So what does it all mean?
After looking at Super Tuesday results last night and today, I have come up with a few impressions about what I think will happen going forward -- at least on the Democratic side. I am not following the Republican side with the appropriate level of diligence to make relevant remarks
1. The Hillary coronation is deferred.
I think that the best result for HC yesterday would have been an overwhelming victory. She certainly did well enough to carry the large big yield states. But I think that her campaign needs to be worried that she lost 13 or 14 of yesterday's contests. It doesn't really speak well of her momentum going forward.
2. Strategic change
I tend to agree with most pundits that the new debating posture of HC is due to the fact that she is quickly running out of money. In fact, the NY Post speculated today that she had put in $5M of her own funds today to continue her campaign. Ouch, kinda Mitt-like and desperate in appearance. Her campaign must be thinking that maximum exposure can be had by debating BO weekly. I can see BO playing hard to get now, because now he can really stomp out her campaign by choking out this line of exposure for her. From the perspective of the BO campaign, he has a number of small donors that have yet to max out their political contributions -- I think HC has shot her guns already, not much room for improvement unless she can pull more new people under her tent and make it rain. I am finding the BO campaign strategy of small donors to be more brilliant daily
3. At the end of the day, you like an apple or you like an orange
You want change and hope. Maybe you want experience and a resumption of the Clinton agenda. It seems as if certain categories of supporters have held for both candidates, so much so that one cannot deny the trends. Both candidates must consider how they can strip off weakly affiliated groups. For BO, it is "lower" economic class women and pick up more white men. For HC, it is holding on to old Clinton coalition groups from the Bill era -- in particular, the Latino voters especially with Big Tex on the horizon in a month.
For the HC campaign, I think they severely underappreciate the "dislike" that their candidate evokes in the minds of independents and slightly conservative voters who may sway democratic for the right candidate. For the BO campaign, it's time to get to the meat of the discussion. All this change, hope, and yes, we can talk gets you in the door after the GWB era for a lot of voters, however it doesn't close the sale. It's time to pull a (reverse) Reagan and put out a progressive agenda that will kill conservatism dead in this country (except for the most staunch, and ardent) -- the door is open, now he has to make himself at home.
4. The lead is as good as the chase?
BO's campaign is wonderfully positioned to be competitive all the way through to the convention in Denver. Can it sustain the momentum of the underdog when he is expected to move to the top of the leaderboard in the next couple of weeks? Is this really a movement? If it is HC's campaign is pretty much dead in the water -- political wisdom suggests that it is easy to defeat a candidate, but hard to defeat a movement.
5. What can we expect from either candidate as the front runner?
I have yet to really boil down what I feel about this issue. I think it is easy to make simple pronouncements about direction. If HC wins the presidency, the worst that we can expect is business as usual and extreme gridlock. Some are predicting that this will be the ultimate outcome. The best that can be expected is the going forward of a successful progressive agenda and economic revitalization.
If BO becomes the president, the worst that we can expect is that there was no substance to the campaign, and there was much sizzle but no steak. The best that can be expected is a Reagan-like healing of America, going between the aisles and moving forward in a nonpartisan positive direction to solve various problems