by WonkoKevin

Iowa and New Hampshire were key. Always have been. Until they were over, and then South Carolina was the turning point. And then Tsunami Tuesday was the non-turning point. I think somewhere along the way Maine and Wyoming were important. What can we make of this campaign season that continues to refuse to conform? In Politics 1.0, averages and totals were the key stats–how many votes, how many delegates, etc. In Politics 2.0, it’s not the averages that define where things are going but rather the extremes. In old politics, the center wagged the extremes; in new politics, the extremes wag the average. When it comes to extremes this campaign season, one place in the U.S. dominates–the Inner West. Maybe we should look to the Inner West for where the body politic is heading.

The Inner West of the U.S. handed many of the candidates their best results of the season. In Utah, Mitt Romney won an astonishing 90%. Ron Paul had his best showing in Montana, at 25%. Barack Obama loves Iowa, which handed him a 79% victory. Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee were big shots in the South, but it was the central plains where they brought it home–Thompson with 25% in Wyoming and Huckaee with 60% in Kansas (equalling what he got in Arkansas, his home state). Even Duncan Hunter had his best outing in the Inner West with 2% in Nevada.

There were several other patterns I observed. First, the South gave two of the three remaining candidates their biggest wins. Hillary Clinton pulled down 70% in Arkansas, and John McCain’s biggest victory to date came in Mississippi (79%). Delaware awarded hometome boy Joe Biden his best showing (3%); Michigan’s shortened list resulted in best outings for Chris Dodd (1%), Mike Gravel (0.5%), and and Dennis Kucinich (4%); John Edwards (30% in Iowa) and Bill Richardson (5% in New Hampshire) faded early; and Rudy Giuliani really did do his best in Florida, just like he had planned (15%). Alan Keyes, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, and Tommy Thompson didn’t register above 0.5%.

by WonkoKevin

Conservative bloggers for Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani woke up yesterday, stealing Wonkosphere buzz share from the other candidates.  Thompson’s conservative buzz share spiked to 18%–still not dominant–while Giuliani was above 10% (barely) for the second day in a row.  Does Giuliani’s movement upwards signify a trend.? Don’t think so.  As I predicted in mid-December, Giuliani won’t get bloggers attention again until after he wins something.  Giuliani’s buzz share was as constant at 20% for months and months, so 10% now is only half what is has been most of the campaign.  Who did Fred and Rudy steal buzz from?  Mostly John McCain and Mitt Romney, who each fell 5%.  Huckabee continues to be under 15% and Paul below 10%, so McCain and Romney still dominate conservative attention.

by WonkoKevin

While John McCain maintained a strong lead over Mitt Romney in conservative buzz share yesterday 40-23%, most of Wonkosphere turned attention to the South Carolina Democratic debate, and more specifically, the sparring between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Liberals and conservatives alike are gobbling up the good political meat–over 50% of the buzz this morning is about Obama and Clinton. Edwards was the third wheel, as his buzz share plummeted to the critical 10% level. On the Republican side, conservative buzz is very definitely concentrating. Giuliani was above 10% buzz for the first time in a long, long time, but it was almost all due to a Florida poll showing McCain now in front of Giuliani. Fred Thompson is also still in the buzz dumps, and poll at Townhall shows that a vast majority of Thompson supporters would go to Romney instead of McCain or Huckabee if Fred were to drop out. (P.S. Who gets the Duncan Hunter supporters? I imagine Romney too…) Huckabee was below 20% conservative buzz for the third straight day, and what the heck happened to Ron Paul’s bloggers? He’s been at 10% conservative buzz or below now for ten straight days.

by WonkoKevin

John McCain built a significant lead in Wonkosphere buzz share over the last 24 hours, leading Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama 28-18%. Part of that came from liberal bloggers–42% of their attention to Republicans was focused on McCain yesterday. Conservative bloggers also focused on McCain strongly. McCain led in conservative buzz share yesterday with 43%, followed by Huckabee (18%), Romney (15%), Giuliani (8%), Paul (7%), Thompson (6%), and Duncan Hunter, who announced he was dropping out, at 5%. Amongst Democrats, Obama led in liberal buzz share at 42%, ahead of Clinton (36%) and Edwards (22%).

by WonkoKevin

My predictions for the caucus and primary today are not based on any Wonkosphere hard data; as I’ve mentioned before, I think we’ve gone past the point where blogs are either future-predictive or insightful to the mood of a particular primary state, like Nevada or South Carolina. This may change come Tsunami Tuesday… My instinct is Clinton and Romney in Nevada, and Huckabee in South Carolina. The worry from Huck’s camp is snow in the northern area of the state where he is strongest. I could go on to say, “A McCain victory will mean…” or “If Edwards can get over 20% in Nevada…”, but I won’t. Who the heck knows anymore? Much to my (and probably your) delight, the electorate doesn’t seem to want the primaries to end. They’re not ready to select. When I talk to conservatives and liberals alike, they seem to change their mind daily about who they will pull the lever for. I myself change day by day–I don’t have anyone’s sign in my yard (I’m in Arizona, which votes Feb 5) because my wife and I can’t stay with our choice for more than two days in a row! As Chuck Todd at MSNBC said yesterday, March 4 may be the big day, when Texas and Ohio vote. According to USAElectionPolls, an IVR poll conducted on November 8 gave Clinton a 51-17 advantage in Texas, while the same poll gave Giuliani a slight but unsafe lead–basically it’s a toss-up on the Republican side. A December 1 Quinnipiac University poll gave Clinton a 45-19 lead over Obama in Ohio, and Giuliani a 29-13 lead over McCain. Of course, these are all pre- Obama and McCain and Huckabee and Romney wins, so those polls might not mean much now.

by WonkoKevin

Congrats to Mitt Romney on a win last night in Michigan. I didn’t do too well with the predictions, although I do have a hedge. I did say that I wouldn’t be surprised by Romney 34 McCain 31, only Romney got more because the 10% I predicted for Giuliani, Paul, and Thompson didn’t show up. Romney seems to have found his voice when talking economics in Michigan, and this can be a winning hand–the economy has risen to the top of voters’ concerns. But will the Romney campaign realize they have a strength there and concentrate on generating excitement? Or will they continue to spend time and money on the attack? Last night’s pre-emption of McCain’s speech would seem to indicate the latter. In my opinion that would be a waste of time. It looks like everybody’s going to stay viable at some level thru Tsunami Tuesday, and with perhaps no one being way ahead by then, TV time will be critically important. According to Financial Week, Romney is financially positioned far better than the other candidates. McCain is starving for cash, he doesn’t appeal to economy voters, and a win in SC is not likely to bring about enough cash quickly enough to catch up with the others. If Romney focused on a positive economic message, combined with his war chest this could lead to Minneapolis. But I wouldn’t bet on it yet…

by WonkoKevin

Bloggers have turned Wonkosphere into a love fest as sentiments go positive, especially amongst conservative bloggers.  Mitt Romney’s buzz was at the head of the pack in terms of positive tone, and posts about both John McCain and Mike Huckabee have also been very significantly positive over the past four days.  On the Dem side, posts about Barack Obama’s have been super positive over the last three days.

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by WonkoKevin

John McCain has reached his high water mark for conservative buzz share in Wonkosphere at 35%, up 15% from two days ago. McCain now faces the challenge that no other Republican has quite figured out yet how to conquer yet–how to keep conservative bloggers on your side after they start paying attention to you. Thompson was over 35% buzz share at one point (down to a trivial 3% now)… So were Giuliani (below 10% buzz share for 13 straight days) and Ron Paul (back up to 20% buzz share). Huckabee was too, recently, and he’s had a rough ride with conservative bloggers ever since. Bloggers are beginning to pay less attention to Romney, who slipped from 28 to 22% buzz share post NH. With him putting all of his eggs in a MI basket, it looks like do or die time for Mitt. It personally puzzles me why they’re panicking, as he leads in delegates, but maybe they know something we don’t. On the Dem side, liberal bloggers increasingly see this as a two-person race, as Clinton had a McCain-size increase in liberal buzz share moving from 36 to 48%, and Obama only slipped 3% post NH, from 43 to 40%. That means that 88% of the liberal buzz was on Clinton and Obama. John Edwards lost 5% post NH and is at the critical 10% boundary now.

by WonkoKevin

Here are my picks for the New Hampshire primary. With the Democrats, I am mostly data-driven with a fudging of 1-2 percentage points, based on the fact that liberal buzz share in Wonkosphere seems to be tracking NH poll numbers pretty well. With the Republicans, I am going by current poll numbers plus changes in buzz share over the last 5 days, which heavily favors McCain and disfavors Huckabee.

Dems: Obama 42, Clinton 33, Edwards 19, Richardson 5, Kucinich 1

Reps: McCain 35, Romney 31, Huckabee 12, Paul 10, Giuliani 10, Thompson 2

by WonkoKevin

Have conservative bloggers gotten tired of Mike Huckabee already? His conservative buzz share in Wonkosphere has gone from 35% to 13% in the past two days. Huckabee rode in a love boat with conservative bloggers through the summer and fall. They were 4 months ahead of the public in noticing him, and talked about him more positively than any other candidate. Then when the polls moved up, bloggers switched from talking about his personality to talking about his policies, and it has been a negative-fest ever since. Such a drastic plunge in buzz share after a caucus win seems to me to be very tell-tale signthat Huckmentum has halted, at least until he can get a second win under his belt.

In other Wonkosphere results, nobody gets the heat these days like Hillary and Mitt. Clinton posted her 13th straight day in which liberal bloggers’ tone about her was below average, and Romney hit 11 straight days with conservative bloggers doing the same to him. Romney led McCain in conservative buzz share 31 to 28%, but the Mo is with McCain as he reached a high in buzz share in recent memory and has 6 straight days of increasing buzz. Barack Obama led in liberal buzz share again, as he appears to have plateauted around 45%, up from his previous level pre-Iowa of about 33%. John Edwards didn’t move, and neither did Fred Thompson, although Fred enjoyed his third straight day of very high tone from conservatives.