Knife Fight

It seems to me that we have ourselves a knife fight. It also seems to me that this is a wonderful thing; Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn’t have the right to determine our Presidential nominees.

… and in brief response to Scott’s post, I really don’t know how to determine which candidate is more or less vulnerable in the general election. It seems to me that Clinton just turned a 13 point deficit into a 4 point victory in spite of everyone’s predictions; this obviously has to factor into general considerations of electability.

… and the other basic happiness here is that the Democrat outpolled the Republicans by a wide margin, in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats. Given that both races are still on, this is a remarkable outcome.

… just on CNN: “Barack Obama got a tremendous bounce; now Hilary Clinton will get a big bounce”. Well, it seems to me that this isn’t, so much, you know, true. Obama’s big bounce managed to get him a 4 point defeat in New Hampshire; as such, it’s a bit troubling to claim that the bounce has much of an effect. Moreover, I think that this is ideal; it’s never been clear to me why the voters in South Carolina and the rest of the country should take the Iowa/NH results very seriously.