Nathan Tyree: How it Breaks

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How does it break from here?

Obama and Hillary are, by most accounts, in a dead heat for the nomination. Which candidate is ahead depends on who does the counting. Most pundits are saying that it's Obama by a nose, when all of the factors are counted up, but that HRC is doing nearly as well. I think that they may be full of it. It’s Obama as far as I can see. The factors in consideration are: votes, states, delegates, money and momentum. At this point Obama has the most votes, the most states won (by almost two to one), the most delegates (unless, like CNN, you're counting made up super-delegate numbers, and even then Hillary is only up by 15), the most money by far and the Mo, as the talking heads call it. And yet, Hillary is still being touted as the presumptive nominee. There is a drive verging on lust to crown Hillary as the Democratic nominee for President. Why?

Hillary is the pick of two very different groups. The Republicans want her badly, and it's easy to see why. John McCain IS the Republican nominee. McCain has a small chance to beat Hillary in the general election (a very small chance, but at least that is a chance). He cannot beat Obama, and just about everybody knows it. Hillary also gets picked by the institutional type pundits that lean toward the Dems. They just love her, and may not even know why. Maybe Obama, with his black face and funny name, frightens them. Both of the groups want to downplay Obama’s success as much as possible and talk about Hillary as the Woman who would be President.

Wanna talk about money and momentum?

Obama has all the money and it’s still coming in at a rate of a million dollars a day. Hillary has had to dip into her own pocket to keep going. In the early states Obama won the most. On super Tuesday Obama won the most. And...

This weekend Obama picked up three more important wins. He took strong margins in Nebraska and Louisiana (both expected) and crushed Hillary in Washington. Washington, by the way, is a bad sign for Hillary. This was her firewall this month. She spent a lot of money and a lot of time and had her machine out at full force. She was supposed to win that one and that she couldn't may signal the beginning of the end.

The spin on this weekend’s results has already started, by the way. Louisiana is a black state (whatever that means) and voted as such. Nebraska is a small, unimportant state and Hillary didn’t really want it. They aren’t really talking about Washington, for some reason.

As this month continues Obama will pick up major victories in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. There are a lot of delegates at stake there and O is going to take the lion's share of them pretty easily. At that point it will be impossible for the pundits to claim that HRC is in the lead or even close to it. Obama will be so far ahead that Hillary will start to look like an also ran. Then there are three big states:

Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. Hillary needs them badly. She needs all three and sizable margins in at least two. Pennsylvania looks like it is hers (unless...), but Ohio is a toss up and no one can even guess what Texas will do. When it comes to TX, Hillary is hoping that the Hispanic vote can deliver it, but recent polling shows her lead among Hispanics vanishing. Hillary can't have that. To remain viable, she must win all three states. If Obama can pick off one, she is crippled. If he takes two she is finished.

Can Hillary pull off a miracle and carry OH, PA and TX? She's out of money, and her contributor pool is tapped out. She's fatigued and sinking. There’s no real excitement among the electorate. Now That the Grim Ole Party has chosen McCain, people are doing mental comparisons and coming to the conclusion that Clinton is McCain lite. I don't think she can do it. I think that if Obama takes either OH or TX HRC's advisors will suggest to her that she could consider dropping out. If Obama wins both OH and TX, I think there will be a big push, not just within Hillary's camp but throughout the party, for her to suspend her campaign for the good of the party. She may not do it, but it would be the right thing.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the best strategy is for Obama. He could ignore PA, split his money and time between OH and TX and try to pull them both. Or he could choose either OH or TX and put all his eggs in that basket (likely guaranteeing a win in that state). I think these are both the wrong way to go. He should focus on all three states, because he can, in the final analysis, take them all. Yes, he can.

Democrats should choose Obama. He is not only the best candidate, but also thee best hope for regaining the Whitehouse. If we nominate Hillary we may be putting John McCain in the oval office.

It is worth noting that Obama inspires real excitement. Young people are turning out in higher numbers than ever before and they are doing it because of Obama. If Hillary gets the nomination, those young people vanish. They will not bother to show up on election day for her. If Obama is on the ballot, they will.

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Nathan Tyree: 3AM Again

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The wonderful new 3AM anthology that I posted about a few days ago is available for Pre-Order.

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Nathan Tyree: Notes From the Underground

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Several notes:

After Super Tuesday Obama is ahead in delegates. CNN will tell you that Clinton has more delegates, but that is because they are attempting to “estimate” super delegates. This isn’t really fair, since none of the super delegates are actually pledged yet. Still, even with CNN’s guess work, Hillary only comes out slightly ahead. Over the next several days we will be seeing a number of contests that strongly favor Obama. He is likely to take strong majorities in all four states that go to the polls this weekend, which should give him the lead (or a bigger lead if we only count real numbers and not those generated by wishful thinking on the part of the establishment).

Missouri confuses the news outlets. Around 10pm on Tuesday, PBS called Missouri for Clinton. I turned to Sarah and said “Too early. St. Louis decides it.” The next morning Obama had won. The same thing happened two years ago. Around 9 my parents called upset that Talent was winning the senate seat in Mo. I told them not to worry, St. Louis hadn’t reported in yet. We all know how Talent ended up in that race.

How things get spun is fascinating. A few weeks ago Hillary was up 25-30 points in Massachusetts. On election night she won by 15. All three networks talked like she had somehow routed Obama in that state. They made it sound like she was the one that had come from behind. Illinois is another example of the media’s lust for Hillary. One network (can’t remember which, I was watching 4 of them) kept insisting that she had upset Obama there by being truly competitive and taking 45-47% of the votes, Of course, that wasn’t a real number. She got almost 30% there, just as expected. Compare that to her home state of New York, where Obama got 40% of the vote. No one was calling that an upset.

If you haven’t seen them, here are the percentages state by state:

State Clinton Obama
Idaho 17% 80%
Kansas 26% 74%
Alaska 25% 74%
Colorado 32% 67%
Minnesota 32% 67%
Georgia 31% 66%
Illinois 33% 64%
North Dakota* 37% 61%
Utah 39% 57%
Alabama 42% 56%
Delaware 42% 53%
Connecticut 47% 51%
Missouri 48% 49%
New Mexico 48% 49%
New Jersey 54% 44%
Arizona 51% 42%
Massachusetts 56% 41%
Tennessee 54% 41%
California 53% 41%
New York 57% 40%
Oklahoma 55% 31%
Arkansas 69% 27%


Update: Ronmey is out!

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Nathan Tyree: New Poll

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Cook/RT poll of likely voters.

Clinton 41 McCain 45
Obama 45 McCain 43

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Nathan Tyree: 3 A.M., 3 Cities

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Announcing:

3:AM London, New York, Paris

Edited by Andrew Stevens

A pseudo-religious epiphany in South London. Men are stabbed on the Boulevard de Sébastopol. A transmogrification in Hackney. William cruises around the East Village in a 1972 Mercedes 220. Voluptuous neo-Post Structuralists decipher the works of Beigbédér. Wasted sons of politicians and minor royalty agonise over Ibiza while in South Kensington. Infidelity and invitations to Le Carré adaptations on Tottenham Court Road. Buying ketamin from Colombians in Vauxhall at 4am. Un soir, un train on the Central Line. Men's magazines and those transvestite nightclub leaflets in Harlem. A callow youth is ignored by an Indian girl for his lack of knowledge of Dave Eggers. Small talk in bikinis on Paris plage. The literary establishment of New York is brought to its knees. A film club in Islington leads to death.

Featuring Chris Cleave, Matthew De Abaitua, Niven Govinden, Laura Hird, Toby Litt, Nicholas Royle, Nathan Tyree and Matt Thorne, 3:AM Magazine’s London, Paris, New York collection contains 30 short stories from beyond the city guides.

“The cosmopolitan, rive gauche quality of the site is wonderfully obvious. From 'cutting edge short fiction' to political satire and music reviews, 3:AM is a dream publication for the young, literary and clued-up, and it counter-balances nicely the London/New York publishing behemoth.”
- The Times

“A new, non-corporate internationalism is emerging in literature, an independent web of associations and alliances at whose centre, like a brooding spider, lurks 3:AM. This collection is essential reading.”
- Tom McCarthy, author of Remainder

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