This is to get opinions on who dopers feel will ultimately get the democratic nomination for president and why. Note: this is not who you would like to win the nod, but your gut feel as to who will. I’d also like to know, of the person who satisfies the above criteria, if you believe he or she will ultimately beat the apparent republican nominee John McCain in the GE.
Note to mods - I placed this in GD because I want folks to have the freedom to express their opinions, unfettered, and with hyperbolic abandon. Thank you.
Obama beats Clinton, then whups in the general.
You said gut feeling, so that’s what I got. Neatly enough,tomorrow I’ll be one of the grumpy people (you have to get up really early, and it’s a nineteen hour shift) who makes you show ID, sign the register, and hands you the ballot.
Truth is, I don’t feel that strongly about this one, aside from my antipathy for the Republicans. Clinton winning would be fine with me too.
BTW, I bet two cents John Edwards winds up as veep.
Gut feeling, Obama, because he doesn’t fall into the Linus trap. He says when I am president, not if. Also, he is the only one that doesn’t turn my stomach.
Why I think he is going to win is that he is gaining ground just when he needs to and is doing strong on fund raising.
Why I hope I am right is that we now have videotaped police interrogation in Illinois. It was a law that we desperately needed as demonstrated by a number of high profile cases where they had confessions from people who were later demonstrated not to have committed the crime. Police opposed the law. Obama, where others had tried and failed before, was able to bring everyone together and get a solid law passed which in practice is doing what I hoped. We have far fewer of these ugly cases in the news.
He also got the law that is behind USASpending.gov . I was shocked to find out that any politician, even one I support, was able to draft legislation which uses technology to make government a bit more transparent, and not muck it up. The website is not itself a boondoggle and does seem to work as advertised.
And lastly, I hope I am right because I like to hear his speeches. The State of the Union addresses will be something great.
If someone holds a gun to my head and demands a prediction, I’m going to go with Obama. But that’s the degree of my (un)certainty.
He’s going to do pretty well tomorrow. He probably won’t get more delegates than Clinton tomorrow, but the Super Tuesday terrain’s more favorable to Hillary than the post-ST states are, so that’s OK. But it looks like California’s leaning his way, NJ and CT are too close to call, and while he’ll probably lose NY by 15, he looks to win IL by 30, which should offset that.
If Obama’s within 100 delegates of Clinton 48 hours from now, Obama will overtake her.
Right after Iowa, I predicted Edwards, and clearly that’s not going to happen. So, as a prognosticator, I suck.
That said, Obama picks up California & Illinois, Hillary gets New York, Florida is officially not seating delegates. There will be a divided convention (Michigan will end up in the Obama column, in spite of the primary) with an Obama/Hillary ticket as the outcome. He’s got the momentum, he’s got a positive message, he represents the future - not the past.
In the general Obama wins over McCain. The race ends up tighter than polls predict because: a lot of Republicans stay home (they just don’t dig McCain), McCain get some cross-over which makes up for it, and a lot of Democrats stay home (deep seated race issues). But, all of the big urban areas go for Obama heavily (ala Gore 2000) so he wins.
Reminds me of a Pat Buchanan line on Hardball:
Chris: Pat, if you were on the rack and they were turning the screws and forced you to pick between Hillary and Obama, what would you say?
Pat: Keep turning the screws!
I’m almost afraid to pick Obama. I feel like Charlie Brown about to kick that football, knowing Lucy is going to pull it away. Something will happen, on the last day it seems like everybody breaks in one direction. I just hope they break the right way.
I think it truly is too close to call right now, based on the current polls and trends. Obama is generally on an upword trend, but there might not be enough time. It will come down to how the undecideds break. My hunch/hope is that they will break to him - if they supported Clinton they would already have decided that by now (sort of an “incumbent rule” without really being incumbent).
So, my hunch is Obama keeps it close, sneaks a victory in CA, and thus has the momentum going into the 2/12 and later primaries. The remaining superdelegates break his way and it’s all over but the shouting. Then he beats McCain in a '92 redux campaign.
If, however, the undecideds get cold feet and break to Clinton and she comes out with a 200 delegate margin it will be nearly impossible to stop her. McCain/Clinton would be a much tighter GE, and one I think could swing to McCain through independent support.
Seeing that I was completely wrong about Dems pulling a Howard Dean on Hillary & Obama and picking Edwards, I find my self completely unqualified to make a prediction here.
I was wrong about Dean getting it, way back in the day (hi, RT). I was wrong about Giuliani this go-around. But I’ll predict anyway, just because.
Hilary gets the nomination. I’m not willing to say that McCain has it wrapped up, so no predictions about the general.
Maybe some of this is wishful thinking, as I think Obama would be a dud of a President roughly as big as Carter was, for the same reasons.
But a lot depends on if Obama will campaign seriously for Hilary if he isn’t picked as VP. Hilary’s got a shit load of negatives to overcome - if she adds to that any significant loss of the black vote, she is in real trouble.
I’d actually say 100 would be an enormous win for Hillary.
If she gets more than 100 net delegates, she will have to have swept CA, NY, NJ, and MA decisively. In terms of district delegates, there’s only 60 or so total up for grabs in those four states (districts with an odd number of delegates). And even 10-15 point victories don’t yield that many at-large delegates.
