Monday Morning Quarterbacking

Well, the election results are in, and you all know how they turned out, I'm sure. (All one of you.) (Hi, dad!) I'm still sifting through the articles and trying to get a sense of the subtleties of what happened.

I Was Right, After All

The thing that surprised me before the primaries was that the polls were showing that Romney and Obama had leads in California, the exact opposite of what I had been expecting. My expectation had been that the California Republicrats would break heavily towards McCain, and that Hillary Clinton's connection with Latino voters, Unions, and community organizers in this state would play to her favor. The polls were showing that the opposite was true -- Obama and Romney were pulling ahead. And while I could understand more or less why that might be, it surprised me.

Well, turns out I shouldn't have doubted my judgment, because the dust has cleared, and it turned out I was right all along.

Obama Stays in the Race

While McCain has solidified his lead among the republicans, the democratic fight soldiers on, still too close to call. Obama didn't manage to leave Hillary in the dust (no one expected that he would), but he did manage to stay in the race. This works to his advantage, because his principle problem thusfar has been that 90% of voters don't give a crap about politics, and don't even know who he is in more than the vaguest terms, whereas they know all about Hillary Clinton. Since Obama's charisma is such an important part of his candidacy, he needs people to get to know him and see him in action to get their support. With all of the primaries on Super Tuesday, he hasn't had time to do that. But now, with the rest of the primaries more spread out, he's going to have time, and that's going to help him build support. Even so, there's every chance that we might wind up with a brokered convention, and that's going to hurt whoever comes out of the fray still standing.

Where In the World Is Bill Richardson?

Leading up to Super Tuesday, I was hearing a lot of baffling speculation that Bill Richardson was going to endorse Barack Obama. When Obama went to make the rounds in New Mexico, a lot of people were saying that Richardson was going to make an appearance and take the chance to make his endorsement. I started searching news sites for some indication of what I must have missed -- why the hell should anyone believe this? All of Richardson's ties are to the Clintons. He worked for Bill Clinton, for crying out loud. Bill Clinton practically MADE him. They watched the superbowl together!

But Richardson didn't endorse Hillary Clinton either, and let's face it, if he was gonna do it, he was gonna do it before Super Tuesday. I'm pretty sure that, like Edwards, he's expecting that there's a good chance that he'll be tapped by SOMEONE for the VP spot on a ticket. Since the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama looks too close to call, and since an endorsement of the losing party would rule him out of getting jack from whoever gets the nomination, I think he'll sit on the fence until the victor has already been anointed -- or until he can have a good chance at anointing the victor with his endorsement. Of course, he doesn't have anything by way of delegates to contribute, but he may be counting on his popularity with Latino voters.

In fact, Richardson would be a good running mate for Barack Obama. He's not very charismatic, but Obama's got enough charisma to make up for ten Bill Richardsons, never mind one. Obama's weakest areas seem to be the established democrats, Latino voters, and his inexperience, especially with regards to foreign policy -- all things that Richardson could make up for. Obama could dispatch Richardson, as VP, to do most of the foreign policy negotiations, and Richardson has already proven that not only does he have the contacts to be effective, he IS effective.

I prefer not to think about the possibility of a Clinton/Richardson ticket. The cognitive dissonance hurts my brain. I would desperately like to see Richardson in power, because he seems to know what he's doing, even if I don't agree with every single one of his policy opinions. But I cannot, absolutely cannot, bring myself to vote for Hillary Clinton. The idea of rewarding her behavior with my vote is repugnant to me. I have no idea what I'd do.