by
Sam Roggeveen
18 March 2008
Yesterday I had to admit that a prediction I made about Australia's defence policy has turned out to be wrong. Today I have to report that I got it wrong again, this time on the US presidential primaries. So that's 0 from 2 — can you tell I used to be an intelligence analyst?
In my own defence, I offered only the very cautious prognostication that Hillary Clinton might concede defeat in the days following the Iowa and Texas primaries, even without an Obama landslide. Of course Hillary won both those primaries, but as all the number-crunchers predicted, that hasn't made a decisive difference in the delegate count, and it hasn't much dented Obama's lead in the popular vote or number of states won. And today's announcement that Florida will not stage a do-over primary is further bad news for Hillary. Yet Clinton continues to say that she's in it for the long haul, whatever the electoral maths.
But unless Obama implodes, the weight of numbers will eventually overwhelm Clinton's camaign, so I think she will concede, though obviously not as quickly as I previously predicted. Though that reminds me of yet another prediction I made about the Democratic race, on 22 January, which was that Clinton would win the nomination. Three strikes and you're out, I guess.