Is it the Democrats' year?

So much interesting campaign news, so little time.

First things first. The NYTimes had a great article on Hillary's campaign on the front page on Monday. Among other things, it gave us these nuggets, which if true are fascinating:

• Hillary talks to a small number of people in the campaign, leading to resentments
• Hillary was going to replace Patti Solis Doyle after Iowa, but kept her around after NH before finally cutting her loose last month
• Maggie Williams' first move when taking over as campaign manager was to tell Mark Penn not to appear on TV anymore
• Hillary had no clue that her campaign was out of money right before Super Duper Tuesday, despite getting daily email updates on finances
• Hillary was also surprised at that point to learn that she was all but conceding the next 11 contests
• And, most fascinating of all, Bill Clinton has been uncontrollable, "campaigning" in South Carolina despite the decision of the campaign to write it off
  

Amazing. The ghettoization strategy I was shocked, in my naiveté, to witness in SC was not a master plan of the campaign at all, but something only in Bill "I don't take no directions from nobody" Clinton's head.

Moving on. Jay Cost has a great post today on reading the primary results. His conclusions:

• Just because Hillary won Democratic primaries in the big states doesn't mean she is more likely to win them in the general
• Just because Obama wins Republicans in the primaries doesn't mean he'll win more of them than is usual for Democrats in the general
• Just because more Democrats are going to the polls doesn't mean anything as far as predicting which party will win in the general, though an "enthusiasm gap" will translate into raising more cash

Cost explains that many more Democrats than Republicans are voting in primaries as being not that unusual historically (more Dems vote in primaries normally), and it being a function of more dramatic primary battles. "This year is no exception," writes Cost. Aha, yet it is also a year which saw the most dramatic primary battle for Republicans, with three different candidates wining the first three contests, two other major candidates to choose from, and Ron Paul. McCain just barely squeaked by with the nomination. It was not lacking in drama. Cost's point is well-taken, and the graph he has informative, but he can't spin his way out of the pretty obvious conclusion that this is Democrats' year. As Bill Kristol reminds us, only once since World War II has one party won three straight presidential contests, in 1988.