Omnes Una Manet Nox
No link since it's gonna be obvious this is written hours before the Super Tuesday primaries take place. In 24 hours, we will all know who will have won the majority of the states at stake. A month ago, a smart person could have predicted Clinton and Huckabee taking first in these states, possibly with Giuliani and Edwards nipping at heels. Now, Edwards and Giuliani are out, Huckabee is in solid third and Obama and Clinton are in a national dead heat. Smart money would have had Hillary beating Barack by double digits in California, but most recent polls put Obama leads by four points. Nothing is as it was, up is down, black is white and it's all fun to watch. It should also be noted that polls tend to be a day or two behind, so if Obama is surging now, he's been surging for a bit and may continue to surge through Super Tuesday. But, having won Super Tuesday, what will happen from there and how will we look at 24 hours from now, when the last results start coming in?
One of the greatest political minds once said Omnes Una Manet Nox, or the same night awaits us all. OK, fine, it was originally said by Horace. But, what that means is we are about at the point where nothing we do can change what will happen. All the commercials have aired, all the mud has been slung and all the rallies have been attended. Bill Clinton went on a tour of black churches, probably in an effort to stem any damage he did during South Carolina. Whether or not it's too little too late, or possibly not enough against the massive Kennedy campaigning we won't know until February 6, 2008. Was Maria Shriver, First Lady of California and niece of Ted, John and Robert Kennedy, enough to swing random women voters who had not totally swung over to Clinton? Will talk radio's hatred of McCain be enough to make people coalesce around Romney to defeat him? Will Republican's need to win drive them to McCain, who can pick up more independents? And, more importantly, will the pundits mean ANYTHING this time?
No one knows and even guesses are pointless. Everyone thought Obama was gonna clean up in New Hampshire, but Hillary won, especially after she showed real emotion by tearing up at a question about how she does it all. And just today, she started tearing up again after a warm introduction from a friend. Problem is, no one's really writing about it and all the public reaction that can be found says people don't believe it as genuine. So, who knows if the same tactic will work again? In this campaign, no tactic works more than once. And even then, most of the old tactics aren't working either. It's the one kind of election everyone dreams about and no one really wants to deal with: this is a change election. A re-alignment election in the terms of political science. The candidates are not behaving as usual. The front runners are a black man with not one term of senate experience and a guy who's failed a presidential campaign against the sitting president who represents the non-conformist wing of the party. Next runners-up, a flip-flopping Mormon from Massachusetts for the conservatives and a two term senator former first lady. Hell, the woman with a serious chance to win is the ESTABLISHMENT candidate of the party. This is the newest kind of election, where so many of the old stereotypes are out the window.
Let's face it, all the conventional wisdom a year ago would have said that McCain would be out, Obama would not be really running, and Hillary and Edwards would be fighting it out, but Edwards would have the clear advantage. Conventional wisdom would have had Giuliani running better, Huckabee out, Romney not a contender since he's Kerry, but Mormon. So yeah, nothing is anything close to sane. Pundits are trying to make the best of it, trying to read any kind of tea leaves and read any kind of sign they can to figure out what's going on. One of these days, MSNBC is gonna put an astrologer on staff and on camera just to make some kind of entertaining sense out of all of it. It's even more fun to watch al-Jazeera, BBC, and other foreign news services try and cover this. Yes, they all have very sharp people who know the process and inside scoops better than most Americans (myself, I'm a big fan of Katy Kay of the BBC). They are good reporters, but when it doesn't make sense to the natives, one of two things will happen, the other reporters will be confused by it all or they'll try to force some kind of order they understand on it. Al-Jazeera, so far, has tried to see it in religious angles, partially because that's what their readers expect and partially because that's how a lot of elections are in the Middle East. We see the world through our own lenses.
But right now, no one's got the right prescription. Hell, even hindsight isn't even 20/20 anymore. We can all look at the same night and pull a dozen different conclusions. Granted, this is the nature of politics. Anyone who says politics is a science is trying to sell you something. Politics is an art, which means no one see it the same way, no one agrees about it and it touches everyone deeply. Everyone has a horse in this race. People are watching this all over the world wanting to see where America goes next. They want to know who the next president will be to see how to deal with the US. US presidents tend to shake up the world, see what the current one did and what the last one did. The US is the biggest ship in the fleet of nations, and we're getting a new captain sometime soon. And since we don't know who that is going to be, we have to watch the primaries. And in so watching, different people get inspired differently. Africans might feel that now there's a first generation African running that African issues might get real attention from America. People will wonder what Romney will be guided on by his faith and what he will guided on by his experience in government. The world will ask what will a veteran like McCain, who has been tortured, do about things like Guantanamo Bay and other controversial aspects of American interrogation. And they will wonder will yet another Arkansas governor take the office again. There's only one answer to all of this wonder both at home and abroad.
Omnes una manet nox.
So it is written, so do I see it.
One of the greatest political minds once said Omnes Una Manet Nox, or the same night awaits us all. OK, fine, it was originally said by Horace. But, what that means is we are about at the point where nothing we do can change what will happen. All the commercials have aired, all the mud has been slung and all the rallies have been attended. Bill Clinton went on a tour of black churches, probably in an effort to stem any damage he did during South Carolina. Whether or not it's too little too late, or possibly not enough against the massive Kennedy campaigning we won't know until February 6, 2008. Was Maria Shriver, First Lady of California and niece of Ted, John and Robert Kennedy, enough to swing random women voters who had not totally swung over to Clinton? Will talk radio's hatred of McCain be enough to make people coalesce around Romney to defeat him? Will Republican's need to win drive them to McCain, who can pick up more independents? And, more importantly, will the pundits mean ANYTHING this time?
No one knows and even guesses are pointless. Everyone thought Obama was gonna clean up in New Hampshire, but Hillary won, especially after she showed real emotion by tearing up at a question about how she does it all. And just today, she started tearing up again after a warm introduction from a friend. Problem is, no one's really writing about it and all the public reaction that can be found says people don't believe it as genuine. So, who knows if the same tactic will work again? In this campaign, no tactic works more than once. And even then, most of the old tactics aren't working either. It's the one kind of election everyone dreams about and no one really wants to deal with: this is a change election. A re-alignment election in the terms of political science. The candidates are not behaving as usual. The front runners are a black man with not one term of senate experience and a guy who's failed a presidential campaign against the sitting president who represents the non-conformist wing of the party. Next runners-up, a flip-flopping Mormon from Massachusetts for the conservatives and a two term senator former first lady. Hell, the woman with a serious chance to win is the ESTABLISHMENT candidate of the party. This is the newest kind of election, where so many of the old stereotypes are out the window.
Let's face it, all the conventional wisdom a year ago would have said that McCain would be out, Obama would not be really running, and Hillary and Edwards would be fighting it out, but Edwards would have the clear advantage. Conventional wisdom would have had Giuliani running better, Huckabee out, Romney not a contender since he's Kerry, but Mormon. So yeah, nothing is anything close to sane. Pundits are trying to make the best of it, trying to read any kind of tea leaves and read any kind of sign they can to figure out what's going on. One of these days, MSNBC is gonna put an astrologer on staff and on camera just to make some kind of entertaining sense out of all of it. It's even more fun to watch al-Jazeera, BBC, and other foreign news services try and cover this. Yes, they all have very sharp people who know the process and inside scoops better than most Americans (myself, I'm a big fan of Katy Kay of the BBC). They are good reporters, but when it doesn't make sense to the natives, one of two things will happen, the other reporters will be confused by it all or they'll try to force some kind of order they understand on it. Al-Jazeera, so far, has tried to see it in religious angles, partially because that's what their readers expect and partially because that's how a lot of elections are in the Middle East. We see the world through our own lenses.
But right now, no one's got the right prescription. Hell, even hindsight isn't even 20/20 anymore. We can all look at the same night and pull a dozen different conclusions. Granted, this is the nature of politics. Anyone who says politics is a science is trying to sell you something. Politics is an art, which means no one see it the same way, no one agrees about it and it touches everyone deeply. Everyone has a horse in this race. People are watching this all over the world wanting to see where America goes next. They want to know who the next president will be to see how to deal with the US. US presidents tend to shake up the world, see what the current one did and what the last one did. The US is the biggest ship in the fleet of nations, and we're getting a new captain sometime soon. And since we don't know who that is going to be, we have to watch the primaries. And in so watching, different people get inspired differently. Africans might feel that now there's a first generation African running that African issues might get real attention from America. People will wonder what Romney will be guided on by his faith and what he will guided on by his experience in government. The world will ask what will a veteran like McCain, who has been tortured, do about things like Guantanamo Bay and other controversial aspects of American interrogation. And they will wonder will yet another Arkansas governor take the office again. There's only one answer to all of this wonder both at home and abroad.
Omnes una manet nox.
So it is written, so do I see it.