neva-duh

Here I was thinking that the Clinton's tiff with the Culinary Union would cost them the caucuses in the Silver State, and yet they seem to have won it by about 6%. The big news to me seems to be that:

1. the Culinary Union was all talk and no substance, Hillary's institutional support from big name Democrats mattered more.


2. Edwards' support disappeared. Four percent? That is Rudy Giuliani territory (more on that later). That was so embarrassing that he might have to fold up his tent soon.


3. Republican turn out was much, much higher than Democratic turnout, even though only Romney and Paul campaigned here and Obama and Clinton set up shop here for the week. This was counter to the trend we saw in all the other states thus far, but it could be due to my next point. I guess the numbers on CNN are delegates? From the NY Times:
   

   state party officials said more than 114,000 Nevada voters attended the caucuses. It is the third state in the row to achieve record-setting turnout in the Democratic presidential nominating fight, which party strategists believe is a referendum on the Bush administration and a strong call for a new direction in Washington.



4. Mormons came through for Romney in a big way--20% of GOP caucus voters were LDS, more than double their state population. (42,250 people caucused for the GOP today.) He has about 19,000 votes right now, Clinton got about 5,200 (Obama got about 4,600) and Ron Paul got about 4,500. With reports of bad weather and voting problems in areas with lots of old people, could Romney get a strong "bronze" in SC? I would say he is the new front runner even if Huckabee ekes out a win in SC, because the press will talk down Huckabee as a regional, religious candidate.


5. Republicans have voted in 5 going on 6 states now, and Giuliani has been in the bottom 2 or 3 every time. How can you expect to win the nomination, let alone the presidency without being even a factor in the first month of voting? I will say it again, he won't win Florida, Huckabee or McCain will. I am starting to think it will be the Huckster.


6. Obama HAS to win South Carolina big now. He need Nevada, and he can talk about how the raw delegate count is still relatively even (if you don't count super delegates) but he needs wins to knock down Hillary to have a chance in states like California and Texas.


7. African-Americans are now going nearly 4-to-1 for Obama over Hillary several states in a row. Yes I am counting Michigan, which was probably due to Rep. John Conyers getting his people out to vote for "uncommitted" but this is a trend that could help Obama win all of the Southern states on February 5th (save Arkansas)


8. Clinton's lead in Nevada was around 55% prior to Iowa, and Obama's share was somewhere in the 20-25% So it seems that all that happened was Edwards' support collapsed to Obama, and a bit of the Hillary supporters and some undecideds broke his way. But he never fundamentally changed the dynamic there, even with the union endorsements and winning Iowa.


9. The race to the nomination for both parties is going to get tighter and nastier as the weeks roll on. To me, it seems like it has come down to two on both sides: Clinton and Obama, with Clinton having the upper hand; then Romney and Huckabee, with Romney having the upper hand. Assuming these bits of news out in South Carolina are true, it seems McCain is in big trouble.


10. If McCain loses tonight (still a big if) this will be yet another primary where he failed to get Republicans to vote for him in sufficient numbers. Even in New Hampshire, he lost the GOP vote to Romney. Maybe he should have ran as an independent in 2004 after all.