Indiana looks to be something we haven't seen in a while -- a state where either Clinton or Obama could genuinely win. Anne Kornblut takes a look at the terrain and he closely matched forces there. Since the outcome of the race is determined by delegates, and Indiana is virtually certain not to provide a large delegate advantage to anyone, the state isn't, literally speaking, particularly important to anyone. But the outcome may have a substantial impact on the confidence game Clinton's trying to run on superdelegates and party leaders.
« Sleep-Deprived | Main | It's Really Race »
Indiana
26 Mar 2008 08:33 am
Comments (34)
More to the point, if Obama can pull off an 'unexpected' win, it will give supers an excuse to rally around him.
We're back the expectations game. Iowa, in retrospect, isn't that important in the scheme of things, except everyone believed it was important, so it was.
Hillary's meeting with Richard Scaife, perhaps the slimiest of the Republican media lords (and the one who most enthusiastically promoted fact-free smears of Bill Clinton) makes one suspect that the rumors are true, and that she has decided that, while she can't win the Democratic nomination, at least she can hurt Obama badly enough that he can't win, leaving Clinton a clear shot in 2012.
You know -- "The worse, the better". (Though based on what she and her beloved husband have been saying, it's by no means certain that she is bothered by the prospect of a McCain Presidency.)
Someone has to convince that Clintons that it's now or never for her. If neither she nor Obama is elected President this year, it will be time for us to look for someone new. If a broad range of Democrats tell her that she'll cut her own throat if she sabotages Obama, maybe she'll decide to retire with a little dignity left. And one doubts that Bill Clinton wants the destruction of Barack Obama and the election of John McCain to be his legacy.
If Clinton plays scorched earth politics against Obama now, she should know that the rest of us will play it against her four years from now.
James Carville should have his mouth washed out. with soap.
OT, but the best response I've seen to Hillary's "he would not be my Pastor" is "that's OK, you won't be our President"..
Heh.
Bonus OT:
Someone should wash Carville's mouth out with soap
Carville is a mercenary, and he's a specialist in the kind of personal-loyalty racketeer politics that the Bush machine also specializes in. Whenever possible he'll double-cross the majority of rank and file Democrats in order to cut a deal, in the same way that the Bush administration is always willing to betray Republican principles for the sake of a little graft. To Carville everything is deals and payoffs, so when Richardson dared to defy the family that had made him, Carville decided he was a traitor who must be smeared. Thank God that Richardson has more smarts than the average gangbanger.
Carville's lovely wife, Mary Matalin, is part of Dick Cheney's inner circle. Why would anyone ever trust the guy? Whoever washes his filthy mouth out should also swab it for second-hand Cheney semen.
I'm not sure an Obama win would be unexpected. Granted this was taken in late February when he was riding high, the Howey Gauge survey had him up 15.
Hillary is making her bed with the dailykos crowd. If Obama gets elected, she will surely have a hell of a primary fight on her hands in 2012.
Oddly enough, Hillary has run herself out of what I thought was a pretty good plan - to make her Senate Maj. Leader. She seems almost incapable of working with an Obama presidency at this point. I would think Obama would just rather get her out of the way, sew up the nomination, and not have to worry about her being too big of a deal.
John Emerson:
I don't know why Hillary thinks she can win it so easily in 2012 if she destroys Obama now. Democrats don't look too kindly on primary losers trying to run a 2nd time. Besides, if McCain were to be elected(which could very well happen due to the man crush the TradMed has on him), regardless of who was at fault, you'll see a major league civil war inside the Democratic party.
Craig, as another native Hoosier I agree with you that barring a landslide of epic proportions Indiana is not going to go Democratic in 2008, but you may overstate the case a bit. I wouldn't be surprised to see the state go Democratic before North Dakota does, and I would be surprised if it didn't go Democratic before Texas or Nebraska did.
(Then again, most of my fellow Hoosiers would consider me a Region Rat, and although my hometown is too far east to really qualify we do tend to vote like part of the Region, so I may be a little more optimistic than the average Hoosier on this score.)
Indiana won't have any effect in the general and as an Evan Bayh represented state and the birthplace of the KKK, I doubt Obama has much of a chance there. Though he could pull an upset, it will be exactly that. Indiana is not representative of the nation.
Someone has to convince that Clintons that it's now or never for her.
I think she knows that. That's why she's doing everything she can to win the nomination, even if it's decreasing the chances of the Democratic nominee to win the presidency.
She knows that if she kneecaps Obama and he loses to McCain, then she has no chance in 2012. She also knows that if she doesn't get the nomination now, she'll never be president. And for Clinton a 1% increase in her chance of becoming president is apparently worth any amount of increase in McCain's chance of being president.
Emerson: I think it's more likely that Clinton does think it's now or never for her, which is why she has to resort to somewhat desperate tactics that may actually undermine the party. If Obama does blow up, she has an extremely good chance of winning the Presidency.
For all the talk of personalities and charisma, the economy is a huge force in deciding elections, and after reading McCain's recent comments on the current financial crisis (only 2/3 of homeowners are mortgaged... only 4 million homeowners aren't doing what it takes to not default) I really can't see how he wins an election in this environment. The man is not just clueless about economics, he's clueless about talking about economics, which is a much bigger weakness.
If Obama gets elected, she will surely have a hell of a primary fight on her hands in 2012.
I'd say it'll be an even bigger fight if Obama doesn't get elected and she gets the blame. In either case, she's setting herself up to be the new Lieberman once Lieberman goes fully Republican in the new Senate.
If Obama does blow up, she has an extremely good chance of winning the Presidency.
How do you figure? If Obama blows up on his own, then yes Clinton has a good shot. But she can get that shot by suspending her campaign and standing by just in case the unlikely event happens, or at least by running a campaign that concentrates on attacking McCain more than Obama.
Instead, she seems to be trying to trigger an Obama meltdown herself. And if she's successful in destroying Obama, she'll be blamed for it, I don't see how she rallies the Democrats and wins the presidency.
I don't think it's impossible for Indiana to go Democratic (we have a Democratic state house of representatives and had 16 years of Dem governors before Mitch Daniels), but I think that if Indiana were going Democratic, it would mean a 40 state landslide. In other words, Indiana will never be a battleground state in a close election, but only in a Democratic blowout.
Carsick, I'm not going to defend Indiana's history on race relations (backward for the north but better than the south), but the idea that Indiana was not the birthplace of the Klan is a pervasive but false misconception. The Klan did, shamefully, take over Indiana state government for a time in the 1920s, but the Klan was founded in Tennessee, not Indiana. I don't blame you for thinking that. It has been repeated by many, many MSM members. but it's not true.
KCinDC - Well, if Obama doesn't get elected, then she'll probably abandon Senate hopes in order to get elected POTUS.
I don't expect Clinton to do the right thing by herself, but I sure as hell hope that someone's twisting her arm (and Bill's).
Her Scaife meeting was the last straw, though. There's nowhere lower she can sink. I thought of her for the Supreme Court, or perhaps Majority Leader, but no more. She seems to be committing political suicide before our eyes.
Well obviously there is a political cost in trying to take down Obama (I, for one, am completely fed up with her and her campaign) but that's offset somewhat by the fact that the general election will still be Clinton vs. McCain and she'll still be the Democratic candidate in a bad economy running against a Republican who can't even pretend to give a crap about people struggling.
If Obama blows up, she'll just say that better now than later (and will probably be right, actually).
Back to the matter at hand... Evan Bayh has a death grip on the Indiana Democratic Party. A large portion of us Hoosier Dems resent him for that. Keep in mind this is same establishement that lost the Guv's office for the first time in 16 year in 2004 and somehow managed to lose the Mayor's office Indy last year. Anti-establishment fever is at a fever pitch here in the Hoosier state.
I've heard from a not insubstantial amount of local operatives that they are personally for Obama, but have to hold the party line for Clinton. The ground support for Obama is huge here in Indy. There's people selling Obama shirts on the streets and Obama signs all over. We also have a highly contested gubernatorial primary that's been totally forgot about. And in my district a very nasty congressional primary.
So in the short, the anemic, hated establishment is half-heartedly (at best) supporting Clinton, but on the ground it is all Obama. I think in this way Indiana does represent the country.
Carsick, although Indiana is a rightwing state where the Klan fluorished and dominated politics in the 1920s, it is not the birthplace of the KKK. The KKK was founded by Confederate veterans in Tennessee, and Indiana was neither a slave state before the civil war, nor a confederate state, nor a border state. It was strongly Republican, and has been ever since. It's somewhat of a political fossil for that reason; it is the only northern state that has stayed in the Republican column continuously since the Civil War.
Well, if Obama doesn't get elected, then she'll probably abandon Senate hopes in order to get elected POTUS.
Possibly, but Lieberman ran simultaneously for Senate and VP, and she's definitely getting more Liebermanesque. Besides, I doubt she'd give up on the Senate seat until she was pretty close to being the presidential nominee, and I don't think she'd get that close. But four years is a long time.
Indiana may have never been a slave state or a confederate state, but they do love their confederate flags there. Bumper stickers, key chains and all sorts of General Lee memorabilia available at gas stations across the state (I've driven through once or twice).
But yes, barring unprecedented turnout in Northwest Indiana, a Democrat won't win in November.
People keep forgetting that Indiana does not matter. It's Republican by about 60-40.
Unless Clinton wins, then it is absolutely crucial.
I think there is a good chance that Obama does quite well in Indiana. Unlike Ohio, Indiana doesn't have an Appalachian part, and parts of Indiana are basically suburbs of Chicago.
But like Wisconsin and Maine before it, this will be a good test of regionalism versus demographics.
KCinDC - Humorous thought: could you imagine the embarassment if she managed to lose the Senate primary in New York while fighting for the Democratic nomination in a drawn out manner such as this year's process?
Mike - Yes, of course. If she wins it's "an indictment on his inability to win over white Americans."
Why why why is there no polling being done here? I don't understand! We were getting fifteen billion polls a day before Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Super Tuesday. We got plenty in Ohio and Texas. But now they've all vanished.
"parts of Indiana are basically suburbs of Chicago."
Not "basically." They ARE the immediate southeastern suburbs of Chicago. One of them is even named "East Chicago." And with a couple of exceptions, the Indiana suburbs are largely African-American.
jbryan - Because Clinton has managed to convince the media that Pennsylvania is the next State That Matters, because of it's size (relative to IN anyway) and it's a swing-state. There's a new poll there daily.
Joe,
Fair enough. But I might note I think Obama's support will go well beyond the Chicago suburbs and African-American voters.
I've already heard the Clinton spin; Bill said it would be tough for them because it borders Illinois.
Indiana is the traditional home of basketball, and Obama is a ballplayer.
Jimmy's got it right. Obama holds a rally at Hinkle Fieldhouse (on the campus of Butler), finishes the speech by hitting a shot from the top of the key, and he wins the state by 20%.
It's an Obama border state and big parts of it come under the Chicago media umbrella: good for Obama. But overall, Indiana has all of the bad things about Ohio and none of the good things: bad for Obama.
I do agree, though, that a win here combined with an Obama win in North Carolina would end the race, although in a world where Hillary cared about something other than herself it would already be ended.
Indiana is an OPEN PRIMARY - so Republicans can and will vote in the Democratic primary (Operation Chaos anyone?) What % of the republican ditto head vote do you think Ms. Clinton will receive - and - how will that feed into a media interpretation of the % of white vote for Obama....?? They are playing a very clever game, these Clintons, and their meme has so far been relatively unchallenged...
Comments closed April 09, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
People keep forgetting that Indiana does not matter. It's Republican by about 60-40. Hell, they might as well make it a caucus state for all I care. Indiana will not vote for a Democrat this year in the general, unlike possibly Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota, Virginia, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas, and Colorado.
Indiana, my beautiful home state, you are and will forever be sadly and painfully insignificant.
Posted by Craig | March 26, 2008 8:51 AM