by WonkoKevin

Is there any U.S. politician besides a Clinton that could still be considered “alive” after losses of 23, 29, and 17 points? The news for Clinton is distinctly funereal in its nature this morning. Many different survival scenarios are posited, but the delegate mathematics suggest the nomination is pretty well wrapped up for Obama. You want to know how over it is? The betting odds for Obama to win the presidency are now better than even, while McCain is 2:1 and Clinton is 6:1.

One emerging pattern of interest is how much the state-level polls are underestimating Obama strength, or perhaps turnout. I went through all the polls done a week before the Virginia, Maryland, and Wisconsin primaries, and the conclusion is that if you want the best prediction, add +5 to Obama’s percentage and subtract 5 from Clinton’s. In Wisconsin, 5 polls had Obama by +5.5%, and he won by +17%. In Maryland, 6 polls had him up +16%, and he won by +23%. In Virginia, 7 polls had him up +18%, and he won by +29%. SurveyUSA has Clinton at +5% in Texas and +9% in Ohio. Assuming the primaries were tomorrow, we might be better to predict an Obama win of +5% in Texas–and, you knew it was coming!–a squeeker in Ohio.

by WonkoKevin

Wonkosphere buzz share now stands roughly equivalent to the delegate share that each of the candidates have:

Obama 52% (pledged) delegates, 53% (liberal) buzz share

Clinton 48% delegates, 47% buzz share

McCain 73% delegates, 72% (conservative) buzz share

Huckabee 18% delegates, 15% buzz share

Paul 1% delegates, 9% buzz share

This is really quite an interesting development for Politics 2.0. It suggests that the political blogosphere as a collective is allocating attention in a contest-by-contest manner. Before the primaries began, the blogosphere led public opinion by two or three weeks; now the blogosphere is tightly coupled to the one thing that now matters most: the delegate count. Pat yourself on the back blogosphere, you’re rational, adaptive, efficient, and self-organizing–a true smart mob!

by WonkoKevin

Now that we have a reduced field, what do the odds-makers say about who will win president?

John McCain, just under 2:1.

Barack Obama, just under 2:1.  The various indeces have McCain barely ahead of Obama six times, Obama once, and tied six times.

Hillary Clinton, about 2.5: 1.

Mike Huckabee, about 66:1.

by WonkoKevin

Depending on which set of assumptions you want to buy into, one either concludes that John McCain has it wrapped up, or Republicans have got some chance of going to Minneapolis with a nominee.  Supporting the former is the apparent fact that while California came out 42-34% McCain-Romney, the delegate count will come out something like 160-10, even with proportionality.  From FirstRead: “Speaking with reporters today, McCain adviser Charlie Black said, “To date, we have 775 delegates, Romney has 284, Huckabee has 205. It takes 1,191 to clinch the nomination. There are 963 left to be chosen, so Romney or Huckabee would have to have all of them — all of them — to get to 1,191. Now you can’t do that because a majority of those 963 are chosen in proportional primaries, which means you’d have to get 100% if the vote to get them all.”

But from a Hot Air reader we have this: “All Mitt (and Huckabee) need to do to deny McCain enough delegates to win the nomination is win 547 of the remaining 963 delegates - roughly 57%. Which means it will go to the convention, where anything can happen. Given that around 66% of Republicans voted for someone other than McCain last night, it’s not out of the question, especially given most of the upcoming contests are awarded on a proportional basis and McCain won’t be taking primaries outright (like he did last night).”

by WonkoKevin

I didn’t know what to be more surprised about this morning: (a) I was able to go to bed almost fully informed of the outcomes by 10:30PM, (b) Mike Huckabee has been annointed the challenger now in a two-person race, or (c) the Phoenix Suns are considering trading Shawn Marion for Shaq.   On the Democratic side, Chuck Todd at MSNBC predicted a 4-delegate win for Obama–out of over 1600 delegates!  You couldn’t get much more of a tie than that.  Of course, people hate ties, so there’s spin that Obama didn’t get the knock-out punch expected competing with spin the Clinton lost her last chance to put Obama away.  Moving forward, Reid Wilson at RCP sees advantage-Obama, as Obama appears poised to win most of the states between now and March 4, and figures the momentum will carry him to wins in Texas and Ohio.  Thomas Edsall at RCP cites others though that see Obama’s difficulty with Hispanic voters being a big barrier to winning in those two states.  People are already looking to Indiana, North Carolina, and Kentucky in May.  Remember, every Dem in the House is a super-delegate, so this race literally may be decided by the House of Representatives.

On the Republican side, a nice but not slam-dunk victory for McCain.  Romney may well drop out of the race today, and it’s hard to do the math that brings Huckabee to victory.  The question remains how long Romney and Huckabee will stay in, and perhaps the affiliated question, why.  The largest Wonkosphere-related lesson to learn from Tsunami Tuesday is that sometimes the blogosphere can get it right, and sometimes they get it wrong.  Conservative bloggers picked up on Huckabee earlier than anyone else and fell in love with his personality; as he picked up popularity in the polls, conservative bloggers turned negative on his policies.  Even with a win in Iowa, Huckabee’s buzz share began to decline in early January.  Over the past month his buzz share has plummeted down to the 5% range, almost trivial.  And yet, the MSM spin on last night is that Huck’s southern victories catapult him ahead of Romney.  Conservative bloggers missed it–why?  Three possible answers, all are probably a bit true.  First, the “opinion leading” conservative blogs aren’t connected to and aren’t paying attention to the religious right AND the South, which is being taken for granted.  Second, the South for whatever reason is under-represented in the blogosphere.  We know in general that Internet usage across the world is inversely proportional to the outside temperature… are there fewer bloggers in the more temperate South?  Third, Huckabee’s viral support is face-face ”word of mouth” and not blog-blog word of mouth.  Early buzz share data today indicates that conservative bloggers still aren’t paying much attention to Huck. 

by WonkoKevin

I have been so psyched for this day for so long.  Today–Tsunami Tuesday–marks the 6-month anniversary of WonkoBlog, and what a fitting day to celebrate!  As a political junkie, I love the horserace, and I am cognizant enough to know that we may be watching modern-day political history.  It’s another Christmas morning, in February. (more…)

by WonkoKevin

According to the latest numbers from Zogby, John McCain is pulling away from Mitt Romney and Barack Obama has pulled ahead in three of the four key states:

NJ–McCain 52, Romney 26; Clinton 43, Obama 43

NY–McCain 53, Romney 19

GA–Obama 48, Clinton 31

Missouri-McCain 35, Huckabee 27, Romney 24; Obama 47, Clinton 42

CA–Romney 40, McCain 32; Obama 46, Clinton 40

by WonkoKevin

Can there be any doubt that the pundits want the races to continue? Politicos are already talking up the importance of Ohio and Texas on March 4, and there’s a touch of romanticism in their mentioning of Pennsylvania on April 22. Conservative pundits are generally leaning to Romney, with the (old) “Is McCain too liberal?” argument. (more…)

by WonkoKevin

Hillary goes 50 MPH down a road. Barack leaves 20 minutes later and travels at 60 MPH. How long will it take Barack to catch up with Hillary?

That is the dominant metaphor for the Democratic race now. Few predict that Obama will win outright on Tsunami Tuesday, but there is a strong feeling in the Wonkosphere that Obama has the momentum, if not the plurality. (more…)

by WonkoKevin

Hillary Clinton’s liberal Wonkosphere buzz share didn’t change at all yesterday, and that was big news… Huh?  Couple Clinton’s non-movement with John Edwards’ buzz share shooting up from 10 to 30%, and it can only mean one thing–Barack Obama’s buzz share went down 20%.  While there are several reasonable interpretations, mine is this: Clinton’s bloggers kept on talking about Clinton, and Obama’s bloggers took time off to blog about Edwards.  Edwards has maintained a base of about 10% buzz for the past several weeks, and I don’t see those opinion leaders going away.  My guess is they’ll turn their attention to Obama.  That doesn’t mean that voters will, but it can’t hurt Obama’s chances.  The other way to spin it is that Clinton’s base of bloggers is strong regardless of what happens with anyone else.