Entries for January 2008

The Republicans, facing a fluid and fractious race 21 days ago, now have a candidate with a clear flight path to the nomination. The Democrats, seemingly headed to an early and decisive decision earlier this month, now have two candidates on a collision course. Yes, John McCain could falter in the 22 contests on February 5, and yes, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could kiss and make up at tomorrow night's debate. But don't bet on either happening. McCain looks like a heavy favorite for the Republican nomination, and a straight-line extrapolation from the ethnic breakdowns in the Florida vote produces victories for Clinton next week not only in the Northeast but also in California.

How did this come to be? Here are the election returns in the Florida Republican primary, and here is the Washington Post's neat interactive map in which you can click on the percentages for the three leading candidates in each county. And here are some further reflections:

In my Creators Syndicate column, written before the South Carolina Democratic primary Saturday, I made the point that South Carolina, which more than any other state determined the Republican nomination in 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000, would not be outcome-determinative but would reshape both the Democratic and Republican races this year. Now, a day before the Florida primary, that seems to be the case.

The Republicans. John McCain's narrow 33 to 30 percent victory over Mike Huckabee in South Carolina on January 19 put McCain in a strong position to win the nomination and meant that Huckabee's failure to win it would not be seen as the repudiation of a front-running candidate personifying a large core constituency of the party. That seems to be the case now. Polling shows the Florida race very close, but the evidence suggests that McCain, buoyed by endorsements by Sen. Mel Martinez and, on the South Carolina Democrats' election night, Gov. Charlie Crist, has some momentum. Rasmussen's Saturday numbers (reflecting polling on Friday and earlier) showed Romney up 33 to 27 percent; his Sunday numbers (reflecting Saturday night polling) showed it tied at 31 each. That's a pretty sharp turn for a tracking poll.

My U.S. News column this week is a reminiscence of past campaigns and election nights. But we had quite an election night (and afternoon) last Saturday, as Mitt Romney notched up a big victory and Hillary Clinton a narrow victory in the Nevada caucuses and John McCain squeaked out a 33-to-30-percent victory in the South Carolina primary. I was at Fox News headquarters in New York, with the Decision Desk, which called the Romney victory quickly (there was no doubt whatsoever) and the Clinton victory pretty quickly (she carried Clark County and lost in most of the rest of the state, but Clark County has 71 percent of the state's population). Fox called McCain the winner in South Carolina at 9:17 eastern time (by my watch), before the other networks. It could have been called much earlier except for the fact that the voting machines in Horry County (Myrtle Beach area) weren't working and its totals (it was one of McCain's two best counties in the 2000 primary against George W. Bush) weren't being registered either in the exit poll or in the tabulated vote.

Where are the two parties' races going from here? The Democrats seem headed toward more acrimonious division, while the Republicans seem headed toward something more like not entirely unacrimonious closure.

Mitt Romney won a solid 39-to-30-percent victory over John McCain in Michigan on Tuesday, with Mike Huckabee in third place with 16 percent, while Hillary Clinton prevailed over "uncommitted" on the Democratic side by a 55-to-40-percent margin.

Breaking down the vote shows a couple of interesting patterns. The Republican race was a sharply different in metro Detroit and in outstate Michigan. Counting metro Detroit as Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties, and outstate as the rest of the state, the results are as follows:

Recent South Carolina polls still show John McCain with a lead. In the Realclearpolitics.com average, he has 29 to 23 percent for Mike Huckabee, 16 percent for Mitt Romney, and 13 percent for Fred Thompson. Scott Rasmussen has conducted more surveys in the state than any other pollster. Here are his results with dates and an indication of which states have voted in between.

Here is my Creators Syndicate column on the political landscape after Iowa and New Hampshire. I try to suggest in the first two sentences that things are very unsettled. "Five elections. Five winners." In both parties, we seem to have pretty firm factions operating. Usually there's a clear-cut difference between primaries and general elections. In seriously contested general elections, about 80 percent of the voters will vote the same way they did last time—about half of them Republican, half of them Democratic, with the proportions varying by constituency. With primaries, in contrast, voters are often all over the lot. They are not weighted down by party identification. They are ready to move anywhere.

Yet sometimes they don't. There is a very high correlation in voting behavior between the Clinton/Obama race in 2008 and the Gore/Bradley race in 2000 in New Hampshire. Clinton/Gore tended to attract older, downscale, less educated voters. Obama/Bradley tended to attract younger, upscale, more-educated voters. It's as if there were two well-established factions in the Democratic Party, with considerable loyalty by voters.

The Republican electorate, in contrast, seems split, at least by this field of candidates, into multiple factions, none of which resembles the issue stands/personal characteristics profile that served George W. Bush so well in the 2000 race for the nomination.

Tomorrow my home state of Michigan votes. Or at least the Republicans will vote. The Democratic National Committee has stripped the state of its delegates for holding its primary too soon and has commanded its candidates not to campaign there. They have obeyed, although Hillary Clinton and (now noncandidate) Christopher Dodd have left their names on the ballot. Some Democratic Party leaders have urged voters supporting candidates other than Clinton to vote for the uncommitted line. It's not at all clear how or for which party's candidates Democrats will vote.

It seems to be a very close race. The realclearpolitics.com average of eight recent polls, all taken since the New Hampshire primary January 8, shows Mitt Romney leading John McCain 27 to 26 percent, with Mike Huckabee in third place at 15 percent. Trailing are Ron Paul (7), Rudy Giuliani (6), and Fred Thompson (5).