Today we have Nevada Republican and Democratic caucuses, as well as the South Carolina Republican primary.
My predictions:
NV (D): Very close. Clinton squeaks out a win. The old-line party faithful are the only ones that had caucused in the past, and with relatively equal organizing efforts from Clinton and Obama, this ends up being the deciding factor for Sen. Clinton.
NV ®: Romney wins, as expected, but McCain does better than expected.
SC ®: McCain beats Huckabee more soundly than the polls suggest. Romney is a distant third.
NV: Clinton by a nose, and a solid win for the Mitten Man.
SC will be more interesting. I think McCain and Huck will be neck and neck with Huckabee narrowly winning, Romney will do so-so, Thompson will do poorly and drop out after the loss, and Giuliani will get about 17 votes from transplanted northerners, narrowly losing to Mickey Mouse as a write in, “none of the above” and Ron Paul, but still beating Mike Gravel – and he’ll say it was a win for his Florida strategy.
Nevada very close. I had been calling it as a narrow win for HRC but I think Bill’s antics regarding the attempt to change the caucus rules will make a lot of the Latino casino workers feel that being loyal to the Union trumps their borderline greater attraction to a Clinton.
Still essentially tied. A narrow win there helps Obama a bit more in perception than a narrow win for HRC does but in either case he wins SC, which helps him narrow his probable loss in FLA. Unless he wins both NEV and SC and Richardson endorses him before FLA pulling in the Mexican heritaged vote to him.
Oh McCain in SC. God has sent snow to keep the fundamentalists in the North from the polls while relatively sparing the McCain leaning coastal communities. It’s a sign.
No surprise, there. Despite it’s rep as the sin state, it’s got a big Mormon community.
I’m going to say Hillary in Nevada, Romney in Nevada, and McCain in SC (with Huckabee a close second). Huckabee will begin his slow decline after that loss. Thompson is toast, and Edwards will drop out shortly. He will make a bid to Obama for the VP slot (again), but won’t get it.
Politico’s results state that the Democrat percentage represents the number of delegates won, not the popular vote cast. So that might explain some large percentage swings in the beginning.
My precinct in Nevada sent 3 delegates for Clinton and 1 for Obama. If my middle class minority-heavy neighborhood can’t give Obama a tie, I think we should all be ready for Nevada to go to Clinton.
Andrew Sullivan notes that Clinton won heavily among Hispanics, and Obama won even more heavily among blacks. Her recent racial polarization tactics may have helped in Nevada, but it will likely backfire in SC, which has way more blacks than Hispanics. Nevertheless, becoming a racially polarizing candidate is very bad news for Obama, who was counting on a message of unity and optimism and moving past all that.
Obama’s vision of a postpartisan nation is the very thing which I find most annoying about the guy. In the probability space of political feasibility, ‘postpartisanship’ is hanging right out there in the ozone with Huckabee’s ‘fair tax’ talk.
