Obama Wins Nevada, Ron Paul Comes in Second

Published January 21st, 2008

How’s that for news you aren’t hearing? But it’s absolutely true. Sure, Hillary did win the Nevada popular vote over Obama, 51%-45%. However - Obama won Nevada. Thanks to a quirk of math, Obama took home 13 NV delegates, and Hillary only got 12. Last time something like this happened, it went all the way to the Supreme Court. But you’re not hearing much about this today. Still, even though she lost Nevada, Hillary leads the overall delegate count 210-123. All eyes now turn to South Carolina, which McCain won on the GOP side. The Dems go this Saturday, the 26th. Obama looks to have a decent lead in SC, with Hillary pulling in for a strong second. I personally think this is a breaking state for John Edwards. If he doesn’t do well here - effectively his home turf, or as close as he’s gonna get until May - his campaign is DOA. I’ll have to check on this, but I believe if he drops out, his 50 or so delegates can vote for whomever they wish. They will most likely vote for whomever John endorses - and I’d wager he’ll back Obama. That would be a significant boost for Obama - he wins SC and then picks up a stack of delegates from Edwards heading into the Feb. 5 Tsunami Tuesday. Edwards may elect to see how he does on Feb. 5 before dropping out though - it’s hard to say. But SC is probably the end of his campaign, in my opinion. Which is a little unfortunate - he was my guy. Who will I vote for now? I don’t know yet…I’m leaning Obama, but I’ll have to think about it. The real scary thing is, what if we wake up on Feb. 6 and the race is still wide open? That will be something the US hasn’t seen in a while - especially on both sides of the political coin…

Which brings me to Ron Paul’s showing in Nevada. All you hear is Romney’s landslide victory - he pulled 51% of the vote - but have you heard anything about how Paul came in second? No? Me neither. You’d think that would be a big story - momentum going into Florida and Feb 5 from a back-of-the-pack candidate - but no. Consider, if I’m not mistaken, Ron Paul has beaten one of the major candidates in every single primary. But somehow, he’s gotten no mention of this. I’m no Ron Paul fan - but it just goes to show how much power the media has over this thing. Paul now leads Giuliani in delegates. Giuliani is in serious trouble - he’s been completely marginalized by the media, and is in danger of losing his own state to McCain. Also, and they’re not talking about this either, but Nevada was another failure of polls. All the polls leading up to the caucus had Romney leading but in the high 20’s-low 30’s range. Nowhere near 50%. Also, those polls completely failed to notice Paul’s strength in the state because he wasn’t included. So the GOP race just gets more muddled. Making things worse, every state keeps fracturing the support further, since people seem to feel that any of the candidates are viable. The GOP race may not be decided anytime soon either. Giuliani is banking on Florida keeping him in it - but latest polls show him neck and neck with Romney and McCain. If he doesn’t win Florida, his campaign may truly be dead.

Category: Personal, opinion, election 2008, politics | Tags: