Before we get into the evening I wanted to let you know about a new news and investigative journalism site that just officially went live today. It’s called the Washington Independent. And in addition to other names you’ll likely recognize they’ve got two TPM alums on the staff — Spencer Ackerman and Laura McGann.
They’ve got their own model. But definitely some similarities to what we’re trying to do at TPM.
Good stuff, check it out.
I watch a lot of elections. And I haven’t seen many where the polls have bounced around this much as we go down to the wire, with no clear trend other than that from a crowded field to a two man race. I’m talking about tomorrow’s Republican primary in Florida. If you click here you can see all the polls of this race going back into October (aka the Rudy era).
As recently as mid-January, this remained a four man race, with McCain, Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani bunched around 20%. Then over the last week, Huckabee and Giuliani have faded into the background — both now in the low mid-teens — as McCain and Romney have risen to around 30% each. Fred Thompson’s departure has of course also augmented this trend.
Over the last few days it’s bounced back and forth between the two. McCain didn’t get any clear bounce out of South Carolina. Then Romney seemed to be rallying. And then this weekend, Gov. Crist (R) endorsed McCain, which may have punched him back into the lead.
There are still a decent number of undecideds in most of the surveys. But there’s another factor that adds an extra margin of uncertainty to tomorrow’s outcome. As the battle has become more and more clearly a McCain-Romney race and one quite likely to settle the GOP nomination, I think there’s a good chance that Huckabee and Giuliani significantly underperform their margins. Because people want to actually have a say in who becomes the nominee rather than throwing their vote away on Rudy or Huck. That potentiallly throws a lot of other votes into the mix that could push either McCain or Romney past the finish line.
Whatever the outcome, for those who maybe haven’t been watching the GOP race that closely, who wins tomorrow will be a very big deal. I think people are likely right when they say that the guy who wins tomorrow will probably be the one at the presidential debates in October.
The Earmark President takes a half-hearted, last-minute, disingenuous stab at reining in earmarks, now that the Dems control Congress and GOPers Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff are in jail.
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Odds are we’ll have a decent idea who the Democratic nominee is going to face in November when we know the winner of tonight’s Republican primary in Florida. In today’s episode of TPMtv we run down the state of the race and what to expect tonight; and tonight we’ll be bringing you live results as late as it goes …
From TPM Reader DD …
Hey Josh,
As much as I have enjoyed watching Rudy’s campaign collapse, I find
myself feeling oddly sad that he will soon leave the race. From
Shag Fund to the creation of brand 911, Rudy has provided a great
deal of the comedy relief in the Republican primaries. Sure, the
other guys have had their moments, but no one has delivered the
comedy gold like Rudy. He will be missed.feeling the Mittmentum,
DD
From TPM Reader JB …
Aren’t you buying the spin a bit by hyping this Florida contest up as decisive? Seems to me it’s going to be very close, and therefore indicative of a protracted battle. No? I just don’t see why a narrow victory/loss would mean that much. It will turn this thing into a two man race — I’ll grant you that.
JB might have a point. If the polls are even close to accurate 1st place and 2nd are going to be very close. What’s more, John McCain seems to have trouble getting much over 30% of the vote. So one could speculate that with Huck and Rudy shuffling off this electoral coil, that could free up more voters to put Romney into contention or even ahead nationwide.
Just speaking selfishly and cynically, I hope Florida’s not decisive. Because I don’t want to see this race wrapped up any time soon. And I especially don’t want to see McCain wrap it up this soon.
But a largely unremarked factor here is how the Republicans have chosen to structure this race. Most of the Republican races — including Florida and I think all the Super Tuesday states — are winner take all. Romney could be in contention everywhere. But if McCain can get a plurality of the vote McCain gets all the delegates. And of course vice versa.
Add to this that at least for the moment, McCain seems to be ahead in most of the Super Tuesday states. Not everywhere. But seemingly in the big ones. I think if McCain wins tonight there will be a big media boomlet for him. He’ll get a week of crazy press. And I think Romney will have a hard time overcoming McCain’s leads in a ton of states if he couldn’t manage it in this one state of Florida. And remember the all important winner-take-all factor. Close in a lot of states isn’t good enough for Mitt.
E.J. Dionne has a column out in today’s Post on the potential damage that Bill Clinton’s two weeks of knockabout campaigning has done to Hillary’s campaign. I think he gets it just right. A lot of this isn’t about Obama. There’s a good argument I think that Bill helped Hillary a lot in Nevada and New Hampshire. (E.J. suggests Bill wasn’t a big factor in NH; but my recollection is that that is when his aggressive push started.) But I think it’s at a cost that is probably much greater than people realize even now.