Bernie Would Rather Be Heard Than Nominated. (Updated Democratic Forecast)

                                         The highlight of the Chafee 2016 campaign.



I am late in writing about the first Democratic debate because I missed the first 40 minutes of it and it took me a day or two to find the stomach for watching the whole thing.  Because a few days have passed I am writing with the benefit of at least one post debate poll. That said, here's how I felt about the candidates' performance and how it will affect their chances of being nominated.  For each candidate I give a letter graded followed by how I think the night affects their chances of being nominated.

1. Hillary Clinton: A-  (Greatly improved).
Hillary had a bad summer.  The only things keeping her in the news were the scandal related to her use of a private e-mail account and the continued stubborn surge in support for Bernie Sanders.  The debate gave her a chance to finally be herself.  She's not a great debater, but she's perfectly competent and she's always well prepared.  This debate was no exception and the first post-debate poll in NH shows her taking the lead back from Bernie.  But the best news of the night actually came when her primary opponent was speaking.

2.  Bernie Sanders: A- (Significantly diminished.)

Bernie has a pretty straight-forward shtick. There's only two issues that he cares about: enhancing the social safety net and reducing income inequality. They are closely related and Bernie knows exactly which points play best, especially to a left-leaning crowd.  He was predictably put on the defensive on the subject of gun control but his explanations were plausible enough, at least superficially.  He did nothing to undermine his support among his most avid supporters.

But the moment of the night came when Bernie chimed in to respond to a question about Secretary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server.  He could have kept his mouth shut. He could have offered a halfhearted comment about there being more important issues in the campaign. Instead, he sounded like a complete partisan: "Enough with the damn e-mails."  The line brought the house down and got him some dap from the front runner. It also probably doomed his chances of being the nominee.

Bernie was always a long shot. He is doing far above expectations but he still needs to pull an inside straight if he wants to be the nominee.  This answer seemed to indicate that he doesn't expect that to happen.  Hillary Clinton is competent and well-liked by most Democratic partisans. Her positions are aligned with the party majority in almost every subject. Where they are not, she has bent to the political pull from her left, such as her opposition to the PTP trade deal.  If she is to be beaten, it will be because of a scandal serious enough to make people believe she is unelectable. At this point, the e-mail survey does not rise to that level. But it has clearly hurt her polling numbers, especially with independents.  She is vulnerable there, especially if more unfavorable details emerge in the next month or two.  Bernie decided to take it off the table as an issue.  He can't retract that.

The truth is Bernie doesn't expect to be the nominee. He wants to affect the race, and he already has. Clinton would not have come out for a repeal of the tax on Cadillac insurance plans or against the Pacific trade deal unless she was worried bout her left flank.  What Bernie wants is to talk about the two very important issues that motivate him. He thinks Hillary's e-mails are just a distraction from time spent talking about those issues.  So he gave up one very plausible rationale for nominating someone other than Hillary. Maybe he knows that he has his own issues related to perceptions of electability.  Maybe he just genuinely does not care about Hillary's e-mail. Either way, his already slim chance of being nominated are now much slimmer than they were a few days ago.

This doesn't mean he won't get a lot of votes. He might win New Hampshire. If he does that he can probably win one or two states on Super Tuesday and of course he'll probably win Vermont. He might win 5 or 6 states, control a few hundred delegates and get a plum speaking spot at the convention. If Hillary really stumbles, he could do better than that and drag the race out into June. But it's very unlikely that he will be the nominee.

3. Martin O'Malley. A (Very slight improvement.)

O'Malley was prepared and he seemed confident and even presidential. If this was a competitive race, he would have stood out for sure. But it's not a competitive race for him and nothing that came out of his mouth was going to change that.  Despite his strong performance, that NH poll showed him going down from 2 percent to 1 percent.  The only scenario in which he is the nominee requires Hillary to drop out of the race and him to run as the mainstream alternative to Bernie.  That's extremely unlikely.

4. Jim Webb  B- (He won't be the nominee, but he will get more votes than I thought.)

I wish Jim Webb was running for the Republican nomination. He would be a breath of relative sanity on that stage. But on the Democratic stage, he looked awkward and uncomfortable and not just when talking about killing a Chi-comm during the Vietnam war. There is a small sliver of the Democratic party that Webb appeals to: working class white men who realize that Republican economics is harmful to them but who disagree with the Democrats or don't sufficiently care about issues like gun control, affirmative action and environmental protections. The first post debate poll shows him going from 1 percent to 3 percent. I think he can do better than that if he works a little harder over the coming months. (His campaign presence in the early states is almost non-existent.)  He can get to high single digits in New Hampshire and he might do better than that in South Carolina. But the nomination? Impossible.

5. Lincoln Chafee: D- (Dead as a door nail.)

He was awkward and awful. He didn't say much of substance that was bad but his tone and body language were all wrong.  He's a dead end.  I'm still probably going to vote for him next year but that will almost certainly be a protest vote. I think it's very likely that he will drop out before Iowa.


The Wild Cards: Incomplete (But a bad night still.)

The most significant story line was Bernie's capitulation on the e-mail issue. But I thought a close second might be that Hillary did well enough to freeze out the candidates waiting on the sidelines, specifically Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.  Right now there is no need to come to the rescue of the party. Hillary looked good and she will look even better next year when she's debating someone who believes crazy nonsense about economics, science and reproductive choice.  She is very likely to be our next president.

But the rumor mill says Joe Biden is going to get into this race.  I don't know exactly what the rationale of his candidacy will be. But politicians are not like regular folks. Joe has to know this is his last chance to be elected president. I don't know if he can live with saying no.

It's Not All Roses for the Frontrunner.

Secretary Clinton gave a strong performance but there was one point that she needs to work on. Twice during the debate, she replied to questions about her candidacy by saying that she is the best candidate because she is a woman.  In 2008, Barack Obama let the significance of his race speak for itself. He would allude to it, but never make it an explicit reason to vote for him. Hillary does use gender as an explicit justification for her candidacy. That only helps here with people who are going to vote for her anyway. This tactic might hurt her in the general election.

Barack Obama's political brilliance was to make his race about the country, rather than about him. His comments about race had the cadence of a Yakoff Smirnoff joke: "Can you believe a skinny kid with a funny name is about to be elected president? What a country!" He left it for the audience to realize that the reason his name sounded funny was its African origins. He made people good about themselves for wanting to vote for someone who "just happened" to be black. He never would have been President, or even nominated if he framed his campaign as "It's about time we put a black guy in charge!"  Even though it was. And now it is time to put a woman in charge.  We all know that. We don't have to be told that. But Hillary seems incapable of that nuance. She needs to work on it.

Hillary's last hurdle might come next week. She is set to testify before the Benghazi committee on October 23rd.  The Republican majority will grill her about her e-mails.  She better be prepared. Her job is to make the casual voter believe this is pure politics. The GOP's job is to pretend that it's not and to state good reasons why her handling of these e-mails makes her unfit to be president of the United States. At least one e-mail apparently revealed the name of an intelligence source in Libya. That e-mail came from Sidney Blumenthal but Hillary forwarded it to others and apparently did not tell Mr. Blumenthal to not send such information to her by a private e-mail server.

This is fertile ground. If Gowdy is worth a warm bucket of spit, he will make some fodder for the general election. But Hillary just might have answers for most of the allegations and she has the benefit of facing some truly mediocre opponents. If that's the case, she will emerge unscathed. Not unlike the other night in Las Vegas.

UPDATED Nomination Forecast:

Candidate	Nov-14	Jun-15	15-Sep	15-Oct
Hillary Clinton	70	95+	83	91
Bernie Sanders	N/A	-1	5	3
Martin O'Malley	1	-1	1	1
Jim Webb	10	-1	1	-1
Lincoln Chafee	N/A	-1	1	0
Undeclared
Elizabeth Warren	12	n/a	5	1
Joe Biden	5	n/a	3	2
The Field	-1	-1	2	1

For a sanity check I looked up a European betting website. They have Hillary at 78% and Biden and Sanders each at 10%. I think Hillary is a buy at that number.

The Fun Stuff: General Election Matchup Speculation

Things Change.

Note: a draft of this post was accidentally posted on October 5th. The final version was written on October 18, 2015.

The above map looks very different than our current political alignment. But it wasn't so long ago. That election was held 2 days before my 3rd birthday.  In 2012, only 20 states voted the same way they did that night. And only 8 states (plus DC) have given all of their electoral votes to the same party in every election of my lifetime.  (Minnesota and DC for the Dems, Alaska, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma for the GOP. Nebraska has been won by the Republican candidate in all those elections, but Obama did win one electoral vote from there in 2008.)

In my last post I made the case for why I believe the Democratic nominee is likely to win the next presidential election. My premise is that Democrats have a small but significant and growing advantage with the current presidential electorate.  To demonstrate this advantage, I categorize all of the states based on how they have voted in the past four presidential cycles.

True Blue (18 states that voted Dem in all four Bush/Obama Elections):  241
Baby Blues (3 states that voted Dem 3 out of 4 times)                                 15
Purple States (5 states that voted for the winner 4 times:                              75
Pink States (2* states that voted for the GOP 3 out of 4 times)                     27
Deep Red (23 states that voted GOP in all 4 Bush/Obama elections:         179
Note: Nebraska's second district is counted with the pink states.

So there are 256 votes likely to vote for the Democrat and 206 likely to vote for the Republican in a close election.  These 206 votes are the exact votes that Romney won in 2012.

But it's not all good news for Team Blue. In 2012 the Democrat won every close state except North Carolina. That is actually good news for the next Republican nominee. He or she will only have to really defend one state in a close election. Everywhere else they will be on offense.  So the biggest question is what is the quickest path for them to get to 270.  The simplest way to compute this is to flip the states they came closet to winning last time.

Here is every Baby Blue, Purple and Pink State, Red font indicates jurisdictions won by Mitt Romney in 2012.

Competitive States
Votes	State	Margin 2012
29	Florida	0.88%
15	N. Carolina	2.04%
18	Ohio	2.97%
13	Virgnia	3.87%
9	Colorado	5.36%
4	New Hamp.	5.58%
6	Iowa	5.81%
6	Nevada	6.68%
1	Nebraska-2nd	7.17%
5	New Mexico	10.15%
11	Indiana	10.20%

So the Republican nominee can get to 235 by just adding Florida, 253 by also adding Ohio and 266 by flipping Florida, Ohio and Virginia. Beyond that they only need to pick up one more state. Colorado, New Hampshire and Iowa were all decided by less than six points and would be competitive if the Republicans run a better candidate and campaign than they did last time.

Establishing a Baseline.

Incumbent candidates tend to be re-elected but incumbent parties running a new candidate lost more often than they win. Since 1952, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush 43 were all re-elected. Jimmy Carter and Bush 41 were the only incumbents to lose. That's 5 out of 7. In that same span, Adlai Stevenson, Dick Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Gerald Ford, Al Gore and John McCain all lost when running as candidates of the incumbent party who were not running for a second term. Only Bush 41 succeeded in that role. That's 6 out of 7.

But that is a small sample size and I think the historical trends discussed in an earlier post make the Democrats favorites to win next year.  Another factor that has to be considered is the effect of race. Some credible analysis of the election returns suggest that Barack Obama' race cost him about 4 points in the 2008 election.  (Source)  But that effect was strongest in states that were not particularly competitive, with Missouri being the only state that might have gone blue but-for the Democrats nominating a black candidate. Missouri was not competitive in 2012 and as we've already seen, Barack Obama carried most of the close states in 2012. The only additional state that probably would have been carried by Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden was North Carolina.  I also think Hillary will outperform Obama in that state next year. But for sake of simplicity, we'll stick with 332-206 as our baseline.

Match-ups with Hillary Clinton

1. Marco Rubio. I think Rubio is by far the strongest candidate that the Republicans might nominate. If he is the nominee, he has a very high likelihood of carrying Florida, which would get the Republicans to 235 electoral votes.  He would do well to consider John Kasich for a running mate and that will help in Ohio.  That would get them up to 253. Then they would have to win Virginia and one more Obama state. That is the best scenario for them and why I think Clinton is likely to choose Tim Kaine or Mark Warner as her running-mate. In any close election scenario, Virginia becomes extremely important.

Official Prediction:  Clinton 303, Rubio 253.  

2.  Jeb! Bush.  Jeb! is also more likely than not to win Florida but it will be very competitive there and I think the Bush name will hurt him in the rust belt. He also should pick Kasich to make Ohio competitive but Jeb! has already shown himself to be a lackluster (read: low-energy) candidate and I don't think he will make the race as close as handsome, charming Rubio.  I suspect he's pick up Florida but lose North Carolina.

Official Prediction: Clinton 318, Bush 220. 

3.  Donald Trump.  Let's put Trump mania in some perspective. In 2008 Dean Cain was the polling front runner for about three weeks.  Donald Trump has now led the Real Clear Politics Polling Average (RCPA) for more than 11 weeks. After the 2nd debate his poll number slipped a little. And then they rebounded.  He has a clear and often commanding lead in every national poll and almost every state-specific poll.  All very impressive.  But he averages about 25% in recent national polls. Consider that around 20 million people voted in the Republican primaries in 2008 and 2012. So 25% of the likely Republican primary voters is around 5 million people. In 2012 Mitt Romney got just over 10 million primary votes and 60 million votes in the general election.

So Trump holds sway over a plurality of Republican voters but those translate into a small sliver of the general election electorate.  If he is nominate he will get most Republican votes and some smattering of quirky independents. But his shtick would run very thin. Clinton will wipe the map with him.  She will win North Carolina, she will win Nebraska's 2nd congressional district and she will have the luxury of campaigning in places like Georgia, Missouri and Indiana in hopes of running up the score on election night. She might make Mississippi competitive if she can match the black turnout from 2012.

Official Prediction: Clinton 374, Trump 164.  (That's Clinton winning NC, NE-2, MO and GA but not Indiana. I think her husband will be an asset in MO, having carried the state twice and having been a long term governor of a neighboring state.)

4. Ted Cruz.  Senator Cruz is taking an interesting tact in this election.  He plans to run to the far-right in the primaries and hope to be the last man standing. Then he will try to increase voter turnout among working class whites in states like Pennsylvania to win the general election.  He seriously overstates his charms.  He may succeed in making some places like PA and WI competitive, but he will not flip any of them, although Ohio would probably be a true toss-up.

 (This prediction is rooted in my belief that those working class whites he thinks he speaks for are actually unlikely to be motivated to vote for a Canadian of Cuban ancestry who drips with Ivy league snobbery.)

Official Prediction: Clinton: 348, Cruz 190 (NC and NE-2 go back to blue.)

5. Carly Fiorina.  She'll fight hard and she'll sell herself well. But Hillary will savage her with commercials about outsourcing and layoffs. This will be a blow out.

Official Prediction: Clinton 363, Fiorina 175 (NC, NE-2 and GA go blue.)

6. John Kasich.

I think he'll win his home state of Ohio and be competitive in all the right places but I don't see him flipping Florida or any other battle ground. Clinton should also be able to carry NC against him.

Official Predicition: Clinton 329, Kasich 209.

And the Rest.

It's very difficult for me to imagine any of the other candidates being nominated, but I'll humor them with an official prediction.

Same Result as Trump:

7. Ben Carson: Clinton 374, Carson 164 

8. Chris Christie: Clinton 374, Christie 164 (Same result as Trump)

Same Result as Romney in 2012:

9.  Mike Huckabee: Clinton 332, Huckabee 206

Same Result as Cruz

10. Rick Santorum Clinton 348, Romney 190.  (With a lot of  wasted resources in Pennsylvania.)

11. Rand Paul Clinton 348, Romney 190

Why are the Bothering?

12.  Pataki: Clinton 385, Pataki 153 (That's the Trump result minus Indiana)

13. Jindal:  Clinton 396, Pataki 142 (Trump minus Indiana and Arizona)

14.  Lindsay Graham; Clinton 385, Pataki 153

15. Jim Gilmore: Clinton 372, Gilmore 165. (I'm giving him his home state of Virginia. This blog post is the high-watermark of Gilmore 2016.)

Match-ups With Bernie Sanders.

I think Sanders' identification as a democratic socialist is at least as big a handicap in a general election as Barack Obama's race was in the past two cycles.  If Clinton would have outperformed Obama in 2012 by carrying NC, then I think it's equally true that Sanders would have under performed by not winning Florida. So his baseline is 303 to 235.  

But I would still favor him against most likely Republican nominees. I think he cold beat Jeb! like a drum by using his family name against him and he probably salivates at the idea of running against an actual plutocrat in the form of Donald Trump.  But Rubio will play the commie card deftly. And he is a handsome young latino that listens to Jay-Z, not an aging Hippy who probably does not own an Ipod.  I think he would carry the truly close states: FL, OH, NC and VA. That gets him to 266 and he just needs to win Colorado or Iowa or Nevada.  My official hunch: he wins one of those states and sneaks into the White House.

Here are the Sanders matchups:

Rubio 272, Sanders 266

Sanders 285, Jeb! 253 (picking up FL and OH)

Sanders 332, Trump 206 (repeat of 2012 Results)

Sanders 303, Cruz 235 (Cruz wins Florida)

Sanders 285, Fiorina 253 (same result as Jeb!)

Sanders 272, Kasich 266 (Kasich wins the three big battle grounds of OH, FL and VA but fails to pick off PA or any of the western battle grounds or Iowa.)

Cason, Christie and Huckabee would probably put up a Romney and lose 302-236. Santorum and Paul might do the same although I think Bernie wold be able to pick off NC against those mediocrities. The sad-sacks would also get crushed but probably win one or two more states than they would against Hillary Clinton.

Musing on Long Shot Scenrios.

• Joe Biden's numbers would be virtually identical to Secretary Clinton's. Elizabeth Warren would start with a stronger baseline and would be most likely to win back NC and to make places like Indiana and Missour competitive. But all of them would be in a dog fight with Rubio, and a semi-comfortable place against all other potential nominees.

• If Scott Walker is the GOP running mate there will be endless talk about Wisconsin becoming competitive but I think his early exit means he won't be on anyone's short list.  (Kasich and Susan Marinez will always be a better option for any candidate on this list.)

• Trying to think of real long shot scenarios, one might be tempted to think that Hillary Clinton could win Arkansas.  She was first lady of that state for more than a decade. But that was a long time ago. In 1992 Bill Clinton won 53% of that stat's votes in a 3 way race. Four years later his share of the national vote went up by more than six points but only by one point in his home state.  Since that high water mark of 5.38% in 1996, the Democratic nominees have gotten 46, 45, 39 and 38 percent.  Obama's share of the vote dropped that much compared to Gore and Kerry. This is the most obvious case of Obama's race affecting his poll results in a non-competitive state. I think Hillary will return the Democratic number to something closer to 45 percent but 50% seems like a very long shot. Arkansas has become a pretty conventional Red State in presidential elections. I don't think the Big Dog can change that for his wife.

• Missouri is more fertile ground for an Ozark upset. In 2008 Barack Obama came within 4,000 votes of winning that state and chose not to pursue a recount because it would not have affected the election result. In 2012, he lost by 9 points. This pattern is similar to Indiana, where he won a squaker in 2008 and lost by 10 points in 2012. Nationally Obama's vote share dropped by less than 2 points, but by more than 10 points in these states. The difference of course is that Obama actively campaigned for those states in 2008. The closer polling numbers during his re-election made it necessary to spend resources elsewhere.  If Hillary is in blowout mode, she might be able to pick off Missouri, especially if she thinks she can help some marginal Democratic house candidates or the race for Roy Blount's senate seat becomes competitive. (If for instance he loses a primary to a Tea Party fringe candidate.)
• Arizona should be ripe for a competitive race. Obama lost by 7.3 points to John McCain in 2008 and by 9.0 points to Mitt Romney in 2012. That fall off, 1.7 points was slightly less than the national trend, which makes sense since he was not running against a candidate from Arizona. But Arizona politics are warped by immigration policy more than any other state. Texas is a hopelessly red state but Arizona should be competitive. Fear of illegal immigrants has led to some ghastly laws being passed and the repeated election of a clown like Joe Arapaio as sheriff responsible for a major American city. In the long run, demographics will make this a purple state and eventually a blue one, assuming the GOP doesn't change course on some of it policies. But for the immediate future, I think immigration leaves the state off of the competive list.
• New Mexico might be the decisive state in 2016. Obama carried it by double digits twice. But Bush carried the state in 2004 and lost it in 2000 by just 370 votes. If a Republican wants to win, his or her best option is this:  Romney States (206) + Ohio, Florida and Virginia (60 to get to 266. Then one more state among Colorado, Nevada, Iowa or New Mexico. New Mexico could be influenced by having a native daughter on the ticket. The GOP may need Kasich to carry Ohio but that might be all for naught if they do not win one of these small states. Susana Martinez remains a very strong candidate for the Vice-Presidency. And under at least one plausible scenario, she could win the White House for the Republicans.

An Endorsement, a Concession and a Far-fetched Prediction

It has been nearly eight months since I wrote about the 2016 election cycle.  In a sane world, it would be another eight months before I felt compelled to break that streak.  But we are now living in a world of more or less permanent campaigns and now that the front-runner has officially declared, I think it's worth going on the record with how I see the next 16 months playing out.  I will start with the race, such as there is one, for the Democratic Nomination.

1.  This Blog Endorses Lincoln Chafee.  He will not win. 

The foolish decision to invade Iraq in 2003 is the most important moment of this nation's history that I have personal memory of.  For the first time since the Polk administration, this country began a war not just of choice, but of naked aggression. And the consequences were disastrous. The United States lost 5,000 lives, several trillion dollars and untold prestige around the world.  The results for Iraq were much much worse, in human casualties and in future uncertainty.

Next year, I will probably vote for a woman who voted for that war in the presidential election.  But I have no intention of doing so in the primaries.  Luckily, there is one candidate with stellar anti-Iraq war credentials.  His name is Lincoln Chafee.  In 2002 he was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against the authorization of force in Iraq.  He has since left the party. He was elected as an independent governor of Rhode Island and eventually registered as a Democrat.  I will be voting for him in the Illinois primary next year.  Dozens of others will join me.  But he has no chance of being nominated.  None.

Here's a look at the rest of the field:

1. The Nominee in Waiting: Secretary Hillary Clinton.

Hillary has been the presumptive 2016 nominee from the day she agreed to be Barack Obama's Secretary of State.  Although her tenure was short on specific achievements, she didn't do anything to compromise her standing with the party or the voting public.  So even eight months ago I wrote that she had a 70% chance of being the nominee. Since that writing, Elizabeth Warren has made clear that she will not run.  Senator Warren was always the most credible challenger to Hillary and it's now obvious that she won't take up that challenge. Vice-President Biden has also shown no interest in running. I didn't think he was likely to beat her in a competitive primary season, but he could have at least sucked up some of her donor and volunteer base. He also had the right to run as Obama's preferred choice, a role that would have helped him a lot in the primary.  I expect that Biden will try to keep a toe in the water just in case Mrs. Clinton screws up.  But he's not making the steps necessary to run. That may have been related to his son's health challenges but I don't think Beau Biden's passing will change his plans for 2016.  It's hard to put a precise number on Hillary's chances of being nominated but it is comfortably over 95%.

But Bernie Will Have  a Surge.

Bernie Sanders has been actively campaigning for weeks and a few polls have shown him putting up respectable numbers in New Hampshire.  He has also raised enough money to put up a respectable boutique campaign in the early primary states.  And there are plenty of young people who will trot out to Iowa to knock on doors for him.

But he can't win.  At some point he will probably have to choose between a serious effort in Iowa or New Hampshire.  Hillary will run big in both states.  Bernie will make the debates interesting and the media will desperately want him to make this race competitive.  If he loses New Hampshire by less than 10%, they will act like this race is a contested one. It is not.

Someone Else Will Have a Boomlet.

The rest of the field is remarkably weak.  That's not surprising given that most of the serious contenders to be President one day are sitting this one out rather than spend a year sleeping in motels only to get crushed by Hillary. Here's the rest of the field:

1. Martin O'Malley.  A mediocre governor of a medium-sized state.  He also picked the wrong year to run for President on the strength of having been a mayor of Baltimore.  His biggest claim to fame is being the basis for Mayor Carcetti on the Wire, a distinction that he loathes.  He did a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" and about half of the questions were about the Wire.  More damning than his fictional portrayal on that show is his horrific record as a stone cold war on drugs enthusiast.  He can't outrun that in a democratic primary.  He might have been a VP contender but I expect him to go all-in on the primaries and he might burn some bridges along the way.

2. Lincoln Chafee.  My aforementioned candidate of choice.  He is bright, moderate and competent. He is as exciting as a grilled cheese sandwich. He has no ties within the national party.  He won't break double-digits in Iowa and might not get there in New Hampshire either.  But like I said, a good man.

3.  Jim Webb.  Oh, this guy had promise.  He holds the Navy cross and he was Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy.  Pretty hard to swift-boat that, if he ever got the nomination. While in the senat he also took some principled stands on issues like prison reform. But he's a bit too "principled" when it comes to things like being unable to say the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism. I also doubt he will be able to connect with the left-wing of his party and I doubt he'll make a serious run anywhere.  But I do think he would elevate the debates and be an interesting candidate to follow.  But he can't win.

Predictions.
Hillary could run the table and win all 50 primaries, as Al Gore did over Bill Bradley in 2000.  And as Hillary did in the imaginary world of Bill Kristol's prognostications in 2008.  Bernie will carry Vermont and he might be able to pick off another state somewhere.  Jim Webb might carry Virginia or some oddball state like Oklahoma or some other state that does not matter in the general election.  And O'Malley could theoretically win Maryland, but I doubt it.  If I was making book, I would put the over/under for states won by Hillary at 48.5.

I haven't exactly made a lot of news in the blog post so I'll take one long term flier on Hillary's running mate.  I expect her running mate will come from Virginia, but it won't be Jim Webb. Mark Warner will be on the short list, but I think a better and more likely choice is Senator Tim Kaine.  He's a former governor, he's very smart and perhaps most importantly, he is fluent in Spanish. (He lived in Hondurdas for on year and has given the Democratic Spanish-language response to the State of the Union.)

So here comes the Far-Fetched prediction.
I think the GOP nominee will be very wise to pick Governor Susanna Martinez of New Mexico as his running mate.  The Republicans will need to do something to close the gap among Latin voters and women.  If the nominee is anyone other than Marco Rubio (it won't be Ted Cruz), then Susanna Martinez will make the most sense.

So here's the long shot prediction.  Next year, there will be a vice-presidential debate held in Spanish. And the next election will be decided by Latino voters. By the time the general election is underway, both parties will be vying for every last vote in Florida.  And New Mexico might become a swing state if the Republicans put Gov. Martinez on the ticket.  Yes, this will make head explode among the Fox News crowd, as so many things do lately.  But this is the way of the future and once the election is on the line, it will make sense for both parties.  The Republicans will probably need a long shot to come in and the Democrats would be crazy to decline the offer and risk alienating the fastest growing segment of their base.

Of course this won't happen if Donald Trump is the nominee.  But more about that in my next post.