Obama wins Hawaii by a crushing 76 to 24 margin. Here for once the "doesn't count" concept does carry some real weight since Obama grew up there. Of course Hillary Clinton grew up in Illinois where Obama got 65 percent of the vote, and Obama did manage to pull a 40 percent in New York which, though pretty bad, is at least better than Clinton could do in either of Obama two home states.
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Hawaii Results
20 Feb 2008 09:35 am
Comments (23)
Do we even know yet what Obama pulled down in New York?
http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/hillary.clinton.barack.2.658233.html
On the turnout issue in HI, the numbers (yes, I know it's a disfavored caucus) are pretty impressive. Typically they turn out only 5K for one of these, with estimates this time for 12K, but actual turnout was 37K! Wow. Guess they were psyched to vote for the local!
But wait, Obama spent three years at Columbia! Therefore his 40% does not count.
C'mon Matt, surely the relevant comparison here is Arkansas, where she trounced him 70-26.
MY, did you see the quote at Atrios'? Might be a new low...
BUSH: A clear lesson I learned in the museum was that outside forces tend to divide people up inside their country and are unbelievably counterproductive.
The museum was the Rwandan genocide museum.
I second nolaboyd's point. HC did kick his ass in Arkansas.
The "doesn't count" spin has been replaced by the "we went negative and only lost by 17! Therefore going negative is great for us!" spin. Surely someone can come up with a more concise phrasing of that sentiment so that we can now adopt that as our new favorite way to mock Mark Penn.
There is one recent trend in this race that has been receiving no attention as far as I can see: Obama's election results have significantly outperformed his polling recently.
Polls in Wisconsin (and what little I'd read about Hawaii) seemed to indicate that Obama would win, but not by large margins. But he flat out crushed her in both states. Perhaps that's not such a surprise in Hawaii, but no poll gave him a 17 point cushion in Wisconsin. The same thing happened last week in the Potomac primaries; Obama was predicted to win each of those, but not by such huge margins.
It's worth pointing out that momentum isn't merely a case of winning states, as Obama has clearly done. He's winning them by massive margins. That says something about the directions of these campaigns and I think bodes well for Obama in Texas and Ohio.
The de-evolution of MY from insightful blogger to full-time Obama shill has been grotesque to witness. Is he bucking for an assistant press secretary job?
Methinks Arkansas consists primarily of racist, inbred rednecks so therefore it doesn't count.
How boring, predictable, and shally has this blog become in the recent months. I might as well read Althouse.
How boring, predictable, and shallow has this blog become in the recent months. I might as well read Althouse.
How boring, predictable, and shallow has this blog become in recent months. I might as well read Althouse.
The de-evolution of MY from insightful blogger to full-time Obama shill has been grotesque to witness. Is he bucking for an assistant press secretary job?
Alternatively, the Clinton campaign's inability to capture votes and win the recent contests and its disingenous efforts to spin that away have alienated a Democratic blogger who was largely on the fence between the two candidates. That should cause Clinton supporters to be critical of the Clinton campaign, not Matt.
They are losing, and their attempts to pretend that they're not losing or to blame others for why they're losing or to change the rules to overcome the fact that they're losing are not calculated to win over undecideds.
I guess I'll take my hat off to the Obama camp for managing expectations well. [...] Shrewd gamesmanship on their part or genuine uncertainty about how extensively their voters would turn out?
It must be the latter. Petey said Obama is awful at managing expectations. Say, where is Petey, anyway...?
Given that Matt has a book coming out on foreign policy -- in case you hadn't heard, since he's a bit quiet about it here -- and that he considers the deciding issue between the candidates to be that of foreign policy... the 'shill' flingers need to STFU.
C'mon Matt, surely the relevant comparison here is Arkansas, where she trounced him 70-26.
Posted by nolaboyd | February 20, 2008 9:51 AM
Says it all really. Her widest winning margin came in Bill's home state, riding the wave of Bill-nostalgia. Her performances in the state she represents in the Senate and her home state were significantly less impressive.
I haven't seen a precinct by precinct breakdown of the Hawaii voting. But, based on results from areas like Hilo and eastern Kauai which don't have that many Caucasians to go around, it seems that Asian and Pacific Islander voters were willing to vote for Obama.
As someone had suggested here a week back, non-haole cultural assumptions for California don't really apply in Hawaii.
My understanding is that most of the Democratic power structure in Hawaii was behind Clinton. If so, then Hawaii needs some smarter politicians. Dissing the local boy and backing the outsider who winds up being crushed three to one can't do great things for your prestige and credibility.
"Hawaii needs some smarter politicians."
Hawaii Democratic politicians are seriously into the old boy/girl network game. HRC was the establishment choice, so naturally the senior officials and union leaders went with her before Iowa changed the game.
I don't know why Abercrombie didn't follow the herd.
My precinct meeting place in Kihei School cafegymatorium was packed. I could have sworn I heard the captain announce that we had 650 people (up from the usual 50) while asking for patience. The organizers ran out of preprinted membership and attendance sign up sheets and were resorting to notebook paper.
The Asian/PI populations of HI and CA are pretty different. CA's tend to be much more recent immigrants, and they're still a minority. In HI, they're the majority, and most have been there for several generations, and some have, you know, been there for 1500 years or so.
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Is this new?
Comments closed March 05, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
I guess I'll take my hat off to the Obama camp for managing expectations well. Didn't some internal poll numbers get released from the campaign that had Obama winning 53-46 in WI and 52-47 in Hawaii? He kinda overperformed those, didn't he? Shrewd gamesmanship on their part or genuine uncertainty about how extensively their voters would turn out?
Posted by scott | February 20, 2008 9:45 AM