Cold Turkey 'Til Tuesday

I'm going to swear off politics for a week. To my mind the dynamisms are set and nothing remains that's interesting until something happens new, some unexpected event, or perhaps just the time necessary for things to get complex again.

Obama has lost his messiahship. From now on it's just a bit of a hack against a part of a horse. The horse in the end will win. I could say though, that calling Obama Ken Starr won't work because Obama is not a Republican. Only Republican charges are dismissed. Obama will bring up the same charges from the past --where Hillary has been "vetted" and passed-- and in fact she won't pass now but will be damaged. And Obama is going to start looking very Chicago.

On the Republican side McCain has an immense opportunity to frame the debate to his advantage. He's got a chance to look almost co-presidential. And that Bush is a drag is nonsense. Bush is a real likable guy. Probably 80% or Republicans like him, that's a real plus for the man who hopes to take over. People who don't like him mainly don't like the world "he's left us". jBut after he's gone, same world. Most people are sane enough to recognize that and are going to want the man who can best deal with the same problems. It is true that means more war, and whether the majority of the public will accept that or not I don't know.

I of course have a strong interest in seeing just how McCain decides to use Huck.

Day After Despond

It's impressive how "over" the race is for me. I of course want McCain to do well because he is man with virtues; and I want to see Hillary and Barack continue to claw at each other and create as much intra-party ill-will as possible, --but my great hopes for a Huckabee surge just didn't happen, so as I've said before: From now on it's just politics.

On the Democrat side Barack's momentum is over. A messiah can not have a set-back. So now he's just a politician, in fact just a junior hack from Chicago. Hillary and the press will eviscerate his holy image. From now on he'll only win in states with very large black populations. He may even have some difficulties in caucus states (Wyoming is Tuesday; I don't know if Hillary can get her act together that fast). She will win Pennsylvania huge and will enter the convention with momentum, and next to her Barack will be green and small and wilted. But he will have the delegate lead, and his core will not wilt and they are not green; they in their heart-of-hearts are the hate-Hillary-crowd and they're virulent. There will be a fight, the superdelegates will narrowly decide for Hillary as the more electable; blacks will feel disenfranchised and will sit out the election, and aged Yuppies will vote Nader. This will give McCain a shot.

Huck will support McCain. All conservatives will vote McCain, and if he has some care and delicacy they may even knock on doors and be enthusiastic.

--I don't think any of this is wild speculation, I think it's all pretty obvious. --Changing "facts on the ground" of course can change dynamisms; there is no downside to punditry prognostications.

Note:

--Huck's stature in the party will rise as he campaigns for McCain, because he will be identified not by his core constituency but by his function, which will be that of party unifier. Nothing will change between Huck and those who most powerfully support him, but the rest of the party will see him as larger than they saw him before.

--There will be a bump in energy among those who powerfully support Barack. The base is angry, and more angry now than Tuesday morning. They will work hard. For a short while he'll probably even bring in yet greater contributions. But among those who simply thought they had found salvation there will be a fade in numbers, and that will continue and continue as he's seen more and more just to be a man, and a rather prickly one at that.

--Hilary's supporters will be energized as well, because they see the juggernaut has been broken, --and the press, who helped create that juggernaut, will now help destroy it. Time to "get real". They'll now be the worldly, cynical, "objective" men they've all along considered themselves to be; this is their self identification and satisfaction.

--Poor Obama.

Tuesday: Redux or Revolution?

I'm going revolution, simply because at this point I can. Won't be able to pay much attention until it's all over anyway. But Hillary wins three (pretty sure of that) and Huck takes Texas. That alliterates, so I'm going with it. Will check back in about an hour and a half.
(Innitially posted 7:11PM, but on the wrong blog. So I repost).

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9:20PM

Oh well, when you predict by the power of alliteration you should recognize there's more than one way to alliterate: Huck Tanks in Texas. Oh well...

I'll still want to get specific results but the excitement is over. Apparently he's formally withdrawn and tomorrow McCain gets the formal endorsement from Bush. One problem Huck had is McCain just isn't a Republican Hillary. Conservatives who dislike him do so on policy grounds. While that can extend to matters of personality --mainly his complete dismissal of them, and I think, contempt, still, as a man he just isn't all that bad. He's pretty honest and reasonably witty, and he is tough and he has been a hero and he is a patriot. It's kind of hard to dump a guy way in the lead anyway who has qualities it's impossible not to admire. You can emphasize the negative. For me it would be his imperial attitude toward the populace, but he's not a Hillary so people by and large are going to like him. Huck never did criticize him, except for ignoring conservatives.

So it's all over. Just politics from now on, but nothing exciting.

Pill Pushing

I advocate that all true patriotic American Democrats who love their country and who are particularly concerned about my particular Republican happiness vote Hillary today so that peace and prosperity and a convention fight and my own good Republican fortune might flow on forever.

This is playing with fire. It would be of immense value to the republic if Hill were knocked out of the race and we would be rid of the Clintons once and finally and forever and there would be no possibility of resurrection and the nomination and the presidency; but she simply can't lose that badly, and she's not going to withdraw if she has any chance at all on the convention floor, so it's probably best if she gets a win and the Obama momentum is stopped. He'll still have support, but he'll be damaged. Then if they both at something like equal strength continue on to August the infighting will be ferocious, and that from the Republican perspective will be good. If the fighting is bad enough there's a chance many Democrats will vote McCain; there could even be a realignment --depending on who wins-- as to choice of party.

I do think Obama is going down. The NAFTA/Canadian kerffufle is the proof. It's much like Hillary's Philadelphia debate and her clumsy answer on drivers licenses for illegals that just didn't die. It was a minor matter but it was an opportunity to rebel against the queen. This Obama business, with double speak on NAFTA, is of the same nature. He said (most probably) two different things to two different audiences. So what? Happens all the time. But the criticism and questioning has not stopped. It's been going on and on, the press won't let it drop, and that means that the press is now judging Obama as a politician rather than as Elvis or a messiah. Why the change is uncertain (though over due), but if he's a politician then he's a hack from Chicago. He's not bringing salvation, he's merely an anti-Hillary. That's powerful in itself, but it returns the battle to the rational. The rational is always good, and I can't see that he has any presidential merit at all.

Huck? Who knows? He's hardly in the news and way behind in the polls. As per usual he'll do "better than expected" but in raw numbers there's no way at all to know how well that will be. His strength is that no one at all has any reason to vote for McCain since it's conceded the contest is over --McCain certainly believes it's over-- but conservatives have a strong impulse to vote because they don't trust the young fellow and at least a little want to put the screws to him. But I have no idea of the numbers. The military will do their duty and vote and their vote will be overwhelmingly McCain and there are 16 military bases in Texas. That's a lot of votes, but I don't know about any other demographic. It's going to be totally a turnout election. I doubt Huck's support has either grown or diminished because the values at issue are clearly known and McCain has done nothing to change the dynamic. Certainly he's not changed the dynamic in his favor, he's probably changed it a little against him, just by the way he's totally ignored Huck. This is the great fear conservatives have, that he will totally ignore them.

So who knows? I would dearly love to see the Huck punch him between the eyes and wake him up a bit but I have no idea what's happening on the ground so any prediction would be meaningless. "Better than expected", that's what I've got to stick with.

I believe Hillary will win both Texas and Ohio (at least the popular vote) and probably solidly; and probably Rhode Island too. I think tomorrow there will be consternation in the Obama camp. I would certainly hope the same for the Republicans.