One of our resident political gurus sums up the situation nicely.
Dan Walters: California is playing a new role
By Dan Walters - dwalters@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, February 3, 2008
It's been more than a half-century since America had a wide-open presidential contest with no incumbent president or vice president in the running, and more than three decades since California was important in choosing nominees.
California's nearly 16 million registered voters, however, are engaged as never before in two historic duels for presidential nominations and, the latest polling shows, are closely divided on who should joust for the presidency nine months hence. Thus, turnout could be the deciding factor.
Thanks to the unusual dynamics of this year's presidential contest and moving the state's primary to Feb. 5, California is in play this year, as reflected in intense campaigning by all hopefuls in the final days. Even so, its role may not be decisive because of what's happening in 23 other states Tuesday and because no matter who wins in the overall vote here, convention delegates will be divvied up by complex formulas, largely by congressional districts.
The state's venerable Field Poll has found that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who for months had enjoyed comfortable leads over all rivals for the Democratic nomination, now is in a too-close-to-call battle with Sen. Barack Obama, while Sen. John McCain has opened an eight-point lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Both contests have, in essence, swapped dynamics, thanks largely to the dropout of also-rans.
When Field tested sentiment in mid-January, Clinton still held a double-digit lead over Obama, virtually unchanged from a month earlier. But Field found, in a week of surveying that ended Friday, that her support had dropped by three points and Obama's had risen by seven – thanks in part to former Sen. John Edwards' departure from the field. Clinton was clinging to a statistically insignificant two-point lead, 36 percent to 34 percent, with 30 percent of Democratic voters still opting for someone else or undecided.
Two weeks earlier, former Sen. Fred Thompson's dropout had boosted Romney to just four points behind McCain among Republicans, but former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's pullout last week gave McCain an upward shove, especially among moderates, as did Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement. Last week's polling found McCain at 32 percent, up 10 points from mid-January, and Romney at 24 percent, up six points, with Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul and undecided voters sharing the remainder.
