Lots of Good Stuff

There's a lot of interesting reading in the blogosphere today regarding the primaries. My favorite is over at Townhall.com by Emmett Tyrell. He analyzes what he calls the "Clinton Crack-up," which is also the name of his latest book.

If I do say so myself, I was right on the money when I titled my latest book on the Clintons' journey, from their disgrace in 2001 to their vicissitudes in Campaign '08, The Clinton Crack-Up. In New Hampshire, Hillary saw a double-digit lead over Obama steadily wither to a two-point victory over him, and a shabby victory it was. She saw her husband flaying about, whining at media coverage, referring to Obama's impressive rise to national prominence as a "fairy tale" and his presidency as a "rolling of the dice." Her campaign staff began to buckle. The New York Times reported the former Boy President was increasingly a soporific on the stump, and USA Today called him a "relic." Hillary was reduced to tears just before the balloting began.

There are a lot of Democrats who are very uncomfortable with the idea of Hillary being the nominee. Personally, I think she will be the eventual nominee. But Mr. Tyrell brings up some very good points about the possibility of that not happening.

Then there is a column by Karl Rove over at WSJ online entitled "Why Hillary Won." I can see why Bush chose Rove to be his advisor, his writing is very succinct and interesting.

But more interesting than dissecting the pollsters is dissecting the election returns, precinct by precinct. Senator Hillary Clinton won working-class neighborhoods and less-affluent rural areas. Senator Barack Obama won the college towns and the gentrified neighborhoods of more affluent communities. Put another way, Mrs. Clinton won the beer drinkers, Mr. Obama the white wine crowd. And there are more beer drinkers than wine swillers in the Democratic Party.

He goes on to dissect four reasons why Hillary won. He's convincing, but I still don't believe Hillary's tears were real as he does.

I learned something else, from Rush's observations at his web site.

I want to know the numbers.  How many people that voted in New Hampshire were first-time registered voters that registered yesterday?  We had the story way, way back long, long time ago, it was November the 27th, about how you can vote in New Hampshire.  And that is, you can go in from out of state, and all you have to do to get a ballot, about which they ran out of, I wonder why, on the Democrat side, all you have to do is go in and say, "Yeah, I'm thinking about moving to New Hampshire, I might be moving here," and so forth, and so you can vote.  We have had this confirmed. 

I didn't realize it was THAT easy to vote in New Hampshire. Wouldn't that be perfectly Clintonesque? Believe you're down double digits and so go and recruit voters and bus them in from nearby liberal states? It's easy to believe, isn't it?

I think it will be Mitt Romney for the Republicans and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats. However, as everyone knows, it ain't over 'til it's over, especially in politics.