Age before beauty

We all watched as Sen. Hillary Clinton saw her “inevitable” win turn into a highly competitive race against the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. We also watched as, even after Iowa and New Hampshire, it seemed as though there were four different candidates that could conceivably take the Republican nomination. The two races seemed so competitive that it was possible that little could have been resolved yesterday. \nOn the Democratic side, Clinton performed fairly well, especially among blue collar-workers, women and Latinos. This is the coalition that has kept her campaign going strong. She grabbed the big wins in the Northeast: New York, New Jersey and even Massachusetts. Perhaps Sen. Ted Kennedy’s Obama endorsement was a bit over-hyped. \nObama did manage to steal Connecticut and Delaware. As predicted, he also took Georgia and Alabama, continuing his trend of doing well in southern states with high black populations. He also took his home state. Still Clinton took Arkansas, Tennessee and Oklahoma. \nAs of press time, the results in California were not known, but we suspect Super Tuesday will have left Clinton with a good chance of emerging with the Democratic nomination, though the delegate counts will be pretty close. If Obama wins California, he will still have to jump through a few more hoops. And if the contest between Clinton and Obama is not resolved soon, it could begin to affect the party’s fortunes for ’08. \nOn the Republican side, we have no doubt McCain has emerged as the frontrunner. He wrapped up the Northeast handily (except for Mitt Romney’s predictable win in his home state of Massachusetts). As of press time, the only other states Romney had won were the Mormon-dominated state of Utah, along with Minnesota and North Dakota. Even if Romney wins California, McCain will clearly take his party’s nomination. \nMike Huckabee’s campaign was probably over before Super Tuesday, and he likely just split the anti-McCain vote. However, the conventional wisdom of wide-spread animosity toward McCain within his party was challenged yesterday. He did well with many states and demographics that are clearly conservative. It seems he is holding the conservative coalition together handily. \nIt seems we are entering a McCain-Clinton race; a race that will surely be a close one. Despite McCain’s age he doesn’t necessarily come across as an establishment candidate, and he may be the only Republican that can overcome the party’s post-Bush syndrome. \nEven if McCain represents another unanticipated hurdle for Clinton, we still expect her to do well. Many independents are leaning to the left, and it’s clear from today’s results that ill feelings toward Clinton may well be exaggerated. \nThere still remains a tantalizing third possibility: that Clinton may not be the Democratic nominee at all. An Obama win in California could thrust him to the nomination and we would see the voice of the restless youth combat one of the oldest men ever to run for president. Although current polls show Obama doing well now, it should be kept in mind that Obama’s experience will look even thinner compared to McCain’s.