by WonkoKevin

The so-called presumptive nominee lost in West Virginia by 51%.  Wait a second you say–I thought Obama lost by 41% to Clinton, 67% to 26%?  You are correct, that was the score on the Democratic side.  On the Republican side, back on Super Tuesday Feb 5 (doesn’t that seem like a year ago?), John McCain got 12 votes–one percent–losing to Mike Huckabee by 51% and behind second place finisher Mitt Romney by 46%.  McCain’s campaign could only muster 12 votes?  Doesn’t the McCain campaign staff collectively have more that 12 friends or relatives in West Virginia?  Now, what does that say about the Fall? That Huckabee and Romney supporters are going to vote Democratic instead? Kind of puts the spin from yesterday in some perspective…

by WonkoKevin

It’s just about time to start speculating on John McCain’s Vice President choice. McCain can either go after the electoral map, or balance the ticket ideologically or personality-wise. Here are the odds right now at BestBetting:
Romney (4:1), Pawlenty (6), Crist (8), Rice (10), LGraham (12), Jindal (12), Palin (12), Portman (12), Sanford (12), Ridge (14), Cox (16), Huckabee (16), Kasich (16), Lieberman (16), Hutchinson (2), Barbour (20), Coburn (25), Giuliani (25), Perdue (25), Watts (25).

I put my early money on Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. His fiscal restraint theme would probably play well this campaign season, and his stance on illegal immigration shores up a potential weak spot of McCain’s. And, he potentially puts Minnesota and perhaps Wisconsin in McCain’s electoral column. Along, the same logic, McCain could go for Florida Governor Charlie Crist for much the same reasons, although McCain may believe the already have Florida in the bag. The St. Petersburg Times puts the Crist VP meter right now at “Talk up those 27 electoral votes”. Romney odds on favorite? He might bring help in the West, but this is a tough marriage to see working. Romney has already raised his hand: “I think any Republican leader in this country would be honored to be asked to serve as the vice presidential nominee, myself included,” Romney told FOX’s Sean Hannity in a broadcast set to air tonight. “Of course this is a nation which needs strong leadership. And if the nominee of our party asked you to serve with him, anybody would be honored to receive that call … and to accept it, of course.”

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

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…)

Image by Brian Rawson-Ketchum, some rights reserved.

by WonkoKevin

I was just about to write a pithy piece on the remaining primary calendar when I saw news of John Edwards pulling out of the race:  (more…)