Live chat with Andrew Malcolm, Don Frederick and Johanna Neuman

Administrator2: Hi folks, and welcome to today’s live politics chat!

Administrator2: We’ll start in just a moment, but please feel free to submit your questions now.

Jackie: HI there.

justme: hi

friend: hello

Charlie: Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,Ron Paul,

Administrator2: Charlie, who are you supporting this election season? :)

Andrew Malcolm: Hello, everybody. Sorry to be a few mins late. It was a long, er, short night.

Administrator2: Welcome Andrew, Don and Johanna! And welcome chatters! What’s on your mind?

kap: Interesting that CA, NY and MA -- traditionally states that consider themselves to be more liberal than the rest of the country -- went so heavily to the more establishment candidate, Hillary (I actually don’t mean that pejoratively; just that she’s been in power longer and is the frontrunner). I guess we’re not as daring and visionary as generally thought.

Johanna: Guys, what was the biggest surprise of the night?

pita: I voted as independent yesterday-ballot was confusing but I figured it out (I think!)

Johanna: Pita do you think other independent voters were deterred by the confusing ballot from voting?

Andrew Malcolm: To me, it was as I wrote in the Ticket this morning, that this was a national election that no one lost. Everyone won a little something in order to last a few million dollars longer. And now instead of Super Tues being the deciding day it’ll be some state that didn’t crowd up front.

Don Frederick: Hey kap, of the 3, the Calif results were by far the most telling, to me. The Obama folks clearly wanted -- and expected -- to do better. When Bill was president, he treated Calif like his second home (wouldn’t you, if the alternative was Arkansas). I think those ties came thru for Hillary.

Tony: Do you think endorsements mean much these days?

akt: And the polls were wrong...again, what is with that?

Don Frederick: Vastly overrated, Tony, as the Teddy deal showed.

missy: Exit polls in CA yet?

Andrew Malcolm: I used to think they were meaningless and then drank the Kool-aid of the Ted Kennedy endorsement. But, boy, was I wrong there. He didn’t even deliver his home state to Obama and he was supposed to help with Latinos, which he didn’t do.

Johanna: Andy i think there’s a cure for that.

kap: 7 out of 10 Latino voters going for Clinton basically mirrors the trend among the more conservative parts of the South. Do people think that Latinos just won’t vote for a Black candidate or that Obama just didn’t do enough outreach? Interestingly, it seems there was more cross-racial voting in places like NM, where the race was tighter (still undecided now, I believe).

pita: Teddy has a great Boston

pita: Accent, but his Spanish Accent hurt my ears. Ouch!

pita: I found it interesting that Obama won so many western states.

Don Frederick: AKT ... well, it was a mixed picture --- some were right, some wrong. As I recall, our last poll for Calif was pretty close to the final results (tho I need to check that). I know there was a really off-base one at the end on Calif., that gave Obama a big lead. Those folks need to check their methodology, clearly. In general, this canpaign has really driven home that polling for primaries is much tricky than polling for the general election.

Johanna: Kap, I think Obama did well among Latinos in some states, not in California. There’s a long history, not always happy, between African Americans and Latinos in California, and I think it played in Clinton’s favor.

saigonbob: Why does experience make a difference:Bill had none as Gov. of Ark.?

Andrew Malcolm: Exit polls--well, ours were rather revealing I thought. There’s a Ticket item up now on it. They showed that twice as many Latinos came out this time vs 2004 and something like 70% of them went for Hillary. Blacks didn’t show up basically. Obama got about 8 of 10 of them but there were not enough to counter the large Latino turnout. And Obama’s Spanish ads and Ted Kennedy didn’t seem to do much. Also, emocrats 9 to 1 saw Hillary as prepared to be Commander in Chief but only two-thirds saw Obama that way.

Administrator2: What do yesterday’s results mean for the Romney campaign?

Don Frederick: Saigonbob, great to hear from you! Love your blog, fyi. Beg to differ a bit on Bill ... he used the governorship to make himself a major player in Dem politics during the ‘80s, as I’m sure u recall. Founding member of the DLC, right. Now, he was lacking on the foreign front, but that’s true of so many pols.

Johanna: Why is New Mexico always last to report. Is a really purple state or just inefficient?

Andrew Malcolm: Hey, Saigon. How ya doing? Bill had no presidential experience but he did have state chief exec experience which Amers seem to prefer. 4 of the last 5 presidents have been govs and the fifth one (Bush I) was a VP. Only 2 sitting Sens been elected president in last 100 yrs and Kennedy was the last. So we’ll likely make history this time unless Romney pulls it out.

ohgosh: Do you think that another month or so of bare-knuckle campaigning will take a toll on the candidates “friendship” and prevent a combination ticket for the white house?

Don Frederick: Pita, on Obama’s wins in Western states --- his campaign CLEARLY out-organized the vaunted Clinton machine in caucus states. Shows they made good use of the gobs of money they’ve collected, I guess.

kap: Johanna: Where did Obama do well among Latinos? It would be interesting to see if the voting trend mirrors the Villaraigosa trend: he didn’t get Black votes the first time he ran for Mayor, but did much better the second time around with greater outreach efforts. by the way, has anyone seen any data on how the Asian-American vote broke out?

pita: I believe Asian-Americans went for Hillary

Andrew Malcolm: Re: Romney WEell yday kept him in it a while. His folks were adamant about that last night. He’s skedded a fundamental staff/budget review for today and revealed last weekend that he and his wife Ann have set a maximum on what they’ll invest of their own personal money. Of course he didn’t say what that is but he’s already poured $35.5 mil of his own money into his campaign’s total $90 mil. But seems like he’s got to WIN something big here pretty soon. Question is are the party’s conservs rallying behind him quickly enuff for fear of McCain? They dithered so long last yr looking for the perfect next Reagan. And Thompson among others flamed out.

Johanna: Kap,...Take a look at Connecticut where Obama eeked out a win, or Colorado or Arizona, where he came close...The Asian-American number I saw from the exit polls had those votes splitting almost three to one for Clinton

Administrator2: How surprising were Huckabee’s wins last night? And does it put him in position to be a potential running mate for the eventual GOP candidate?

Johanna: You know Andrew someone reminded me this morning of Sen. George Allen. If not for his “macaca” moment in 06, maybe he would be the GOP standard bearer, most like Reagan, mostly likely to rally the conservatives.

Don Frederick: Ohgosh, good question about the toll of the continuing Demo fight. Be interesting to see if they each get tougher or decide that it’s best to dial it back. Regardless, I have been, and will continue to be, skeptical of the prospects for the “dream tix.” No way Hillary would take the Veep slot, is there? Besides, little percentage for Obama to offer her it, I think. He would look for a woman, I think, but the governor of Kansas (I forget how to spell her last name) or Claire McCaskill, the Missouri senator are more likely -- each backs him and helped him a lot in their states Tuesday. The odds are better that Obama might get tabbed as Hillary’s Veep, though he might want to take a pass on that. Gore’s experience in that slot wasn’t great, right?

Andrew Malcolm: re the Huckster-Not so surprising to me. He’s a southern gov who talks southern in Baptist country. He did a deal in W Va with the Ron Paul people getting their votes and giving them 3 of the state’s 18 delegates in order to head off a Romney win. So looks like he’s sucking up to McCain. McCain needs a non-Wash VP choice and a gov wud be good, but Huck’s got his own problems with the conserv Repubs. Maybe McCain wud go for the popular Crist of Fla whose endorsement seemed to help McC big-time.

Don Frederick: Re the Huck’s wins: he was the one candidate who truly surpassed expecatations last night.

Administrator2: What can you tell about where John Edwards’ supporters went? Did they break fairly evenly between Obama and Clinton?

kap: Thanks, Johanna. I agree with Don that a combined Hillary-Barack tix seems unlikely (or vice versa). Both need a southerner to pick up extra votes. I sure hope they keep it civilized in the next month or so. No need for competing Democrats to [do] Repub. work of tearing down the potential next Democratic President.

Don Frederick: I haven’t seen any precise poll data on that, but every indication was it would be a wash. Still, Obama may have benefitted a bit, given his improved performance in several states among white men, compared to the results in previous states.

Johanna: kap...yep, especially if mccain is the gop nominee...he actually said this morning that he thought clinton and obama were tilting further to the left every day, which may be an early hint of how he intends to run (and win) against them...

Andrew Malcolm: About Obama and Hillary our exit polls showed that more than half of thesupporters of each wud be happy with the other candidate. Very little animosity there. Question is wud the dreamers still dream Hillary if their guy Obama got knocked in a hardball game with the Clintons?

Don Frederick: Speaking of McCain, the next big moment in the campaign will be his appearance tomorrow, in DC, before the annual gathering of conservative groups, CPAC. The vibes should be bizarre.

Andrew Malcolm: our exit data showed whites voting 46 hillary and 45 obama. interesting

Administrator2: What are your thoughts on the Texas primary on the Dem side? Since the race is pretty tight, won’t those delegates make a big difference?

kap: Any bets on whether all the excitement in CA will die down now that our primary is done? I knew lots of Californians who worked in NV and AZ on both HRC and Obama campaigns. Not sure CAians will head out to LA, OH or PA. Sure was nice having our primary votes counts though, kind of like we were NH:-)

Don Frederick: Re the Calif exit data: and Obama won by a healthy margin among white men, which Hillary countered with a big win among white women. Lots of bedroom bickering going on, you think?

Don Frederick: Hey kap, but just think if Calif had NOT moved from the early March position it had in the past few cycles. Just think how large the state would be looming now (at least in the Demo race).

Andrew Malcolm: Well but did Califmatter? It got mucho attention but decided very little. Both stayed in the Dem race and in the Repub race. Wud have helped Romney to win it and Obama too but Oprah and Maria cudn’t get it done for him.

Johanna: I thought one of the great unwritten stories from Super Tuesday was the number of voters in states not voting -- Florida and Virginia to name two -- who went to the polls yesterday. A function of voter excitement I think.

Andrew Malcolm: Those Fla folks were a week late. And the 1000 who called Tex auths were too early for their March 4 vote

Don Frederick: Andy did a nifty blog post for Top of the Ticket on those dolts, er, confused citizens, who thought they were voting yesterday, but weren’t.

Andrew Malcolm: Lots of voter interest. Our readership on the Ticket has been soaring in recent weeks too.

Administrator2: Was the youth vote as much of a factor as it was expected to be?

Administrator3: McCain hasn’t earned much love from the conservative heart of the GOP, yet he’s the party’s frontrunner. What are the chances he’ll be embraced by the evangelicals?

Andrew Malcolm: The problem with the youth vote is they’re so young. :)

kap: Anecdotaly, there were a lot more young peopel at my polling place than in past years.

Don Frederick: Re the youth vote: apparently not in Calif., according to the excit polls. But it was significant in several other states -- a key reason Obama won Connecticut (his one surprise for the day).

kap: Teehee, I now symapthize with you professional bolggers much more: typos are way too easy

Johanna: McCain and Huckabee are in the middle of a lovefest, but I agree with Don. Huck has baggage on the Right, especially with economic conservatives. I wonder about some other governors -- Haley Barbour in Mississippi, like that.

Andrew Malcolm: Good question on evangelicals and McCain. Suppose it depends partly on his VP choice. And on the Dems choice. If it’s Hillary, I think the GOP unites pretty fast. Like a sheriff once told, one thing that focuses your mind real quick is someone shooting at you.

ohgosh: Do you feel that the upcoming Demo primary/caucases strongly favor Obama? Isn’t Louisiana the “perfect storm” state for him considering the role momentum has been determined to play in this year’s contests?

Don Frederick: McCain has got to at least go thru the motions of caring about social issues. But he’s rarely shown the inclination to go thru such motions. And when he tries, he’s not very good at it.

Johanna: any predictions for the potomac primary next tuesday?

Don Frederick: ohgosh, yes, the prevailing view is that the next couple of contests -- Louisiana, and the the so-called “Potomac primary” next Tuesday (Md., Va. and DC) -- should favor Obama. Va. will be the most interesting to watch, I think. And, now Obama will have to battle against expectations that he could fall short of.

Andrew Malcolm: The popular wisdom among conserv strategists is that the GOP MUST start getting more involved with impt social issues like health care. So McC better get on it pretty quickly. That’s the stuff with the econ that’s on peoples minds.

Administrator2: Any final questions or comments?

kap: Any thoughts on whether Edwards would be considered for VP again?

Administrator3: What, no Ron Paul folks here today?

Andrew Malcolm: Wow, a website without Ron Paul people. What’s the world coming to?

Don Frederick: kap, no, he under-performed in that role anyway ... didn’t play the attack dog role well and made not a whit of difference in the South.

Administrator3: If Ron Paul were to drop out of the race, to whom would his votes most likely go?

Andrew Malcolm: Edwards got a bunch of vot4es in Calif from early voters. One problem with voting stgarting Jan. 7. Your guy left town before election day. He had way over 100,000 votes early in the evening. Imagine where they could have gone in the Dem primary?

Andrew Malcolm: I think Ron Paul’s votes wud stay home. But he’s got enough money to hang around and he is simultaneously running for Congress. You know, just in case he doesn’t win the White House.

Don Frederick: Hard to see the Ron Paul supporters lining up beside any major-party candidate -- my guess is many would scatter among third-party candidates and many simply would sit out election day.

Administrator2: Thanks, all, for coming to today’s chat! If you missed anything, a transcript will be available later today at www.latimes.com/politics.

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