Super Tuesday Reflections

Super Tuesday Reflections

A great column from Howard Kurtz on this subject.

Here are some thoughts on the results of Super Tuesday and the coverage.

First the coverage. I’ll preference my remarks by saying I watched coverage on ABC, CNN and MSNBC. I thought in general coverage was horrible and incredibly biased.

For the Democrats Clinton had only weaknesses and no strengths. Obama had only strengths and no weaknesses.

Clinton’s wins were only in the bluest of blue states which the Democrats will win the fall. But what is left out here is how Clinton won in those states. She won with older voters and blue collar votes. At one point in time those blue collar voters were called Reagan Democrats. Obama needs to improve his numbers with these group or the Republicans will take these states in the fall like say Michigan and Ohio. Also Clinton won in those bluest of blue states Tennessee and Oklahoma.

Now for Obama he won in red states. Here’s how some of those states voted:

North Dakota less than 20,000 people voted
Idaho just about 20,000 people voted
Kansas just about 40,000 people voted.

The question has to be asked does anyone think if Obama ends up being the nominee he has a snow balls chance in hell in any of these states. What this showed was how strong his organization in winning these states. It did not show that he has a chance of winning them in the fall.

Another thing was that Clinton is doing very poorly with African-Americans. That cannot be disputed. There was talk among the punditry about how Clinton has to do better with this group. Also if she is the nominee how will she reach out to the black community and bring them back into the Democratic fold. These are all valid questions.

However, as badly as Clinton is doing among African-Americans, Obama is doing just as badly among Hispanics yet that is hardly mentioned. Clinton got over 60% of the Hispanic vote in California. Hispanics make up 14.8 percent of the population of the country; African-Americans are 13.4 percent of the population. Both are important groups that the Democrats need to win in order to succeed in November. Yet as I said Clinton is the one with the problem not Obama.

Also when announcing Clinton wins there also seemed to say “well that was a state she really needed to win because she would have been embarrassed if she lost.” Yet the take on the race in California was Obama was really gaining ground. There was the possibility that Clinton could loose there. In the end she won by 10% points. Now why wasn’t that embarrassing to the Obama campaign.

The final point on the Democrats I’d like to make is the results in Massachusetts. After all the press on the Kennedy endorsement, which I believe was the first or second story on the network newscast, which took up the front page of the Washington Post, which was viewed as the passing of the torch a crowning of a new generation, Clinton beats Obama by 15%. And the coverage on Tuesday barely a mention.

Now on the Republican side. The mantra was McCain is not closing the deal. He’s not winning over conservatives. This is based on the fact that the knuckle walkers who are on talk radio don’t like McCain so the media extrapolates that all conservatives don’t like him. And who did the talk show nuts support Mitt Romney. And the promised big surprise was on Romney not about Romney. Huckabee was the big surprise. He did very well in the south. In those deep south states who was in second that would be McCain not Romney. I have to say I really like Huckabee’s take on conservatives not supporting McCain he says people need to switch to decafe.

Also the assumption that if Huckabee was not in the race most of his supporters would vote for Romney. CNN exit poll data showed that the majority of Huckabee voters second choice was McCain. That was mentioned just once and never again because it didn’t fit in with the story line for the night.

Here’s a great piece on the hurdles faced on both sides.

As to the actual results. Well Clinton and Obama are essential tied. The contest will go on. It means the Potomac Primary next week will be important. It means my vote will actually matter for a change. The problems is I’m not sure who I’ll vote for.

For the Republicans McCain is practically unstoppable. This means the conservatives in the party are having fits. Hope they continue to have them for a long time.