Super Tuesday: Our predictions

Flip Side: Crosscut is projecting that the Democratic and Republican candidates with the most votes will win tomorrow.

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As a public service, Flip Side enables you to skip Super Tuesday election night analysis. Here we present, in advance, election analysis more informative, penetrating, and relevant than anything you will see on TV tomorrow night.

Wolf Blitzer: To make sense of tonight's extraordinary results, we turn to our panel of experts. Bill Schneider, what do you think determined tonight's election results?

Bill Schneider: The voters.

Wolf Blitzer: The voters?

Bill Schneider: Yes. While many things influenced tonight's election, the most important factor, far and away, was the voters.

Wolf Blitzer: Anderson Cooper, do you agree?

Anderson Cooper: Definitely, this seems to be one of those elections in which the voters are of paramount consequentiality.

Wolf Blitzer: And given their importance, what did the voters vote for tonight?

Anderson Cooper: Candidates. Overwhelmingly, they voted for candidates.

Suzanne Malveaux: That they did! Tonight's election came down to this: a choice between candidates.

Bill Schneider: This is a trend we noticed first in Iowa and appeared to gather steam in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Increasingly, voters are choosing between candidates.

Wolf Blitzer: To better understand why voters made the choices they did, let's turn to Candy Crowley. In tonight's election, why did voters select one candidate over another?

Candy Crowley: In a word, preference.

Wolf Blitzer: Preference – that's a word we have been hearing a lot during these primaries. Did voters again vote for candidates they preferred?

Candy Crowley: They did, in a big way. Let's look at some of our exit polling. In California, Obama received over 80 percent of the vote among voters who preferred Obama, while in New Jersey, Hillary Clinton garnered an amazing 87 percent of the voters who preferred her.

Bill Schneider: This is a trend we noticed first in Iowa and appeared to gather steam in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Preference is increasingly playing a pivotal role in the primaries.

Wolf Blitzer: Was preference also critical in the Republican contests?

Anderson Cooper: Absolutely. Polls indicate that in both parties, preference was the overriding reason why voters supported a particular candidate.

Bill Schneider: Polls indicating something is a trend we noticed first in Iowa and appeared to gather steam in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Wolf Blitzer: As you look at the results in individual states, do you notice any trends?

Anderson Cooper: In the delegate-rich bellwether states – California, New York, and Illinois – candidates with the most votes are currently leading.

Suzanne Malveaux: This is also happening in many of the smaller states. We are projecting that in Alaska, Delaware, and Idaho the winner in both party contests will be the candidate with the most votes.

Bill Schneider: This is a trend we noticed first in Iowa and appeared to gather steam in New Hampshire and South Carolina. In a primary, it is becoming increasingly difficult to defeat the candidate with the most votes.

Anderson Cooper: Earlier this evening many thought that the candidate with the least votes might triumph in Arkansas. But now it looks like the winner in Arkansas will be the candidate with the most votes.

Suzanne Malveaux: We may be witnessing a historic election. The candidate with the most votes is leading in all of the 22 states up for grabs tonight.

Wolf Blitzer: Bill, is this an historic election?

Bill Schneider: Definitely. Historic elections are a trend we noticed first in Iowa and appeared to gather steam in New Hampshire and South Carolina.


About the Author

Steve Clifford writes humor for Crosscut. In his unhumorous life, he was CEO of King Broadcasting and once played a role in saving New York City from bankruptcy.

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Comments:

Posted Mon, Feb 4, 7:34 a.m. Inappropriate

Notice How CNN got your attention, not Fox: The real story that this silly little spoof belies is that you're making fun of CNN and not Fox. Interestingly, Fox's ratings have plummeted during this dour time for Republicans, and CNN's have soared (since people want a modicum of credibility this presidential season). While the coverage on CNN isn't always to the standard of PBS (ah, if only the Lehrer News Hour could get an Anderson Cooper), CNN's lead in the ratings--and your subsequent need to make fun of it--is nonetheless a harbinger of the direction things are moving.

smacgry

Posted Mon, Feb 4, 10:14 a.m. Inappropriate

Now I can go shopping: I am so glad I came across this blog. I read every word closely, especially Bill Schneider's insightful remarks and I imagined, throughout, Anderson Cooper's gorgeous features. Now that I know what will happen tomorrow I can do what President Bush continues to recommend us to do, "go shopping," and I won't have to worry about voting. I will Tivo CNN only to watch Anderson Cooper's gorgeous features on Wednesday -- when I will be just too exhausted from shopping to go to work.

Thanks for this tremendous service to the Nation, now we can take our credit cards to the limit of the extra $300 that they allow us to spend before doubling the interest fee. Anyway, President Bush is working real hard to pass that little law of his to give us all a rebate as a tax return: $300 each on my income tax bracket.
PeterGay

Posted Mon, Feb 4, 3:25 p.m. Inappropriate

RE: Notice How CNN got your attention, not Fox: "Fox's ratings have plummeted during this dour time for Republicans, and CNN's have soared"

I did a little checking on this assertion, and the only recent comparison I could find for free was in this article by the Hollywood Reporter dated January 4th:

"For 2007, Fox News Channel remained the top cable newser and the sixth-most-popular cable channel during primetime. MSNBC, however, posted the strongest percentage gains with a 28% increase in viewership in primetime and a 22% rise in the demo during primetime. Fox News' primetime viewership is up 3%, and adults 25-54 ratings were flat while CNN's was flat in viewership and up 7% in adults 25-54, Nielsen Media Research said."

So, according to this article, it looks like CNN's viewership is growing a little faster than Fox's (although since CNN has less viewership, that higher percentage might equate to a larger or smaller absolute number), but neither is growing as fast as MSNBC (albeit with the lowest total number of viewers of the three), while Fox is still the most popular. Where did you get your stats?
dbreneman

Posted Tue, Feb 5, 5:20 a.m. Inappropriate

RE: Notice How CNN got your attention, not Fox: For starters, http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/01/31/fox_news/

smacgry

Posted Tue, Feb 5, 5:24 a.m. Inappropriate

RE: Notice How CNN got your attention, not Fox: And another,
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/
content_display/television/news/
e3i3a6ca747d7f74ddaf309eb7a26ac7737
smacgry

Posted Tue, Feb 5, 10:38 a.m. Inappropriate

RE: Notice How CNN got your attention, not Fox: This URL points to a story about presidential debates, which says that:

"The debate topped the previous record of 4.5 million viewers, set by the CNN-YouTube GOP debate Nov. 28. Last week, the Fox News GOP debate in South Carolina averaged 3.7 million viewers."

But there are no statistics about anything but the debates.
dbreneman

Posted Tue, Feb 5, 10:42 a.m. Inappropriate

RE: Notice How CNN got your attention, not Fox: This URL points to an opinion piece about Democratic candidates boycotting Fox News, and that Fox pundits have endorsed losing GOP candidates. It doesn't exactly tell a story about viewers leaving Fox in favor of CNN.

dbreneman

Posted Wed, Feb 6, 2:40 p.m. Inappropriate

Top news sites for the US primaries: Super Tuesday followers may find this interesting...

Our website www.newsknife.com has analyzed coverage at Google News of the US primaries campaigning from October through Super Tuesday.

Our report now at www.newsknife.com, includes...

* Newsknife's top 12 sites for primaries reporting.

* 143 top-ranked campaign headlines in date order.

* 182 top news sites and their 1000+ top campaign headlines
NEILP

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