Release the Herd

by publius

Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Ben Smith thinks people might be underestimating the reaction to an Obama victory:

While conventional insider wisdom is taking the possibility of an Obama win very seriously, and while the prospect of an Obama presidency is something Iowa Democrats are mulling, I'm not sure people around America, or around the world, have really thought about the idea.

Which means that an Obama win would be a giant, multiday, global story, something likely to overwhelm the recalibrated insider expectations.

That’s a really important insight. The whole point of winning Iowa is to generate an information cascade (i.e., a moving herd) that will carry you through subsequent states. The herd will move at least a little for any winner, but Smith is correct that an “Obama Wins” story would be an order of magnitude different. It will be an information cascade on steroids -- and one that will exert significant dynamic force upon the race.

Dear God, I love election day.

Comments

[Incertus (Brian)]

So what happens if Obama winds up a distant third, say 12 to 15 points back of whoever the winner is? Does the media stick a fork in him a la Howard Dean?

[freelunch]

Maybe the media should not read the entrails until they have actually been pulled from the corpse.

[Kenneth Ashford]

On the other hand, "Obama Doesn't Win NH" would stop that information cascade, and turn it into what the media loves even more -- a horserace.

[Kenneth Ashford]

On the other hand, "Obama Doesn't Win NH" would stop that information cascade, and turn it into what the media loves even more -- a horserace.

[Jon H]

What's interesting about Obama is that, if he's in the General election, the GOP will have a hell of a time restraining itself from expressing the basest impulses of its basest members. The odds of the GOP coming off like the worst of LGF are quite high. It'll be like their anti-immigrant ugliness. That's the side of the GOP that is very unpopular, the side they try to conceal by calling themselves 'compassionate conservatives'.

I think this would benefit Obama tremendously.

There'll be some of this for Hillary, but I think that would come off more as personal animosity towards her, rather than the exposure of deep-seated bigotry in the same way that racist attacks on Obama would.

Personally, since the Clinton camp's been pushing the muslim canard, I wouldn't feel much sympathy for her if the wingnuts got nasty and misogynistic.

[K B]

Though it would be pretty scary if misogynistic remarks became acceptable under the mask of personal dislike for a candiate.