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- Michigan has delivered the latest interesting (I won't say surprising since hardly anything is surprising at this point) primary result. As Rob Farley said earlier, it's hard to see why Romney isn't now viewed as the favorite. After all, he has a majority of the delegates (see Matt Yglesias). What's more, he's using a delegate-centered strategy that I think is better suited to the emerging three-candidate race than either McCain or Hucakbee's more traditional approaches. For instance, Romney is focusing on Saturday's Nevada Republican caucuses which have a lower profile (why?) but more delegates than South Carolina where his rivals are campaigning.
- Romeny's win, the pundits agree, is due to the sudden veer left his campaign rhetoric took on economic policy in the days before the primary. Problem is, the actual evidence shows that he did best among the well off and those happiest with the economy and worst with those in the darkest mood. But why let a few inconvenient facts spoil a cool theory?
- McCain's win in New Hampshire proving to be not as important as people thought? Vicious smears against him in South Carolina? Haven't we seen this movie before?
- Moving to Democrats, in Michigan, while only Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich were on the ballot, "uncommited" got a super-majority of the black vote. It's hard to be certain exactly what that means given the oddities of the ballot, but it does suggest we might be seeing a late movement among black voters like the one that gave Obama such a decisive win in his Senate primary in 2004.
- Seriously? We're now considering the idea that Obama's difficulty not losing pieces of paper is a major liability? I think the President can afford a file clerk.
- Also, I like John Edwards and think he's more genuine than most politicians, but when he claims his greatest weakness is that he just cares too darn much, it's hard not giggle.
- You know what isn't funny? The fact that Edwards has gotten a scandalously tiny amount of coverage compared to Hillary and Obama. The study covers a limited period of time, but anyone following the campaign would have a hard time denying that Edwards hasn't gotten close to an equal share of coverage. I've certainly noticed this since I started putting this feature together last November. Often I'll have run into several interesting and important pieces of information about Clinton and Obama and find myself searching for something to say about Edwards. In part though, I think there has just been less news about his campaign to report. His poll numbers have been steady, his appeal has been constant and unchanging, and there haven't been nearly as many controversies or sudden shifts that relate to him. It's also understandable and I think justifiable that the first black and female candidates to pick up wide support in a presidential primary get extra attention. As Greg Sargent says, the real scandal is that Edwards didn't get a lot of coverage a year ago, not that he didn't get it two weeks ago.
- Obama picks up another influential labor endorsement. LA has a quite powerful county federation of labor and while this is an endorsement by its head not the group, this seems like a sign that most labor leaders not already behind Hillary are gravitating towards Obama. It also shows that his support among Latino leaders may grow.
- Also, just for fun, Christopher Orr points out that Rudy Giuliani isn't Angelus, he's Glory (apropos of the other day's Republicans-as-Buffy-villains item). The way things are going, it won't be long before we find out who the new big bad is. Meanwhile, we can make like Mike Huckabee and cook squirrel in a popcorn maker. Anybody else get the feeling that Huckabee occasionally is possessed by the spirit of a pot-smoking frat boy? "Dude... you know who we should have endorse us in our first ad? Chuck Norris! That'd be so sick! Also man, I'm hungry. That squirrel looks kinda tasty doesn't it?"
--Sam Boyd
