Tag: Politics

McCain’s speech

Warm but stilted. John McCain is far better interacting with a crowd or giving interviews than he is delivering a speech. He always sounds like he’s reading it, and he never sounds like he’s totally into it. He gave a perfectly fine speech tonight, but he didn’t take advantage of the moment quite to the degree he could have.

I thought Mitt Romney’s speech was better than usual. Is he finished? It’s hard to believe otherwise. Back in October, Ryan Lizza wrote in the New Yorker:

[Romney] must win the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, states where he has been leading in the polls, and create enough momentum and media attention to carry him through to February 5th, when some twenty states will vote — including New York and California, where Romney is barely known.

He held a huge lead in both states for months, then blew it at the end. He is, as the pundits are pointing out, the only Massachusetts governor or senator ever to lose the New Hampshire primary.

I’m sure Romney will continue at least until Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. But I’ve got to believe that it’s over.

The Obama effect

Is it possible that Barack Obama is falling victim to the Bradley effect? The Bradley effect takes its name from Tom Bradley, the African-American mayor of Los Angeles who was comfortably ahead in the polls in the 1982 California governor’s race.

Bradley ended up losing to a white Republican, George Deukmejian. It turned out that a small but decisive proportion of white voters had told pollsters they were planning to vote for Bradley but in fact ended up voting for Deukmejian. Some speculated that those white voters had lied to pollsters because they didn’t want to be perceived as racists.

Obviously you can vote for Hillary Clinton without being a racist. But the results so far certainly don’t jibe with the polls.

Obama could still win, especially since the college towns’ votes haven’t been counted yet.

On second thought: O-Fish-L, in his inimitable way, argues that it’s not likely Obama suffered from the Bradley effect in a Democratic primary — especially in New Hampshire, whose Democrats are overwhelmingly liberal.

McCain widens lead (or not)

For what it’s worth — and it’s probably not worth much, given the volatility of such things — Zogby is reporting that John McCain is now leading Mitt Romney in New Hampshire by a margin of 36 percent to 27 percent, up from 34 percent to 29 percent in the previous tracking poll. This could mean that McCain has managed to stop Romney’s mini-comeback. More likely it means nothing at all.

Enough for Obama and McCain?

If the turnout predictions reported by Boston.com’s James Pindell turn out to be accurate — or, as he thinks, prove to be on the low side — then there should be enough independent votes out there to float Barack Obama and John McCain. Pundits have been looking at the independent vote as a zero-sum game, and as Obama has risen, McCain has dropped back a bit closer to Mitt Romney. But that may not be the way things work out.

Channeling no one but himself

New York Times reporter Michael Powell asserts that John McCain is borrowing rhetoric from Barack Obama. Yet in his only example, he shows that McCain is borrowing from himself:

Mr. McCain admits to admiring Mr. Obama’s appeal as a “wonderful thing” and has taken to borrowing a line or three. He has been channeling Mr. Obama, calling on Americans to “serve a cause greater than their self-interest,” a theme from his campaign in 2000.

Indeed it is a theme from McCain’s 2000 campaign. So why does Powell say that McCain is “channeling Mr. Obama”?

What do I know, anyway?

I watched the Fox News Republican debate earlier this evening, and was surprised to see that Frank Luntz’s focus group thought Mitt Romney was the big winner. I thought Romney came off as petulant and twerpy for the first hour-plus, though he did warm up a bit toward the end.

Update: This might explain the Luntz crowd’s reaction. Or maybe they’re just professional undecideds. (Via Mickey Kaus.)

McCain’s media running mates

There’s only one statewide newspaper in New Hampshire, the conservative Union Leader. It’s already endorsed John McCain, it’s already run an editorial instructing its readers to stay away from Mitt Romney (as has the liberal Concord Monitor), and it’s got a full-throttle McCain special running right now.

The Monitor has a story similar to the Union Leader’s. And the Boston Globe’s Scot Lehigh, whose paper has also endorsed McCain, weighs in with a column sympathetic to McCain as well. It’s possible that Romney could withstand this low moment in his campaign — but he’s only got five days for it to blow over.

Of course, the media have a long-standing love affair with McCain — nothing new there. McCain has been known to jokingly call the media his “base.” McCain’s finish in Iowa was mediocre at best (yes, I realize he sort of but not quite wrote the state off; but you don’t want to be neck and neck with Fred Thompson, for crying out loud), but the media are spinning it in his favor.

On the other hand, there’s no better constituency for McCain than New Hampshire’s libertarian, secular Republicans. They went for him over George W. Bush in 2000, and it would be no surprise if they go for him next Tuesday.

The difference is that McCain had nowhere else to go after his victory eight years ago. This time, it may be Romney who has nowhere else to go.

I’m guessing the Sunday Globe will front the results of one last pre-New Hampshire poll. I’m also guessing that Romney won’t like the numbers.

The speeches

Two quick observations about Barack Obama’s speech. First, he was far more uplifting and forward-looking than either John Edwards or Hillary Clinton was able to manage. Second, you could actually see quite a few people under 50 in the room. My only reservation was that he gave it the full Obama, when something a little more conversational and television-friendly might have been called for.

Clinton was fine, though she seemed exhausted, reminding people “I am so ready to lead” whenever she couldn’t think of something to say. It’s got to be a difficult moment for her — the way the calendar has been set up, she could find herself swept out of this very quickly.

As for Edwards … well, I suspect you can always get 30 percent of Democrats to go along with an old-fashioned, populist, pro-union message. But you’ll never get much more than that. It was interesting that he invoked Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. They’ve been out of office for some time now, haven’t they?

Mike Huckabee gave a good speech, but I can’t imagine him playing well in New Hampshire. Pat Robertson gave everyone a scare in Iowa in 1988, but didn’t go any farther. What’s inexplicable is that Mitt Romney apparently timed his speech to coincide with Huckabee’s so that he wouldn’t be on television. How is that a good idea?

Romney finds himself in the same position as Clinton. If John McCain is able to play his mediocre finish in Iowa into something approaching momentum (and the media are going to help him do that, which you could see in the coverage tonight), he might win New Hampshire and end Romney’s candidacy. Just like that.