Dem and GOP: Who do you think will win the nominations?

Unfortunately, I still think Hillary Clinton will take the Dem nomination, which will eliminate any chance of me voting Dem in 08. Like Bill back in 1992, this is her nadir when people are writing her off and kicking dirt on her corpse. But she will come back and take the nomination. I will say that if she somehow loses Iowa, NH and South Carolina to Obama, she's dead in the water. But there is enough time for her to recover momentum before the stupid Iowa causes and the primary in NH. Edwards has a slight chance but he's lost the battle to Obama of being the "non-Clinton" candidate.

On the GOP side, I just can't see McCain winning. Like I said in another thread, nominating him will indicate the Republicans are conceding the election because the public won't vote for an ancient fossil one term president. Plus McCain has MANY other negatives. Rudy, Romney and Huckabee all have major flaws, but one of them will come out of this. My guess is Huckabee will crumble, Rudy's skeletons and liberal positions will alienate too much of the Republican base, so the Republicans will nominate the flip-flopper known as Romney as the lesser of the evils.

 

I would vote McCain against Hillary, but his former stance on illegal immigration (which I can tolerate) is going to haunt him throughout the primaries.

Bill was on Charlie Rose tonight and made an interesting point against the feeling that Obama should be elected because he's new. 100% of malpractice comes from doctors, so would a victim decide to go to a gardener instead to cure a health problem? He totally trumpeted the experience issue, and the guy is pretty damn convincing. The thing is, the people believe the bigger problem is the political entrenchment on Capitol Hill that makes politics cynical and depressing for the public. That's something Hillary doesn't bring hope in solving.

 

Right now, I honestly can't get a read on who will win in either party.

I don't like any of the GOP candidates. Every one has something about them I find distasteful, or worse. I used to be quite a fan of McCain, but he got away from what made me admire him, pandering to the religious right faction of the GOP, a faction with influence all out of proportion to its numbers. He chose to blow off the vicious personal attacks by Bush/Rove when he was running before, something he should never have forgiven. Romney? He's busy doing his own pandering and running away from his excellent record as governor. I thought his attempt to cast himself as a modern Jack Kennedy was a sad affair. He made it clear there was no room for the non-religious in governing America, or he just made that up to do his own pandering to the religious right wing of his party. Guiliani is a one trick pony, running on 9/11 and nothing else. That has gotten very old, and the way New Yorkers felt about him prior to 9/11 (they didn't think much) is getting known to the rest of the country. I don't care about his personal life, but a host of GOP voters will. Huckabee was very appealing and then he started using Romney's religious beliefs against him in the primaries. That says more about what Huckabee really is than anything I can think of at the moment. Oh, and I ardently disagree with him on several social issues. Don't want to leave that out. A likeable guy who shouldn't be President. No one else has a chance. The GOP is doomed in '08.

The Democratic group? Any of the top candidates would be fine Presidents in comparison to Bush, and my party will be running against Bush. They'd be crazy not to. Having said that, I'm not wild about any of those three. Get to them is a second.

I like Dodd, but he has the charisma of a stuffed polar bear. I like Biden a lot, but he'll never get the nod, either. Richardson would make a good President, but he isn't far ahead of Dodd in the charisma department... bad luck for him.

The main three? I really liked Obama a lot early, but the more I've discovered about his positions and the more I've heard him speak, the less I've liked him. He can only give a good prepared speech. He isn't good on the stump, IMO, and has had few moments during the endless debates where he shined, and that was more looking good compared to Edwards and Clinton than anything he said. I think he needs seasoning, but he's clearly more qualified than Bush was when he ran in 2000. That's not saying a great deal.

Edwards had his chance to show what he could do running for national office in 2000. I wasn't impressed, although I voted for him in the primary. I may do that again. I haven't made up my mind at all. I like a lot of what he says, but his accent bugs the hell out of me. Should that matter? No, but there you are. Is it too late for him to take language lessons?

Clinton would be an excellent President and has been unfairly tarred and feathered by a host of sources throughout her public life, especially after the Clinton Administration made the mistake of having her be the face of overly ambitious healthcare reform. She's been a piñata for the GOP attack dogs for 15 years now, and it shows. The negatives are "built in" for her because of it, although it is unfair. If politics is anything, it is unfair. If Hillary is going to win, she'll have to overcome that. Not impossible with Bill being involved. She's going through a very rough patch now, but we'll see if she can move through it.

Cutting to the chase? I just don't know.



Impeach Bush.

 

The winner of the Democratic primary is impossible to predict because Iowa has the power to change everything and it's a three way tie. I actually think the most interesting placement there will be third. In other words I think the third place finisher will be harmed more than the first place finisher will be helped and I think that will be very significant in this race. If Edwards is third he's done and this turns into a two way race, possibly with an Edwards concession and maybe even endorsement. If he's first or second, one of the others is third and badly damaged in what is still probably a two way race since Edwards has a tall hill to climb to be viable in this fast primary season with no money. It's not impossible to imagine him winning it all, especially if he has a strong first place finish in Iowa, but it's difficult.

As for Hillary and Obama, Iowa is notoriously difficult to poll but the trends are meaningful. And Obama seems to be favored by the trends. He also has momentum in NH, SC and Nevada. And Hillary is bleeding support in each of those places. Today I think he'd have to be the frontrunner due to momentum alone but that will change dramatically if he comes in third in Iowa and that could totally happen even though he'd have to be barely favored to finish first there now. A second place finish there for Obama, if Edwards is first, would still be a win for him I think as he has numbers in the following states and plenty of money and Edwards doesn't. Moreover it would be a win for him because it would mean Hillary was third which would be devastating to her former air of inevitability which was the only serious strength that kept her in the top spot all year long.

On the GOP side things are even more difficult to predict. I'll predict this though: it won't be Rudy. Take that to the bank and feel free to mock me for all time on this forum if he wins the nomination. He's toast. As it is with Hillary's argument of inevitability, the ONLY thing he had going with a party that hates most of his positions was electability. He's not only losing badly in Iowa, NH and SC, today's poll out of Florida (which was supposed to be the first of several huge wins) shows him in third - 8 points back if memory serves. He's done. My guess would be that Romney's working on being done too. He should have run as the successful businessman that could credibly make the economy a winning issue to the degree that it would distract from the disastrous GOP foreign policy of recent years. He opted instead to try to be the candidate of the religious right, which only abided him until they found a candidate they liked. They found one. It's Huckabee. And Huckabee doesn't have to defend against charges of flip flopping on every issue important to social conservatives. Even if Huckabee doesn't hold on to all of those votes, he holds on to some and he holds on to ones that used to be Romney's. Someone like Thompson could grab some of those votes if Huckabee lost them, but Romney probably won't get those back. Every one of the five frontrunners in this race is badly flawed and badly disliked with the exception of Huckabee, but they've only started looking at him and he's got serious problems too. If he slips, I expect McCain (and maybe, possibly Thompson) to get another look. I think Thompson's missed his chance and I think Rudy and Romney have had their time -- they have almost entirely lost the arguments on which their campaigns were based. I predict McCain at this point even though he's not winning anywhere, but he's got to place a strong second or better in NH.

So my guesses as of today would be Obama and McCain, just like Major predicted. I would also say that, while I feel pretty confident predicting a loser or two, anyone that thinks they can predict the winner of either race today is a fool.

That said, the BBS's own serious black was predicting Obama and Huckabee would win their parties' nominations months and months ago when such a thing seemed ridiculous. And he has continued to predict them even when there seemed to be no credible evidence to back him up. Today it would be difficult to argue that those two candidates are not their parties' frontrunners. I don't claim to have a crystal ball, but serious black might.

 

Once I get started I really can't stop talking about this stuff. So I would like to offer some radical (and undoubtedly wrong) rankings of the candidates too -- not as of today, but in order of likelihood to win the nomination in my mind. I'd love it if others were inclined to do the same.

GOP:

1. McCain
2. Huckabee
3. Thompson
4. Romney
5. Giuliani

Democrats:

1. Obama
2. Hillary
3. Edwards
4. Biden

Biden would have to have a really strong surprise finish in Iowa to have any chance at all, but I could barely imagine that happening. And, if it did, he could ride it through a few more contests. If Hillary is badly damaged in Iowa and the electorate gets cold feet about Obama's experience (or Edwards'), I fully predict they will look again at Biden. And I predict they won't do the same - at least in any sustainable way - for Dodd or Richardson. Dodd is too grating and uninspiring and Richardson is way, way, way too bumbling. It's far more reasonable to me though to view this as the three-way race it is (at least through Iowa), and I think Obama helped himself mightily by coming to Biden's defense yesterday. Polls have shown that his voters went from a strong second place preference for Hillary to a strong second place preference for Obama. And second place preferences make an enormous difference in Iowa. One more in a series of circumstances that have the wind at Obama's back. Today anyway. Tomorrow could be entirely different.

 

Just curious Deckard, but what Obama positions do you strongly disagree with?

 

I'm curious too. None of the Democrats have strong differences of opinion where policy's concerned. It seems to me that if one were to "strongly" disagree with one, they'd disagree with the rest as well. Maybe he's talking about an interest in talking with our enemies without strict pre-conditions or merit pay for teachers but even there Obama's policy is not in line with traditional criteria for merit pay and not far off at all from the other candidates.

 

I'm being lazy, when was the last time that happened?

That would be carzy!

But you're right major, both races have been fun to watch so far.

 

For me it's destroying NASA and human spaceflight. I will never vote for the guy.

 

Interesting thread. If you take a look at the futures markets, which as we all know have proven more accurate than polls in past elections, we see the following results:

Republicans:
Giuliani 36% chance
Romney: 23%
Huckabee: 17%
McCain: 8%
Paul: 8%

Democrats:
Clinton: 60%
Hussein Obama: 32%
Edwards: 4%
Gore: 3%
Richardson: <1%

 

haha, that's so funny everytime you do it

 

I couldn't actually predict, but I do like Major's analysis of why it might be Obama that wins.

I certainly hope it is. Hillary is showing that she isn't that different than Bush. She's certainly more sleazy, and corrupt than Obama, and while she may not match Bush in that category it's far to close for me to be comfortable with.

I believe she's running out of pure ambition, and that what got her started may have been the desire to serve and do good, there is only a tiny kernel of that left buried deep down in Hillary's conscience somewhere. Obama I think has ambition, but he still holds onto the ideals of actually serving, bringing about change, and doing good. Obama isn't always great on the fly when speaking, but I think that's inexperience more than anything. He seems like somebody who rise to meet the challenges of the campaign, and would develop enough that it wouldn't hold him back.

On the GOP side, I also don't have a clue. I'm very happy that Rudy's rocket seems to sputtered and fizzeled. He was awful. I dont' think Thompson really has a shot, but Mitt, Mike, and John all do.

 

its going to be two scumbags - hillary vs. tranny vampire giuliani

if the powers that be get their way hillary clinton will be our next president and if you like george w. bush you are going to love hillary clinton.

but if this country can get its collective head out of its ass maybe ron paul can make some noize as an independent.

 

dont you mean black hussein obama, jorge?

 

I'm not sure who will win but I will stand by my predicition that the final nominees will not be both Hillary and Giuliani.

 

Futures markets did not outperform the pre-election polls last election, in fact they basically mimicked them. In any event, they're particularly bad for something like a primary contest which is not the same as predicting a national election. I don't believe that the collective wisdom of a national betting pool predicting what new hampshire will do is more persuasive than a poll of new hampshire primary voters.

 

It'll be Mister Hillary vs Rudy the Transvestite.

I'll wind up voting for myself.