Next Stop, Super Tuesday!

The democrats have finished the final debate before Super Duper Tsunami Megaquake Hurricane Armageddon Tuesday. Here in England I don't have the luxury of watching the debates by CNN on TV so I have to watch it online. Like last night, I chose to watch the live feed with of the debate with undecideds weighing in real-time. CNN gathered a group of undecided voters and placed them in a room with an electronic monitor to see how they felt about what was being said at the moment. The scale was from 0 - 100, 100 being best possible. I was a bit surprised to see by what the feed showed!

After last week's routing By Barack Obama of Hillary Clinton I expected to see the numbers swinging widely in his favor. Instead, what I saw was exactly the opposite. Hillary was consistently in the 80s on nearly every topic that was brought up, while Barack was in the 40-50s. A few times Obama managed to squeak into the 70s, but for the most part he stayed static around 53%. That's not good for the man who somehow trounced Hillary in South Carolina and Iowa. On the other hand, Hillary was frequently in the 90s for many topic (Bill's record as president, her record on health care, her fight for disabled children, etc), yet there were a couple of times when she dropped as low as 51 or 2 (her vote on the Iraq war).

The media has a nasty habit of trying to be the king maker. Notice the early days of the campaign when Hillary was considered "President-elect" Clinton, then after Iowa when Barack shocked the nation he was the man. Yet consistantly the media has had to eat crow and re-crown a new king/queen. New Hampshire made a queen, South Carolina a king, Florida (which yet again is disenfranchised) a queen, etc.

Will Super Tuesday make this election anymore clear? I hope so.

To close this off, here is the opinion of a man I like. He posted this on the net right after the debate. He's seldom been wrong. Here's hoping he isn't wrong this time. Oh, and if you want another group's opinion, check out http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/ for a rather insightful look into this election. (Thanks Chris for the link!)

January 31, 2008

Schneider: The bottom line

Posted: 11:00 PM ET

The audience response was the same as that of Democrats across the country: they’re happy with their choice this year, but they don’t want to have to make it.

I thought overall, his position tonight was still that of the challenger, and she was effectively the incumbent. Barack Obama needed to peel votes away from Clinton. He made some progress on the Iraq issue. But how many Democrats are still more concerned about Iraq than about anything else?

To the extent that the debate was a draw, it helps Clinton.

Why? Because holding his own wasn’t enough. Obama’s task tonight was to make the case that there were huge differences between them. Just holding his own and looking presidential was not enough — he had to convince Democrats who like her that there’s a reason she shouldn’t be the party’s nominee.

He clearly had command on the issue of Iraq. Six months ago that would have been enough. Now? I’m not so sure. It took a while for the issue to take center stage tonight, and that’s no accident: Other concerns have come to the forefront.

In all, it was an unhelpful debate. They minimized their differences. Tonight’s showdown will rally Democrats, no question – but won’t help them make a decision. The biggest applause line of the evening came for the idea of the two of them together.

The debate doesn’t kill momentum for either one. But does it help build any? His strong showing could very well help Obama. But how much — enough to overtake Clinton? I just didn’t see that.

– CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider