The Pre-Game Post: Super Tuesday

I've noticed that in every non-incumbent presidential election there's always a political party which the media favors covering. From the elections that I've witnessed first-hand the party which receives the most media coverage wins. It comes back to the most rudimentary of voting theories: Name I.D. (recognition) is the number one factor which determines electability. In 2000, there was more media attention with the Republicans and the Bush-McCain battle. This year, the media attention lies squarely with the Democrats and the Clinton-Obama battle. Among them, Barack Obama is getting the most media attention. Second to him: Bill Clinton.

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Tomorrow California votes. Channeling Rather and Nixon, California is the Big Enchilada with 441 delegates. It is not a winner-take all state, so most likely Hillary Clinton and Obama will split the vote. Yet, there's nothing like a person being declared the "winner" of California. As of this morning, there's a statistical tie out there, with Clinton being up, on average (taking into account the latest polls) by .06, while Obama is up by 1 in two polls, and by 6 in the Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll.

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Carville said that if Clinton doesn't take California, she'll have an uphill battle as the road to the Convention continues. Clinton is counting on support from the major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. Obama is banking on support from more suburban voters in eastern California. Clinton is also relying on Hispanic turnout to propel her over the top tomorrow. This Hispanic turnout was instrumental in Clinton's "win" over Obama in Nevada—there's something about 10,500 voters with a margin of only 582 votes separating Clinton and Obama that doesn't wreak of a win for Clinton (even though Bush won the presidency in Florida by 537). Clinton pollster Sergio Bendixen received blogosphere fame earlier this year when, in an interview with The New Yorker stated that "The Hispanic voter—and I want to say this very carefully—has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates." Talk about descriptive voting…This might all change tomorrow in California if Obama wins, and especially if he makes substantial in-roads among Hispanic voters. Obama's falling behind Clinton in capturing the Hispanic vote because of name identification. Hispanic voters know the Clinton family, know the Clinton brand. They know Hillary and Bill and they know they're Democrats just like them. Hispanics haven't been introduced to the phenomenon that is Barack Obama. But he's trying to introduce himself, and if he can capture a good percentage of the Hispanic vote, HRC's playbook for California might just become moot. Obama captured an important endorsement just ahead of Super Tuesday: La Opinion, the largest Spanish-language newspaper.

California's going to be big and if the numbers in the Reuters poll holds then it's going to be a good night for the Obama effort. Maria Shriver, California's first lady, has joined her cousin Caroline Kennedy in endorsing Obama. (Her husband, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed McCain.) Obama's playing offense against Hillary with Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, and Shriver all in California campaigning for him.

The Democrats also debated last week and it was a venerable love-fest. The acrimony present at the Republican debate—more below—was missing. There was also talk about a "Dream Team" combination. The Democrats had to come back from the brink. After the State of the Union and the supposed "snub"—Obama not shaking Clinton's hand—everything has mellowed out. Leading up to that, and the uncontrollable Bill Clinton spouting his mouth at every opportunity he could, they were both en route to self-destruction and a fragmented convention. If history teaches us anything, it is that the voter's—or at least those that actually tune-in to watch convention coverage, now relegated to one hour a night, three out of the four nights on the broadcast channels—do not like a fragmented convention. It's good that Bill has been reined in. That's no way for a former president of the United States to be behaving.

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On the Republican side, all signs pointed to the possibility that the party would unite itself around McCain. He's even planning a weekend trip to Europe. His top advisor is planning a vacation. McCain is the most electable, beating both Clinton and Obama—narrowly. Clinton and Obama beat any other Republican running for president.

Apparently the Republican leadership however didn't get the memo. Today's Washington Post is splashing with a front-page story on McCain and most specifically, his temper. This was the top headline on Drudge for many hours in the morning.

McCain has the ability to seal the deal tomorrow night. If he takes California, which all signs point to yes and a number of other states, all he really needs is to be up by at least 100 delegates over Romney. The question will then become as to when Romney is going to call it quits. He has money and he has some of the establishment falling behind him. To say nothing of the fact of Rush Limbaugh who still controls a powerful soapbox is railing against McCain almost on a daily basis. It's also as if he never got the memo that McCain is about to become the standard-bearer of the Republican Party.

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Super Tuesday is a dress rehearsal for the networks. ABC is going on all-night coverage. CBS is going to do two hours in primetime, and NBC is going to do one, with continuing coverage on MSNBC. The network anchors are in place from their customized election-central sets in New York. The print and on-air, and yes the blogging correspondents are all deployed with their respective campaigns. And this election cycle has shown us that we're all wrong. I was reading some posts I wrote earlier on this blog in which I contended that no matter what happened, Hillary Clinton was unstoppable that she was going to win everything and win big. And that didn't come to fruition.

When Clinton lost in Iowa, all eyes turned to impending death in New Hampshire. The media took her teary-eyed episode the day before as signs that she knew it was all over. Bill was attacking the Obama campaign as being nothing more than a fairy-tale. Today with polls showing Clinton losing her lead in California, there's another semi-tearful episode to report.

But the media wrote the Clinton Campaign obituary after Iowa. She resurrected after New Hampshire, and then became a favorite after meaningless wins in Nevada and Florida, and many still believe that she is inevitable. Even though a great number do not want to see a restoration to another scandal-prone, polarized Clinton White House. Once again, Gore Vidal's belief that we live in the United States of Amnesia harkens truth. It'll be a return to all that we ran away from when we voted for Bush. It'll be a return to the drama, to a state of civil war in Washington. Another do-nothing Administration and another do-nothing Congress. No one really expects Bill Clinton to stay out of policy-making deliberations. A Bill Clinton with nothing to do in the White House is a scary thought. Scary in the sense that he'll run his mouth like he's doing now, causing more harm than good. As Ambassador to the World, he'll do pretty well, since he is almost universally liked outside of America, but there's obviously no chance that he'll stay out of America. Two Clintons in the White House: a shivering thought indeed.

The question is can Obama take it? Even though McCain is the only Republican that beats both Clinton and Obama, he beats Obama narrowly. There are a lot of what-ifs. What if the base isn't as motivated to come out and vote for McCain if he's running against Obama? Who's going to be McCain's running mate? A lot of murmurings surround the question with the belief that it's going to be Huckabee, that that's the only reason why he's remained in the race. By Huckabee staying in, he's siphoning votes off of Romney's potential in-roads. Huckabee joins the ticket and the base will have someone to come out and vote for. There was some press two weeks ago talking about how Romney is not popular with the other contenders. Life as High School. Assuming that it's going to be McCain versus Clinton, it is safe to assume that the base will come out strong for McCain on Election Day. The only thought that scares the base more than one Clinton in the White House is two of them. With Clinton on the top of the ticket, McCain will have more flexibility in choosing a running mate who is more centrist and moderate.

Tomorrow night's going to be big. McCain can become the standard bearer of the Republican Party going forward, and Obama may become the heir to Camelot, ending the, what was once thought of inevitable, Clinton ascendancy.

McCain and Obama: Change versus more of the same. Stay tuned.