in California. Furthermore, Romney hasn’t yet bought television ads in key Super Tuesday states.

Is Romney preparing to exit the race? Or will he hang on in hopes that a conservative miracle will occur, or McCain will make some major flub?

McCain’s final hurdle to overcome within the GOP is getting conservatives on board.
 

On the Democratic side:
Obama was indeed endorsed by Ted Kennedy, along with Caroline and Patrick yesterday. Kennedy is himself the target of criticism today, especially by a chapter of NOW.

Both:
There were many articles yesterday about the Super Tuesday, which is just a week away, and the strategy that each candidate is playing in order to garner the maximum delegates. A very real possibility on both sides, though more so on the Democratic side as they have fewer winner-takes-all states, is that one candidate will win the majority of the states, but another candidate will win the majority of the delegates. Also, the Washington Post looks at the “Potomac Primary” on Feb. 12th (DC, MD and VA), and how these states are important in a way that they haven’t been for many years.

On the Republican side:
Florida is today, and the polls show that is too close to call between McCain and Romney.