Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid...

That famous tag line from an old horror flick sums up where the 2008 Presidential election stands after yesterday's Wisconsin and Washington primaries and the Democratic caucuses in Hawai'i.

Barack Obama soundly defeated Hillary Clinton in both Wisconsin and Hawai'i to continue his winning streak. John McCain soundly defeated Mike Huckabee in both Washington state and Wisconsin to bring him to the doorstep of the 1191 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination. He has 918.

So with apologies to Walter Mondale's famous line, 'Where's the beef?', we ask the question in 2008, 'Where's the fear'?

For Barack Obama, 'fear' is going to be the persisitent refrain he hears in opposition to his candidacy. Both Hillary and Mac are already playing the fear card in warning voters about Obama's inexperience to be Commander-In-Chief. Whether it will stick is anyone's guess. To start, though, Mac will have to do better than pillory Obama's long ago assertion that he would unilaterally bomb northwest Pakistan to nail Osama Bin Laden. Especially if he's going to take issue with the idea of revealing advance plans to bomb anyone. I mean, unless it's now ok to sing "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran".
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23245289#23245289

For John McCain, he needs to fear some unbelievable stats coming out of the Wisconsin contest. John Nichols of the Capital Times reports that out of 1.5 million Badger State voters in the open primary, 1.1 million voted in the Democratic Primary. That's about 75% in a traditionally 50-50 Dem/Repub state. Now, you can say that they felt that the Repub race was over. You can say that. But the truth lies closer to the idea that there is excitement for the Dems. Consider this: in Ripon, the town where the Republican Party was founded in 1854, John McCain, won 346 votes and Barack Obama had 789 votes, more than McCain and Huckabee combined. Obama's numbers keep presenting bad news for Republicans in a general. I urge you to check out the whole story.
http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/273406

And finally, for Hillary Clinton, fear may be the wrong word. Panic may be closer to it. What do you do? She has now been crushed by Obama in five states (VA, MD, HI, DC--ok, not actually a state-- and WI) All the numbers suggest that Obama continues to raid her base. Her peeps think that they averted greater disaster by going negative, so that will continue. But how do you go negative when every attempt to do so (legit or not) garners a collective eye roll from the electorate. She is in a real box. She also doesn't have the money to keep competing in all of the remaining states like North Carolina, Vermont, South Dakota etc. Right now she has to win 58% of the rest of the delegates to draw even. If Obama wins one of the big states, say Texas, she has to win 65% of the remaining delegates. In contrast, if he wins 65% of the remaining delegates, he gets to 2025 and the nomination--without a super delegate battle. Again, the Capital Times reporter John Nichols reiterated an irony I noted several posts ago: after he interviewed Hillary, Nichols stated that one on one, she's as impressive in that setting as Obama is speaking to a large crowd. In fact, Nichols left the impression that Hillary was more impressive. The irony, though, is that she doesn't have the time or the money to communicate in small groups.

So maybe it comes down to the Debate in Thursday night in Austin. If you're a fan of politics, the only thing I'd be afraid of...is missing it.

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