Matthew Yglesias (February 09, 2008)

5, sir.

http://www.politicalinaction.com/2008/02/5-victories-for-barack-obama-tonight.html

Posted by Brian | February 9, 2008 11:30 PM

Next post: Matt flip-flops on his Clinton nomination prediction.

Video at 11.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 9, 2008 11:34 PM

Despite a speech tonight that is loaded with specifics(policy initiatives, dollar figures, time frames), why am I sure that Clintonistas will continue right on dismissing Obama for having nothing but empty rhetoric?

Posted by rob! | February 9, 2008 11:35 PM

Ambinder has become a Clinton shill. So what if he can't win the states "where a majority of Democrats reside"? If he were to lose CA, NY, NJ and MA by 4 votes but won every other state by 100% of the vote - would that be some sort of argument that he shouldn't be the nominee?

Posted by Nate | February 9, 2008 11:38 PM

Obama's problem in the big states is pretty simple: They're too big for him to get those voters to know him.

Another factor is that Clinton got her voters in those states to cast their votes early, thus preventing them from switching to Obama. This is also a reason why Obama does better in caucus states because voters can't commit early.

Posted by Mike | February 9, 2008 11:39 PM

I like reading the columnists here at the Atlantic, but I have to agree with Nate above. Ambinder has really just been parroting the Clinton spin for awhile now. Thanks for giving us good perspectives from both sides.

Posted by Craig | February 9, 2008 11:41 PM

shorter ambinder:

Screw the purple states, lets get a solid 55% in blue states in November.

Posted by ben | February 9, 2008 11:42 PM

Of states that voted for Kerry:

Clinton - California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York (all primaries)

Obama - Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota (caucus), Washington (caucus)

This is a Clinton advantage, certainly, especially given that two of the states Obama won were caucuses (it should be interesting to see how the meaningless beauty pageant primary in Washington goes next Tuesday, for comparison purposes).

But it's hardly a shut out. Winning those Beltway primaries ought to help, though, with ending some of this meme.

Posted by John | February 9, 2008 11:46 PM

It's not spin. Ambinder is just telling the truth: Obama can't win blue strongholds, so in the November election he'll lose NY, CA, etc.

Posted by plum | February 9, 2008 11:46 PM

I tend to think that when a reporter seems to be a shill it means that one spin machine is winning.

Posted by J.W. Hamner | February 9, 2008 11:48 PM

Marc's also wrong to imply that the Democratic rank-and-file wouldn't be enthused for Obama in November. Huge turnout everywhere aside, Kerry was predicted to have this exact same problem in 2004, yet he won the usual 90% of the Dem vote. Does anyone really think that Democrats at large liked Kerry more than they like Obama?

Posted by Craigo | February 9, 2008 11:49 PM

Yeah, I was being sarcastic. But seriously, won't Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania help to shore up Clinton's delegate count?

Posted by plum | February 9, 2008 11:49 PM

Matt - you gave him the kiss of life when you predicted HRC to win the nomination. I hope this means at least a deputy position for you somewhere in the administration (so long as it's not deputy prognosticator).

Posted by RPG | February 9, 2008 11:50 PM

Plum, assuming she wins Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, it'll help stem the tide (although close victories in those states won't help her much against the huge victories Obama seems to be winning).

I'm not sure that's guaranteed at this point, though.

Posted by John | February 9, 2008 11:51 PM

Do people really believe that in a general election, those people voting for Clinton in NY and CA will vote for a Republican nominee instead? That seems so ridiculous to me. Most Clinton supporters seem to think that Clinton is a better candidate but will support Obama in the general. Not winning the state against a Democratic opponent doesn't mean he won't win against a Republican. Just nonsense.

Posted by Craig | February 9, 2008 11:51 PM

I've been waiting to see some more data on California. I suspect - but don't know - that much of Clinton's margin was provided by early voters who cast their ballots by mail before Obama's surge in the week following South Carolina. Also, while the California primary was semi-open, apparently there are a lot of California independents who didn't know that. There have also been reports that a number of California ballots from independents were spoiled because the voter selected a candidate but did not check an additional box indicating which party's primary they were voting in.

What is most important about the totality of these Midwest and Western Obama victories, as I see it, is not whether the particular state in question is likely to go Republican or Democratic. It's that Obama is getting independents to vote for him all over the country. Given that the past two presidential elections were two of the closest in history, this is hugely important.

Posted by Dan Kervick | February 9, 2008 11:51 PM

I think Obama's going to win because well, of the 2 month view of his trend. She's bumped up a little, he's bumped up a ton into (at least) a tie.

Why would this trend abate?

That said, I do think he needs to win 2 of the 3 really big ones to assert his legitimacy.

Posted by mike | February 9, 2008 11:53 PM

Matt

My experience here in CA dovetailed with the polls which said that Obama won Af-Am and White voters but lost Asian voters and Latino voters.

I do alot of GOTV, part of that is hundreds of voter contacts and interactions.

Obama had the ethusiastic support of Af-Am and White voters I encountered across demographic and income lines.

What struck me was how many voters would greet me enthusiastically and express support for Obama. White businessmen and white businesswomen were heavily Obama and made a point of saying so. That's not usually the case with Democratic candidates. Labor union members were pro-Obama here in Oakland by a large margin.

Can Obama run strong in CA and NY? I have no doubt of that. Will he need to do real outreach into CA's diverse communities? Yes.

The point is: those who got to know Obama supported him enthusiastically.

He has huge upside potential. I think that applies to big states as well and cities where machine politics is business as usual.

What was striking was the enthusiasm.

Posted by kid oakland | February 9, 2008 11:54 PM

Well, before Texas and Ohio even get to vote there are plenty of Obama-friendly states to shore up his count. Clinton would have to win those states by 20-point-plus landslides to catch Obama in pledged delegates, and landslides are something she's been singularly unable to accomplish outside of her home states.

Posted by Craigo | February 9, 2008 11:54 PM

I'm not sure that Ambinder is a Clinton shill, but I am sure that the half of his posts that are comprehensible to literate folks seem to be chock full of lazy political "analysis." So this is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel.

Posted by RS | February 9, 2008 11:54 PM

Are there any Clinton voters that wouldn't vote for Obama in the general? Are there any Obama voters that wouldn't vote for Hillary? (Hint: the answer may not be the same for both questions).

Posted by ben | February 9, 2008 11:56 PM

Obama wins caucuses because (1) he organizes them well, and (2) lots of Hillary's voters--old, disabled, women, and Latinos--don't do night meetings.

Posted by John Petty | February 9, 2008 11:58 PM

Obama's expectations are now officially managed.

He expects to lose Maine, Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, Penn, Kentucky and Puerto Rico and still enter the convention with a 67 pledged delegate lead.

He looks to have gained 10 or 12 more delegates today than he expected.

Every time he beats these conservative estimates that still give him a very legitimate claim to the nomination in August, he has beat his own campaign's expectations.

Posted by Arnold Evans | February 10, 2008 12:00 AM

I think Obama's going to win because well, of the 2 month view of his trend. She's bumped up a little, he's bumped up a ton into (at least) a tie.

Why would this trend abate?

If Clinton's actually bumped up a little, isn't it obvious that it would abate once Obama captures the rest of the primary electorate? That's almost where we are now and it leaves us pretty close to 50-50. It's not like he's going to be at 70% by March and 110% by May.

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 12:01 AM

I've been waiting to see some more data on California. I suspect - but don't know - that much of Clinton's margin was provided by early voters who cast their ballots by mail before Obama's surge in the week following South Carolina.

Hillary won because of the Hispanic and Asian vote that represented 40% of ballots. African-Americans were only 7%. Those demographics don't exist in any of the key remaining states (except maybe the Latino proportion in Texas). Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the Beltway states have significant urban African-American voting blocks that will carry Obama as long as he keeps the white vote close, as he did in, say, Missouri.

Posted by right | February 10, 2008 12:01 AM

I support Obama but would definitely vote for Hillary in a general. However, I know of a lot of people who are for Obama who will not vote for Hillary. The dynasty thing plus the scandals of the 90's has really turned a lot of people sour to both Clintons.

Posted by Craig | February 10, 2008 12:01 AM

It's also pretty clear that in the general election, it won't take too much for Latino and Asian-Americans to transfer their loyalty to Obama. If he's the nominee, he'll have the Clinton network fighting for him, not against him.

Posted by plum | February 10, 2008 12:02 AM

Are there any Clinton voters that wouldn't vote for Obama in the general? Are there any Obama voters that wouldn't vote for Hillary? (Hint: the answer may not be the same for both questions).

The answer to both questions is "yes." But these questions aren't of central importance. The answer to the question of "Will Obama lose heavily Democratic states like Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and California?" and the answer is pretty obviously "no."

And yes, it's weird that people are just ignoring his wins in very Democratic states like Delaware, Connecticut, and now Washington. Maryland is another overwhelmingly Democratic state, and it's pretty obvious he'll be winning there on Tuesday.

Posted by jbryan | February 10, 2008 12:02 AM

Petty John,

WA's caucus was at 1pm on a Saturday. Were the old, disabled white women too busy working to go?

The real difference between caucuses (caucusi?) and primaries is that caucuses reward enthusiam and activists. Obama has a huge enthusiam margin over Clinton.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 12:05 AM

In the next few days, Obama will win ME, DC, VA, and MD

Hillary will win MSNBC

Posted by lampwick | February 10, 2008 12:05 AM

Obama's expectations are now officially managed.

He expects to lose Maine, Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, Penn, Kentucky and Puerto Rico and still enter the convention with a 67 pledged delegate lead.

He looks to have gained 10 or 12 more delegates today than he expected.

Every time he beats these conservative estimates that still give him a very legitimate claim to the nomination in August, he has beat his own campaign's expectations.

Posted by Arnold Evans | February 10, 2008 12:06 AM

Let's keep everything in perspective here. Yes, Clinton won California, 52% to 42%.

This is also a state where the Clintons have a history here and are very well liked-- they've made frequent trips here over the years.

Clinton was leading by 20-30% for much of the year, and even in the weeks leading up to Super Tuesday.

Obama made a total of two trips to California since the primary season began. One visit was to meet with 5 women and talk about the economy and presumably meet with local papers. The second was for the CNN debate held in Los Angeles.

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton parked herself in California for about two crucial days leading up to Super Tuesday. She held rallies in San Jose, and Bill Clinton was also planted in San Francisco.

California was solid Clinton territory, and Obama didn't pay as much attention to it as he perhaps could have in order to win it, which he could have. But he had a different strategy.

Despite Bill Clinton spending the majority of time in San Francisco alongside our popular Mayor Gavin Newsom, and it being a bastion of liberalism; Obama beat Clinton by about 20% here.

The bottom line is that the Clintons were very heavily focused on California, and Obama didn't even look in our direction, and still only lost by 10%. The criticism of Obama not being able to win California is moot. He didn't even try.

Posted by Natascha | February 10, 2008 12:07 AM

Is the criticism that Obama can't win big heavily Democratic states? Well, he won his home state of Illinois and Clinton won her home state of New York. So this amounts to saying Obama lost California.

She won New Jersey and Massachusetts too.

Posted by donna darko | February 10, 2008 12:08 AM

" Like Andrew, I'm struck by the complete and devastating nature of Obama's win in Washington"

Caucus.

Obama has devastated Clinton in almost all of the caucus states.

"Is the criticism that Obama can't win big heavily Democratic states?"

The criticism is that Obama can't win states without a substantially larger than average AA percentage, unless that state is holding a caucus.

The only real exceptions to the pattern so far are CT and UT.

-----

"when Obama's winning more states and winning more delegates"

But, of course, Clinton is winning slightly more votes.

It's worth noting that almost all of Obama's advantage in pledged delegates won comes from caucus states. If you were to look only at primary states, the delegate count would be about even.

Interestingly, this race is going to eventually come down to Obama's undemocratic advantage among caucus delegates vs Clinton's undemocratic advantage among superdelegates.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 12:10 AM

Obama's expectations are now officially managed.

He expects to lose Maine, Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, Penn, Kentucky and Puerto Rico and still enter the convention with a 67 pledged delegate lead.

He looks to have gained 10 or 12 more delegates today than he expected. (According to Openleft)

Every time he beats these conservative estimates that still give him a very legitimate claim to the nomination in August, he has beat his own campaign's expectations.

Posted by Arnold Evans | February 10, 2008 12:10 AM

If Obama is the nominee, the Dems will lose California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. It's true! I read it somewhere.

On another note, does anyone feel that Obama "beating" Hillary to be very sexist (and especially by so much). Shouldn't our nominee be opposed to violence against women (Did you know that Hillary is a woman?)0

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 12:13 AM

Obama barely campaigned in California in the runup to Super Tuesday and even so he closed in on Hillary. To say that his performance in California, which was while he was campaigning back east is the final verdict on how he can do here is an incredible leap of logic --and innaccurate to boot.

Posted by david in norcal | February 10, 2008 12:13 AM

Yes Arnold, that's why they "accidentally" attached their spreadsheet to the email.

Posted by blindjoedeath | February 10, 2008 12:14 AM

The only thing the Feb. 5 states like California and Massachusetts said about Obama is that he can't win in big Democratic states like Califoria and Massachusetts where he doesnt have much time to campaign. Hillary always starts with 20 point leads produced by near-universal name recognition. In big Democratic states she often also starts out with access to the machine left over from the Bill Clinton years. In states with where the Democratic machine is negligiable and the state is small enough for a couple of appearances to make a real difference, Obama crushes. When there is a big machine for Hillary and/or the state is too big for a few appearances to make a significant difference, Obama cuts the lead a lot but runs out of time to win. The real tests will come in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He will actually have time to campaign and make up name recognition deficits (though those are getting smaller anyway). Ohio and Pennsylvania will be much better tests of whether Obama can win big states when he has time to really campaign. If he does, he almost certainly wins the nomination. If not, Hillary probably does.

Posted by Tim From VA | February 10, 2008 12:14 AM

Obama must win either Ohio or Pennsylvania. Case closed.

It doesn't matter if he has a 50 pledged delegate lead at the convention, he won't be chosen as the nominee if he doesn't win one of the big primaries. And no, not because he'd lose California or New York in the generals (that'd be ridiculous), but because the primary system is part of proving that you're a viable candidate, and if he doesn't win at least one big prize other than Illinois, he's absolutely failed to prove viability. Thus, it all comes down to Ohio and Pennsylvania. Ohio will be rough because it's had a big clinton lead for a long time, but Pennsylvania will be a 7 week long bloodbath campaign and may in fact decide the convention.

I want Obama to win, so here's what i see: He has to keep Ohio close, and then win Pennsylvania. Doesn't have to win by a lot, just win. That'll prove to the superdelegates that he's got a real shot in November.

Posted by Simon Ganz | February 10, 2008 12:15 AM

Dan Kervick, you are my hero. I f you live in upstate NY we should meet for a beer.

Now, as for Plum, who said this:
It's not spin. Ambinder is just telling the truth: Obama can't win blue strongholds, so in the November election he'll lose NY, CA, etc.

Plum, I don't know you but I guess that if you are an natural born American citizen and over the age of 35, even after spouting off the most idiotic comment I have seen in some time, could win those states in a general election.

The stupid, it burns!!

Posted by swarty | February 10, 2008 12:16 AM

"Obama barely campaigned in California in the runup to Super Tuesday"

In reality, Obama substantially outspent Clinton in CA, of course.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 12:17 AM

Still comes down to OH,TX,PA. If Hillary takes all three, she will be the nominee (regardless of the exact delegate count at that point). There simply isn't any way the Dems will nominate someone who lost NY,CA,NJ,MA,OH,TX and PA (not to mention FL and MI). So the real test is whether Obama's expected wins before those states boost his numbers in them. If not, all his victories before then won't matter.

Posted by tdraicer | February 10, 2008 12:18 AM

I think it is nonsense, really bad logic, to say that Obama can't "win" big Democratic states after an election in which Democrats are expressing a preference for one of two Democratic candidates.

The important election to win is the one in which Democrats are asked to choose between a Republican and a Democrat. That's what winning a blue state should mean, and the current Dem-Dem election results can't be generalized to that situation.

Posted by PTate in MN | February 10, 2008 12:18 AM

Petey,

The criticism is that Obama can't win states without a substantially larger than average AA percentage, unless that state is holding a caucus.

The only real exceptions to the pattern so far are CT and UT.

Or Illinois. But really, what's "substantially larger than average?" Delaware has 20% compared to 12% nationally -- larger than the average, but substantially? It's slightly larger than New Jersey's 13% and New York's 16%. Missouri is under the national average with only 11%, and Obama won that state, too. What about New Mexico, which has a 2% black population and which Clinton and Obama tied in? Do any of these count as exceptions beyond Connecticut and Utah? Will Virginia (19%) count as an exception, or is anything over the national percentage excluded? What if he wins Wisconsin?

Posted by jbryan | February 10, 2008 12:21 AM

Obama must win either Ohio or Pennsylvania. Case closed.

No, he doesn't. He needs to win the most pledged delegates, which is well on his way to doing, whether or not he wins OH or PA. The rest will take care of itself.

Posted by J.B. | February 10, 2008 12:23 AM

What Simon Ganz said, with the exception that Ohio is a better target for Obama than Pennsylvania.

PA is the oldest state in the country. It's a demographic nightmare for Obama.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 12:23 AM

Petey,

Lemme welcome you back.

In reality, Obama substantially outspent Clinton in CA, of course."

If you have to battle entrenched machine politics and massive name recognition in short amount of time with few opportunities to be there in person, spending money is about your only option. It also helps if you have money in the bank to spend (from over 300,000 devoted investor-volunteers).

The Clintons wanted a compressed primary schedule that favored the established candidate with name recognition. It's pretty amazing that Obama has been able to compete as much as he has.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 12:24 AM

The criticism is that Obama can't win states without a substantially larger than average AA percentage, unless that state is holding a caucus.

I forgot, caucuses and states where >20% of voters are African American don't count. Silly me!

The only real exceptions to the pattern so far are CT and UT.

I guess it depends on what you call "average AA percentage". Missouri and Delaware aren't exactly South Carolina, demographically speaking.

The only real failures for Obama so far have been NH and MA, but the CT win in Clinton's backyard seems to me to substantially offset the latter.

Posted by right | February 10, 2008 12:24 AM

The salient demographic reality of WA is that there are very few blacks there. Obama wins big where there are lots of blacks (e.g., Louisiana) or where there are very few blacks (e.g., Iowa). Hillary has the advantage where there are enough blacks to be more than an abstraction for liberal non-black voters, but not enough for block voting by blacks to be consequential.

Posted by Fred | February 10, 2008 12:27 AM

It wasn't Washington's voters that won those huge margins for Obama. It was the caucus.

It wasn't clear to me until tonight, when I attended a Washington caucus, why caucuses benefit Obama so dramatically.

It is really, really hard to participate in a caucus. I thought it was hard to caucus in Iowa, where I lived in 2004. But that was nothing compared to Washington, where half the population doesn't even know what a caucus is, let alone where or when. (To complicate things, Washington Democrats also have a mail-in presidential primary, but the state party disregards the results.)

By the time they've lived through a few election cycles, most adults have gotten the gist of voting: how it works, how to do it. With caucuses, it's as if every voter in the state is 18 again, trying to figure out what the heck an election is.

All this benefits people who have received detailed instructions from their campaign over the Internet. Therefore it benefits Obama and (didja notice?) Ron Paul.

Posted by Michael Andersen | February 10, 2008 12:28 AM

Also...

I wonder what it would take to get the Atlantic to replace Yglesias or Ambinder with Dan Kervick.

Posted by J.B. | February 10, 2008 12:29 AM

So, states "without a substantially larger than average AA percentage not holding a caucus," which have gone so far:

Clinton - Arizona, California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York

Obama - Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, Utah

Posted by John | February 10, 2008 12:30 AM

I'm going to toss out a criticism of Hillary Clinton: she can only win primaries in states with a substantial population of blacks or Hispanics. The only counterexamples, really, are Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and New Hampshire, so these are the only victories for her that count.

Posted by jbryan | February 10, 2008 12:31 AM

It's completely wrong to extrapolate from winning states in the democratic primary to winning states in the general election--that works both ways. Obama can't beat Clinton in NY, sure, but he sure as hell can beat McCain. Conversely he can beat Clinton in Alabama, but he ain't going to beat McCain.

That said it is obviously a problem for Obama if he manages to loses NY, CA, MASS, NJ, OH, PA, TX, plus Florida and Michigan across the board. It's difficult to see how he gets the nomination in that scenario.

Petey: But, of course, Clinton is winning slightly more votes.

Where are you getting those numbers? I looked a little but I didn't find them. Is that including Michigan/Florida?

Posted by Korha | February 10, 2008 12:32 AM

Oh, I of course forgot Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee for Clinton. But I think the "upper south states with few black people" thing is a pretty sui generis case - the only remaining state with similar demographics is Kentucky.

Anyway, hardly a shut out here. If Obama wins Wisconsin, I trust Petey will stop saying this?

Posted by John | February 10, 2008 12:33 AM

It's interesting math that the Obama detractors are using to value the primaries:

White male independents aren't Democratic enough to count, but African Americans are too Democratic (maybe they should count for something like 3/5ths of a vote?). Open primaries are too inclusive, but caucuses are too restrictive. Rich and/or young white voters or voters that pay too much attention to the process don't seem to count either for some reason.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 12:33 AM

If Obama continues to gain momentum, leads in pledged delegates, and - most imporantly - continues to outpoll McCain while Clinton doesn't, its not going to matter if Clinton wins OH, TX, or PA. The DNC and the superdelegates aren't going to commit electoral seppuku just because Clinton won the big states.

Posted by Fausto Carmona | February 10, 2008 12:35 AM

Isn't this productive?

Posted by jbryan | February 10, 2008 12:35 AM

The problem is that people are looking at the Feb. races and march 4th in a vacuum.

People assume Obama will roll through February but the Clinton team will crush him in TX & OH.

But what is forgotten is that the voters in TX & OH know how to read and watch the TV. Seeing win after win will say something to a portion of those voters who are not yet firmly committed to either candidate. People like a winner. I'm not saying that she can't win them both, but do not assume ANYTHING after this Tuesday. Hillary will probably squeak out a win in Maine, but after she has trashed the whole caucus process, it will be discounted, especially after tonight's thumping.

No candidate has pulled off a string of wins in a row. Obama is poised to do just that and it will be noticed by voters.

Posted by swarty | February 10, 2008 12:36 AM

"Or Illinois"

Special case, obviously.

"But really, what's "substantially larger than average?" Delaware has 20% compared to 12% nationally -- larger than the average, but substantially?"

In terms of primary arithmetic, yes. That means the Democratic primary electorate in DE would've been about 40% AA. Given that Obama won AA's by 8 to 1, it's obviously a good state for him demographically if he could prevent Clinton from rolling up huge supermajorities among whites, which he indeed managed to prevent.

"Do any of these count as exceptions beyond Connecticut and Utah?"

You correctly identify MO as a third exception.

"What if he wins Wisconsin?"

That would be a somewhat important win for him, for the very reasons we're talking about.

But OH, TX, and PA are really where he's gong to have to break through, if he's serious about winning this year.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 12:39 AM

I see a lot of faulty assumptions being made in this thread.

Faulty Assumption Number 1: Obama must win "big, blue" states to be a viable candidate in the general election.

Poppycock. (I've always wanted to say that.) Come on people. This is a guy who has come out of nowhere to eclipse a woman with universal name recognition, a huge money advantage (to start), an incredible national network of establishment support and favors owed and the MOST POPULAR LIVING EX-PRESIDENT among Democrats all in her corner. You want to tell me that a guy who can overcome all those disadvantages has something left to prove about how good of a politician he is? Please.

States like California are going to vote Democratic in the general election. What does it matter if Obama lost that state in the primary but ended up winning more than enough other states to make up the difference? It just proves his wide ranging appeal.

Faulty Assumption Number 1: Caucus states are "undemocratic".

Superdelegates are undemocratic. I don't here Hillary supporters complaining about superdelegates since they're currently in favor of Hillary, but they're far more undemocratic than a caucus. They violate the time honored principle of "one person, one vote" in every way imaginable.

I live in one of those caucus states that Obama won. (Idaho) Frankly, it was a wipeout in the Qwest Arena in Boise where I voted even before the discussions and the like. In both of the Districts in my state that voted in the Arena that I was at, Obama won with over 80% of the vote even before the Edwards supporters and the uncommitted voters were offered a chance to switch over.

Want to know why Obama is winning states like mine? Because he's competing in them. Maybe that means that he ends up losing a state like California, but don't just write off people like me as victims of some sort of undemocratic process.

Faulty Assumption #3: A lot of Obama wins are coming in "red" states, so they don't matter.

It's thinking like that which guarantees those states will always remain red. It wasn't that long ago that Virginia was a very reliably red state. Now look at it. Governor and both senators are Democrats.

Red states don't turn blue overnight. Just like blue states don't turn red overnight. They get there gradually with each election. Frankly, for the life of me I can't understand why Democrats wouldn't want a man who can put a red state or two into play. Maybe he wins a couple and maybe he doesn't, but elections aren't won by playing defense. Even if Obama doesn't win all the red states in the general election that he is winning in the primary, he's going to force Republicans to spend time and resources defending those states in the general election.

If Republicans are defending their home turf that is usually considered reliably in their corner, it is less time and money they are spending in swing states or blue states.

Anyway, that's my rant. I'm done now.

Posted by Jim Crozier | February 10, 2008 12:39 AM

"Where are you getting those numbers? I looked a little but I didn't find them. Is that including Michigan/Florida?"

That's without Michigan and Florida. Clinton has received slightly more votes than Obama nationwide.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 12:43 AM

According to CNN, Obama beats McCain by 8 points while Clinton stays within the margin of error. He also does better among white voters vs. McCain than Clinton.

Posted by Reality Man | February 10, 2008 12:44 AM

But OH, TX, and PA are really where he's gong to have to break through, if he's serious about winning this year.

Why can't he continue to overwhelmingly win the small states, and just narrowly lose the big states?

If you look at the campaign spreadsheet, as Arnold pointed out, it has him losing OH, TX, PA, RI, WV, KY, PR and still coming out on top +67 in pledged delegates at the end.

Seems to me Obama doesn't have to "break through" in OH/TX/PA...he just needs to keep it close.

Posted by Tractarian | February 10, 2008 12:45 AM

Age has somewhat dulled my memory - never a sharpened blade in the best of days - but I don't remember any complaints from the Clintons about the inherently undemocratic caucus system in Iowa, before she fell out of bed. And I believe that the Nevada complaints were all directed at setting caucuses up in casinos, since the union had endorsed Obama.

It would help if folks made at least a modest bow in the direction of intellectual consistency. That of course has never been an element of the Clinton campaign style.

Posted by zoot | February 10, 2008 12:45 AM

I don't know who is going to win Maine tomorrow. But I do know that it is a closed caucus, and so it will fail to provide any test of the winner's ability to attract Independent and/or Republican voters.

Posted by Dan Kervick | February 10, 2008 12:46 AM

Do you mind linking your source on the popular vote Petey?

Posted by Jim Crozier | February 10, 2008 12:46 AM

Simon Ganz wrote:
It doesn't matter if he has a 50 pledged delegate lead at the convention, he won't be chosen as the nominee if he doesn't win one of the big primaries. And no, not because he'd lose California or New York in the generals (that'd be ridiculous), but because the primary system is part of proving that you're a viable candidate, and if he doesn't win at least one big prize other than Illinois, he's absolutely failed to prove viability.

And what if he loses those states, but wins solidly among independent voters there? The demographics of Democratic primary voters are not the same as the demographics of voters in the national election, and what you really want is the candidate who's most viable in the general election.

Posted by Jesse M. | February 10, 2008 12:47 AM

That's without Michigan and Florida. Clinton has received slightly more votes than Obama nationwide.

That was true on Feb. 5th, but is not true when including IA, NH, NV, and SC (last I saw. Do you have a link to a count otherwise?).

Anyway, it's certainly not true after today, obviously.

Posted by Dave | February 10, 2008 12:47 AM

Of states that voted for Kerry:

I'm reluctant to say this, but given the turnout numbers, is this an useful comparison? I'm not saying that Obama's win in Utah counts for shit in November, but that brings states on the 2004 red-blue fringe into the equation.

There are, however bizarre it sounds, enough 'independent' voters weighing up McCain and Obama, in those states to make them a factor. And even though many of those self-described indies (the 'anti-war, pro-choice for McCain' types) are toxic to politics junkies, they do vote.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 10, 2008 12:47 AM

If Clinton sweeps all the big states and the offical pledged delegate count remains close she can make a compelling argument to the superdelegates to support her as the true bearer of the democratic standard. Which they probably will do. Plus there's always that Michigan/Florida thing for her to fall back on.

I think Obama can win Ohio, though.

Posted by Korha | February 10, 2008 12:50 AM

"Faulty Assumption Number 1: Caucus states are "undemocratic"

Of course caucus delegates are undemocratically selected. Caucuses dramatically limit participation and skew that participation strongly towards all the demographics that Obama has big leads in.

As stated above, as long as primary delegates remain split evenly, which they will likely continue to be, this race is going to eventually come down to Obama's undemocratic advantage among caucus delegates vs Clinton's undemocratic advantage among superdelegates. Which advantage is bigger will be the deciding event.

(FWIW, I've got nothing against caucus delegates OR superdelegates. I think the nomination rules are pretty good as they stand.)

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 12:56 AM

Why does Obama have to win any particular state? This isn't the Republican primary--we award our delegates on a proportional basis.

When Obama wins, he wins big. When he loses, he doesn't lose as much. On the whole, he's picked up more delegates and more enthusiam than Hillary.

It also looks like he'd do better in the general election Hillary, but we're not supposed to talk about that.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 12:56 AM

If Clinton sweeps all the big states and the offical pledged delegate count remains close she can make a compelling argument to the superdelegates to support her as the true bearer of the democratic standard.

I think that if she actually attempted to do this, you'd have just as much of a backlash from Clinton-supporting small-state SDs ticked off at the presumption that their states don't matter. Same way that I expect that even the IA, NH, SC and NV superdelegates who support Clinton might end up voting not to seat MI and FL.

Posted by David | February 10, 2008 12:57 AM

Anything can happen, but Fausto Carmona makes a good point that polls against McCain will be a factor in August (three months from the election) at least as important as winning Ohio against Hillary.

At this very moment, Obama's lead over McCain is trending up, while McCain's lead over Hillary is trending up. (RealClearPolitics)

If Obama reaches the convention with a small pledged delegate lead and keeps his 5 to 10 point advantage against McCain (compared to Clinton) it may be hard for superdelegates to willingly take that hit.

Winning one of Texas, Penn, Ohio would be good but coming closer than he expects (wink wink), and keeping a lead in delegates and continuing his advantage against McCain has a good chance of doing it for him.

Posted by Arnold Evans | February 10, 2008 1:02 AM

"Why can't he continue to overwhelmingly win the small states, and just narrowly lose the big states? If you look at the campaign spreadsheet, as Arnold pointed out, it has him losing OH, TX, PA, RI, WV, KY, PR and still coming out on top +67 in pledged delegates at the end."

If your goal is to win the pledged delegate count, that's a great strategy. If your goal is to win the nomination, not so much.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 1:02 AM

Now that Petey is backing Clinton I think we can call it, Obama is home free.

Posted by eric k | February 10, 2008 1:07 AM

"It's worth noting that almost all of Obama's advantage in pledged delegates won comes from caucus states. If you were to look only at primary states, the delegate count would be about even."

It is also worth noting that if we include only states that begin with the letter "C," then Clinton has a significant advantage in pledged delegates. Clearly, we should examine this trend.

The idea that Obama needs to win at least one of the "big primary" states (actually, you mean at least one more big primary states than the ones he has already one which don't count because there were black people) is simply a rather transparent effort to gerry-mander Obama's victories to make them less significant. It would be amusing if it wasn't so obvious.

Posted by PTS | February 10, 2008 1:08 AM

When Obama wins, he wins big. When he loses, he doesn't lose as much.

True. Averaging out his victory margin in all the states he's won gets us 27.72%. Clinton's average victory margin is 14.9%. If we look just at Obama's primary wins and not his caucus wins, it's still 18.2%.

If we average their actual percentage of the vote in all the states, it's 53.4% for Obama versus 40.9% for Clinton. Excluding the caucuses changes it to 49.74% vs. 46.3.4%.

Note: none of this counts New Mexico, Florida, or Michigan.

Posted by jbryan | February 10, 2008 1:08 AM

Come on, Petey. It's the delegates. There's nothing magical about winning a big state by 51%.

Also, about those big states. If Obama wins seven or eight of the contests Feb 9-12, a lot of Dem voters are going to heave a sigh of relief. No one wants a deadlock on our side. So it's not clear to me that voters in OH or PA are going to *want* to help HRC claw her way back out of the grave. The fact that they're demographically "supposed" to vote for her may stop being compelling.

Momentum is going to start mattering more than it has mattered in this race, because people are going to start wanting a resolution.

Posted by Ted | February 10, 2008 1:09 AM

"Age has somewhat dulled my memory - never a sharpened blade in the best of days - but I don't remember any complaints from the Clintons about the inherently undemocratic caucus system in Iowa, before she fell out of bed."

A dull blade, indeed.

Team Clinton spent much of 2007 complaining about the caucus process, even to extent of debating whether or not to skip Iowa.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 1:11 AM

Well, we still don't know what "substantially larger than average" means, but let's say we define it as 17%, which is somewhat arbitrary, but is the most favorable threshold for the purposes of Petey's argument. Using the 2000 census, here are the States that had primaries but not "substantially larger than average" AA populations:

New Hampshire - C
Arizona - C
Arkansas - C
Connecticut - O
Illinois - O
Massachusetts - C
Missouri - O
New Jersey - C
New Mexico
New York - C
Oklahoma - C
Tennessee - C
Utah - O

So out of a sample size of 13 states, Clinton won 8, Obama won 4, and there is one TBD. Somehow 8 out of 13 defines a "rule", and 4 out of 13 is an "exception" to the rule.

And, of course, if we move the threshold down to, say, 15%, it becomes 5 out of 9 for Clinton and 3 out of 9 for Obama. An even more tenuous basis for defining this rule-exception.

And this is without even getting into the tenuous logic that suggests that we should be testing this theory only in the context of primary states rather than caucus states.

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 1:13 AM

Petey,

You're a pretty smart guy and well-respected around these parts, but what the heck does "If your goal is to win the nomination, not so much." mean? Do you have some special insight into the hearts and minds of the 800 special delegates?

It's all fine and good to try to define the terms of victory for an opponent (ala Calvinball), but at some point you've got to stop moving the goalposts and redefining the meaning of "victory".

If Obama walks into convention with more pledged delegates (say 50-100 more) and a pretty good poll matchup versus McCain (relative to Clinton), he's going to walk out with the nomination. Any other result threatens to alienate a huge part of the base and the party establishment knows that.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 1:15 AM

Momentum is going to start mattering more than it has mattered in this race, because people are going to start wanting a resolution.

And that's especially true because the policy differences are relatively small. There's no crusade on our side like the crusade that's keeping Huck afloat.

So when average voters see that Obama
a) is ahead in the primary,
b) is more likely to beat McCain in the general and
c) that fighting for HRC is likely to produce a messy deadlock,

That will seal the deal for some of them. I think a small but significant number (say 3-8%) will slide toward Obama just out of a desire to have a clear resolution.

Posted by Ted | February 10, 2008 1:15 AM

WA is tailor-made for Obama--lots of young people, and lots of "hip" latte-liberals.

Posted by John Petty | February 10, 2008 1:16 AM

Ted at 109Am speaks he truth when he says: Momentum is going to start mattering more than it has mattered in this race, because people are going to start wanting a resolution.

Maine will stop the bleeding for Clinton (unless it doesn't) but Tuesday will bring a fresh gaping wound in the Clinton campaign.

The Shuster gambit is starting to look small. The Clinton campaign needs a game changing play but they risk making their base more fervent but smaller. Not a good combination.

Obama's speech tonight seemed like he knows that he can win this thing. He attacked her frontally on her strongest talking point: health care. He senses he can, for the first time in this race, take some momentum going forward. If Tuesday goes like tonight, there will be actual momentum behind his campaign going into March. If the campaign is smart, they will put the pedal to the metal on Wednesday morning.

Posted by swarty | February 10, 2008 1:20 AM

All those big Blue states where HRC won -- anyone with a "D" label will carry those states easily next November.

But Obama will make the Democratic party competitive in all those purple swing states. And he might even force the Republicans to play a little defense in the Red states.

Those are things Clinton can't dream of doing. And that's why Obama is a much stronger candidate for the general election.

Posted by Callimaco | February 10, 2008 1:20 AM

What is "inherently undemocratic" about a caucus?

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 1:20 AM

Interestingly, this race is going to eventually come down to Obama's undemocratic advantage among caucus delegates vs Clinton's undemocratic advantage among superdelegates.

This is an interesting thought, Petey, but the conflation here is ridiculous.

Caucuses are open to every citizen registered as a Democrat. The only requirements are that you 1) are available when the caucus is held, 2) you care enough and are smart enough to find out where to go and when, and proactive enough and passionate enough to actually do it (instead of, say, staying home and watching American Idol, or whatever. Yeah, some people are working, I know, but it's still a pretty small slice of the electorate that is working during any given caucus, certainly not enough to make much of a dent in the shellacking Clinton is taking in the caucus states.)

Superdelegates on the other hand are open to nobody but DNC upper management, elected Congressmen and Governors, and former high office holders such as Walter Mondale. About half of superdelegates are completely unaccountable to voters; the rest are accountable only in the sense that they can be thrown out of office for voting against the popular will.
Add in the fact that the superdelegate process leaves open incredible opportunities for corruption -- e.g., vote for me at the convention and get that ambassadorship to Luxembourg you've been craving -- and it's very hard to understand why the Democratic party would include such an absurdly undemocratic mechanism.

The fact of the matter is that Obama is strong in those states that happen to be holding caucuses. For a variety of reasons, Clinton just doesn't go over well in the plains states and the more Caucasian-heavy states of the West. That's why citing popular vote totals is so misleading in a presidential primary; Obama's advantage in the caucus states actually is UNDERrepresented in the popular vote rather than overrepresented.

Superdelegates, on the other hand, have no connection to representation whatsoever.

Posted by Ban Johnson | February 10, 2008 1:21 AM

WA is tailor-made for Obama--lots of young people, and lots of "hip" latte-liberals.

John,

That's a really good point, actually. It really does need to go on the list of wins that don't quite count for Obama:

• states with black people
• states without black people
• states with primaries that encourage independent voters
• states with caucuses that encourage party activists
• states with young people / college students
• states with liberals
• states without liberals

It's a lot easier to award our nominations when we figure out which states count and which don't. At the moment, the list appears to be New York, California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Posted by jbryan | February 10, 2008 1:23 AM

Q: What is "inherently undemocratic" about a caucus?

A: Hillary can't seem to win them, so they must be evil.

Posted by swarty | February 10, 2008 1:26 AM

jbryan - Good stuff. I think that about sums it up, but the jury's still out on whether Ohio and Pennsylvania make the list. Obama may win them due to some as-yet-undiscovered demographic or institutional quirk. So for now, let's just stick with New York and California.

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 1:27 AM

Petey:

I have to correct one factually incorrect statement. You claimed Clinton is winning slightly more votes than Obama. Incorrect. In primaries alone, Obama has actually tallied slightly more votes than Clinton, 7,833,425 to 7,773,975. When you consider the substantial margins by which he's crushed her in caucuses, and it should be clear that he's won more votes, more states, and more delegates. He's won in every region. He's won closed primaries, open primaries, caucuses, all-white states and mixed-ethnic states.

The suggestion that his campaign has been failing in some regard is frankly ludicrous. Starting from a huge name-ID and institutional disadvantage he's actually out-campaigned the Clintons by any and every conceivable metric. He's bested them in primaries, he's killed them in caucuses, total votes and pledged delegate. The only things keeping their campaign alive right now are the remnants of that institutional support (super delegates) and her name ID.

The whole "He has to win Ohio/TX" thing sounds a lot like Rudy and Florida to me.

Posted by Michael | February 10, 2008 1:28 AM

"Also, about those big states. If Obama wins seven or eight of the contests Feb 9-12, a lot of Dem voters are going to heave a sigh of relief. No one wants a deadlock on our side. So it's not clear to me that voters in OH or PA are going to *want* to help HRC claw her way back out of the grave. The fact that they're demographically "supposed" to vote for her may stop being compelling."

No doubt. I don't discount the possibility of Obama winning OH or PA,.

I think Obama has about a 50/50 chance of winning the nomination. And I don't think he's going to win the nomination without breaking through somewhere unexpected.

I don't think the spreadsheet math currently being floated by Obama would result in an Obama nomination. He's going to have to do better than that, and maybe he will.

"Come on, Petey. It's the delegates. There's nothing magical about winning a big state by 51%."

It's indeed about the delegates. But you're wrong if you think there's nothing magical about winning closely watched bellwether races by a single vote. That moves delegates, just not pledged delegates.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 1:29 AM

I think that about sums it up, but the jury's still out on whether Ohio and Pennsylvania make the list. Obama may win them due to some as-yet-undiscovered demographic or institutional quirk. So for now, let's just stick with New York and California.

Well, the rules say they go on the list, but the important thing to remember is that the rules can always be changed after the fact depending upon circumstances.

Speaking of which, hey, how 'bout that Michigan? Hillary sure beat Uncommitted there.

Posted by jbryan | February 10, 2008 1:30 AM

Guess what, Clinton can't win any states where women aren't at least 57% of the electorate (unless Hispanics are > 25% of the electorate) (with the exception of Oklahoma). Women were only 54% of the electorate in the 2004 presidential election, so she is DOOMED, DOOMED, I tell you. She'll never win in November!

African-American votes count. Women's votes count. Hispanic votes count. White men's votes count.

The line of criticism on Obama, that he can't win primaries that don't have a large fraction of AA votes, is untrue, misleading, and disgusting. Yes, Obama wins big among AAs. But guess what! Those votes count just as much as anyone else's vote! They are some of the most loyal Democratic voters out there, why shouldn't they get a say in determining the nomination? How is it somehow illegitimate if many of Obama's wins are due to his strength among AAs? Sure, if they couldn't vote, Obama would never get the nomination. Wow, shocking! If AAs couldn't vote, Dems would never win the Presidency (these days). This line of attack that somehow attempts to delegitimize politicians that win with large margins of the AA vote is constantly used to attempt to delegitimize Democratic wins against Republicans, and it is racist then. To here it parroted back at by Democrats, against another Democrat, is disgusting, and no less racist.

Posted by Tim | February 10, 2008 1:33 AM

Speaking of Maine, why is Clinton letting Obama say he expects to lose Maine?

Intrade has him ahead there - which isn't conclusive since intrade had him way ahead in New Hampshire but like New Hampshire, at this moment conventional wisdom has him as the front-runner. It could be wrong but that's what it is right now.

A "surprise" victory for Obama in Maine would by no means end it for Clinton but that's not good going into Tuesday where Obama may even "beat expectations" in VA (O+2).

Somebody in the Obama campaign has put a lot of resources into the expectations game and right now he is outplaying Clinton.

Posted by Arnold Evans | February 10, 2008 1:34 AM

And, of course, a lot of the "good" primaries that assign delegates proportionally apportion delegates according to...gasp!...congressional districts!

So, clearly we need to restrict our analysis only to states that assign all delegates to the proportional percentage of votes received in order to be true democrats.

Oh, and they can't have too many black people, according to Petey.

So, what do we have left?

Oh wait, we have to consider the fact that some states voted on the weekend, while others disenfrachised the lower classes by having elections during the week.

I've lost count, do we have any states left? AApparently no one deserves to be the nominee.

Posted by PTS | February 10, 2008 1:38 AM

Jbryan, I never said it didn't count. Young people and latte-liberals essentially constitute Obama's white support. It's a significant portion of the electorate, and influential in the Democratic Party. Frankly, I don't find their political astuteness particularly compelling, but at least they're Democrats.

You also have the reflexive anti-war people who are using Obama as a vehicle. These are the people Obama truly does bring with him into the election. They'd sit out, or vote for some fringe candidate, before they'd vote for Clinton.

He's going to pay for them on the other end, though, by the loss of independents who will be more taken with McCain's talk of "victory."

Posted by John Petty | February 10, 2008 1:40 AM

It's indeed about the delegates. But you're wrong if you think there's nothing magical about winning closely watched bellwether races by a single vote. That moves delegates, just not pledged delegates.

A bellwether is an indicator of a broader trend. By definition, if Obama loses State X, but wins the most pledged delegates, State X is not a bellwether.

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 1:40 AM

He's going to pay for them on the other end, though, by the loss of independents who will be more taken with McCain's talk of "victory."

What? Obama has consistently been winning far more independents than Clinton. Polls show him consistently winning independents in head to head matchups with McCain. This is crazy.

The one sensible thing that could be said about the demographics of a McCain vs. Clinton matchup compared to a McCain vs. Obama matchup, is that McCain might run better among Hispanics and among suburban women against Obama than against Clinton. But independents? That is nonsense.

Posted by Tim | February 10, 2008 1:43 AM

You also have the reflexive anti-war people who are using Obama as a vehicle. These are the people Obama truly does bring with him into the election. They'd sit out, or vote for some fringe candidate, before they'd vote for Clinton.

He's going to pay for them on the other end, though, by the loss of independents who will be more taken with McCain's talk of "victory."

That's a pretty questionable interpretation of the attitudes of independents towards the war.

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 1:46 AM

If you look at the campaign spreadsheet, as Arnold pointed out, it has him losing OH, TX, PA, RI, WV, KY, PR and still coming out on top +67 in pledged delegates at the end...Seems to me Obama doesn't have to "break through" in OH/TX/PA...he just needs to keep it close.

Does anybody (Petey?) know if the Obama campaign is making any predictions about where they'll end up in the popular vote? If indeed they're relying heavily on caucuses for their delegates, and Clinton is getting most of her pledged delegates from primaries, it seems to me there's a non-trivial chance Obama could wind up wind up as the leader in pledged delegates, but still be behind Clinton in the popular vote.

Now, rules being rules, superdelegates can vote any way they want. I think under this scenario the Clinton campaign would be in a strong position to sway superdelegates to the banner of the campaign that won the most votes of people participating in the primaries, especially if the Obama forecast held, and Clinton in fact had won nearly all the big states. That's a pretty powerful argument they can make to superdelegates: We've won California, Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvannia, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, and more votes than any other candidate, and we ask you to support the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

I think the Clinton campaign should -- in addition to doing their damnedest to win Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvannia -- really try and jack up their vote totals in every precinct possible -- even when it doesn't help them win additional delegates. The moral suasion they might ultimately gain could come in handy.

If Obama wins the pledged delegate total and the popular vote, I can't see the superdelegates giving the nomination to Clinton unless they're actively working for John McCain. But if he's only narrowly ahead in pledged delegates, and a tad behind her in popular vote (as he was headed into today's contests, for instance), it does raise some interesting questions (including what to do about the Florida and Michigan delegations).

Posted by Jasper | February 10, 2008 1:48 AM

John Petty:

Obama won 66 of 67 jurisdictions in Washington (see here)

Unless you think Washington is literally populated entirely but young "latte liberals" (in which case, you'd be wrong), your whole argument is moot. He won everywhere, including the rural, working class, and ethnic regions of the state.

Posted by Michael | February 10, 2008 1:49 AM

"It's all fine and good to try to define the terms of victory for an opponent (ala Calvinball), but at some point you've got to stop moving the goalposts and redefining the meaning of "victory"

Victory = 2025.

Nothing more and nothing less.

"If Obama walks into convention with more pledged delegates (say 50-100 more) and a pretty good poll matchup versus McCain (relative to Clinton), he's going to walk out with the nomination."

Your certainty here is badly misplaced. A lot will depend on the results going forward, and a lot will also depend on national polling of the Obama vs Clinton race among Democrats at the time.

Counting pledged delegates is a chump's game. Counting delegates is all that matters.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 1:49 AM

JP said:

He's going to pay for them on the other end, though, by the loss of independents who will be more taken with McCain's talk of "victory."

I don't know if you've been hiding under a rock for the past couple of years, but a big majority of the American people are the "anti-war" fringe and they tend to go for Obama. Hillary is the only one losing independents to McCain.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 1:49 AM

Arnold Evans deserves some props for pointing out how wrong Matt was this morning. Matt complained that Obama's team was doing a crappy job of managing expectations. Actually, he's managing expectations brilliantly, by sketching out a conservative scenario where he can win this thing, and then exceeding the scenario. It makes the significance of these margins much clearer.

You know, I think Barack is a dream candidate. But this David Plouffe guy deserves a bit of credit too. This has been an incredibly well-planned campaign. This advantage in caucuses, for instance . . . now it's got to where we're discounting all these 2-1 caucus victories by saying, "well, of course, he always wins in caucuses." But dude, it takes some *work* to get your ground game that good. And it took some *work* to come from 20-30% behind in the polls to winning Super Tuesday.

Posted by Ted | February 10, 2008 1:54 AM

Jasper: as I already noted, Obama is already leading in the popular vote. He's leading even if you only look at Primaries. Here are the numbers from my spreadsheet, with LA only at 97% reporting and no date on those provisionals from CA and NM, sorry if it's hard to read:

States Clinton Votes Obama Votes
New Hampshire 112,251 104,772
South Carolina 141,128 295,091
Alabama 226,454 302,884
Arizona 204,930 171,368
Arkansas 209,968 79,411
California 2,144,251 1,746,031
Connecticut 164,831 179,349
Deleware 40,751 51,124
Georgia 328,129 700,366
Illinois 662,845 1,301,954
Massachusettes 704,591 511,887
Missouri 395,287 405,284
New Jersey 602,576 492,186
New Mexico 68,654 67,531
New York 1,004,623 697,914
Oklahoma 228,425 130,087
Tennessee 332,559 250,730
Utah 70,373 48,719
Louisiana 131,349 296,737
Total 7,773,975 7,833,425
Difference -59,450
Total votes 15,607,400
% Earned 49.81 50.19

That's not including his huge margins in caucuses.

He's won more votes, substantially more states, and more delegates. The notion that he's somehow been out-performed up to this point is absurd. It's not even close.

Posted by Michael | February 10, 2008 1:55 AM

Obama has started to lay out his fall strategy since McCain emerged as the certain nominee, and tonight made his most direct and extended assault yet on McCain. He's going after McCain right where McCain is supposed to be strongest: his record as a maverick, independent straight-shooter. Obama will portray McCain as a flip-flopper, who has traded in moderate independent positions for extreme right-wing doctrines when politics seemed to require it. And McCain is very vulnerable on this score, since the charge happens to be true. The fact is the Republicans are extremely divided, and McCain is going to have a devil of a time defending himself against charges and maintaining a consistent position on issues without further dividing his party, and angering large portions of it. McCain has also shown himself to be incredibly gaffe-prone during this campaign.

But that's for the fall. When the McCain/electability issue comes up in their current appeal to fellow Democrats, the two candidates' pitches seem to come down to these:

Clinton: I am the best person to run against McCain because I voted for the war.

Obama: I am the best person to run against McCain because I voted against the war.

Of course, my interpretation of the Clinton pitch is a bit iffy, because she doesn't refer to Iraq and the war directly when she argues that she is a better candidate to run against McCain. Instead, she refers cryptically to a mysterious something that is supposed to make her the more credible opponent. I think this shows something about the inherent weakness of her pitch: it has to be made coyly, indirectly or ambiguously so as to appeal to multiple audiences at the same time.

In my view, Clinton still doesn't get it. In her own mind, she seems to think her vote for the war makes her look strong, and thus the best person to go up against that noted tough guy and loose cannon military flake McCain. But I think to the majority of voters, her record on the war and related national security issues makes her look, at best, like a weak-kneed and insecure "me too" Democrat, and at worst like an actual supporter of a national security agenda that the majority of voters have now clearly rejected.

Posted by Dan Kervick | February 10, 2008 1:57 AM

Given enough time and money, and the truly great candidate always has a shot. I've spent time in Pennsylvania and Ohio. All of the demographic pseudoscience supra. fails to take into consideration that these places have been struggling for a long time. Ohio's job situation is bad. Philadelphia's crime rate is staggeringly high. People in Bucks County don't much like the war. They don't want someone to promise this or that economic slogan or 3, 5, or 10 point plans, because it's all been heard before. Obama can give these states hope, and that's the one thing they've been missing. Of course, we saw in his J-J speech that he can go policy-specific for policy-specific with just about anyone.

Posted by David B. | February 10, 2008 1:59 AM

Michael Andersen writes:

"It wasn't clear to me until tonight, when I attended a Washington caucus, why caucuses benefit Obama so dramatically.

It is really, really hard to participate in a caucus."

Hmm. The caucuses were at one in the afternoon. Maybe your problem was you had the wrong time?

But let's assume you really went to one, and just mistyped. I saw nothing at my caucus that your average fourth grader couldn't handle. You sign in (name, address, preference) and then you follow simple instructions that are read out to you! You barely have to be literate. Easily 3/4 of us were new to the process, and I saw no difficulties.

Posted by Colin | February 10, 2008 1:59 AM

My home Washington State is the best. In 1992 Clinton finished fourth! Behind "undecided."

Obama won in counties that are 100% white logging towns (everything on the western edge of the state). He's for real.

The Evergreen State! Woohoo!

Posted by chris m | February 10, 2008 2:01 AM

Your certainty here is badly misplaced. A lot will depend on the results going forward, and a lot will also depend on national polling of the Obama vs Clinton race among Democrats at the time.

I'm not certain about anything in this race. I'm pretty sure that the DNC doesn't want another 1968. I'm pretty sure that Obama supporters would be pretty upset if the superdelegates awarded the nomination contrary to pledged delegates. I'm pretty sure superdelegates aren't stupid.

Also, how do you go from "caucuses are antidemocratic" to "pledged delegates are for chumps" without your head exploding?

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 2:11 AM

Michael,

Great work pointing out the popular vote totals there. Just one thing -- you appear to have Obama and Clinton's vote totals in Utah switched around. And you have Delaware and Massachusetts spelled incorrectly, but that's of a bit less importance.

Posted by jbryan | February 10, 2008 2:11 AM

John Petty, WA is not just Seattle (or more specifically your stereotype of Seattle). Look at the detailed results here:
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/states/WA.html
or here:
http://www.wa-democrats.org/index.php?page=display&id=273

Obama did well in white working-class areas, including counties north and south of King County, and he did well in the Eastern half of the state, which is a lot more like Idaho (come to think of it, he won Idaho too the other week). He did well on the southern border, which bodes well for Oregon.

Posted by Colin | February 10, 2008 2:12 AM

"If Obama wins the pledged delegate total and the popular vote, I can't see the superdelegates giving the nomination to Clinton unless they're actively working for John McCain."

Look, we actually have some history for this scenario.

In 1984, Gary Hart won the most states, the most popular votes, and the most pledged delegates - all by non-trivial margins over Mondale. Hart was also doing better in general election matchups than Mondale.

And yet Hart was slaughtered among superdelegates and denied the nomination.

A candidate like Hart or Obama with a coalition based on independent voters is at a severe disadvantage in superdelegate allocation. As long as Clinton holds registered Dems, she's going to have an edge among superdelegates.

Figuring out whether Clinton's advantage in superdelegates will be sufficient to cancel out Obama's advantage in caucus delegates is what is making this interesting more interesting than '84.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 2:13 AM

Jasper: as I already noted, Obama is already leading in the popular vote.

Gee, Michael. You left Florida off your list of popular vote tallies. I wonder why.

Posted by Jasper | February 10, 2008 2:13 AM

Obama had a great comment in his speech today about NCLB, and how it's important to give kids education in arts, music, and poetry, instead of teaching to the tests. This is a parent talking, and anyone can relate to it. It's not about spin, it's not likely to be decisive to a lot of people, but it tells you that Obama's about more than the range of artificially limited issues politicians may discuss. He's reaching into places that voters didn't know could be touched. One governs in prose -- but there's more to life and the presidency than governing.

Posted by David B. | February 10, 2008 2:14 AM

You left Florida off your list of popular vote tallies. I wonder why.

Florida doesn't have any delegates to award because they haven't had DNC-sanctioned primary. They may have a caucus later on, though.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 2:15 AM

In 1984, Gary Hart won the most states, the most popular votes, and the most pledged delegates - all by non-trivial margins over Mondale. Hart was also doing better in general election matchups than Mondale.
And yet Hart was slaughtered among superdelegates and denied the nomination.

3 differences:
1) Donna Rice sex scandal that led many Dems to see Hart as unelectable in the general election.

2) 1984 was the dark ages compared to now in the rate at which information circulates. Hart won the West coast big on Super Tuesday, but didn't get the perception of victory because the entire East coast press went to print before those results were in. Also, there was no internet to spread outrage among the little people about the injustice of superdelegates overturning the popular will.

3) The Democratic party now had that negative precedent to learn from. Mondale was slaughtered in the general election. Who would want to repeat that?

Posted by Ban Johnson | February 10, 2008 2:23 AM

"Also, how do you go from "caucuses are antidemocratic" to "pledged delegates are for chumps" without your head exploding?"

The nomination process itself is undemocratic by design. It has a myriad number of intentionally undemocratic features, with caucus delegates and superdelegates merely being the most notorious.

And "counting pledged delegates is for chumps" since that's not what earns you the nomination. Counting pledged delegates in a nomination race is like counting popular votes in a Presidential general election. Moral victories aren't the same thing as actual victories.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 2:24 AM

Florida doesn't have any delegates to award because they haven't had DNC-sanctioned primary. They may have a caucus later on, though.

Right. But Florida most certainly had a popular vote, which is what I was inquiring about. I'm willing to forget about Michigan, where Obama, after all wasn't on the ballot. But Florida's ballot listed both Clinton and Obama, and both candidates had extremely active campaigns being waged by surrogates. Oh, and Obama had made an ad buy that reached millions of Florida households.

Posted by Jasper | February 10, 2008 2:25 AM

In 1984, Gary Hart won the most states, the most popular votes, and the most pledged delegates - all by non-trivial margins over Mondale. Hart was also doing better in general election matchups than Mondale.

So you're saying the DNC wants to lose 49 states in november?

Posted by WillieStyle | February 10, 2008 2:25 AM

"Donna Rice sex scandal that led many Dems to see Hart as unelectable in the general election."

Ahhh...

You must be a student of history, Ban Johnson.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 2:27 AM

And yet Hart was slaughtered among superdelegates and denied the nomination.

And, as all the superdelegates will know, this strategy led to a glorious outcome for the Democratic party and the nation.

Oh wait....

Posted by Tractarian | February 10, 2008 2:28 AM

So you're saying the DNC wants to lose 49 states in november?

I wouldn't put anything past the bunch of losers who've nominated McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry.

There's something perverse in the Democratic psyche that would rather lose with a nice sad-sack than win with somebody who appeals to independents and Republicans.

Posted by Ban Johnson | February 10, 2008 2:31 AM

Ban writes "Donna Rice sex scandal that led many Dems to see Hart as unelectable in the general election."

Good point. It's amazing that Hart was able to go as far as he did - almost causing a brokered convention - even with a serious scandal on his hands.

Posted by TLM | February 10, 2008 2:35 AM

I'm ready at this point to predict that the undemocratic superdelegates are going to break to Obama.

Why? It's the week after Puerto Rico (Obama will do better with Puerto Ricans than he does with Central Americans or Cubans, but that's another issue, Obama officially expects to lose.) the convention will either be a coronation designed to maximize a post-convention "bounce" for the nominee or an ugly and dirty fight over sitting delegates from states that broke the rules.

Meanwhile if Obama has the same 7 point differential with respect to McCain he has now in the polls, there are plausible electoral vote maps that Obama wins that Clinton loses.

How Obama polls in Ohio (vs McCain) by then is much more important than whether or not he beat Hillary. I don't see how beating Hillary is important at all, even if Hill blows him out. (As long as Obama keeps some pledged delegate lead that gives the supervoters an excuse.) Assuming he polls better against McCain, losing Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania will easily be forgiven.

A fighting convention squanders an opportunity to use the convention as unpaid advertising. How do you get a bounce-production convention instead of a fight convention? The superdelegates start calling CNN after PR and saying they've decided to vote for Obama.

Now there is a big Obama "lead" in "delegates", the conventional wisdom can become that Obama already won it and the fighting can begin over the colors of the balloons, who speaks when and what vice president helps most in November.

Unless Clinton reaches the point where she polls better against McCain, or least beats him consistently in polls by July, the reverse can't happen.

I think Obama takes the nomination with a pledged delegate advantage of one. Obama has a chance to take the nomination with a small pledged delegate disadvantage if he polls much better against McCain and has something else that gives superdelegates an excuse to vote for him, like more popular votes or something.

I expect Obama supporters to change their opinions about superdelegates by the end. If only to "good thing they came to their senses this time."

Posted by Arnold Evans | February 10, 2008 2:36 AM

Ban, it should be pointed out Obama models himself on Reagan who won the 49 states, and not Mondale. With Obama I'm pretty certain we can repeat a Reagan landslide of 40+ states.

Posted by TLM | February 10, 2008 2:42 AM

"There's something perverse in the Democratic psyche that would rather lose ... than win with somebody who appeals to independents and Republicans."

It's called ideology. I'm not a fan of Clinton, but Obama's decision to run against universal healthcare in an attempt to pander to independents and Republicans is how he lost my vote.

I think Clinton and Obama are about equal in general election strength, so like most Democratic voters to date, I went with someone who was more to the left on the issues.

Clinton is easily winning the Democratic base ex-AA's due to ideology, and that is going to weigh upon the superdelegates.

Weak parties like the Republicans in '08 or the Democrats in '92 nominate candidates who sell out the base to pander to independents. The Democrats in '08 are not a weak party.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 2:42 AM

Petey,

It seems to me that your argument is predicated upon a very specific view of how superdelegate allocation is going to occur.

Why should we consider the pledged delegate totals? Because it is is not implausible that that the those totals will influence superdelegates.

Some on this thread are claiming that superdelegates will not want to overturn a pledged delegate victory from either side.

You might respond by saying that they will feel less pressure to stick with the pledged delegate count if Obama's lead in pledged delegates is a) small and/or b) results from overwhelming caucus victories.

I simply don't see why this is true. It seems to me that, prior to the convention, there will be overwhelming public, media, and intraparty pressure for superdelegates to go with the pledged delegate vote. And I don't think this pressure will be based on the nuanced niceties between the Official Petey Recognized States that Count and Official Petey Declared Meaningless States.

Maybe the Florida/Michigan thing will shape up one way or the other. Maybe electability arguments will be influentially pro-Obama when he has a small delegate lead. Maybe there won't be any pressure. I am not sure. It is only probabilities at this point.

You seem very certain about how the superdelegate dynamic will work out. I see no reason for this certainty.

And it is almost certain, it seems to me, that pledged delegate counts will play SOME role in these deliberations. If Obama or Clinton end up winning the pledged count by 100-200 delegates, that would probably play a very large role in the superdelegate dynamics.

Posted by PTS | February 10, 2008 2:44 AM

Moral victories aren't the same thing as actual victories.

Coming from Petey, that's fucking hilarious. Admit it: this is all designed to pinch pennies on the ask at InTrade now, isn't it?

I've reached the point of believing that Clinton needs to lose this, for her own benefit. She's a better politician than her campaign, as her Tuesday speech proved, but she's either going to have to break out from it or have it broken. And my gut feeling is that the latter will happen, because the drawn out final push after OH/TX just gives the Clinton campaign more time to piss people off.

Like I said on Tuesday night, Clinton is less well positioned to win ugly. You can make the argument about big state victories, but scrappy victories create anti-momentum. Of course, the Dems could live up to the cliché and hand her a numeric victory -- yeah, Petey, the only one that counts -- after a nasty fight, but the result will make 1968 look like a scout jamboree. But if you're long on the Hillary contract, I'm sure it's worth it.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 10, 2008 2:44 AM

Jasper:

I excluded Florida because, as I Florida voter, I'm all too aware of how illegitimate that "election" was. "Active" campaigns? Please. I left Florida to volunteer for Obama in Cali and didn't bother filling out an absentee ballot. There was -0- campaigning down by either candidate. There was no organized GOTV efforts led by either campaign. Did some surrogates make some efforts to boost their candidates totals? Sure. But you can't ex post facto pretend like the thing wasn't written off for months. There were reports of Democrats believing they were actually forbidden from going to the polling locations, because they're read about how the state had been stripped of its involvement in the process.

So, no, I don't include the Florida vote totals b/c they are, for all intents and purposes, meaningless. You want to open up Florida for a month and let the campaigns go at it there, and have a vote where its clear to all parties involved that the votes, actually, you know, count...? Great. I'd love to actually have an election in Florida. But the whole point of looking at popular vote totals is to try to get a read on the preferences of Dem voters around the country, and by no stretch of the imagination are the Florida results at all representative of the voter preferences in Florida. I know I'm not alone amongst people who felt like there were plenty of better ways to support our candidates of choice then waste our time casting a meaningless vote.

Trying to go back and say, "well, actually, those votes mattered" after the fact isn't doing right by Florida, it's giving Florida voters the middle-finger.

We want a campaign and a chance to actually participate in democracy, not some Potemkin election.

jbryan:

thanks for catching those errors. I also had a slip-up with the LA vote totals. New numbers are Obama 50.07, Clinton 49.93

That's pretty damn close. Provisional ballots in NM and Cali could decide it (though I imagine those would favor Obama) up to this point, and again, those margins would be even smaller if we include Edwards' and others' vote totals. They're basically statistically tied.

Also Petey: recent polls suggest Obama and Cinton are statistically tied among registered Dems, and that the more likely one is to vote, the better he does. There is no metric by which Clinton is actually out-doing him in this election right now.

I still fail to see how it's in her favor that her campaign really sucks at caucusing. That means her supporters aren't enthusiastic or her campaign isn't good at organizing or both. As for the whole "caucuses disenfranchise her best demos", wasn't it her very campaign that was bragging throughout the fall/winter 07 that it was her demo that came out to vote, not his? Since when are elections dominated by the youth vote and the well-off? Wasn't the whole point of the "wine track/beer track" column that youth+well-off coalitions always lose Dem nominations...?

ROFL. Up is down, black is white.

Posted by Michael | February 10, 2008 2:45 AM

To paraphrase a wise Texas philosopher:

HRC was bourne on third base who thought she hid a triple . . . and expects her opponents to hit a grand slam to tie her.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 2:46 AM

"Good point. It's amazing that Hart was able to go as far as he did - almost causing a brokered convention - even with a serious scandal on his hands."

Ugh. TLM and Ban Johnson are about 4 years off the mark here...

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 2:47 AM

Way to dodge the issue, Petey. The superdelegates will surely remember that going against the popularly-elected candidate didn't work out so well in 1984. It won't work in 2008 either.

If Obama continues to lead in pledged delegates and popular vote, Hillary is toast. Period.

Posted by Tractarian | February 10, 2008 2:52 AM

"But if you're long on the Hillary contract, I'm sure it's worth it."

No position at the moment, but I've got a bid in that's close to being picked up on Clinton. I think it's a 50/50 race, so it's just a matter of buying when things get too far off center, which they're about to do.

-----

And Intrade aside, I voted Clinton, so obviously my non-monetary sympathies lie on that side.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 2:53 AM

Hillary "Flag-burning amendment/banning violent video games/Kyl Amendment/Deporting illegal immigrants without due process" Clinton doesn't pander to independents by selling out the base?

Jaysus, Petey, only you could use "ideology" as an explanation for voting for the less charismatic, less progressive candidate in the election.

Posted by PTS | February 10, 2008 2:55 AM

"There is no metric by which Clinton is actually out-doing him in this election right now."

Among popular votes cast by registered Dems, Clinton has a comfortable lead over Obama as of right now.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 2:56 AM

And Clinton leads amongst her immediate family members too. Certainly that should count as well.

Posted by PTS | February 10, 2008 3:01 AM

Among popular votes cast by registered Dems, Clinton has a comfortable lead over Obama as of right now.

That sounds like a "moral victory" to me...

Posted by Tractarian | February 10, 2008 3:01 AM

Among popular votes cast by registered Dems, Clinton has a comfortable lead over Obama as of right now.

Are you attempting self-parody here, or do you really think this is a valid metric?

So: registered Dems who live in states where there are caucuses don't count, and Dem-voters who aren't registered as Dems don't count.

Brilliant.

That's a great way to get a read on the electorate.

And I'm actually not even convinced that's necessarily true, either. If she does have a lead, I don't think it's as substantial as you think. I'll do some math, but all those African-American voters you guys have been so eager to discount are, after all, registered Democrats, by and large. And Indies have not been huge portions of the electorate. And Obama currently has a slim lead in total votes from primaries. So, even with all your absurd qualifiers, I don't think it's obvious that you're even right. But then, you also thought Clinton was winning the popular vote overall, and you were, of course, wrong. So that wouldn't be new territory for you.

Posted by Michael | February 10, 2008 3:03 AM

"Jaysus, Petey, only you could use "ideology" as an explanation for voting for the less charismatic, less progressive candidate in the election."

I just happen to think the Democratic Party's core issue at the moment is universal healthcare. If that single issue didn't exist, I'd likely have voted Obama.

If Obama were the more progressive candidate in the race, he wouldn't be campaigning hard against universal healthcare.

Obama's non-progressive stands on universal healthcare and Social Security are why he's losing the Democratic vote and winning the General Electric vote. Those issue don't animate the demographics of the lefty blogosphere, but they're the core of the Party nonetheless.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 3:07 AM

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the other front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, also shifted to the left last year. She ranked as the 16th-most-liberal senator in the 2007 ratings, a computer-assisted analysis that used 99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale in each of three issue categories. In 2006, Clinton was the 32nd-most-liberal senator.

If Clinton's voters are voting for her because of ideology and not name recognition and good feelings towards the other Clinton, it isn't because of liberal ideology.

Posted by Arnold Evans | February 10, 2008 3:08 AM

Alright, I got all the numbers I need to do the reg. Dem in primary numbers for ya, Petey. I feel kinda dirty indulging this, as it is, in fact, ridiculous. I'll do it tomorrow, have been putting together a blog post on this stuff anyway, will add it in. Look out for it on tpmcafe under the name "Michael L"

Posted by Michael | February 10, 2008 3:16 AM

he's winning the Democratic vote and winning the General Election vote.

Fixed.

BTW, Wikipedia says Mondale won 2191 delegates to Hart's 1200 in 1984. Did Mondale really need the superdelegates to leapfrog Hart?

Posted by Tractarian | February 10, 2008 3:17 AM

Just a quick note, the Rice scandal that derailed Hart was in the 1988 election, not the 1984.

But Obama's campaign and organization in 2008 is light years beyond what Hart had in '84 (and Obama's a better candidate); I think he just may have enough juice to overcome Hillary's huge institutional advantages.

Posted by Neil | February 10, 2008 3:19 AM

If Obama were the more progressive candidate in the race, he wouldn't be campaigning hard against universal healthcare.

Obama's non-progressive stands on universal healthcare and Social Security are why he's losing the Democratic vote and winning the General Electric vote. Those issue don't animate the demographics of the lefty blogosphere, but they're the core of the Party nonetheless.

I just want to put that out there again and savor it. "Obama is campaigning hard against universal healthcare" and "Obama's non-progressive stands . . . are why he's losing the Democratic vote and winning the General Electric vote".

Wow.

There is no way that you could possibly believe this.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 3:19 AM

"And I'm actually not even convinced that's necessarily true"

Then you're a moron. If the total popular vote is 50.2% - 49.8% after tonight, it should be obvious even to the clueless that Clinton has more popular votes among registered Dems.

If you want to crunch each state by hand, you'll quickly find it to be the case.

Just look at California to start. 60 seconds of math shows that Obama rolled up almost a 200,000 vote advantage over Clinton among CA indies. Given that you have Obama with a 50,000 vote advantage nationally...

-----

"That sounds like a "moral victory" to me..."

Just responding to the comment saying that Clinton wasn't ahead in any metric so far. Clinton is comfortably ahead in popular votes from registered Dems, as well as being ahead in delegates.

And it's worth noting that superdelegates do tend to be more responsive to the wishes of registered Dems than the wishes of independent voters, as well they should be.

But in a very real sense, you are correct that being ahead in popular votes from registered Dems is just as meaningless as being ahead among pledged delegates.

All metrics but 2025 are essentially meaningless.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 3:25 AM

So, no, I don't include the Florida vote totals b/c they are, for all intents and purposes, meaningless.

Michael: Florida's vote totals were not meaningless. Senator Clinton won a substantial popular vote victory -- like all of her big state victories - in a state with huge import in November. She won against a candidate who held a monopoly in television advertising and who, as the Tampa Tribune reported, violated the "no campaigning" pledge. Moreover, given the Sunshine State's strategic importance, it is highly likely Florida's delegates will be seated. So nice work on not bothering to vote.

But then, you also thought Clinton was winning the popular vote overall, and you were, of course, wrong. So that wouldn't be new territory for you.

Michael: She was winning the popular vote heading into today when you count all the votes of people who participated in Democratic primaries. You had to remove Florida's votes to make your numbers work. Don't you remember?

So you were, of course, wrong, right? (And I've charitably left out Michigan's totals).

Posted by Jasper | February 10, 2008 3:26 AM

"But then, you also thought Clinton was winning the popular vote overall, and you were, of course, wrong."

I was completely correct as of the tallies available when I wrote that. As your own fucking numbers show, it was only the LA tallies that shifted the result. Moron.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 3:30 AM

"Counting pledged delegates is a chump's game. Counting delegates is all that matters."

The corrupt idiocy of the Superdelegate (crony) system is one reason I will never give the DNC one penny or one ounce of my support...

"Among popular votes cast by registered Dems, Clinton has a comfortable lead over Obama as of right now."

...and the perpetual tendency of registered Dems to prefer utterly unlikeable, sellout politicians to demonstrably better options is the other reason.

Posted by T.K. | February 10, 2008 3:35 AM

I keep hearing about how the Clintons win where it counts...those big states. Surely they must be the better candidate if they can carry those huge blocks of land.

Take a gander at ALL the numbers so far:

Super Tuesday
TOTAL VOTES CAST

Clinton: 50.2% (7,427,942)
Obama: 49.8% (7,370,023)

**Clinton wins this category by 57,919

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/02/super_tuesday_the_most_interes.html

Figures below do not include American Samoa and Virgin Islands as site does not have data. Clinton won AS, Obama won VI 3 delegates each unconfirmed.

Overall primary vote
Clinton 9,060,808 - 870,303 (FL) - 327,419 (MI) = 7,863,086
Obama 8,598,013 - 575,794 (FL) = 8,022,219

Obama wins this category by 159,133

Total States won
Clinton - 10
Obama - 18

19 primaries
Clinton - 9
Obama - 9
New Mexico too close to call? Both site have Clinton leading, but neither has awarded a win, not sure why.
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2008&st=NM&off=0&elect=1&fips=35&f=0

10 caucuses
Clinton - 1
Obama - 9

Earned delegates
Clinton - 877
Obama - 908

Obama wins this category by 31

Superdelegates
Clinton - 223
Obama - 131

**Clinton wins this category by 92

So the Clintons, by focusing on the big states has managed to win the super Tuesday popular vote by 57,000 and the unearned superdelegates by 92...and THAT'S IT.

So please...someone tell me why they are showing they are winning?

Data site:
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=2008&off=0&elect=1&f=0

Delegate data site:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/scorecard/#D

Posted by G Davis | February 10, 2008 3:39 AM

Tentatively and conservatively, here's how Obama did tonight in terms of net delegates:

WA + 26
NE + 8
LA + 8
VI + 3

Total: + 45 at least, Ambinder and Petey notwithstanding

Obama got around 90% of the vote in the Virgin Islands. I would submit that Democrats living down in the Virgin Islands have things pretty well figured out. We might want to take their overwhelming consensus seriously.

Posted by southpaw | February 10, 2008 3:42 AM

southpaw, you moron, there's too many black people in the Virgin Islands for their votes to count. Don't you know the rules?

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 3:43 AM

Petey,

What precisely was his less progressive stand on Social Security again? Substance, not rhetoric.

I would think that the last 8 years would cause you to value foreign policy judgments and positions a little bit. Immigration doesn't seem to matter much either. Nor do torture or habeas corpus issues. That's a lot of stuff that doesn't matter as much as healthcare mandates.

Clinton's supposed advantage amongst registered democrats (which doesn't strike me a huge one) is almost entirely due to her large advantage among women, who make up more than half of the democratic base.

In order for your thesis to be correct, you would have to believe that women support Clinton because her healthcare plan has mandates while Obama does not. I suggest that this claim is not remotely plausible.

If Obama is such a conservative in sheep's clothing, then how is he so effectively able motivate the most liberal demographic (college age people) and do his best in caucuses, which favor high-information activists?

Are college age people stupid? Or perhaps the high-information activists that supposedly dominate the caucuses are stupid?

Which is more likely? Clinton leads amongst registered Dems because of a)high name recognition b) support of the Democratic establishment c) a perceived superiority in experience with the Republican machine and d) a perceived (perhaps with some reason)superiority with regard to gender issues or Clinton leads amongst registered Dems because her healthcare plan includes mandates while Obama's does not?

To ask the question is to answer it.

Posted by PTS | February 10, 2008 3:45 AM

My above post said, Obama still has a long row to hoe these next couple rounds of states. He absolutely needs good showings in all the states and must win his share.

He does that, he's in good shape. He wins one of the large 3 (Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania) he's in great shape.

Keep it rollin' y'all!

Vote hope, not fear. Vote unity, not divide and conquer.

Posted by G Davis | February 10, 2008 3:52 AM

"If Obama is such a conservative in sheep's clothing..."

That's not my position.

I would've voted for Obama over Clinton were it not for his position on the single issue of universal healthcare.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 3:54 AM

I would've voted for Obama over Clinton were it not for his position on the single issue of universal healthcare.

I'll say it again. Obama's coattails are worth more than Hillary's promises. You'll have a better chance at passing UHC with a big Dem majority than you will with Hillary in the White House.

Posted by southpaw | February 10, 2008 4:00 AM

"Total: + 45 at least, Ambinder and Petey notwithstanding"

No argument with your numbers from this corner, southpaw. I was guessing Obama had picked up even more than that tonight.

As stated, this continues to be a race between Obama's caucus delegate advantage and Clinton's superdelegate advantage.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 4:00 AM

"I would've voted for Obama over Clinton were it not for his position on the single issue of universal healthcare."

Really? Really? You think that mandates are so important that you're willing to disregard everything else (electability, foreign policy, vision, personal preference, etc) to base your decision on this one little thing?

It's not even a promise of single-payer healthcare, it's a freaking tiny detail that will be lost in the sausage of a healthcare bill.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 4:08 AM

"Obama had a great comment in his speech today about NCLB, and how it's important to give kids education in arts, music, and poetry, instead of teaching to the tests."

Obama sounds like the liberal white music teacher character Mrs. Elliot, in the biopic about the legendary principal Joe Clark, Lean on Me.

First Clark reminds everyone of the situation:

"You've tried it your way for years, and your students can't even pass the State's Minimum Basic Skills Test. THAT MEANS THEY CAN BARELY READ!"

Then he gets called on the carpet after he cancels Mrs. Elliot's Mozart concert so the kids can focus on preparing for the Minimum Basic Skills Test:

Joe Clark: I don't have time for Mrs. Elliott's problem!
Dr. Frank Napier: You better make time!
Joe Clark: We are being crucified by a process that is turning blacks into a permanent underclass here, Frank. A permanent underclass!
[Dr. Napier turns away from him and puts some papers in his briefcase]
Joe Clark: See! See, nobody wants to talk about that! NOBODY! Mrs. Elliott's missionary zeal about Mozart has nothing to do with our problem. Nothing! What good is Mozart going to do a bunch of children who can't go out and get a job?

Posted by Fred | February 10, 2008 4:10 AM

"You'll have a better chance at passing UHC with a big Dem majority than you will with Hillary in the White House."

The problem is that Obama has put himself in a box where pushing for UHC would essentially be impossible with him as President. If after spending the entire campaign running against UHC, he were to suddenly flip to the other side once he got into office, it'd destroy his Presidency. It's just not going to happen.

I don't think it'll be easy for Clinton to get 60 votes in the Senate on UHC, but at least it'd be a possibility.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 4:12 AM

"My above post said, Obama still has a long row to hoe these next couple rounds of states."

Just don't say he has to do spade work, or his surrogates will call you a racist like they did Hillary.

Posted by Fred | February 10, 2008 4:14 AM

I don't think it'll be easy for Clinton to get 60 votes in the Senate on UHC, but at least it'd be a possibility.

Can you, for a second, imagine any Republicans crossing the aisle to support "Hillary Clinton's Government-MANDATED Healthcare"? The right-wing will eat her and anyone else associated with her alive (just like they did to the immigration compromises). Not gonna happen.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 4:22 AM

"Really? Really? You think that mandates are so important?"

Yup. Really.

"it's a freaking tiny detail that will be lost in the sausage of a healthcare bill."

There will be no healthcare bill without mandates. Adverse selection problems will make Obama's healthcare bill dead on arrival, and he'll be politically unable to shift to a UHC position.

Universality is a red line for me due to the politics involved, as well as due to the policy implications.

And the next Congress is our best shot in a generation for passing a UHC bill. I'm not willing to piss that opportunity away due to my general lack of enthusiasm for Senator Clinton.

Everything else at stake in this nomination battle pales in comparison.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 4:23 AM

If after spending the entire campaign running against UHC, he were to suddenly flip to the other side once he got into office, it'd destroy his Presidency.

I don't believe that would happen. Mandates are a big deal to policy wonks, but they don't make good newspaper copy. If President Obama suddenly launched preemptive air strikes against Iran, that might destroy his presidency.

On the other thand, if the Democratic Congress sent Obama a bill with a mandate, and he signed it . . . I imagine it would be treated as a fairly banal concession to political reality--to the extent it was remarked upon at all.

Posted by southpaw | February 10, 2008 4:28 AM

"The right-wing will eat her and anyone else associated with her alive (just like they did to the immigration compromises). Not gonna happen."

So the Obama philosophy is to bargain away the store ahead of time because the fight would be a political effort to win.

It's the timidity of hope.

I don't think UHC is going to be all that difficult to pass in the next Congress, as long as we have a Democratic President who hasn't enthusiastically campaigned against UHC, of course...

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 4:35 AM

Petey,

Time and time again Hillary has demonstrated that (1) she is willing to sell out liberal principles (not just rhetorically but legislatively) and (2) despite this, she is a very polarizing figure (even as first-lady of her own party).

If she wins the Whitehouse, she's not going to have enough of a mandate to get much done, let alone a strong UHC bill. Hillarycare Part II, I imagine, would be a repeat of Hillarycare Part I.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 4:37 AM

Seriously, Petey, I've respected a lot of your commentary in the past, but you've gone round the bend. I really think you're letting your disappointment that Obama out-campaigned Edwards color your judgment.

Obama isn't "campaigning hard against universal healthcare". He's repeatedly said he's for it. The only thing you can say that he's campaigning against is an up-front universal mandate as a politically viable path to universal healthcare. And you know what, much as it pains the wonk in me to admit this: he's right. His political instincts are way better than mine.

I mean seriously, he's succeeding with this attack in a *Democratic* nomination fight - the most politically friendly possible ground for the pro-mandate crowd. What do you think Republicans and independents think of mandates? Don't you think that will affect how Congress deals with them? And what sort of bill we wind up with?

At best, the argument is that we shouldn't trade mandates away for nothing and I think that really ignores the dynamics of what is going on. I think we're trading away mandates for a President Obama and more Democratic Congresscritters to back him. And that is clearly a trade worth making.

And, honestly, given the whole discussion of "back premiums", which Obama is open to (and probably in favor of at the end of the day) we're potentially just arguing about the name of the penalty for not purchasing health insurance - is it a "mandate" or a "back premium". I know which one sounds like better framing to me. And you can argue that we won't crush people with back premiums when they're sick (but what about payment plans?) and I'd counter that Hillary does not put forth a mandate enforcement mechanism. And for good reason - every mechanism anyone can think of is politically radioactive.

Look at the Massachusetts situation. We have the closest thing to Hillary's health plan right now. And in what we like to call the bluest state in the nation (with one of the smallest groups of uninsured to boot) our mandated healthcare is over cost, hasn't signed up all the uninsured (because the only politically viable thing was a token penalty). What do you think would happen if we tried to replicate this nationwide? Maybe everything about the Massachusetts experience doesn't generalize, but it is the best evidence we have and it isn't good for an individual mandate.

And where does the progressivism of mandates come from anyway? When we were debating healthcare in Massachusetts no one ever considered an individual mandate progressive. That was *Romney's* *conservative* contribution to the universal healthcare plan. What was the real progressive alternative - an *employer* mandate, not an individual one. And Hillary doesn't have a plan with an employer mandate because either she's scared of 1994 or she's become DLC corporate captive. Either way, she'd have a much harder time than Obama would in moving to an employer mandate.

I'm just not convinced. And I'm growing ever more disappointed in you, Ezra Klein and Paul Krugman for not seeing outside of your overly-wonkish boxes.

Posted by Ravi | February 10, 2008 4:40 AM

The Clinton philosophy is to bargain away the store.

Fixed.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 4:41 AM

"On the other thand, if the Democratic Congress sent Obama a bill with a mandate, and he signed it..."

I don't think there is any chance whatsoever that Congress is going to produce a UHC bill without a President actively campaigning for it.

You simply won't be able to get to 60 votes without a President using the bully pulpit and marshaling support. The historical analogs of successful landmark legislation all involve active WH involvement.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 4:44 AM

Here in VA, I'll guarantee Mark Warner has a better chance getting into the Senate with Obama driving turnout at the top of the ticket.

I'm almost sure the same is true with Udall in Colorado, Franken (mirabile dictu) in Minnesota, Stumbo in Kentucky, and even LaRocco in Idaho. We'll get a lot closer to 60 with Obama.

Posted by southpaw | February 10, 2008 4:48 AM

"Obama isn't "campaigning hard against universal healthcare". He's repeatedly said he's for it."

Non-Universal ≠ Universal.

Words have commonly accepted meanings, y'know...

"Hillary does not put forth a mandate enforcement mechanism."

Clinton has finally started talking about "automatic enrollment", which is why she got my vote.

"And I'm growing ever more disappointed in you, Ezra Klein and Paul Krugman "

I'll proudly stand with those folks. You can stand with the Republicans and Austan Goolsbee.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 4:54 AM

I'm no great student of history, but I seem to remember hearing about a president who ran on hope and hazily-sketched policy. He was wildly popular and swept into office with 57% of the popular vote. He used this electoral mandate to pass a sweeping series of legislative acts he dubbed "The New Deal". I'm sure he was criticized for having sins similar to Obama's.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 4:56 AM

You simply won't be able to get to 60 votes without a President using the bully pulpit and marshaling support.

He's going to have to push for the bill. Nevertheless, if the Dodd or Feingold or Clinton Amendment should happen to pass along the way, Obama can take a philosophical view of it.

It's just a much more plausible scenario than Hillary getting down in the mud of 52-48 Senate with Mitch McConnell and extracting a mandate by brute political force.

Posted by southpaw | February 10, 2008 4:57 AM

What is frustrating about Petey is that he refuses to respond to the arguments you make against position. He simply shifts the argument to new territory.

Orginally, we were discussing his implausible claim that pledged delegate counts are irrelevant and would have no influence on superdelegate decisions.

Petey was certain of this. With no evidence.

Then, we were discussing his implausible claim that the Democratic "base" was voting against Obama because of his supposedly unacceptably moderate positions on Social Security and healthcare mandates.

Petey was certain of this. With no evidence.

Now, we are discussing Petey's claim that healthcare mandates make Clinton the best progressive candidate, despite her pandering on other important issues (immigration, habeas corpus).

And soon I bet we will be talking about the specific policy wonk dynamics of healthcare mandates. And we will have all forgotten how implausible all of Petey's other claims were during this thread.

So, I think I am done for the night. I will say several things:

1) The idea that the mandate the President receives is based upon nuanced understanding of his or her policies is simply farcical. Bush was elected by people who got the bulk of his specific policies incorrect. The idea that the minute specifics of a white paper will matter to the political dynamics of the post-election law-making involves a critical misunderstanding of politics. What matters is the size of the mandate given to the candidate, not to his or her policies.

2) An analysis of Obama's legislative record will indicate that he is good at getting progressive reforms passed in the face of opposition (the video-taping confessions law, nuclear proliferation etc etc). And Clinton is not (no significant legislative accomplishments, the failure of Hillarycare).

3) It is extraordinarily unlikely that the Democrats will pick up enough seats in the Senate to form a filibuster proof majority. Thus, any healthcare bill will require Republican votes.
a)Those votes will only be forthcoming if the President wins by a landslide and has an overwhelming personal mandate.
b) Obama is the only candidate, on either side, that has as a real possibility.

4) Neither plan as presented will do anything to solve the underlying structural problems with rising medical costs or healthcare in America. Clinton's plan is ersatz health reform to an almost equal extent as Obama's in that sense, even though it is probably slightly better. I fail to see how this makes up for much larger differences on immigration, habeas corpus and privacy, foreign policy etc etc. Rising entitlement-medical costs are going to eat us alive, and neither plan does a whit of good on that front.

And with that, good night all.

Posted by PTS | February 10, 2008 5:03 AM

I'd counter that Hillary does not put forth a mandate enforcement mechanism

She's mused about garnishing people's wages. That might seem fair to a policy wonk like her, but it is political poison. Obama's approach makes sense given the radioactive nature of the healthcare problem in the United States. Clinton is all poised to repeat her earlier disaster in this area, confident, like all people with her peculiar mix of intelligence and stupidity, that the sheer logic of it will win people over in the end. Not going to happen.

It's not good enough to have the best plan if it never gets adopted.
.

Posted by sunsin | February 10, 2008 5:04 AM

"Here in VA, I'll guarantee Mark Warner has a better chance getting into the Senate with Obama driving turnout at the top of the ticket."

Mark Warner would win this November with Dennis Kucinich at the top of the ticket.

Mark Warner would win this November with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the top of the ticket.

-----

"We'll get a lot closer to 60 with Obama."

I think it's a perfectly valid point to say that we're likely to pick up an extra seat or so at the margins with Obama at the top of the ticket.

But I'd rather have 56 seats with a President who is willing to push for UHC than have 57 seats with a President who has already bargained away UHC.

(And FWIW, while I think Obama is indeed marginally better for downballot races, I don't think he's any better situated to beat McCain for the WH. I think the CW of Clinton having a lower ceiling but a higher floor than Obama is entirely correct.)

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 5:06 AM

And on to the next subject . . .

Welcome back Petey.

Posted by ben | February 10, 2008 5:10 AM

"Obama's approach makes sense given the radioactive nature of the healthcare problem in the United States."

Again, the timidity of hope.

I don't think healthcare is radioactive. I think there are solid majorities for UHC in this country, and I think a successful Democratic effort to pass UHC would reap political benefits for the Party and for the left for a generation.

Obama's willingness to abandon an important political fight before it's even begun should send chills down the spines of progressives anticipating what future political decisions a potential President Obama would make.

The stars have all aligned to pass UHC in the next Congress. Obama stands in the way.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 5:16 AM

Obama's willingness to abandon an important political fight before it's even begun should send chills down the spines of progressives anticipating what future political decisions a potential President Obama would make.

Chris Hayes:

Clinton's fundamentally defensive conception of how to defuse the Republicans on national security (neutralizing their hawkishness with one's own) is an example of a larger problem, rooted in the fact that so many of her circle served in her husband's Administration. Their political identities were formed in the crucible of crisis, from the Gingrich insurgency to the Ken Starr inquisition. The overriding imperative was survival against massive odds, often with a hostile public, press or both. Like an animal caught in a trap that chews off its leg to wriggle away, the Clinton crew by the end of its tenure had hardly any limbs left to propel an agenda. The benefit of this experience, much touted by the Clintons, is that they know how to fight and how to survive. But the cost has been high: those who lived through those years are habituated to playing defense and fighting rear-guard actions. We know how progressives fared under Clintonism: they were the bloodied limbs left in the trap. Clintonism, in other words, is the devil we know.

I don't know what any of that means, but it sounds pretty bad.

[Warner is probably bulletproof, as you say. But I stand by the prediction that Obama puts 3 or 4 more Senate seats into play than Clinton does.]

Posted by southpaw | February 10, 2008 5:23 AM

"The idea that the minute specifics of a white paper will matter to the political dynamics of the post-election law-making involves a critical misunderstanding of politics."

Bush campaigned on two major domestic initiatives: pissing away the surplus on tax cuts for the wealthy and enacting a Medicare prescription drug benefit funneled through private insurance companies.

Both initiatives passed Congress pretty much exactly as Bush had proposed during the campaign.

If you have the Congressional majorities to enact things, the specifics of what you've campaigned on really do matter.

Contrast and compare to the example of Jimmy Carter, (the best analog to Obama), who campaigned for nothing, and thus passed no significant legislation during his administration, despite having a solidly Democratic Congress.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 5:28 AM

Petey, you need to get this:

Individual Mandate DOES NOT EQUAL universal healthcare.

We have an individual mandate in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, we've still got a bunch of uninsured in Massachusetts (between 100,000 and 350,000+ if I'm combining the estimates in the linked article correctly).

Why? Because we have a ridiculously weak enforcement mechanism for the mandate (loss of just the state personal exemption - not a lot of money compared to the cost of a health plan).

Why is the penalty so pointless? Because a stronger penalty would have broken the political coalition that passed our healthcare reform.

Again, Petey, Massachusetts is one of the bluest states in the nation, with one of the lowest (pre-reform) uninsured populations. And an individual mandate is not effective here. Given this concrete evidence, what makes you think an individual mandate will be more effective nationwide? Especially as opposed to (for instance) an employer mandate combined with some sort of Medicaid expansion for the unemployed?

And where do you see Obama having ceded ground on the latter approach? He has a health plan. It is a big issue with political dividends, so it is in his political interest to pursue it (and I think we can agree he is a god politician). His path to universal healthcare might not be as direct as what Hillary proposes, but it sure looks way more politically viable (even without considering his coattails).

Posted by Ravi | February 10, 2008 5:29 AM

"We have an individual mandate in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, we've still got a bunch of uninsured in Massachusetts"

Yup. You don't have automatic enrollment in MA.

A mandate doesn't result in UHC without an automatic enrollment provision.

"(Obama's) path to universal healthcare might not be as direct as what Hillary proposes"

Obama's "path to UHC" involves not passing UHC.

You folks enjoy Orwellian language almost as much as the Bush crew.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 5:43 AM

"You folks enjoy Orwellian language almost as much as the Bush crew."

Do you seriously want to get into an argument about whether Obama or Clinton is more like Bush? How about the candidate that unequivocally condemns torture (as part of his stump speech these days!) instead of the candidate that says she'd have to investigate the details after she's elected? How about the candidate that is standing up for the Geneva Conventions instead of the "fighter" who didn't fight back as they were gutted?

How about the candidate that is afraid of talking to some foreign leaders instead of the one who isn't? How about the candidate who wants to deport immigrants who commit crimes "without legal process"? And what does that even mean? How can you know if someone's committed a crime without legal process?

Which candidate is leveraging their last name in the nomination process again? Which candidate is going for 50%+1 and which one is going for a broad mandate? Which candidate wants to change the rules of an election after it has been held again (see Florida 2000 & 2008, for example)? And I could go on...

Now I'll agree that either Clinton or Obama would be a huge improvement over Bush. But I think it is clear which of them is most like Bush... which one of them is campaigning more like Bush would and the one whose governing style would most resemble Bush's. And, in both cases, it isn't Obama.

Posted by Ravi | February 10, 2008 6:18 AM

I'm just a lurker to this (long) thread, but from my perspective, Petey appears likely to be a Clinton hack.

I could easily be wrong, and I'm not one to be accusatory, but all of his arguments have fallen flat. At best, it seems Petey just likes argument for argument's sake, regardless of the validity of his position.

Posted by Joshua Smith | February 10, 2008 7:29 AM

Ugh. TLM and Ban Johnson are about 4 years off the mark here...

ouch, i really should have looked that one up. my bad. history blurs together sometimes.

The point that nominating Mondale was a bad idea stands. Those wise superdelegates just knew so much better than the voters that year!

Posted by Ban Johnson | February 10, 2008 8:08 AM

Petey,

It is false that Gary Hart had more delegates than Walter Mondale. Gary Hart prevented Walter Mondale from accumulating 2025 pledged delegates, but he himself had far fewer pledged delegates than Walter Mondale, heading into the convention.

Hart would have needed to sweep the superdelegates to take the nomination, while Mondale needed only a few. He got them immediately and sewed up the nomination.

While no one will claim that Walter Mondale was the most electable politician in the world, he was chosen democratically by the party - he, not Gary Hart, won the most delegates in the primaries and caucuses.

What this says about the Obama/Clinton endgame is that, if it goes to convention with Clinton in the lead among pledged delegates, Clinton is likely to win. we already knew that. It does not give us much information as to what would happen if Obama came to the convention with a lead in pledged delegates.

Posted by DivGuy | February 10, 2008 8:15 AM

Can anyone explain to me why the Obama proponents are so sure he won't go down in the polls once someone starts running negative ads against him? Jeremiah Wright, the odd middle name, supporting drivers' licenses for illegals are obviously not going to be something that Hillary will talk about. Perhaps the Republicans won't either, but why assume that?

Posted by SMcC | February 10, 2008 8:16 AM

You have to love how Petey is all of a sudden pretending that mandates are what make up universal health care. Not a whole bunch of wonky stuff put together, but mandates, which Australia's UHC system lacked for a while. It's kind of like how Kevin Drum originally took a "one side says mandates are necessary, the other says they're not, there is too much noise in the data to tell either way" approach to the issue and then a month later turned around and said "mandates = UHC." Obama also only said the words "social security crisis" once in a speech and now suddenly he's running against social security. Now it is one thing if you define this as being the conservative candidate and Clinton as the liberal candidate if you only care about domestic issues. However, if to play this game you have to admit this.

This cuts to how Petey knows little about political viability despite calling people fucking morons above. He offered arguments on why Edwards was going to win the primary showing the same lack of understanding of how politics works and then substituted haughtiness for understanding as a way to intellectually bully his opponents via assertion while lacking the necessary analysis.

BTW, FDR criticized Hoover during the campaign in 1932 for failing to balance the budget. Somehow he didn't pay a political price for failing to balance the budget and instead starting a whole bunch of expensive New Deal programs. When people actually like you and what you do, it matters little what a single line in your policy paper read by 1,000 during the primary campaign actually said.

People care about things like Bush I saying, "read my lips, no new taxes" because taxes are a high-salience issue (being the driving concern of the GOP and all). Things like war is a high salience issue. Having a UHC plan is a high-to-medium salience issue (after all, people who voted on health care voted for Kerry despite his less-ambitious plan than Obama's or Clinton's. If he got elected and somehow got a bill to his desk that would be Petey's dream bill, he wouldn't all of a sudden lose support for signing it.)

Health care policy is too wonky to fit into soundbites. Mandates, as opposed to health care in general, is a low-salience issue. A lot of wonks forget that when it comes to electoral politics, a lot of people aren't wonks. In 2000, according to the New Yorker, voters on average thought Bush was the more pro-choice candidate, not Gore. If we have a president Obama and he gets a UHC bill on his desk that includes mandates he pushed for and then some pundit lashes out at him for not campaigning for mandates during the primary campaign most views - and thus potential voters - will simply shrug their shoulders and go "who cares and WTF is a mandate anyway?" The number of people who would punish Obama for this is very small. Considering that only a handful of wonks equate a plan with mandates with universal health care, the political fall out from endorsing the Petey Plan would be minimal. It isn't parallel to Bush pushing for lower top marginal tax rates and then getting lower top marginal tax rates, but instead pushing for a tax rebate on buying snow shoes in bulk in Alaska during the Winter Solstice as part of one's tax policy package.

Posted by Reality Man | February 10, 2008 8:21 AM

"Can anyone explain to me why the Obama proponents are so sure he won't go down in the polls once someone starts running negative ads against him? Jeremiah Wright, the odd middle name, supporting drivers' licenses for illegals are obviously not going to be something that Hillary will talk about. Perhaps the Republicans won't either, but why assume that?

Posted by SMcC | February 10, 2008 8:16 AM"

Nobody here is claiming that he won't be hurt by negative ads. However, he is starting with lower negatives than Clinton. Clinton is unique among Democrats in how high her negatives are with the electorate at large. She has alienated the African-American community, once one of her key bases of support. Judging from the last debate in which she pinned black economic woes on Latino immigration, she is hoping to win them back by alienating Latino voters, which is silly when 1) she is likely to be running against McCain, who co-sponsored immigration policy with Teddy Kennedy of all people and 2) African-Americans tend to have a more positive view of Latinos in general and illegal immigrants in particular than the general electorate, according to CNN. In addition, Obama has learned a bit how to make negative ads work for him. As Julian Sanchez and Ezra Klein pointed out in a bloggingheads segment a little while ago, by making the person attacking him look unhinged and dirty, he was able to make himself look above such petty nonsense, which coincided with his upward momentum in the polls in December leading into Iowa and his win there.

Posted by Reality Man | February 10, 2008 8:31 AM

Mandates, as opposed to health care in general, is a low-salience issue.

This is unresponsive to Petey's claim. He's not talking politics. There are a number of economic and social issues where rightist and center-right rhetoric is more effective against leftist and center-left claims, but that hardly justifies running to the right.

The argument put forward by most center-left economists is that without a mandate, you can't manage costs, and you will eventually break the system. A mandate is needed to create a large enough pool of insurees to allow for community rating - health care pricing that is not based on risk.

The risk, then, is that passing a health care bill as designed by Obama's center-right economic team (hey, Clinton's economic team is center-right, too**) would run the risk of ballooning costs that it could not control, and thus setting in motion a money scramble that could dismantle UHC and set the cause back for decades.

I'm not so sure about those claims. They have a bit of a "long run" focus to them, and they seem to suggest that cutting costs is immediately necessary along with providing insurance to everyone.

One door that Obama has not shut is automatic enrollment. If you have automatic enrollment, but no mandate, you can get the job done just as well. While Obama has been taking a rightist tack against mandates, he has yet to say a word about enrollment.

So, while it is true that Obama's plan does not attempt to cover everyone, and Hillary's does make that attempt, the issue of whether one definitionally "is" UHC and the other isn't, just isn't the point. The centrist and center-left economists calling for mandates do so not in order to insure everyone, but in order to manage costs so that community rating doesn't create a huge increase in health care costs, paid by the government.

**You know, we did have one candidate running from the left...

Posted by DivGuy | February 10, 2008 8:35 AM

And Petey already responded to the claim that Obama would sign a Senate bill that included mandates-

The only Health Care bill that will be passed under a Democratic Congress and Democratic President is the one chosen by the Democratic President. This is how things always have, and always will be done in this country. There will be no mandates in an Obama health care bill.

Posted by DivGuy | February 10, 2008 8:53 AM

Petey, Clinton is not winning more votes. Because caucus votes are generally based on delegates, not actual voters, the number of voters in caucus states are generaly undercounted. That makes it very difficult to figure out who is ahead in popular votes, especially when the numbers are extremely close, as they are in this instance. However, at least one source who has run the numbers suggests that Obama was ahead in popular votes *following Super Tuesday*. I can't find it now...but in any case, as of Super Tuesday, he was down in popular votes, even by an assessment which undercounts caucuses, by a pretty small amount (less than 1%, I think.) Having won a bunch more states (including the Lousiana primary), it seems clear that he's now ahead in popular votes. That can chance, as can the delegate count, but at the moment he's up in states won, up in earned delegates, up in popular votes. He's won more primaries and won more caucuses. He's won in every part of the country; New England, the South, West Coast, upper midwest, lower midwest -- and at least tied Clinton in one Southwestern state. He's also significantly out-fundraised her. Yet none of it counts because -- well, I guess maybe because you're desperate for it not to count, hmmm?

Posted by NoahB | February 10, 2008 8:59 AM

"It is false that Gary Hart had more delegates than Walter Mondale ... he himself had far fewer pledged delegates than Walter Mondale"

Stop the presses!

Correct you are, DivGuy, and wrong I was. I think I confused in my mind the actual fact that Hart had won more states than Mondale with my factually wrong claims above.

Mondale indeed won more pledged delegates and more votes than Hart.

Apologies to readers for my misstatements above about the '84 race. I do try to be a reliable source by not saying things I don't know to be true, and I failed that mission here. I really ought to stop sniffing glue.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 9:01 AM

"One door that Obama has not shut is automatic enrollment. If you have automatic enrollment, but no mandate, you can get the job done just as well."

I've heard this bandied around a few times now, and I still literally don't understand it.

How can you automatically enroll folks if you're not requiring that they have coverage?

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 9:07 AM

Petey's not actually a Clinton hack, although he is ridiculous.

Petey is also completely wrong about Mondale/Hart in 1984. The Primary season ended with Hart having the big mo, and Mondale without a majority of delegates, but he did have the plurality of pledged delegates.

From what I can tell from looking at old New York Times issues, Mondale had a lot more delegates than Hart, and was only slightly short of what he needed to win the nomination with pledged delegates alone. After the California/New Jersey primaries on June 5, Mondale and Hart both started calling superdelegates, and Mondale got the nod.

But Mondale was the leader in pledged delegates. New York Times said Mondale won 51% of pledged delegates, Hart 32%, and Jackson

Posted by John | February 10, 2008 9:08 AM

A caucus is an undemocratic way of choosing convention delegates, and I hope that '08 is the last time the Democratic Party employees a process which accomodates only those with lots of time on their hands.

Primaries are true democracy, enabling students, white wine drinkers, single mothers and blue collar workers an equal voice with full time students and the idle rich.

Posted by fjschmitz | February 10, 2008 9:09 AM

A caucus is an undemocratic way of choosing convention delegates, and I hope that '08 is the last time the Democratic Party employees a process which accomodates only those with lots of time on their hands.

Primaries are true democracy, enabling single mothers and blue collar workers an equal voice with full time students and the idle rich.

Posted by fjschmitz | February 10, 2008 9:11 AM

"Petey is also completely wrong about Mondale/Hart in 1984."

Yup. Mea culpa.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 9:12 AM

At this point I do not care which of them gets the nod, but I am concerned that Obama's weak performance in CA would put the state in play for McCain if he is the nominee.

Posted by bob h | February 10, 2008 9:13 AM

Damn it, smoked on the correction - I had loaded up the page an hour ago, so didn't see that the issue was already dealt with.

My understanding, Petey, is that Obama's plan might have "default enrollment" - people are enrolled by default, but can explicitly back out.

Posted by John | February 10, 2008 9:14 AM

Props to Petey for acknowledging the mistake about the '84 race. That's candid and fair.

As for UHC: You could do automatic enrollment, and bill people automatically, but not garnish their wages. If they fail to pay the bills they get dropped from the plan and have to pay a back premium to get back in.

Lots of ways of doing it. Waiver forms, etc etc. The key thing is, these are details that are going to require a lot of hashing out. We're not going to write the bill now. It's going to get written by the congress we elect in November. So we want a candidate with coattails, and a candidate Rep. congresspeople can work with without endangering their re-election chances.

Posted by Ted | February 10, 2008 9:19 AM

How can you automatically enroll folks if you're not requiring that they have coverage?

Opt-out. You're automatically in the program, but if you want out, you get out.

Now, Obama has not proposed this. He has been obnoxiously coy about the details to his health care plan. But while he has obviously ruled out the possibility of a mandate, he has not ruled out automatic enrollment.

...and now I see that John beat me on this one. Well played, John.

Posted by DivGuy | February 10, 2008 9:20 AM

This is a bit of a shill, but....

The best political reporting I've seen on the web is by Al Giordano over at the Field. Unfortunately, he's had to stop blogging because he's out of money. I'd encourage folks to check out what he's doing and make a small contribution, if you think it's worth reading.

The link is here:
http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/

Thanks. I'm not a representative of that site, incidentally. I just want to keep reading it.

Posted by NoahB | February 10, 2008 9:25 AM

Another thing: we're going to need to build a bill that maybe can't go 100% of the way, but that creates political incentives for closing the remaining loopholes.

A relatively soft mandate (automatic enrollment or whatever) is pretty good at that. Give a good deal to everyone but the 10% of people who opt out. Then, if you have problems with people joining late, you've got a built-in rhetorical hook for the next fight: "We have to close this loophole to get rid of the free riders!" It becomes much harder for the Repugs to object to a mandate once the program is popular and people are invested in it.

Posted by Ted | February 10, 2008 9:27 AM

"As for UHC: You could do automatic enrollment, and bill people automatically, but not garnish their wages. If they fail to pay the bills they get dropped from the plan and have to pay a back premium to get back in."

That's not universal healthcare. If folks end up without healthcare coverage because they can't/won't pay, that's something other than universal healthcare.

And it brings with it all the problems of any plan with voluntary enrollment: the political problems of losing the moral imperative of universality, the crucial policy problems of adverse selection, and the ethical problems of having poor folks avoiding treatment because they can't pay hefty back premiums and penalties.

If such a plan were ever enacted, adverse selection would be a long-term cancer on the plan, on the Democratic Party, and on the entire concept of government involvement in healthcare.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 9:40 AM

Petey:

I said I didn't remember any complaints about Iowa's "inherently undemocratic" system till after the 3rd. Henry's memo did indeed suggest skipping Iowa, but it was for tactical and financial reasons. See, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/us/politics/24strategy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. I believe that she began dissing Iowa's process as unfair only after losing the state.

In Nevada, I believe that the complaints began after the Culinary Workers endorsed Obama, and it appeared HRC might lose the state. http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/14/578200.aspx (Bill tacitly supporting the teachers' lawsuit.) Again, the point is their radical shift in posture towards the process once HRC appeared to be losing ground.

Their complaints may or may not have merit; I'm reserving judgment on that. I don't much respect someone participating in a process with apparent enthusiasm, and subsequently complaining about the process, as distinct from complaining about the fashion in which the process was conducted.

Zoot

Posted by zoot | February 10, 2008 9:42 AM

There would be many reasons to celebrate an Obama nomination, but not so very low on my list would a rebuke to the kind of cynical last war know-it-allism that Petey personifies.

The reason why characterizing the demographics is giving people fits is because this race *is* different. We've never had an establishment white woman running against a well funded strongly supported insurgent black man before. Why be surprised that we can't compare the results directly to past elections?

Petey seems to be forgetting about Howard Dean (not surprising--he liked to belittle Howard Dean in 2004) and giving Clintonistas too much credit as insiders who can somehow wave a magic wand and make things happen.

Dean may have his biases, although he's being very quiet--his latest statements are the first I've heard in a while. (and considering MacAuliffe was once DNC chair, it's not as if chairs never have biases) I don't expect him to swing things in a blatantly Obama biased way, but I DO expect him to stop anything that goes to Clinton in a blatantly Clinton biased way. Remember, a number of superdelegates aren't high profile politicians--a lot of them are DNC insiders, and they have a certain self-interest in following the lead of the chairman. Obama himself has enough insider clout (despite the insurgent mantle) to throw his weight around. Don't be too influenced by past models.

Posted by JMS | February 10, 2008 9:44 AM

And it brings with it all the problems of any plan with voluntary enrollment: (1) the political problems of losing the moral imperative of universality, (2) the crucial policy problems of adverse selection, and (3) the ethical problems of having poor folks avoiding treatment because they can't pay hefty back premiums and penalties.

(1) is worth noting, and is a real concern about Obama's plan.

(2) is incorrect. Obama's plan has community rating. That means that everyone, regardless of their individual health situation, gets the same plan at the same premium. There is no adverse selection risk.

(3) is incorrect. Obama's plan includes massive subsidies to insure that no "poor folks" would have to pay for health care.

The issue around mandates is an issue of costs, not coverage. Mandates exist to cut costs by forcing the young and healthy to buy into the system. This is why Edwards made the analogy to social security - we all pay in so that when we need it, the system pays out.

Posted by DivGuy | February 10, 2008 9:47 AM

"Give a good deal to everyone but the 10% of people who opt out. Then, if you have problems with people joining late, you've got a built-in rhetorical hook for the next fight: "We have to close this loophole to get rid of the free riders!" It becomes much harder for the Repugs to object to a mandate once the program is popular and people are invested in it."

A coherent argument, but I don't buy it.

I don't think it benefits the left to enact lousy policy with the hopes that things get so bad that we've just got to fix it. Enacting lousy policy benefits the political side that thinks government makes things worse by getting involved.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 9:48 AM

Now I'm wrong. Sorry.

Disregard my comment from (2) at 9:47. "Adverse selection" is the precise economic term of art to describe why costs will go up if there is no mandate.

But, again, mandates are an issue of cost and rhetoric, not an issue of coverage.

Posted by DivGuy | February 10, 2008 9:56 AM

I don't think it benefits the left to enact lousy policy with the hopes that things get so bad that we've just got to fix it.

I tend to agree. But that's your boy Ezra's argument for the Clinton plan:

The Obama plan does not make health insurance affordable. It does not arrest its growth. It does not even come close. Nor, it should be said, does Clinton's plan. But Clinton's plan, by establishing a universal health system, creates the pressures and incentives to retain and improve a universal health system -- otherwise, you have hordes of angry citizens caught between a mandate they can't evade and a plan they can't afford.

How do you like them apples?

Posted by southpaw | February 10, 2008 9:58 AM

"(2) is incorrect. Obama's plan has community rating. That means that everyone, regardless of their individual health situation, gets the same plan at the same premium. There is no adverse selection risk."

No. The problem with adverse selection is healthy folks not getting coverage until they get sick.

Adverse selection means that the folks without insurance will tend to be unusually healthy, while the folks with insurance will tend to be unusually sick.

The current system avoids adverse selection by heavily penalizing pre-existing conditions. Implementing community rating without requiring everyone be in the system invites adverse selection.

"(3) is incorrect. Obama's plan includes massive subsidies to insure that no "poor folks" would have to pay for health care."

An opt-out program with heavy enough subsidies would indeed eliminate the problem for folks in actual poverty. The problem is folks earning $40k or $50k a year who do indeed opt-out because the subsidies are not making healthcare coverage free for them. Then they get sick three years later, and are looking at a big penalty and back premium payment in order to go get an MRI.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 10:02 AM

"Disregard my comment from (2) at 9:47. "Adverse selection" is the precise economic term of art to describe why costs will go up if there is no mandate."

Yup.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 10:06 AM

The problem is folks earning $40k or $50k a year who do indeed opt-out because the subsidies are not making healthcare coverage free for them. Then they get sick three years later, and are looking at a big penalty and back premium payment in order to go get an MRI.

In fairness, the same thing happens if your subsidies get underfunded.

Posted by southpaw | February 10, 2008 10:08 AM

"I really ought to stop sniffing glue."

lol. After Chesapeake Tuesday we see Petey with hair on end saying, "I guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue."

According to Chuck Todd this morning, Obama to date has received more popular votes (8.2 vs 8.0 million), more pledged delegates (iirc, ~1044 vs ~984), and won more states (18 vs 11)than HRC.

Posted by Just Karl | February 10, 2008 10:11 AM

An opt-out program with heavy enough subsidies would indeed eliminate the problem for folks in actual poverty. The problem is folks earning $40k or $50k a year who do indeed opt-out because the subsidies are not making healthcare coverage free for them. Then they get sick three years later, and are looking at a big penalty and back premium payment in order to go get an MRI.

This would be the case with a mandate, too. The people who are non-compliant would have even larger problems getting care. Now, there would probably be more of the former than the latter, comparing opt-out to mandate, but this is a case of quantitative, not qualitative difference.

The issue is two-fold. First, Obama does not have an opt-out plan. He hasn't said that his plan is voluntary enrollment, either, but he hasn't ruled it out. Voluntary enrollment would probably be a very bad idea, because of adverse selection.

Opt-out would hugely cut down the problems of adverse selection. I would be much more enthusiastic about Obama if he had automatic enrollment - it's probably about as good as a mandate. But there's no reason right now to presume that he does.

Posted by DivGuy | February 10, 2008 10:15 AM

BTD, who said in the comments to the same thread on TL that he has been anti-caucus since 2003, points out that the Washington caucus was a huge clusterfuck. The voters stated that they wanted a primary, but the parties insisted on choosing the delegates by caucus. Even the NYT reported that Clinton voters were confused between the primary and the caucus. Also the caucus was on Shabbos.
In the name of basic fairness you have to ask if that caucus was any more valid than MI or FL. This is not a statement against caucuses in general and I suppose the DNC had to stand up for the state party.

Posted by 4jkb4ia | February 10, 2008 10:16 AM

"Registered Dems" is not such a great measure because some states have no party registration at all. Yellow dog Dems in MO don't suddenly become independents because they have to register. Of course Petey is probably working off exit polls.

Posted by 4jkb4ia | February 10, 2008 10:19 AM

"Registered Dems" is not such a great measure because some states have no party registration at all. Yellow dog Dems in MO don't suddenly become independents because they DON'T have to register. Of course Petey is probably working off exit polls.

Posted by 4jkb4ia | February 10, 2008 10:20 AM

4jkb4ia writes "BTD, who said in the comments to the same thread on TL that he has been anti-caucus since 2003, points out that the Washington caucus was a huge clusterfuck."

Why should we listen to what BTD says? Whenever he's appeared here, his arguments are completely demolished, and that's why he's afraid to come here now. The fact that Obama won is proof the caucus was completely correct.

Posted by TLM | February 10, 2008 10:22 AM

"This would be the case with a mandate, too. The people who are non-compliant would have even larger problems getting care."

Well, no. The whole beauty of the Edwards plan is that your willingness to pay has nothing whatsoever to do with your coverage status.

If you avoided payment, you'd have problems with wage garnishment or bill collectors, but you'd still be covered. You could still get medical care when needed.

The analogy would be that if you avoid paying your taxes, you can still call the police if someone is trying to break into your house. You're not required to first pay your back taxes and penalties before the police will respond to your call.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 10:30 AM

swarty -- About my comment (from hours and hours ago!). It was meant sarcastically. I even put a "/snark" tag to show as much, but for some reason this didn't show up. I put up a follow-up comment to say as much, but you must have missed it. LOL. Embarrassing for me.

Posted by plum | February 10, 2008 10:33 AM

The real question here, is Petey a member of the Judean People's Front or the People's Front of Judea?

Posted by Chuchundra | February 10, 2008 10:48 AM

Matt,

Can we have another pro-Clinton prediction?

You know, just to ensure that Obama sweeps the Potomac primary on Tuesday.

Thanks in advance.

Posted by SoCalJustice | February 10, 2008 10:58 AM

Can we call caucuses by their right name?

They are, in effect, a voter suppression technique. Obviously, as the discrepancies between the numbers in elections and those in caucuses show, they are a technique that favors Obama.

But what kind of legitimacy as a potential nominee will Obama have if his overall win is based critically on wins in caucus states? Given that the average voter correctly recognizes caucuses as a perversion of authentic democratic methods, how and why might that voter fundamentally respect Obama's being selected as the nominee? Didn't we get rid of back room deals to select nominees for very similar reasons, namely, because they don't represent the true will of the people?

Posted by frankly0 | February 10, 2008 11:01 AM

Petey 2.0: Rejects original Petey's vehement veneration of caucuses because Edwards/Iowa are no longer in play.

Posted by marcj | February 10, 2008 11:09 AM

They are, in effect, a voter suppression technique. Obviously, as the discrepancies between the numbers in elections and those in caucuses show, they are a technique that favors Obama.

Oh please. A voter suppression technique? Have you seen the turnout numbers?

Besides, Obama has won 9 primaries.

Clinton has won . . . 9 primaries.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Posted by southpaw | February 10, 2008 11:20 AM

"Petey 2.0: Rejects original Petey's vehement veneration of caucuses because Edwards/Iowa are no longer in play."

As I tried to make clear above, I've got no problem with either caucus delegates or superdelegates. Both are undemocratic, but that doesn't mean they're a bad idea.

Also, as I tried to make clear during 2007, I like early state caucuses better than I like caucuses later during the nomination race. My preferred system involves a primary/caucus mix in the early states, with all primaries afterwards.

Caucuses are good at filtering a big field of candidates. But once the field is winnowed, I'd prefer a primary system that better reflects the popular will.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 11:26 AM

The idea that the mandate the President receives is based upon nuanced understanding of his or her policies is simply farcical. Bush was elected by people who got the bulk of his specific policies incorrect. The idea that the minute specifics of a white paper will matter to the political dynamics of the post-election law-making involves a critical misunderstanding of politics. What matters is the size of the mandate given to the candidate, not to his or her policies.

100% right (cf. FDR, LBJ.) Obama's more liberal record is far more meaningful than differences in the details of policy proposals that most members of the public won't know about anyway.

Posted by Scott Lemieux | February 10, 2008 11:36 AM

I'll proudly stand with those folks. You can stand with the Republicans and Austan Goolsbee.

And David Cutler, who has spent more time working on these issues than Petey, Ezra Klein, and Paul Krugman combined.

The idea that Obama is "running to the right" on health care access is comical hyperbole. His plan is as aggressive in expanding access as any plan offered by the 2000 and 2004 Democratic nominees - and that includes Bill Bradley's plan, which was in many ways the "bold" centerpiece of his campaign against the timidity of the Clinton years. Not having an individual mandate for adults does not mean your plan comes from "the right," and anyone who insists to the contrary really lacks credibility.

As for Obama's allegedly "non-progressive" views on Social Security, what on earth is non-progressive about making the payroll tax more progressive? It is completely absurd that people aren't focused on the policy, but rather on his utterance of the word "crisis" on one occasion. This maddening stupidity lends some credence to the idea that liberals are incapable of crafting a positive agenda and simply define themselves in opposition to Bush.

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 12:10 PM

"The idea that Obama is "running to the right" on health care access is comical hyperbole"

The fact that you're reduced to arguing about "access", just as the Republicans do, kinda proves the point that Obama is indeed running to the right on healthcare.

If Obama had a universal healthcare plan, "access" wouldn't be an issue.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 12:21 PM

Petey is the same guy who said Isiah Thomas was following a clever master plan running the Knicks, and who thought Edwards was going to be the nominee this year. He gets taken seriously here only because he appears to possess the confidence of someone with a long record of successful predictions, but that's just a matter of presentation style.

Posted by Barbar | February 10, 2008 12:24 PM

I don't get this "big state" argument! Is anyone suggesting that Obama will not win California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusettes or New York if the nominee? Conversely, is anyone suggesting that Senator Clinton will win Texas if she's the nominee? The only "test" states are Ohio, Florida and Missouri. Thus far it's a split. Let's see how Ohio goes.

Posted by Dawn | February 10, 2008 12:37 PM

Petey,

"If you avoided payment, you'd have problems with wage garnishment or bill collectors, but you'd still be covered. You could still get medical care when needed"

How is that different than our current system? If you have no insurance and get sick, you go to the emergency room and you still get medical care. If you are poor, you can get signed up for Medicaid, which is free (for you) comprehensive medical insurance.

Since the indigent already get medical care in America now, why risk everyone else's health care with a UHC scheme? It's not worth it.

Posted by Fred | February 10, 2008 12:41 PM

"and who thought Edwards was going to be the nominee this year."

FWIW, I never said I thought Edwards was the favorite for the Democratic nomination.

On the other hand, I was saying that I thought McCain was the favorite for the Republican nomination back when he was trading at 20 to 1 on Intrade.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 12:44 PM

"How is that different than our current system? If you have no insurance and get sick, you go to the emergency room and you still get medical care."

Tell it to someone who needs chemotherapy or expensive diagnostic work.

"If you are poor, you can get signed up for Medicaid, which is free (for you) comprehensive medical insurance."

Which is why medical catastrophe is the single leading cause of bankruptcy in America. Seems like forcing folks into penury to get healthcare is a bad system to me.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 12:50 PM

Fred has three lines, and he's going to repeat them from now till November. To summarise all three:"those lazy poor coloreds are the cause of all our woes."

Obama's attitude towards healthcare is deeply problematic. An approach that doesn't establish the principle of universality -- which, in essence, sees universality as a happy secondary effect, should it arise -- is one that can be rolled back more easily. In the roll-out years, the federal budget is presumably going to eat up a chunk of the costs, so you want something long-term in return. That's Ezra's point: the cost is only justified if it establishes a principle that's hard to reverse.

Obama also hasn't squared the circle on affordability. No premium level that comes out of his proposal is going to be no-brainer affordable, and his rhetoric on the subject is just self-contradictory at the moment.

On the other hand, I think that the knock-on effect of an Obama nomination would likely be a better-looking Congress to thrash out the final legislation. (Not least because Clinton would be in the Senate to do it.) There's the small matter that while Clinton and her camp can undoubtedly fight bare-knuckle, she's in no-man's land on Iraq, and is out on a limb with respect to her party's views on foreign policy. Oh, and she now apparently wants Joe Lieberman to keep his fucking superdelegate vote.

Petey is the same guy who said Isiah Thomas was following a clever master plan running the Knicks

Don't forget his ongoing Mavericks predictions. But he has said that he's basically just bullshitting on hoops.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 10, 2008 1:31 PM

Obama might have won WA even in a primary because the electorate is liberal enough. But the caucus structure helped him because it plays to his organizing skills. If the party chose to have a caucus when the voters wanted a primary, the result of said caucus is dubiously democratic even if record numbers of people demanded to be present there.

Posted by 4jkb4ia | February 10, 2008 1:32 PM

"Seems like forcing folks into penury to get healthcare is a bad system to me."

The alternative is to get health insurance, which, currently, is freely available to the poor. It's called Medicaid. If you make too much to qualify for Medicaid, and you don't have the chops to get hired by Wal-Mart, Starbucks, or another large employer that offers low-cost health insurance to even part-time employees, you can buy a low cost, high-deductible, catastrophic health insurance policy.

Posted by Fred | February 10, 2008 1:41 PM

I think the really important point is that this combination of circumstances means you can infer very little for any other state from this caucus. The Asian-American vote especially is complicated and a jumble of ethnic groups and class/education levels.

Posted by 4jkb4ia | February 10, 2008 1:42 PM

Petey reincarnated as a Clinton apologist ?

Say it ain't so.

Posted by David | February 10, 2008 2:04 PM

It's called Medicaid. If you make too much to qualify for Medicaid, and you don't have the chops to get hired by Wal-Mart, Starbucks, or another large employer that offers low-cost health insurance to even part-time employees, you can buy a low cost, high-deductible, catastrophic health insurance policy.

I know someone who was working at a starbucks for the benefits and she got cancer. You are only eligible for the benefits if you are working 240 hours a quarter and since treatment made working that impossible to do she was dropped nearly instantly.

This is someone who owned a fairly successful small business who was dishing out coffee for no other reason than to have health coverage (which is insane on it's face) but when the hammer came down the rug got pulled out from under them anyway. Even better, because she had some assets she doesn't qualify for medicaid!

Catastrophic policies are a bad joke. What they don't cover is going to wipe you right the hell out anyway. Save the premiums and the deductable and place a retainer with a bankruptcy attorney because that's where you are going to wind up at anyway.

Posted by Ed Marshall | February 10, 2008 2:05 PM

A number of inspiring caucus stories at slog.stranger.com.

Posted by 4jkb4ia | February 10, 2008 2:13 PM

"Petey reincarnated as a Clinton apologist? Say it ain't so."

I didn't enjoy voting for her, if it makes you feel any better.

But the imperative of not missing the excellent opportunity to enact universal healthcare in the next Congress trumped my distaste.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 2:28 PM

Krugman's criticisms of Obama's position on health care and his rhetoric on Social Security are correct, or so I believe. His positions are to the right of Hilary on both issues. If I'd had my druthers, Edwards would still be in the race and I'd have voted for him.

BUT: We already know the story on HRC and health care. Hilarycare would have been a disaster even if it had been enacted. It was an impenetrably complex mess precisely because of all the deals struck to assure that health care remained privatized (and profitable for the profiteers).

Has Hilary learned her lesson? Will her current proposals (swiped from Edwards) survive the back rooms this time?

Krugman's point about Edwards' plan was that it allowed public health care to compete with private on a level field. Over time, that creates the possibility of a truly efficient and cost-effective universal system like Canada's or England's or France's. We won't get that under any proposal that leaves the advantage to the profiteers.

Mandates are part of this. But not all of it. Elect HRC and let her appoint another commission and see what emerges. Maybe mandates will be there at the end, maybe not. But what happened with Hilarycare tells me that somewhere in the details will be the tweaks and twists that gut or cripple the public program. And we'll have traded away real UHC for another over-priced coverage-denial system that'll need still another fix god knows how many years from now.

Maybe Obama won't do any better. The right-wing talking points that Krugman nails are troubling. But we know what Hilary is almost certain to do.

The Clintons stand for NAFTA. For financial deregulation. For "an end to welfare as we know it." It's a long history, and it's all nowhere on the left of anything.

In any case, "a vote for Clinton is a vote for mandates" reduces the issue to the wrong question. We need to get to a true universal system. And HRC's record says she'll never get us there.

Posted by Max | February 10, 2008 2:34 PM

"Mandates are part of this. But not all of it. Elect HRC and let her appoint another commission and see what emerges. Maybe mandates will be there at the end, maybe not."

Y'know I was fully expecting to vote for Obama after Edwards dropped out of the race due to this kind of logic, but two things happened in the ensuing week.

First, Obama issued his "Harry and Louise" anti-UHC mailer.

Second, Clinton went on the Sunday shows and actually defended the Edwards healthcare program for the first time. She defended mandates. She said the magic words "automatic enrollment" for the first time. She didn't shy away from the idea of garnishing wages. She credited Edwards for doing the heavy lifting on healthcare.

It was the first time I've had any amount of faith whatsoever that Clinton would actually campaign on the Edwards plan in the general election and fight for it once in office. It may not be a huge amount of faith, but it's something.

And thus she won my vote despite my previous distaste for her candidacy.

If she is planning on selling out the plan down the line, there would be no reason for her to tie herself to its most politically incendiary parts now.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 2:55 PM

"It may not be a huge amount of faith, but it's something."

Yeah, I hear that. But Bill campaigned on a health care plan in 1992. That seemed like the moment. And this just feels like the same bait-and-switch we got then all over again.

Call it "the audacity of doubt," huh? But 8 years of Clintons in the White House left a huge bad taste in my mouth, and I just can't rinse it out.

Posted by Max | February 10, 2008 3:11 PM

"The idea that Obama is "running to the right" on health care access is comical hyperbole"

The fact that you're reduced to arguing about "access", just as the Republicans do, kinda proves the point that Obama is indeed running to the right on healthcare.

If Obama had a universal healthcare plan, "access" wouldn't be an issue.

I have no idea what this means.

The progressive principle behind "universal health care" is to provide health insurance to people who can't otherwise afford it. The progressive principle is not to prevent adverse selection, however sound that might be a as a policy goal.

Look, I'm inclined to social democratic universalist models as well, and I appreciate the argument for mandates. But pretending that anything short of that is inconsistent with progressive values and/or constitutes "running to the right" is really silly. By this logic, means-tested programs like Medicaid aren't progressive either.

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 3:14 PM

"The idea that Obama is "running to the right" on health care access is comical hyperbole"

The fact that you're reduced to arguing about "access", just as the Republicans do, kinda proves the point that Obama is indeed running to the right on healthcare.

If Obama had a universal healthcare plan, "access" wouldn't be an issue.

I have no idea what this means.

The progressive principle behind "universal health care" is to provide health insurance to people who can't otherwise afford it. The progressive principle is not to prevent adverse selection, however sound that might be a as a policy goal.

Look, I'm inclined to social democratic universalist models as well, and I appreciate the argument for mandates. But pretending that anything short of that is inconsistent with progressive values and/or constitutes "running to the right" is really silly. By this logic, means-tested programs like Medicaid aren't progressive either.

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 3:17 PM

"But Bill campaigned on a health care plan in 1992"

One of the most important of the myriad problems with the '93 - '94 effort was precisely that Clinton didn't campaign on any specific plan in the general election campaign. And since the plan didn't have a winning election campaign to vet it, it was easy pickings once the plan first started getting rolled out after Clinton was already in office.

You greatly strengthen a plan by taking it through the crucible of a winning general election campaign. A whole avenue of attack is closed off that way, and potential allies are emboldened.

That said, I wouldn't be astonished to see Clinton back away once in office. My opinion of her is not particularly high.

But as Krugman put it, a Clinton administration offers some unknown chance at enacting UHC. An Obama administration offers no chance whatsoever.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 3:29 PM

"By this logic, means-tested programs like Medicaid aren't progressive either."

I think most progressive are generally pretty hostile to means-tested programs.

As the truism goes, programs for the poor are poor programs. This has been proven over and over again, and helps explain yet another reason why universal healthcare is so crucial.

"The progressive principle behind "universal health care" is to provide health insurance to people who can't otherwise afford it. The progressive principle is not to prevent adverse selection, however sound that might be a as a policy goal."

If you have a universal healthcare plan, adverse selection doesn't come into play.

If you have a non-universal healthcare plan that bans pre-existing conditions, adverse selection will inevitably come into play, creating a poorly functioning system that will have trouble maintaining political support.

Posted by Petey | February 10, 2008 3:39 PM

I think most progressive are generally pretty hostile to means-tested programs.

As the truism goes, programs for the poor are poor programs. This has been proven over and over again, and helps explain yet another reason why universal healthcare is so crucial.

Right, and just so we're clear on your logic, this means that supporting Medicaid means "running to the right." I guess this also means that Hillary Clinton's support for the means-tested S-CHIP program was a conservative stance. So much for her progressive bona fides on health care.

Incidentally, the last time I checked, Hillary Clinton wasn't advocating a single payer insurance scheme based on a payroll tax. Instead, she wants to mandate that people send their after-tax income to private health insurance companies. So to the extent that you're interested in a truly social democratic insurance scheme, this leaves something to be desired. Does that make it sensible to insist that Hillary is "running to the right"? Or is it more likely that she's crafted a non-ideal, but still useful, policy for ensuring that more people who can't currently afford health insurance will be able to afford it?

If you have a universal healthcare plan, adverse selection doesn't come into play.

If you have a non-universal healthcare plan that bans pre-existing conditions, adverse selection will inevitably come into play, creating a poorly functioning system that will have trouble maintaining political support.

You missed the point, which is that "access" - a word that you tarred as "conservative" for some reason - IS the progressive goal as it relates to health insurance - to make sure that people who can't afford coverage can afford it. Adverse selection may be a problem as far as costs are concerned, but there's nothing fundamentally conservative or non-progressive about having fewer cost control measures in your health care plan.

As for the question of "political support," if this is really your concern, you might question whether a proposal that involves wage garnishment is likely to gin up a lot of political support, and reflect on the experience in Massachusetts before answering that question.

It would be neat if people could bring some measure of perspective to these (legitimate) policy disputes and not pretend that one such dispute is the ultimate indicator for telling us whether politicians are secret conservatives or real progressives.

Posted by RS | February 10, 2008 3:57 PM

Petey:
Apologies to readers for my misstatements above about the '84 race. I do try to be a reliable source by not saying things I don't know to be true, and I failed that mission here. I really ought to stop sniffing glue.

Please tell Krugman to stop sniffing glue, too. It's warping his brain.

Posted by Peter K. | February 11, 2008 12:13 PM

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