Romney will win Colorado, Montana, and maybe Washington aside from his other "home states." McCain will take California, but the media annointed him too fast. He's won, but only in the 30s, nothing commanding. If Romney takes the northwest, and Huckabee could win 3-4 southern states, the best case scenario in you opinion for the party; this thing could drag on. As for me, I'd like nothing better than McCain being the clear winner, with a respectable southern showing and a couple of wins for Huck. I wish you were right about only Utah and Mass for Mitt; that would be a fitting embarassment and end to his ugly campaign.

Your complaints about Huck attacking Mitt are unwarranted. Everyone dislikes Mitt. Every candidate (Thompson, McCain, Giuliani, Huckabee) attacked Mitt in the debates. They all despise him for the unprincipled politician he is. The link I posted about few of his fellow governors liking him is even more revealing. I remember over 4 years ago Dr. Schramm commented on how telling it was the Wesley Clark hadn't made any friends in life. No one really liked him personally. We can put Mitt in the same category. After changing all his positions, he looks good on paper, but in reality he is so empty and base that you can't stand him any longer than it takes to close a business deal. So I'm not sure why we should be so upset about Huck's attacks on Mitt; he is one of many.

I can see why you say time is on Obama's side but still his campaign reminds me of Freud's description of pleasure: comprised of puntuated and episodic moments that can't be temporally sustained...I think part of the problem for him is that his message is inspiration versus policy based and that can wear thin over the long haul, especially among the young attention deficit crowd he naturally appeals to...on the other hand, HC appeals to an older crowd disabused of his romantic allure and more likely to finish the race...

Don't the two Democratic candidates define the division within that party? I don't mean the feminist/racial identity politics, though that is there. It those two things Ivan Kenneally is discussing above; the bureaucratic aspects of New Deal/Great Society growth of government and "let's implement policy in a seamless way" which only experienced politicians can accomplish versus the idealism expressed in Obama and his campaign. The question is whether the idealistic, Progressive self-image that they like to project will prevail in the tumble of politics. This was evident in the outrage over Hillary's statement about who was responsible for the success of Civil Rights legislation.

Isn't that the point of the experienced pols, Kerry and Kennedy and the like signing on for the Obama brand of their party? It does two things; it enhances their image as idealists (Obama really IS the ideal Dem. candidate) and it tells the party that with Obama they can have both worlds, the practical and the ideal, because Obama can have those tried and true characters behind him and with him if elected.

Drat. I have more to write about this, but have to go to church.

I thik that's exactly right Kate---there's something comically anti-climactic about a call to transformative revolution culminating in a soft administrative despotism and that antinomy has always been at the center of of progressivism in one way or another...I think this is a kind of deformation of an inheritance from classical liberalism which in it's own way tried to piece together institutional reform with more radical politics-- Locke's 2nd Treatise, especially the last chapter, is in some sense a more judicious attempt to combine these two elements, partly by de-emphasizing the revolutionary character of it all. Despite the many ways his work has been missapropriated by the left, Mill was instructive on this score when he discusses the need for progress that isn't so precipitous that it also brings regress with it.

Peter, if you look thru the polls systematically, you will see that Rasmussen almost always exaggerates the conservative or Republican results compared to others except Zogby at times. Often those two stick out like two sore thumbs. Don't bet your plantation on them unless backed up by others.

dennis, you're right. they've been giving romney and to some extent huck false hopes all along. if it were to bet the plantation, it would be on something close to a mccain sweep. or with decent odds i'd certainly bet on obama.

Someone should do an in-depth theoretical and practical analysis of intensive campaign polling and how this process has, perhaps wildly, distorted campaigns, beginning with the way candidates think through what they should say to voters. Among other things, such a study would unquestionably indicate that in fact the real driver of campaigns in both parties is mainstream media, with their classic 1-2 punch: first, extensively promote melodramatic accounts of concerns they think should be the "real issues", and second, then take polls to see if people think these are the "real issues." Candidates almost always follow this sucker's game.

Today every candidate is wailing about the coming (or present) recession as indicated by falling stock markets. Not a single one sees that markets fall when they see massive tax increases down the road that will bar economic expansion. This is of course the Dems' strategy by refusing to extend the Bush tax cuts (worth $350 BILLION a year now.) Any Republican worth his salt would forget about recession and talk about what the markets are saying about a possible Dem government come 2009.