Weekend wrap-up

By Jay Warren
WSLS10 Anchor
Published: January 21, 2008

The NV caucuses and the SC primary: what did they mean?

We had a big weekend with some big results. Hillary Clinton handily won the Democratic Caucuses in NV and John McCain squeaked by in the GOP primary in SC. So what does any of it mean? Here’s my take.

1)    The NV win shows that organization and establishment support matters. Hillary Clinton had most of the establishment support locked up and had a fairly strong organization built up. And, all of that worked.

2)    Union support isn’t worth all the hype. Candidates spend a lot of time and energy going after the unions. And when the win an endorsement, they brag about the impact it will have on their campaign. Its’ true that in the past union support was a large component of the Democratic base alongside African Americans, women, and Hispanics. But, in the past decade we have seen their power decline dramatically. We saw it in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006. And now, we’re witnessing it again. In the early primaries and caucuses the unions split their support between all he Democratic candidates including Sen. Chris Dodd. He ended up with less than 1 percent of the vote in the Iowa. In Nevada, Obama got the much sought after culinary union endorsement. His campaign bragged that it would help vault Obama over the finish line in first place. It didn’t happen. Union endorsements have become about as influential as newspaper endorsements. They may give reason to examine a candidate, but it certainly does not guarantee a win.

3)    Hillary is now off the hot seat until Feb. 5th. That gives her some much needed time to campaign in the 23 or so states who will hold primaries and caucuses on those days. More importantly, she can raise some campaign cash.

4)    Obama is now on the hot seat and has to win SC. Sure he has the money and organization to continue to fight well beyond SC and Feb. 5th, but an Obama loss in SC would make four back-to-back wins for Hillary (if you count Iowa) to Obama’s sole Iowa win (which now seems like ancient history). It would make him seem like a one-hit-wonder and give Hillary some big time momentum heading into Feb. 5th.

5)    What’s next for John Edwards? He not only lost NV, he was embarrassed in NV.  Edwards admitted as much Sunday morning. He is likely to stay in the race through SC. It’s his native state and it’s the only state he won in 2004. If he wins (which is unlikely) he is right back in the thick of this race. But if he’s embarrassed again will he drop out? Edwards says no, but a huge loss on his home turf might be enough to push him out. Increasingly this is a two person race with Edwards becoming irrelevant.

6)    On the Republican side, John McCain’s win in SC has cemented his position as the frontrunner, albeit a weak frontrunner in a race that has still yet to completely solidify. Florida is the next big test. If he wins there, McCain will have significant momentum heading into Feb. 5th.

7)    Is Huckabee over? SC was tailor made for the former Arkansas governor. It’s his home turf and there’s a sizeable evangelical base. He carried that base by huge margins, but it wasn’t enough to win. Can Huckabee broaden his base beyond Christian conservatives? So far the answer is no. A Florida win would put his campaign back on track.

8)    Huckabee for VP? Huckabee is happy to criticize Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson, but he rarely says anything negative about McCain. Is he already betting that McCain will get the nomination and he wants to be his VP?

9)    Finally, what will Fred Thompson do? The former Tennessee senator needed to win SC or score a close second. He did neither. Will he stay in the race, or drop out and endorse McCain, a close personal friend. If he stays in, I wouldn’t expect him to last beyond Florida.

So, the next big fight will be this weekend in South Carolina for the Democrats. The Republicans have until next Tuesday for their next contest. Both will be hard fought.