The Presidential Race
Posted at 10:06am on Feb. 1, 2008 The Agony of Victory
Or the Thrill of Defeat?
By Mark I
Sen. John McCain’s Florida primary victory has made the likelihood of a McCain nomination a virtual certainty; and has focused the choice for conservatives vexed by this state of affairs. Just as the primary has become a binary choice between two conservative credential-challenged men, so have conservatives and Republicans suddenly been presented with a choice between two equally bad options.
It boils down to this: Do we conservatives want to win ugly, or lose pretty?
Read on…
Posted in 2008 | Conservatives | Endorsements | Hillary Clinton | John McCain | The Presidential Race — Comments (55)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:50am on Jan. 29, 2008 Useful Historical Passage Of The Day
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
From the New York Times:
Republican Party analysts also note that both Ronald Reagan and the senior George Bush were elected after Republican primaries in which turnout was lower than in the Democratic primaries.
"Democrats seem to frequently ignore the lessons of history, and they do so in 2008 at their own peril," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
The sheer intensity of the Democratic primary battle could be problematic over the long haul. Outside analysts say that the sharp disputes and deepening divisions between Senator Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton could, if not resolved, leave some voters disenchanted if their candidate did not prevail.
"That's a real question: Will the Democrats come away with a more divided, less upbeat set of constituents following the struggle between Obama and Hillary Clinton?" said Andrew Kohut, head of the Pew Research Center.
This is, at least, a serious argument. Can we take it seriously instead of automatically assuming that higher turnout in the Democratic primaries = Democrats winning in November?
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Posted at 2:16am on Nov. 13, 2007 A Note On The Inevitable
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
She's not so inevitable anymore:
Where did Hillary Clinton's mojo go?
That's what her campaign has to be asking after a rough two weeks. And more importantly, they have to be wondering how to recapture that fading aura of an unstoppable juggernaut.
Top Clinton strategist Mark Penn doesn't own up to his candidate suffering a dip, but he admits it's been tougher of late.
"The opponents went negative, and that created a new dynamic and a different set of headlines," Penn said.
The new dynamic emerged at the debate in Philadelphia two weeks ago, but didn't just spring from sharp criticism by her opponents. Clinton stumbled by offering fuzzy answers to some questions and refusing to take a stance on Gov. Spitzer's license plan for illegal immigrants.
Then Camp Clinton's damage control backfired as she was pounded for suggesting the "boys" ganged up on her. And Bill Clinton brought more scorn when he said the attempt to get an answer out of his wife on licenses verged on John Kerry Swift Boat territory.
Hillary Clinton is still the frontrunner and the likely Democratic nominee. And just as the press gods have decided that her fortunes have taken a turn for the worse, at some point in time, we will probably read stories about The Great Hillaryesque Comeback. It's just the nature of the game.
But let's stop thinking that anything about the race for the Presidency is somehow preordained. It isn't. We face a weird election where neither the incumbent President nor the incumbent Vice President are runnning for the top job and with terrorism and the economy as major issues, there is a great deal of disquiet and uncertainty on the part of the electorate.
That makes for a semi-chaotic political season in which anything can happen. There is no clear narrative that has emerged for the purposes of understanding this race. And until one does, we ought to stop thinking about who's up or who's down in the race for the Presidency. The conventional wisdom is apt to keep changing on a dime as this race goes on and the only thing predictable about the 2008 Presidential elections is that for a goodly long time, at least, political forecasts are going to be exceedingly difficult to make and stick to.
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