Primarily Inside Politics

Stat of the day

annual increase
In U.S. health care costs.......10%

Annual increase
In U.S. health insurance
Costs...................................15%


John Kerry won the Washington state and Michigan caucuses Saturday, in each case with around half the votes cast. Today he'll likely win the Maine caucus. He is leading in preliminary polls in both Virginia and Tennessee, two sort-of southern states where John Edwards and Wesley Clark now appear to be fighting for second place on Tuesday. Apparently what's going on with them is an elimination bout to see who gets to be the last candidate standing, other than Kerry. Howard Dean, who got seconds on Saturday, will stake his claim on that role in Wisconsin.

That's how the dynamic has changed, and it’s not exactly a big change: it's for the right to be the alternative to Kerry. Edwards and Clark are splitting the non-Kerry votes (and attacking each other) in Tuesday's southern states. If he's second in both states, Edwards seems to have the money to go on and contest Wisconsin. Clark may not, and it’s unlikely that he will squeak a second over Edwards in both states. Unless he has a win Tuesday, we expect Clark will drop out of the race.

What's likely to happen we feel is this: Edwards emerges from the south with respectable showings but no wins, Clark fades into inconsequence with thirds. Dean fights for a win in Wisconsin but doesn’t get it. Right now the only question is whether Edwards can finish there ahead of Dean. If he doesn’t---if it’s Kerry, Dean, Edwards, nobody has emerged as the single alternative, and they all check their bank accounts and their agendas for their futures to decide if they want to go on to Super Tuesday just to be the last man losing.

That's the inside baseball. The significance of the primaries so far is this: turnout in every primary and caucus has been high, and in most it broke records; Democratic voters (and in New Hampshire, Independents who comprised 40% of the voters in the Democratic primary) are focused on defeating G.W. Bush. They are not demanding perfection on their most cherished issues, they are not nitpicking voting records (a strategy that Clark is trying, as are advance snipers of the Republican right guard, and a strategy that used to work...but it sure isn't right now.) The voters are voting overwhelmingly for John Kerry. He has won a major industrial battleground state in Michigan, a major industrial battleground border state in Missouri, a far western state in Washington, two small states in two very different parts of the country--- North Dakota (big state, small population) and Delaware. If he wins Virginia, he will add a state of the Confederate south. If he wins Tennessee, it will not only take all the air of his primary opponents, it will shake the confidence of Republicans in the effectiveness of their “northern liberal” tag for Kerry, which is the best they’ve come up with so far.