March 7 ... And Beyond
The day of the Michigan primary I asked my colleague Walter Shapiro, of USA Today, "How come every reporter thinks Bush is going to win Michigan when all the final polls have McCain ahead?"
"Its easy," he said. "We're all manic depressives."
After weeks of mood swings and "mo," the Great Almost-National Primary is upon us and today's conventional wisdom sounds much like that of a year ago: "Gore and Bush will have their parties' nominations sewn up by mid-March."
Both now lead in delegates and the only chatter about Bill Bradley is when the concession speech will take place. For John McCain, the man who only last Friday was terrifying the the Republican Governors Association, defeats on mini-Tuesday have been accompanied by internal staff fighting (his communications director Dan Schnur is leaving next Wednesday) and massive second guessing about the merits of taking on Robertson and Falwell so harshly.
Al Gore, the much maligned Alpha Man of '99 seems to be sailing to an easy nomination with his earth tones and Palm Pilot. While George W. Bush, who was about to go broke according to last week's conventional wisdom, is now back in the saddle again.
The primaries and caucuses - which have caused wild swings in the conventional wisdom - have actually produced rather consistent vote patterns for Bush and McCain. Given the upcoming calendar and rules for apportioning delegates, if that pattern continues, that's mostly (but not entirely) bad news for McCain.
In Virginia, Michigan and South Carolina, Bush received 68 percent of Republican votes to McCain's 28 percent. Polls in California now give Bush a 2-1 lead over McCain with Republicans - the only ones who count in the apportionment of delegates in the winner-take-all primary.
However, the only other totally closed primaries on Super Tuesday are in McCain's best region: the Northeast. Polls show him pulling slightly ahead of Bush in New York, and in Connecticut (a winner-take-all state) he leads Bush by 13 points. McCain also has leads in Vermont (53 to 34 percent) and Massachusetts (61 to 30 percent), where independents can vote and where the religious right is weak.
If South Carolina and Virginia are any guide, independents won't be enoug to help McCain overcome Bush's solid support from Republicans in the South. Southern Tuesday, March 14, looks like a sure delegate advantage for Bush, with a closed primary in brother Jeb's state of Florida and a winner-take-all in W's Texas. McCain has spent little time or money in Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma or Louisiana and will need a lot of steam from Super Tuesday to overcome Bush's regional ties here.
While many pundits assumed McCains game plan would be to focus more on Republicans in the final week - and possibly to pull his punches a bit - McCain decided to roll the dice and go broad and loud. His broadside on Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell came back to bite him in Virginia (where his negative ratings this week were at 39 percent). It may, however, have been the reason his polls went up in New York. He has reversed his decision to go into the California debate (though by satellite from New York) and thus will have another opportunity to challenge Bush.
Bush chief strategist Karl Rove and company have survived a rough week. They are now setting their sites on delegate-rich states where (they hope) Republican governors will deliver their GOP bases. In the wake of Bob Jones, Bush has been making amends to Catholics - going on Tuesday to a Catholic Charities home in Cincinnati, and on Wednesday to Jesuit-run St. Louis University. In California, Dubya is spending $3 million on television (a mix of positive and negative ads).
Both campaigns are taking advantage of national "free" media to supplement their ad buys. The media buys are anemic compared to the saturation coverage of New Hampshire and South Carolina. But McCain has only about $10 million he can legally spend and Bush is scurrying to raise new money now that the first $60 million is gone. The victories on mini-Tuesday may calm down the money guys, though Bush and his aides had to do a lot of explaining last week when they went back to the troth.
On the Democratic side, Bradley trails in all states holding primaries in the next two weeks. With his Washington State gamble fizzling, Bradley has yet to win anywhere, and while he is a little stronger in the Northeast, his lead in New York has turned into a 30-point deficit.
Next Wednesday it will all be over - or it won't. For now, it looks like another week of rough-and-tumble fighting on the Republican side and the last hurrah for one of the Democrats.