Oh. I guess I am supposed to write something. Okay.
The Democratic debate tonight didn’t change anything and probably didn’t move the race a single point in any particular direction. If you liked one of the candidates going in, you probably still like them. Same if you didn’t like them. If you’d never seen them debate before, you were probably most impressed with Clinton and Edwards, as Obama opted less for soaring rhetoric than sober analysis. But they were all impressive, all had their moments, and no one made any big mistakes. The caucus is still up for grabs and polling is narrowing.
As for Michigan, there are two stories to tell there. Mitt Romney won. Mitt Romney was polling ahead in Nevada before he won in Michigan. Mitt Romney will probably win Nevada. Following his big win in New Hampshire, McCain jumped out to a sudden lead in South Carolina. Will that lead now evaporate? Will Huckabee reemerge as the favorite down there? Or will the Mittster gather some Mittmentum and race to the front of the pack? I’m not sure. Ironically, Rudy Giuliani, who got only 3 percent of the vote tonight, will benefit from the fact that the Republicans are splitting the early contests. It gives his long-shot Florida-first strategy at least some measure of plausiblity.
On the Democratic side things were so screwed up that it is hard to draw many conclusions. Let’s just say that some guy named ‘Uncommitted’ came in second with almost a quarter million votes (40%). On top of that, there’s this:
Hillary Clinton faced a grim statistic in Michigan tonight, despite her primary “win” there: results revealed that she may have reason to worry about her grasp on the African-American vote.
The Michigan primary vote was essentially meaningless: the national party stripped the state of its delegates because it held its contest too early in the election season, and Clinton was the only major Democratic contender whose name appeared on the ballot.
Even so, roughly 70 percent of Michigan’s African-American voters — a group that makes up a quarter of Michigan’s Democratic electorate — did not cast their votes for Clinton, choosing the “uncommitted” option instead. Yet these voters weren’t uncommitted at all: in fact, according to CNN exit polls, they overwhelmingly favored Barack Obama, whose name did not appear on the ballot.
Had Obama’s name been on the Michigan ballot, CNN exit polls show that he would have won an overwhelming 73 percent of the African-American vote, in contrast to 22 percent who say they would have voted for Clinton under those circumstances.
Josh Marshall sez that Rep. John Conyers helped mobilized Obama voters to get out and vote ‘uncommitted’.
The story of the night is really about who is more pathetic, Dennis Kucinich or Rudy Giuliani. They both got less than 25,000 votes, but I think Dennis takes it. In a two-way race with Hillary Clinton, he got 4%. Time to quit.
