An obligatory look backwards

by: Eric B.

Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 13:08:36 PM EST

With the Great Hate of 2008 now officially behind us, what did it all mean?  Some thoughts:

*--The only thing that surprised me last night was the margin of Mitt's victory, or rather how poorly McCain did here given the state's maverick streak.  We were told that the race would be a tight one, a reminder to ignore the pollsters and pundits.  I also see that, this morning, they're declaring that the Republican race is still tight, despite pre-primary predictions that a Michigan loss for either McCain or Romney would doom their candidacy.

If Michigan had any impact whatsoever on the primary race, it was as an undeclared firewall for Romney.  Now, he can say he won a contest, which I guess means he can justify shelling out millions and millions of dollars of his own money to keep his campaign alive.

*--Other people have thoughts about the primary results.  Nirmal breaks down exit polling.   Grebner breaks down delegates.  Jon Koller takes an early look.  DJ says, "Thank god this is over.  Philgoblue looks at how Uncommitted did in some of the state's bigger counties.  All of them worth a read.

*--On the Democratic ticket, I think what we saw last night more than anything was a great deal of confusion and apathy.  I saw, last night, that Tee Vee pundits in New York were blaming the weather.  I think, actually, that people were fed up with the primary and simply tuned it out.  Without an actual slate of candidates, or the driving force of John Engler hatred, there wasn't much to bring people out ... or to even cross party lines to vote (except my quixotic protest against the primary itself by voting for Ron Paul).  I think that if there were real candidates instead of Uncommitted, results might have been different.  Who knows, looking at exit polling, an energized turnout might have given the state to Obama ... but I guess we'll never know.

*--Ron Paul went into yesterday polling at 4-5 percent basically everywhere.  He came out with 6 percent of the vote, and I wonder how well he'd have done if Mike Huckabee hadn't made a direct play for Michigan's Angry Loner demographic.  Regardless, he did better than his polling indicated, and I personally take credit for that.  Why?  Because it can't be proved either way.

*--Anyway, in a year tailor-made for mischief crossover voting (lack of Democratic contest; tight GOP race), crossovers like me had very little impact on the race.  We all know that.  This, I think, is because there was an obvious attempt to sway voters by both the Clinton camps and the Uncommited camps for people to not cross over.  I think it didn't help much that the Disaffected vote had no coherency.  There were people advocating a vote for Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and even Mike Huckabee.  If you were to suggest to me that you should organize mischief making, my eyebrow would raise.  I've been making mischief for a long, long, long time and organization is anathema to that kind of thinking.  But, the results speak for themselves.