Those who know me, know that I am a bit of a political junkie. There's never been a better year to be one either, with both the Democratic and Republican nominations showing signs of going to a brokered convention for the first time in 20+ years.
Democrats have an easier time of it. They have the political wind at their backs -- any one of the 3 candidates looks positively sparkling compared to the current administration -- and the economic as well now that the economy looks to be teetering on the brink of recession.
Barack Obama has garnered the lion's share of the press in the past week, with his decisive win in South Carolina, bitter infighting in the Clinton camp over Bill's role in SC, and the twin endorsements of the Kennedy family evoking comparisons to JFK. He's got a lot going for him and he is a great candidate, and he may very well get my vote in California's primary next week (nice to have an election where we finally matter out west!).
That said, we're going out on a limb with the first Tole's Take political prediction of 2008: Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination handily, wiping out Obama months before the convention.
Why? There has been a lot of ink spilled on this already and there will surely be a lot more in the coming months, but in all the coverage I've seen there has been scant mention of the fact that the Clintons haven't lost an election in 25 years. That's 2 terms as Arkansas governor, 2 terms as US president, and 2 terms (and counting) as US senator, all the time with ~50% of the country completely & utterly detesting their very existence. In case your memory has faded on this, think Rush Limbaugh and Ken Starr as the standard-bearers ...
The point is that the Clintons know how to campaign, and how to do it well. Tony Blankley eloquently expressed it when he said Bill Clinton is a "world-class message-deliverer [for the Democrats]; every time he turns a little red in the face the media rushes to cover his every word." Keep it in mind next time you hear the media wring their hands and ruminate over whether Hillary can recover from this latest slight, or whether Obama's momentum makes him unstoppable with the broader Super Tuesday electorate -- Bill might just be planting the seeds of a message and the media won't realize they were unwittingly delivering it until it's too late.
Just a thought. Until then, enjoy the political theater!
