1.02.2008

Hillary Clinton: CWATCF Primary Voter's Guide

In a year littered with 2-loss teams aspiring to college football's throne, it's only appropriate that the Presidential primary field is filled with flawed pretenders.

In an attempt to make this approachable for you blog-reading Neanderthals, we give you The CWATCF Primary Voter's Guide, comparing each wannabe-Reagan to one of this season's college football teams.

Go here for links to all of the candidates.

Hillary Clinton: Ohio State Buckeyes


Sigh. The "inevitability" candidates. Everybody knew coming into 2007 that Ohio State and Hillary were safe bets for the Big Dance in '08 ... and exactly nobody was particularly excited about this. Clinton's early money advantage seemed dispositive, as did the Buckeyes' lineup of Big Ten patsies. God, was this really going to happen?

It's hard to think of two entities that would draw higher "general unfavorables" in a national poll. Notre Dame? Bin Laden? W? The problem is sorting out how much of this antipathy is deserved, and how much is unjust. We have neither the blog space nor the inclination to sort out the Clinton-hate of the 90s. At this point, you all know her and you've made up your mind (or you're terrified of Howard Wolfson and will do whatever he tells you to do). Nor do we care to rehash last year's debacle of a National Cham ... hahahahahaha who are we kidding? 41-14, bitches! But the point stands: sure, Hillary is abrasive, robotic, and non-feminine, and Tressel is a cheater with a boring playbook and a sweatervest ... but should we hate them? Do Tressel's accomplishments outweigh his bland, efficient manner and tendency to backdoor his way into big games? Do Hillary's (sometimes unsuccessful) policy initiatives while first lady, Senatorial background, and general comfort with the Washington machine outweigh Monica (Republican laugh line: nothing could outweigh Monica)?

The answer? Among the voting public, who the hell knows. Hillary has gotten a bigger challenge than expected from Obama (and Edwards?), much like Ohio State's choke at Illinois -- remember that at the time, everyone thought that loss would knock them out of the BCS championship game.

We'll see if Hillary can pull off the Ohio State road-to-redemption and roll into the general. Oh, she'd better win Iowa. And if she doesn't win Iowa, she'd better win NH. But would a loss in either sink her battleship? Um ... maybe? She's better organized than anyone on a national scale, and she -- unlike the other frontrunners -- is on the ballot in Michigan and Florida.

CWATCF Prediction:

Second in Iowa to Obama (and damn, she better not come in third), first in NH. If this happens, the technical term for the Democratic primaries becomes "clusterfuck." The question then becomes whether a black man (or a Clinton) can really win in South Carolina. Our guess is that Obama's Iowa victory gives him enough momentum to be a clear frontrunner heading into the second big round of primaries. Watch for the Clinton thugs (Mark Penn, that's you!) to pull out the long knives if that happens.

3 comments:

MCBias said...

At first, I was going to say that this was the 3rd post today I've read that makes some sort of college football to politics comparision. But it's a good comparison; nice job. I laughed at the Hilary thugs/long knives crack at the end.

QB said...

Irons, good call on the prediction. The question on everyone's mind, of course, is who will win Mississippi? My bet would be Huckabee (R) and ...Edwards? I have serious doubts that Mississippians would consider voting for a black man or a woman for president.

GG said...

Interesting (if largely irrelevant nationally) question.

Recent polls in SC show Obama with a 4-10 point cushion over Clinton (often statistically insignificant), and Edwards far in the distance. Older polls in Georgia showed Clinton in the mid-30s and Obama in the 20s. Edwards barely cracked 10%.

MS and GA/SC aren't a 1:1 matchup when it comes to the electorate, but that must give some indication of how the race will play in the south. I'd bet that those GA numbers reflect Clinton's name recognition advantage, and are pretty insignificant.

My guess? The black vote decides the Dem primary, and blacks will only vote for Obama if they think he can win. If he wins SC, he wins MS. Edwards may not even be in the race at this point.