Friday, December 21, 2007

If Obama wins in Iowa, I think he wins the nomination. My rationale is that a win in Iowa will bring him significant momentum, permanently shatter HRC's image as a "winner", and will his momentum will probably be enough to win in New Hampshire five days later. Winning those two will force Edwards out of the race, make Obama the frontrunner and the non-Hillary candidate, and he'll probably romp the rest of the way through. Hillary might win the Florida beauty contest, as well as the California and New York primaries, since those states are packed to the brim with single-issue voters, like pro-choicers, environmentalists, or gay righters, and these groups generally support Hillary. Other than that, though, Obama will probably sweep the South on the strength of the Black vote, and he will be in an extremely strong position to sweep (aside from those few states I mentioned) on February 5.

If Clinton wins in Iowa, she'll be the "comeback kid" who trailed in the polls in Iowa for a whole year, only to win with superior organization. She'll run the table after that.

If Edwards wins in Iowa, he will get a boost, but he has no organization anywhere aside from Iowa, and even with his federal funds he's still quite short on cash. He's not viewed nearly as favorably by Democrats as Hillary Clinton is, and Hillary would be the biggest beneficiary of an Obama fall, especially in the South. Edwards's win would be followed by a Clinton win over a crippled Obama in New Hampshire, and Clinton's strength in Michigan, Florida, and South Carolina would be nigh-impossible to beat, especially considering Hillary would probably pick up a ton of Black voters that Edwards has virtually no chance of winning.

In short, Edwards winning in Iowa hands the nomination to Hillary Clinton. All these netrootsy types who don't think that this is true are simply wrong. It's either Obama or Clinton, and Clinton's cautiousness and seeming lack of principle and boldness lead me to hope for the former. The idea that Edwards is going to emerge as a third choice is simply not credible.
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The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.