Rasmussen has it very close in Wisconsin and and a huge Clinton lead in Ohio that features a seven point lead among men.
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Not Done Yet
14 Feb 2008 11:09 am
Comments (79)
Right, only polls that show Obama ahead count. I forgot.
They will probably turn out the opposite of whatever Zogby says they will.
No, jay, I'm reliably informed that polls in Hillary's favor do count. If she loses that lead over the next 18 days, however, that won't count because February is Black History Month.
If only Clinton could call surprise elections for three weeks before the actual elections, she would have won every state by now.
Well remember, Hillary's now the "fresh face" voters are probably looking for, someone who's an "outsider" rather than just another long-time DC politician...
Nice.
A prediction of "not done yet" works, although not as strong as your original one.
If Hillary wins TX, OH, and PA--which are all likely--then I'd say she's in the catbird seat for the nomination.
I can't see the crosstabs (they're behind a pay wall) but the number of independents Rasmussen includes in both polls will be vital. Wisconsin and Ohio both let independents vote in their primaries, and Wisconsin lets voters register at the polls. This is the reason, I think, that the Clinton campaign is merely trying to keep from a crushing defeat in Wisconsin--how do they overcome all those kids from the Obama rallies walking into the polls and registering on the spot?
Rasmussen has a huge Republican bias so it shouldn't be trusted. See this Democratic Underground post for details.
Clinton has been pretty much living in Ohio since Super Tuesday and Barack has barely advertised there yet. Once Barack gets rolling in Ohio with his ads, Ohio will see his inspiration and go over to Barack in droves.
I know Matt doesn't like to face facts but Intrade has Obama as a slight favorite in Ohio and a huge favorite in Wisconsin.
Don't forget the polls had Rudy doing very well long after the Intrade market saw that Rudy's campaign was basically dead.
Yes, everyone missed Clinton in New Hampshire. Sometimes markets are wrong. Sometimes polls are wrong but markets have a far better record than any poll
Liberal Chris is right. What surprises me are all the blogs that are treating this like news. Weren't we assuming she was leading in OH, TX and PA? (And didn't she have a lead in WI just a couple of weeks ago?) I mean, if she didn't have leads in those states, then we'd be talking about Clinton withdrawing from the race, rather than superdelegates.
The trend -- pretty consistently, with the possible exception of very, very late deciders -- is that the more people (1) pay attention and (2) see Obama, the more they like him and vote for him. When was the last time he fell further behind in the polls as an election approached?
Any poll showing Obama way behind in Ohio, Texas or Pennsylvania is good news for him. It keeps his supporters focused, when the reality is that Hillary needs to win those states by 15+ percent to keep up with Obama in the delegate county. 55-45 wins won't do it for Hillary and, frankly, if Obama can't get it that close with a couple of weeks on intense campaigning...he might not be as strong a candidate as I thought.
Mike
"If Hillary wins TX, OH, and PA--which are all likely--then I'd say she's in the catbird seat for the nomination."
Either "wins" means "blows Obama out by 20+ points" or "catbird seat" means "almost certain not to get the nomination," or this doesn't make sense.
The real news is in the tracking polls: Obama moved ahead of Hillary yesterday for the first time. Now, the Rasmussen tracking poll shows him blowing past her. This thing has broken. Evita is finished.
What about the latest national poll showing him opening up a double-digit lead over HRC?
http://www.newsroomamerica.com/politics/story.php?id=408327
Beating her with women too?
"If Hillary wins TX, OH, and PA--which are all likely--then I'd say she's in the catbird seat for the nomination."
Only the margins matter. Winning a state by tiny margins is as good as a loss for Hillary as it doesn't bring in more than a few delegates. This is especially true with the expectations generated by these gigantic early leads in the polling. He'll gain on her big time, though I expect her to win Ohio. Don't be surprised if he takes Texas comfortably though.
The odd thing is that the demographics in Ohio aren't much worse than they are in Wisconsin. It's slightly less educated but slightly more African-American. It can't all be because Wisconsin is next to Illinois? Different Protestant/Catholic mix? Fewer professional-types who have become Democrats? Higher union density? I got nothin.
No one (at least no Obama supporter I know) is saying it's done. We've all learned our lessons from NH. But there's a big difference here.
Obama will have 2 weeks to devote to OH and TX. If he had 2 weeks anywhere, I have no doubt he'd win (except maybe AK and NY, though I bet NY would be pretty close). And that Rasmussen poll actually has him up 14, which is down 3 pts from the last poll I saw. I'm not saying these polls even matter (they don't). Just wait till after Wisconsin and wait a week, see what Ohio voters think when they get to see the man in person.
Ohio and Pennsylvania voters just haven't "gotten to know" Obama yet. Once people get to know Obama, we are told, everyone likes him and wants to have his babies.
For the Democratic party's sake let's hope this cult of personality can make it all the way until November before the spell is broken.
The only polls that matter are the ones that come out in each primary state the week before the primary.
National polls are pointless (are they sampling CA, NY, IL, MA, NJ and all the other states that have already voted?) and polls for primaries that don't take place for another 2.5 weeks to 2.5 months can't be said to count for much.
This is a state by state fight. Obama is in the better position now - but things can change. If Clinton wins TX, OH and PA by 15+ points, I would say that would be a significant change.
Matt is right - this isn't over yet.
it should be noted that these polls represent a tightening of the race from 1 month ago.
Tim K: Aren't likable candidates awful? I'm hating being a Democrat right now.
TLM, you seem to be assuming that Ohio has been cut off from the national conversation for the last few months.
A Presidential election isn't supposed to be a Miss Congeniality contest. Obama would definately win that, though.
I got an email yesterday about an Obama organizational field meeting last night.
They had announced the meeting originally on Tuesday. As we approached the meeting place I assumed all the traffic was due to rush hour. Nope.
Over 700 people of all stripes and sizes showed up. Remember this was not a dignitary speech supporting Obama. It was a field meeting announced less than 48 hours prior and only by email.
I live in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The place was packed and I've never seen such energy at a field ops meeting before.
Obama Ohio seems to have their act together.
If Clinton wins big in OH, it would be very hard, if not delusional, to argue she is the better candidate for the general.
I'm surprised WI is that close, to tell you the truth. I would have expected Obama to be much further ahead, especially considering that WI is pretty liberal and contiguous to IL.
Obama has less than a 50 vote delegate lead by most measures. Hillary doesn't need blow-outs in TX, OH, and PA. She needs to win them, and win most of the delegates.
I imagine she will. Obama's base of left-liberals and young people is great for caucuses. They're motivated and many are experienced at caucusing where they have influence beyond their numbers.
But primaries tend to include more poor people, more elderly, more women, and more Latinos--Hillary's people, in other words.
A Presidential election isn't supposed to be a Miss Congeniality contest. Obama would definately win that, though.
Yes, Tim K. But it's the Obama supporters that are sexist, right?
Nice job.
It can't all be because Wisconsin is next to Illinois?
Milwaukee is next to Illinois, not the whole state. Wisconsin as a whole is remarkably different, culturally, from Illinois (as is Indiana) despite being so close. [It's actually amazing how different they are, from the perspective of a 'Chicagoland' native.]
There are almost 3 million people in the state, and about 600k in Milwaukee proper. Metro area is bigger of course.
The odd thing is that the demographics in Ohio aren't much worse than they are in Wisconsin. It's slightly less educated but slightly more African-American. It can't all be because Wisconsin is next to Illinois? Different Protestant/Catholic mix? Fewer professional-types who have become Democrats? Higher union density? I got nothin.
Wisconsin and Ohio are really nothing like each other. Wisconsin and Minnesota both maintain strong left/labor traditions, out of the progressive movement, that have allowed for much more cooperation between elite liberals and working class labor liberals than has happened in Ohio and the rust belt. The DFL/Progressive tradition in Minnesota and Wisconsin creates a natural base for Obama that cuts across class lines in a way that doesn't exist in Ohio.
This is probably related to the particular tendencies of Scandinavian lutheran immigrants in the midwest, as opposed to the more mixed, more Catholic population that makes up the Ohio working class.
John Petty - Obama has a 130 delegate lead in pledged delegates. That's what matters. Her superdelegate lead is essentially meaningless at this point - it will dissolve if she can't get close in pledged delegates.
SoCal:
Stick to the substance of the point, will ya?
This isn't supposed to be a contest over who is most "likeable." It's about who is more likely to get things done. Other than slogans and chants, Obama hasn't give any reason to think he'll do a better job of actually accomplishing things.
The odd thing is that the demographics in Ohio aren't much worse than they are in Wisconsin. It's slightly less educated but slightly more African-American. It can't all be because Wisconsin is next to Illinois? Different Protestant/Catholic mix? Fewer professional-types who have become Democrats? Higher union density? I got nothin.
I grew up in Ohio, so I can speak with some authority on this.
Southeast Ohio is Appalachia -- very poor and white. Clinton beat Obama soundly in similar areas of Maryland.
I don't mean to insult, but much of Southwest Ohio, even large parts of Columbus, is kind of red-necky; country music stations and evangelical churches predominate, for instance. I don't know if this culture favors Clinton exactly, but I don't see it as favoring Obama either.
The rustbelt cities -- Cleveland, Youngstown, Akron -- have large populations of non-black ethnics, who have tended to favor Clinton in other states.
Overall the population is older, lower educated, and poorer than the national average, all demographics that favor Clinton. (Ohio is one of the few states actually losing population.)
Ohioans are good folks, but the idea that Ohio is somehow representative of the country as a whole is a relic of better days.
The point?
The point he was making was that Obama's is more like a Miss Congeniality than a President - which, is, ya know, sexist.
As far as your point, Obama has given tons of reasons to think he can do a better job of accomplishing things than Clinton.
For one reason, he's proven he can accomplish leading a national election without having to give his campain $5 million of his own money (which he doesn't have to begin with).
He's accomplished getting more people to agree with his agenda and his vision despite a rather large name recognition and political machine deficit.
And his accomplishments as a community organizer, state legislator and U.S. Senator are no less impressive than Hillary's.
And oh yes, he was right about the war, yet one of Hillary's accomplishments was backing George Bush on the invasion of Iraq.
Too bad he's clearly the lesser candidate, and that Americans are in a cult-like, hypnotic trance.
Whatever helps you guys sleep at night.
Pollsters! Emerge From the Shadows
A recent poll by Quinnipac University has Clinton slightly ahead of Obama, in general election matchups with McCain in the big swing states--Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania. Given the last two elections, the basic consensus has been that a democratic candidate cannot win the general election without carrying either Ohio or Florida.
That assumption is--at least with Obama--entirely false. Consider the following: George Bush won the presidential election in 2004 with 286 electoral votes to Kerry's 251. Bush carried Colorado, a state with 9 electoral votes that looks be trending democratic this year, particularly if Obama is the nominee (a recent Rasmussen poll had him beating McCain by 7%, with Clinton losing to McCain by 10%). Lets assume Obama manages to carry all of Kerry's states from 2004. Its not a great assumption, but useful for the purposes of this analysis. A win in Colorado brings Obama's total electoral votes up to 260 and McCain's down to 277.
Lets also assume that Obama wins Iowa's 7 electoral votes. Iowa was one of the only states in 2004 to vote for Bush after having voted for Gore in 2000. Obama has spent lots of time there. The voters know him and like him, as evidenced by his solid margin of victory there January 3rd. There are also a large number of evangelical Christians there (remember Huckabee's blowout) a group that McCain has real problems with. So chalk up a hypothetical victory for Obama in Iowa, bring the electoral totals squeakingly close; 267 for Obama, 270 for McCain. If this is how the electoral map actually looks late into the night on November 2, 2008, heaven help us. McCain would barely win, but all hell would break loose.
But there are other states that look to be trending democratic and this is where the pollsters--shamed by their lack of clairvoyance in New Hampshire and numerous other states following--could really influence Obama's electability argument. How does Obama do head to head against McCain in Virginia? What about Missouri? Any of these would all put Obama over the top.
Right now a presidential race is going on and the voice of pollsters is surprisingly absent. This is at a time when many democratic voters--despite their affiliations with either Obama or Clinton--are trying to decide who is more electable. Lets be clear: national head to head matchups between a democratic and a republican candidate basically mean nothing. Obama's using them to make his electability case, and it may work, but we've learned in 2000 that popular vote does not equal electoral victory (especially when the Supreme Court gets involved). Head to head match-ups in individual states, however, have quite a bit more relevance. For example, what if--god forbid--a poll showed Obama losing a head-to-head matchup with McCain in California? That would be cause for concern. But what if head to head matchups showed Obama beating McCain in a number of typically red southern states due to unprecedented black voter turnout and a lackluster showing for McCain among hard right voters?
I am not a pollster, but right now I kind of wish I was. Because there is a field of un-mined polling territory that is emerging in this election and pollsters are too afraid to touch it.
A Presidential election isn't supposed to be a Miss Congeniality contest. Obama would definately win that, though.
Democrats can be such morons. There is nothing which terrifies a certain kind of Democrat more than a talented candidate. They couldn't stand Edwards and they sneer at Obama. Having a likable, talented candidate really horrifies them. They are the Eeyore Wing.
I actually do think that Obama is a roll of the dice to some extent, but then so is HRC - albeit with worse odds (notwithstanding UHC), which is why I support Obama. I also think he has strong political chops - more talent than experience, but I think that's preferable to the other way around, ahem.
I'm going by DemConWatch, which has more accurate metrics, IMHO, and they show a 47 delegate Obama lead.
it should be noted that these polls represent a tightening of the race from 1 month ago.
It doesn't represent a tightening of the polls in Ohio. Clinton's aggregate lead there has remained pretty consistent over Obama. Obama has risen... but so has Clinton. And it's of concern that she's now polling over 50%, because that means there aren't a lot of undecideds to break Obama's way and give him the win.
(polls have tightened in Texas, at least, but there haven't been many for comparison)
Which is okay. I don't expect Obama to win Ohio. I think the polls WILL tighten once, after Tuesday, he gets two weeks to campaign there nonstop. But I still think he'll lose Ohio.
He still comes out ahead in delegates even if he loses them, though, because she's not going to blow him out of the water by any means. But it gives Clinton a much stronger argument with which to make her case
More accurate metrics? What are you talking about? DemConWatch shows Obama up 134 in pledged delegates, which is what I said. We disagree about whether superdelegates should be counted, not on the actual numbers.
Tim K --
But we have no real reason to believe Hillary will be so effective either. Her record is generally one of non-accomplishment.
If there were a democrat out there who had a great record of ramming through liberal legislation in Washington, then I'd say, by all means, nominate him/her. But there is no such person. This should hardly surprise us. The country's coming off a 30 year rightward turn. The institutional mechanisms and coalitions of the New Deal and Great Society years are gone. Passing liberal legislation today is hard.
What Obama has, which nobody else does, is an upside. He gets people to think outside their entrenched categories, and so might help to facilitate paradigm shift. There is no guarantee he -will- do this. But with Hillary, there is a guarantee that she won't.
Think outside of entrenched categories? Paradigm shift? Can you hear yourself?
Do you think it was FDR who "facilitated" a paradigm shift? You must be a subscriber of the Great Man theory of history. I thought the years of Democratic Party dominance from the 1930's to 1960's had more to do with a little thing called the Great Depression perhaps!
Obama has somewhat of an upside, but he also has a downside. Roll the dice, be my guest.
Even if Hillary WERE to win Wisconsin, she would have to win that states and every other state from here until the nomination by 15% or she would still lose.
Tim K - Why on earth should the Great Depression have automatically created a massive boon for the Democratic Party? In 1928, Al Smith and Herbert Hoover were virtually ideologically indistinguishable. That FDR beat Hoover is due to Hoover's mediocre response to the Depression, and even more, due to the perception that he'd had a terrible response to it. But there's no particular reason that the Democratic Party should have been able to pick up a massive and long term electoral advantage out of it. If Roosevelt had stuck to his initial campaign pledges for balanced budgets, etc. - i.e., essentially a continuation of Hoover's policies - I don't see why one would imagine that he even would have won reelection in 1936, much less created a long term Democratic majority.
Soullite - this is true mathematically. I'm not convinced that Clinton hasn't been selling her case better than Obama on this, though. If she wins Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, even if she's not all that close in delegates, everyone will be crowing about how she's won all the big states that matter, etc. etc. etc. I don't trust the superdelegates enough to be certain they'll do the right thing.
"Obama's base of left-liberals and young people is great for caucuses. They're motivated and many are experienced at caucusing where they have influence beyond their numbers.
"But primaries tend to include more poor people, more elderly, more women, and more Latinos--Hillary's people, in other words."
The primaries Obama just won in Maryland (closed, 23% margin of victory) and Virginia (open, 29% margin of victory) included plenty of poor people, elderly, women, and Latinos, and Obama won all those groups.
That's not to say this race is over--not by any means, especially in Ohio--but the myth of Clinton inevitability should be.
But there are other states that look to be trending democratic and this is where the pollsters--shamed by their lack of clairvoyance in New Hampshire and numerous other states following--could really influence Obama's electability argument. How does Obama do head to head against McCain in Virginia? What about Missouri? Any of these would all put Obama over the top....Right now a presidential race is going on and the voice of pollsters is surprisingly absent. This is at a time when many democratic voters--despite their affiliations with either Obama or Clinton--are trying to decide who is more electable.
Dario Sulzman: Interesting analysis. For my part I agree that electability arguments have to focus on the Electoral College; otherwise they're utterly meaningless. But it's almost equally meaningless to look at Obama vs. McCain alone in a number of different contests. What you really have to do is look at Obama vs. Clinton with respect to how each matches up with McCain in various purple state contests. To my eyes it looks like Obama would be the stronger performer in Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia. I think Clinton looks likely to be the stronger performer in Ohio, Florida, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, New Mexico, and New Hampshire.
This isn't supposed to be a contest over who is most "likeable." It's about who is more likely to get things done. Other than slogans and chants, Obama hasn't give any reason to think he'll do a better job of actually accomplishing things.
I would say that building a huge campaign organization from nothing, and trouncing the establishment candidate, puts him at least one up on Clinton.
Except for voting for the war, not voting in the telco immunity fight, and voting to attack Iran if Bush wants, I can't think of anything Clinton has done in the Senate. What major legislation has her name on it? A quick google turned up $1 million earmark for the Woodstock museum as her lone accomplishment.
These polls that indicate that clinton is running so strongly in Ohion list her as having a lead among black men.
If there anyone who seriously thinks that's going to happen after Obama spends 2 weeks campaigning there? Do Matt really think Obama will lose black men by 5%?
This is why Florida doesn't count. People simply vote differently after being exposed to direct competition to their vote.
"...but the myth of Clinton inevitability should be."
...as should (I should have added) the myth that Obama can't win outside caucuses, outside the deep south, outside the plains states, outside--well, that joke should be over, too.
To my eyes it looks like Obama would be the stronger performer in Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia. I think Clinton looks likely to be the stronger performer in Ohio, Florida, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, New Mexico, and New Hampshire.
I'm not too sure about New Mexico, Jasper. And then... Why would Obama be weaker against Clinton than McCain in Missouri (which he won in the primary)? Or even necessarily New Hampshire? I mean, look, he won independents overwhelmingly in both of these states -- not just against Clinton, but (especially in New Hampshire), against John McCain. Surely this is a relevant fact. Assuming Obama would be worse against Clinton in these states assumes that he won't be able to win Democratic voters AND that he'll lose any independent or Republican voters that have already expressed a preference in him. It just doesn't make sense.
The primaries Obama just won in Maryland (closed, 23% margin of victory)
With 19% of the precincts in populous majority Black Prince George's County, which Obama won 79-19, not reporting yet, Obama will probably have a somewhat larger margin in Maryland than 60-37.
I'm guessing we're going to see some erratic results in polls over the next few weeks based on different methodologies for determining likely Democratic primary voters. The fact that the Republican nomination process is now effectively over should benefit Obama in semi-open primary states like Ohio and open primary states like Wisconsin, and might play some havoc with the usual methodologies. It might not be the case until just before the voting occurs that Independents, who might pay somewhat less attention to the upcoming primaries in late-voting states, become engaged to vote. Now that McCain doesn't need their votes anymore, more of them should drift toward Obama in the coming weeks, especially if they begin to get a strong pitch from the Obama campaign that their votes could be the ones that help sew up his national campaign.
In 1928, Al Smith and Herbert Hoover were virtually ideologically indistinguishable.
Err...no. Tim K is being reductive (Dems/FDR won long term power only because of the Depression), and your point stands, basically, but the above is wrong. Much of the New Deal was a national version of what Smith (and, later on, his young accolyte FDR) actually did do in NY. Hoover was intelligent and able, but he had no new deal. What you mean is that one part of Hooverism - extreme caution about deficit spending - was CW at the time, so much so that even FDR ran on it.
More importantly though, your point does stand. FDR was a brilliant and talented politician who was able to make the most out of what he was dealt (as it were).
I don't know very much about what Smith did in New York. But in reading about the 1928 election the general sense I get is that both candidates were considered "progressive," and there wasn't widely seen to be much ideological difference between them.
Well there's no reason to get into some kind of extended argument over FDR and the Depression. Suffice it to say I do not think Obama is going to be heralding in any huge new Democratic "working majority" as he calls it.
If anything is going to lead to an enduring Democratic it will be the Bush administration, the War in Iraq, economic discontent, and the growth of the Latino population and its increasing Democratic orientation.
Long-term electoral trends are driven above all by structural changes in the electorate, shifting voting coalitions, and major events like wars and economic crises, not by politicians like Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton for that matter).
Well there's no reason to get into some kind of extended argument over FDR and the Depression. Suffice it to say I do not think Obama is going to be heralding in any huge new Democratic "working majority" as he calls it.
If anything is going to lead to an enduring Democratic it will be the Bush administration, the War in Iraq, economic discontent, and the growth of the Latino population and its increasing Democratic orientation.
Long-term electoral trends are driven above all by structural changes in the electorate, shifting voting coalitions, and major events like wars and economic crises, not by politicians like Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton for that matter).
Isn't it widely acknowledged that Bush ran a better campaign that either Al Gore or John Kerry? But I'm not convinced that he has been a better (or more effective) president than either of those men would have been.
So that argument gets no where with me.
Why would Obama be weaker against Clinton than McCain in Missouri (which he won in the primary)?
Jbryan: Obama may not be weaker than Clinton vs McCain in Missouri, but if he's the stronger candidate who supposedly snaps up all these independents, I'd have expected him to, you know, win in the redder areas where the Democrats usually have trouble penetrating in a general election, and I would have thought it Clinton who would have depended on Kansas City and St. Louis (blue areas the Democrats run strong in even in bad years) for her primary votes. The exact opposite happened, of course, underscoring my view that it is Obama who's the bluer candidate putting together a rather typical Democratic coalition, and it is in fact Clinton who performs better with the classic swing voters who will decide the general election (purple state, economically stressed working class whites and Hispanics).
Now, admittedly, Virginia weakens my theory, and I regard it as Obama's single most impressive win to date. So, it will be interesting to see whether it's a new pattern (Obama basically taking HRC's voters away from her), or, an anomaly unique to that particular state and time. We shall see.
"This isn't supposed to be a contest over who is most "likeable." It's about who is more likely to get things done. Other than slogans and chants, Obama hasn't give any reason to think he'll do a better job of actually accomplishing things.
Posted by Tim Klodt | February 14, 2008 12:09 PM"
I hate to post this again, but this link documenting up to 2006 how Obama had taken on a leading role in the Senate on many obscure, important issues is worth posting:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/barack_obama.html
There is also the case of how Obama in Illinois was able to get the state Senate to pass 35-0 a bill to require police interrogations videotaped to prevent torture after facing opposition from the police, the incoming governor and the majority of the legislature. A lot of Clinton supporters seem to be falling into a false dichotomy: he's charismatic and inspirational, so he must be hollow (which may in fact be a way of dealing with disappointment with the lack of liberal legislation passed during the Clinton years). Meanwhile, Clinton is bland and unappealing, so she must know how to get things done (besides help to rally the Republican base, leading to the Gingrich-Bush years). It would be funny if she wasn't so conservative on foreign policy.
Isn't it widely acknowledged that Bush ran a better campaign that either Al Gore or John Kerry? But I'm not convinced that he has been a better (or more effective) president than either of those men would have been.
Columbia,
Making Obama analogous to Bush doesn't hold water. At least with Bush, there were indications that he would be horrible given that every company he owned ran to the ground. And he always had to rely on daddy or daddy's friendes to get him out of a situation. Before he was governor of Texas, Bush was not very accomplished, he was basically a failure. This is not the case with Obama.
Bush did not run an excellant campain when one looks at the fact that Gore made some bad decisions during campaign such as leaving Ohio a month before the election. Gore lost the state by 3 points. In spite of all of this Bush still lost the popular vote. It was only because of the supreme court Bush got where he is.
Isn't it widely acknowledged that Bush ran a better campaign that either Al Gore or John Kerry? But I'm not convinced that he has been a better (or more effective) president than either of those men would have been.
So that argument gets no where with me.
From a conservative's point of view, his Presidency has been very successful. Tax-cuts. Kickin ass across the globe.
Pace Matt, the New York Times has a front page story saying Obama has it pretty much locked up. Weird.
By any measure, Mr. Obama is in a much stronger position on Wednesday than he was just a few days ago and in a significantly stronger position than Mrs. Clinton thought he would be at this point. That is because Mr. Obama not only won a series of states, but also won them by large margins — over 20 percentage points — so that he began picking up extra delegates and opening a lead on Mrs. Clinton.
And that is the problem for Mrs. Clinton going forward. If these were winner-take-all states, Mrs. Clinton could pick up 389 delegates in Texas and Ohio on March 4. Now she would have to beat Mr. Obama by more than 20 percentage points in order to pick up a majority of delegates in both states.
“We don’t think our lead will drop below 100 delegates,” David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, said in an interview. “The math is the math.”
Mr. Plouffe said by his count, Mr. Obama had won 14 states by a margin of over 20 percentage points or more; Mrs. Clinton has won two states by that margin.
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I have a sinking feeling the Clinton campaign will not go gently into the good night. But the Obama campaign will fight it and they've been very effective.
Obama may not be weaker than Clinton vs McCain in Missouri, but if he's the stronger candidate who supposedly snaps up all these independents, I'd have expected him to, you know...
I'm not sure I understand the use of the "supposedly" here. According to all the exit polls, Obama did win independents in Missouri. By a pretty big margin. Do you have anything to suggest that all the polling is incorrectm beyond simply the geographic spread? Given that he won independents (by a solid margin) and that he won conservative voters in Missouri's primary and that he won the primary itself, I'm inclined to think that gives him an edge... but at the very least we'd need to consider it a wash without specific head-to-head matchups pitting him against McCain versus Clinton against McCain. Assuming an edge for her with the available data doesn't seem reasonable.
reading about the 1928 election the general sense I get is that both [Smith and Hoover] were considered "progressive," and there wasn't widely seen to be much ideological difference between them.
Smith was much more progressive, since he had an actual (and outstanding) progressive record. Hoover was a technocrat albeit a much-admired one. The election didn't swing on ideology, per se. It was about: Smith, the Catholic, Thugmulligan (Irish), Urban (read 'pro-immigrant'), 'wet', vs that nice WASPY Mr Hoover. Hoover was no reactionary himself, but he won via a rather reactionary wave - kind of a 'great white hope'.
Sorry for the OT, but Smith is a very interesting character and this is a very interesting period.
A Presidential election isn't supposed to be a Miss Congeniality contest.
Exactly. And that's why Clinton is so poorly cut out to be president. Presidents shouldn't cry on camera when they're having a bad day. Presidents shouldn't try to make all policy changes hinge on the deeply personal. Presidents shouldn't speak predominantly in the first person singular. Presidents shouldn't swing from strident monotonous shouting to sweet-talking, breathy appeals. Hillary Clinton is trying to be Miss Congeniality -- and falling flat on her cheerful face.
Democrats prefer real substance, bonafide intellectual competence, and palpable, concrete proposals. Democrats prefer Obama.
You don't have to believe in "Great Men of History" narratives (which I find silly) to realize that leadership does play a factor. After all, both Zimbabwe after the end of white rule and South Africa after apartheid had many structural similarities, some of them pointing in ways that suggested that post-1980 Zimbabwe should have done better than post-1994 South Africa. The fact that Zimbabwe had Mugabe and South Africa had Mandela and Mbeki does matter regarding how each nation's subsequent politics played out. Personality in American politics matters more as the office is more national, visible and powerful. Incumbency, party loyalty, etc. matter more in the House than in the Senate, in part because people are less likely to know who their House rep is than their Senator, just as they are less likely to know who their Senator is than the President. Senate races on average are more competitive than House races and tend to see a lower rate of incumbents winning. FDR, in some ways, was our first media president that made sure that Americans felt connected to the office via mass media through his fireside chats. He made Americans believe in him.
"Obama may not be weaker than Clinton vs McCain in Missouri, but if he's the stronger candidate who supposedly snaps up all these independents, I'd have expected him to, you know, win in the redder areas where the Democrats usually have trouble penetrating in a general election, and I would have thought it Clinton who would have depended on Kansas City and St. Louis (blue areas the Democrats run strong in even in bad years) for her primary votes."
This is what he did in Nevada, where he came close to Clinton. In addition, he blew out Clinton in the red areas of blue states like Washington and has drawn independents in the primaries and caucuses. After all, as the Clinton supporters like to point out, the general won't be made up of caucuses. It won't matter where independents and crossover Republicans live in key states in November as long as a critical mass of them vote for the Democrat. If Scenario A has a crossover voter in Arlington vote for the Democrat while one in Southern Virginia doesn't and Scenario B has both of them voting Republican, of course Scenario A is better than B even if C, having both of them vote Democratic, is the best of all.
James that's just a sexist tirade, stemming your obvious man-crush on Obama.
Tim K, people talking about man-crushes are in no position to discuss sexism. And it's stemming from, not stemming.
Seriously, can anyone tell me one piece of legislation that has Clinton's name on it? If she can "get things done," what did she get done?
In addition, he blew out Clinton in the red areas of blue states like Washington and has drawn independents in the primaries and caucuses.
You make good arguments, and, although I don't have time to go through everything, I would merely point out that the Pacific Northwest is trending pretty solidly blue these days. Obama doesn't get extra electoral votes for carrying Washington State by a higher percentage of the popular vote than Clinton. And Washington State, of course, saw its voter participation compressed by about 80% from what it would have been as a primary, yielding a more affluent, more educated, and more politically progressive subset of the population (Obama voters, in other words). I'd posit Nevada fits these circumstances, as well. While there's nothing "unfair" about Obama's delegate hauls there (too f***ing bad for Hillary is she didn't get her organization primed for caucus states), it's not unreasonable to theorize that the much smaller sample size we associate with caucuses yields weaker predictive data concerning the general election than do primaries. For purposes of this discussion, the most relevant states to focus on are those that are a) purple; and b) primaries. That's what makes Virgina so impressive for Obama, and that's what also prompts me to think Clinton is the stronger general election candidate. I have a queasy feeling in my stomach if Obama is the nominee, we're all going to wake up some Wednesday in November in an anguished state saying "what went wrong?" And my answer will be: we fell in love with a candidate who was ill-suited to run against the experienced, popular with Democrats, Hispanic-friendly moderate Republican known as John McCain.
Jasper,
I completely agree with you about HRC being a better candidate for the general election. Although I like Obama a good deal more than Clinton but I have to be realistic. Hispanics are not attached to the Democrats as some other groups are and having her as the nominee will keep them in our column. I also think that white working class people are more likely to vote for McCain. People forget that during a general election Democrats have difficulty holding onto the white working class. And please do not accuse me of being racist for I am black.
Jasper,
I completely agree with you about HRC being a better candidate for the general election. Although I like Obama a good deal more than Clinton but I have to be realistic. Hispanics are not attached to the Democrats as some other groups are and having her as the nominee will keep them in our column. I also think that white working class people are more likely to vote for McCain. People forget that during a general election Democrats have difficulty holding onto the white working class. And please do not accuse me of being racist for I am black.
Jasper,
I completely agree with you about HRC being a better candidate for the general election. Although I like Obama a good deal more than Clinton but I have to be realistic. Hispanics are not attached to the Democrats as some other groups are and having her as the nominee will keep them in our column. I also think that white working class people are more likely to vote for McCain. People forget that during a general election Democrats have difficulty holding onto the white working class. And please do not accuse me of being racist for I am black.
I am sorry for the double posting as well as this sentence below:
Although I like Obama a good deal more than Clinton but I have to be realistic.
It should read: Although Obama is my preferred choice, I am realistic, Clinton is a more convincing candidate than Obama.
According to all the exit polls, Obama did win independents in Missouri. By a pretty big margin. Do you have anything to suggest that all the polling is incorrectm beyond simply the geographic spread?
None at all. What I would suggest to you is that, quite commonly, upscale liberal voters are registered independents. I think a lot of people wrongly assume "independent" means "moderate" and "Democrat" means "liberal." I think this is obviously false. A lot of Democratic voters are culturally conservative. This is common both in large cities among the ethnic (read "white Catholic") voters known as "Reagan Democrats," and in southern/border state rural areas (read "working class white Protestant"). I fear McCain will do very well with such voters, if the Democratic party chooses a highly liberal African-American candidate as its standard bearer. There's also the issue of the Clinton brand's apparently robust drawing power among Hispanic voters.
As for progressive independents, I think some may go for McCain over Hillary, but, when push comes to shove, I believe most such voters will vote for universal healthcare and a responsible draw-down in Iraq over more tax cuts for the rich and a century of warfare in Mesopatamia. Indeed, I think this is especially the case with the ticket I believe is nearly unbeatable in November, Clinton/Obama.
I'd also like to ad that Obama's performance with independents in the exist polls does not necessarily mean he's going to overwhelmingly win independents in the general election. Obama is currently winning DEMOCRATIC-LEANING independents in these primaries. Independent could easily split between Obama and McCain in the fall. It's also worth remembering that exist polls showed Kerry narrowly WON independents in 2004 and yet still lost the election.
Jasper: "Indeed, I think this is especially the case with the ticket I believe is nearly unbeatable in November, Clinton/Obama."
No point. Obama can stump all across the country for Hillary anyway without having to be her VP (and thus consequently a distant third fiddle to the Clinton co-presidency). She ought to pick someone bland and vanilla like Evan Bayh.
Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | February 14, 2008 11:37 AM
The odd thing is that the demographics in Ohio aren't much worse than they are in Wisconsin. It's slightly less educated but slightly more African-American. It can't all be because Wisconsin is next to Illinois? Different Protestant/Catholic mix? Fewer professional-types who have become Democrats? Higher union density? I got nothin.
Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | February 14, 2008 11:37 AM
They are quite different culturally. The Upper Midwest is not "the heartland."
In some ways, Wisconsin is more like New Hampshire than it is like Ohio. Except for the two largest cities, Wisconsin is also a helluva lot like upstate New York.
Did you ever hear of a radio program called "A Prairie Home Companion" about Minnesota? They're not like that in Ohio.
Ohio is easy to describe: it's half Pennsylvania and half Indiana, half 13 colonies heritage and half frontier heritage, half north and half south. :-)
Regarding the Clinton campaigns commercials attacking Obama for not debating, the Obama camp needs to respond with a much more effective commercial. Clearly Clinton is desperately grasping for anything to change the tide and that would be expected by not just an underdog but also by the likes of Clinton and her bizarre crew working for her (I can't wait to see Penn, Grunwald, Wolfson etc...GONE). It is just a tactic, but I worry an effective tactic that if not answered in a way that silences her argument, may work to her benefit. Obama's camp needs to keep things going their way right now and obviously a win in Wisconsin is pretty important.
My advice to Axelrod and Plouffe (for what it's worth) is to respond with an ad that says something like this:
"In debate #3 of this long primary season Hillary Clinton said she supported NAFTA. However in debates#5 and 9 she said she was against NAFTA. Just like in debate #13 where she said she supported driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and then in debate #15 told the American people she no longer supported what she had said in the last debate. Maybe Hillary Clinton is so eager to have another debate (we've only had 18 to date) so that she can yet again change her stance on the issues (background shows NAFTA, Iraq War, Patriot Act) that matter to the working people of Wisconsin."
Something along those lines...just a thought. Don't let her line of attack continue, however. Something tells me it might be effective.
No rest for the weary.
Comments closed February 28, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
means nothing.
Posted by jay | February 14, 2008 11:13 AM