Most Annoying Possible Outcome (predictions!!!)
Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:54:32 PM PDT
Riffing on an Andrew Sullivan complaint about especially annoying outcomes, I thought I'd throw in a few media-monitoring metrics to set expectations.
One metric is Most Annoying Possible Outcome (MAPO), in which the result is plausibly spinnable by both sides. There are many things annoying in politics, but the MAPO is a particular election result that proves nobody's point. In this case, it means a continued slow death by superdelegate trickle for Hillary Clinton, but it means the campaign goes on and the possibility that another event or metric later on could change things back toward Hillary Clinton. It means the status quo.
There are other definitions of Elrodica to consider here:
A Marginally Interesting night means more spin and more diaries posted at MyDD for said candidate gloating, but not a lot of Superdelegate movement. Howard Wolfson and/or David Axelrod sweat profusely on national television in excitement/despair, but the race doesn't change too much.
A Big night means several days of media talking heads about new momentum and lots of articles by Important Journalists about what's Wrong with one of the candidates. Superdelegates pause if Hillary has a Big night and motion toward big chunks if Obama has one.
A Game Changer means superdelegates start reversing to Clinton in big numbers and Obama collapses; or they publicly call for Clinton to quit the race and rush to Obama.
So what is the MAPO tomorrow? What is a Marginally Interesting night? What is a Big night? And what is a Game Changer?
I think of it in ranges:
MAPO:
North Carolina: Obama wins by 8-11 points
AND/OR
Indiana: Clinton wins by 5-8 points
Marginally Interesting for Clinton:
NC: Obama wins by 4-7 points
IN: Clinton wins by 9-11 points
Marginally Interesting for Obama:
NC: Obama wins by 12-16
IN: Clinton wins by 1-4
Big night for Clinton
NC: Obama wins by 1-3
IN: Clinton wins by 12-14
Big night for Obama
NC: Obama wins by 17-20
IN: Obama wins by 1-3
Game changer for Clinton
NC: Clinton wins by any result
IN: Clinton wins by 15 or more
Game changer for Obama
NC: Obama wins by 21 or more
IN: Obama wins by 4 or more
There could, of course, be partial results. Obama could have a "big" night in NC but only a "marginally interesting" night in IN or some other possibility. But that gets too complicated.
What do you think will happen tomorrow?