A Surge of Doubt

To my way of thinking, the recent surge of commentary suggesting that Hillary Clinton now has an unbreakable lock on the Democratic nomination strongly suggests that she's not as well-positioned as I'd thought. After all, isn't this the sort of thing everyone's always wrong about? And isn't three months actually 3 million years in news-cycle terms. Then I see Marc report that "political prognosticators and many Iowa Democrats are buzzing about a coming Biden surge."

Now, there are only two possible explanations for that. One is that political prognosticators are totally crazy and ignorant, in which case we should discount growing prognostication of a Clinton win, or else the prognosticators are correct, and totally crazy and ridiculous things are likely to happen, in which case Clinton's apparently solid grip on the nomination as of today is probably worthless.

Comments

Now, there are only two possible explanations for that.

It seems likely that there are, in fact, more than two possible explanations. Why couldn't the prognosticators be good at picking the most likely scenario in a given context, and bad at estimating the likelihood of that scenario coming to pass?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 26, 2007 3:33 PM

Matt,

Can you get CSPAN on your iPhone? Because there's some interesting theater going down at the Senate hearings with Gen. Pace and Code Pink.

Posted by Fred | September 26, 2007 3:37 PM

It's cute when you try to get all counter-intuitive on us Matt.

Posted by Steve Balboni | September 26, 2007 3:37 PM

It would be nice if Marc would do honest reporting. Where did he get that five percent polling number?

Posted by Anonymous | September 26, 2007 3:38 PM

"Now, there are only two possible explanations for that."

No. There's a third and far more likely explanation for that:

The Democratic race has been frozen in amber since June, and will likely continue to be frozen in amber until January, and pundits need to write something.

After all, there's only so many different ways you can write: "Hillary's ahead nationally, but faces challenges in the early states." So folks look for offbeat angles. Bidenmania is the offbeat angle of the day.

Posted by Petey | September 26, 2007 3:42 PM

Biden seems to be pouring his all into Iowa. In the last week, I've gotten a couple calls asking me position questions about Iraq (usually framed as "leaving" vs. "leaving safely") and then they ask me how I feel about Biden. I say the same thing each time, "He'd make an OK SecState." And then, so they can quantify it, I say "not very enthusiastic."

Posted by Trevor | September 26, 2007 3:46 PM

Joementum II: Iowa Boogaloo

I except Biden to "tie" for fourth place in Iowa.

Posted by blah | September 26, 2007 3:53 PM

Really, really, hope that the nominee is not Clinton. Of the alternatives like Obama the best. Obama, wake up man! Do something.

Posted by 2cynicalbyhalf | September 26, 2007 4:00 PM

What a coincidence. The great man's dismember-Iraq resolution just passed the Senate and it is seen as very bold and progressive! (I have more)

Posted by Badger | September 26, 2007 4:02 PM

Or there's a more conventional reason: in the last couple of weeks Hillary has unveiled a major health plan(I say major because it got a lot of good press) and Obama has not raised more money coming into October. And she hit allthe major talk shows on Sunday and didn't screw the pooch. Those things plus her position as front-runner would seem to justify such speculation to me.

Posted by Horatio Parker | September 26, 2007 4:05 PM

The Democratic race has been frozen in amber since June, and will likely continue to be frozen in amber until January, and pundits need to write something.

When Petey's right, he's right.

Personally I've been quite active in New York State politics for the past five years and I can say with near-certainty that the progressive blogosphere's antipathy toward Clinton is shared by approximately 0.0% of the electorate. She is extremely popular in all the most liberal areas of New York City and places like Ithaca, which elected a Socialist as mayor. When she was challenged by Jonathan Tasini on an anti-war platform in the Dem primary, he did by far the best in the most conservative areas, e.g. by far his strongest borough in NYC was Staten Island.

On a lot of issues, the online left is ahead of its base. But on HRC, they're not just ahead, they are out of touch with the base completely. Progressive voters -- who, unlike the blogosphere, are disproportionately female and non-white -- overwhelmingly support Clinton.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | September 26, 2007 4:12 PM

Personally I've been quite active in New York State politics for the past five years...

The problem for Hillary is not New York State, lemuel. She'll do quite well there in the primaries, and if things go far enough off the tracks that she gets the nomination, she'll do quite well there in the general.

And while I don't want to spread unfounded rumors, a bunch of in-the-know folks in New York State politics have informed me that HRC was responsible for selling Betty Prail into prostitution, lemuel. Hillary may be your home state candidate, but as a national party, we can do a helluva lot better.

Posted by Petey | September 26, 2007 4:20 PM

"Progressive voters -- who, unlike the blogosphere, are disproportionately female and non-white -- overwhelmingly support Clinton."

Are there a lot of non-white "progressives"? I know most blacks and Hispanics consider themselves Democrats, and possibly liberals, but I doubt more than 1 in 10 black Democrats know that "progressive" is a fancy euphemism for liberal.

Posted by Harry | September 26, 2007 4:24 PM

The most likely explanation is that the insiders love Joe Biden, he's their idea of a guy that should be the front runner. So they're saying that silly stuff because they want to believe it. Just like many of us do about our own candidates chances for the nomination, btw, John Edwards is a lock.

Posted by AJ | September 26, 2007 4:32 PM

African-Americans and women are much more likely than white men to support universal health care, ending the war in Iraq, stronger unions and other core progressive positions. Whether they use that label is irrelevant. They also constitute the democratic base (well, African-Americans and single women) so if the goal is to mobilize core voters, HRC's popularity among those groups counts for a lot more than Obama and Edwards' support among the MY-Atrios-Kos-TPM crowd.

Petey-

My thinking is that progressive voters in New York aren't that different from progressive voters elsewhere. And yes, HRC has probably also accepted contributions from Wu Fong. But nobody's perfect.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | September 26, 2007 4:39 PM

PLEASE not Biden.

I prefer ANY of the major-league Dems (Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Dodd and Richardson) to him. Well, maybe Biden would be better than Richardson. But please.

His economic views are center-right. He's in the pocket of the banking and credit card industries. He's far too reluctant to draw down troops from Iraq, and his central idea for Iraq - the currently in fashion "soft partition" - is a recipe for even more disastrous ethnic cleansing; it's totally unworkable, destructive, and even if it could be implemented it would require a MASSIVE deployment of US troops to enforce it.

Posted by ASI | September 26, 2007 4:52 PM

Option 3: Marc is uncritically repeating what he's been told by the Biden campaign.

Posted by Ray | September 26, 2007 5:03 PM

If Obama wants to be the nominee he needs to stop bugging out on important votes. I want to know if he backs an invasion of Iran or not. I know Clinton does, Biden and Dodd do not. I will never vote for Clinton because I truly believe she is a warmonger at heart. And she cannot wait to get her some unitary executive powers.

Posted by apishapa | September 26, 2007 5:13 PM

Clinton's got the primary and general elecitons locked up. I love America, but the political process needs some work, like campaign finance reform. (Perhaps the Punisher is truly a Clinton partisan trying to spice of the predictable race?)

I do kinda want Clinton to win, b/c this will cause Rush Limbaugh's dittoheads' heads to explode a la David Cronenberg's film Scanners.

Posted by Peter K. | September 26, 2007 5:27 PM

If Biden hadn't screwed it up by plagiarizing Neil Kinnock, he would have been a formidable candidate in 1988, when people cared less who the president was.

Posted by Ed | September 26, 2007 8:14 PM

Also, low information voters think that Hilary is a liberal. Political junkies who spend alot of time on the internet know how conservative she really is. Hence the gap between the netroots and most of the progressive part of the electorate.

Posted by Ed | September 26, 2007 8:16 PM

More rent-seeking behavior by the residents of Blogistan...and it's not even rent-seeking in the obscure technical sense. They just need to pay the rent, and if Clinton really has the nomination all sewn up at this early stage, they start worrying about life on the streets.

Posted by Rich | September 26, 2007 9:21 PM

To my way of thinking, the recent surge of commentary suggesting that Hillary Clinton now has an unbreakable lock on the Democratic nomination strongly suggests that she's not as well-positioned as I'd thought. After all, isn't this the sort of thing everyone's always wrong about?

You're still trying to shuck the blame for your "Howard Dean is inevitable" prediction? Get over it d00d.

Posted by jerry | September 26, 2007 11:15 PM

After all, isn't this the sort of thing everyone's always wrong about?

Ha ha ha.

One is that political prognosticators are totally crazy and ignorant, in which case we should discount growing prognostication of a Clinton win, or else the prognosticators are correct, and totally crazy and ridiculous things are likely to happen,

It sounds just like people are trying to drum something up to me, just like Newt's incessant babbling about himself.

Posted by Swan | September 27, 2007 12:19 AM

Nobody knows at this juncture who's going to get either nomination.

But the Republican contest is really close, and really hard to call.

The Democratic contest isn't, and few people at this juncture would be so unwise as to bet straight up on anybody except Clinton.

Since the Iowa Electronic Market came on-line, the whole prognostication game turned boring, even--or especially--when it ignores the race itself and looks instead to those commenting on the race. The best evidence is the prediction markets, and in both Iowa City and Dublin, Clinton has a 3-1 edge. Nobody knows nothing more probative than that.

Lots of 3-1 favorites have lost the race. No votes are cast till January, and a lot can happen in the meantime. No reason those who fear HC shouldn't keep trying to shoot her down. But she is the favorite.

So if you're going to support her if she does win, be careful what you say about her now.

If you fear her, do you think she's anywhere near as fearsome as Giuliani? Or isn't clearly preferable to Romney and Thompson?

Posted by Tradesportsman | September 27, 2007 1:03 AM

If there's one candidate who has won points with me during this campaign by showing basic competence to handle the issues and the pressures of campaign, that's Senator Chris Dodd. I wonder if he ll emerge as a darkhorse in any state.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | September 27, 2007 2:45 AM

Oh please, you can't be serious. Biden?! He doesn't stand a chance in hell. There is no surge. There will be no surge. Not for Biden.

Posted by ??? | September 27, 2007 6:30 AM

My vote is for the prognosticators being right about Hillary, and so bored with her that they need to do ridiculous things like gin up a Biden surge.

Posted by TW Andrews | September 27, 2007 11:38 AM

It's amazing. I don't think I've ever read a single nice thing written about Biden on the intertubes. I mean, even Lieberman has his fans (on the right). But there is absolutely no love for Joe B.

Which is strange. What's so objectionable about him? That he's too cozy with credit card companies and banks (without which his state would be devastated)? The Kinnock thing? Is that it? The level of animosity toward him confounds me.

I happen to think he's smart and very charismatic, and experienced on foreign policy, though prone to gaffes. We could do worse.

Posted by Tractarian | September 27, 2007 3:42 PM

All I can say is this: Hillary is unacceptable. If she is the nominee, I am out of the Democratic Party, I won't vote in November, I will root for the Republican, and I will move to Canada as soon as I get out of Grad School. I would rather see a Republican Pres., with at least the HOPE of an acceptable Dem nominee in 2012 than see Pres. Hillary in '08 and automatic Dem nominee Hillary in '12.

She is George W. Bush Part II. She is a War-Monger. She will take ownership of Bush disaster in Iraq. She, like him, was born (at least politically) on 3rd base and thought she hit a triple. And finally, she has no principle she wouldn't trade for political power.

She is not the least good of several good options. She is totally unacceptable. For her to be the nominee of the LIBERAL party in our 2 party system would be evidence that our nation is forever broken.

Thank God she won't win. After all, we have yet to see 95% of the Black vote surge towards Obama. But, in the end, when it becomes clear to the not-paying-attention voter that he has a REAL chance to win and is not Al Sharpton, then that surge will happen. And then it's a toss-up. If the favorite is in a toss-up with the underdog, usually the favorite has already lost.

Posted by Vinnie | September 27, 2007 4:24 PM

After seeing Dean implode, I've had to radically re-evaluate my standards for what constitutes a "lock"-- the press has a vested interest in making things a contest, there's a narrowing effect as we go down to the wire. It will be interesting.

Posted by Anthony Damiani | September 28, 2007 7:14 AM