Obama wins a crushing victory in Mississippi based on overwhelming support in the African-American community. Men go 61-38 for Obama. Women go 58-39 for Obama. Basically, Mississippi loves Obama. On March 1, everyone thought Clinton was going to lose this race for the nomination. With no further contests left in March there's been no net change in pledged delegates but there are 400+ fewer pledged delegates still at stake. Clinton was drawing dead on March 1, and she's drawing dead on March 12. Even the 12 point win Clinton's probably looking at in Pennsylvania can't genuinely turn this around for her.
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Mississippi
12 Mar 2008 01:02 am
Comments (77)
This seems dangerously close to an Yglesias prediction of an Obama victory, really Clinton's only remaining shot to take the nomination. Pull up! Pull up!
Don't leave out the most important stat: party affiliation. Obama takes 67% of Democrats, narrowly takes Independents. Hillary gathers in the Republicans (12% of the primary vote) 3 to 1!
Petey? Petey?? Hellloooo....?
Let's see, do I make a "but Mississippi doesn't count" joke a "GREAT NEWS! FOR HILLARY!" joke or a Sinbad joke?
We badly need some new cliches in this election.
With Florida sounding more like a no go everyday how long until Clinton concedes? Imagine if your husband cheated on you but he promised you the presidency instead of a dozen roses. What would you do if instead if he gave you a dozen dandelions and a Senate seat.
See you at the end of August.
John W McCan't
Thank you, MY. Somebody has to start calling this campaign what it is: over. It's time to get on to the business of John McCain.
Insane, I will never tire of idiotic pimping his blog or Sinbad stumping for himself as VP.
The superdelegates will protect the legitimate choice of real Democrats - Hilary Clinton. Obama hates mandates.
Monster-
That's a good point. Sinbad becoming relevant again just might be the most surprising and hilarious development we have seen all year.
See,this is when you just look stupid:
Basically, Mississippi loves Obama.
And then to talk about the gender vote, as if that's what won him the state.
She won white Democrats 70-30, which has held up all throughout the South. Moreover, only 27% of her supporters said they'd be satisfied if Obama won the primary.
On the other hand, over half of Obama's supporters said they'd be satisfied if Clinton won. That strongly suggests that black voters won't object to Clinton.
And the thing of it is Cal, they still didn't vote for her this time. Clinton wouldn't win MS in the general anyway, so you have no real point to make. Winning primaries and caucuses actually matters. There is no consolation prize for second choice.
Has Cal ever made a post here or anywhere else that wasn't 100% completely focused on his conceptual racial civil war?
In other news, according to CNN, Clinton's supderdelegate lead has dropped to 32. She used to be up like 200 superdelegates and now it's down to 32. Considering she is laying her ability to get things done on her ability to make back-room deals, it looks like she can't even do that right.
Obama really does need to start doing better with old people though. I'm not sure how he can get more popular with old people, but they are a very important voting group that he almost seems to have ceded to McCain. Catholics are also an important swing group he needs to do better with. He might've gotten a little help on that with the Hagee deal, but I don't know how far that'd go.
Being Republican-leaning I hope he doesn't do better with those groups, but that seems to be a consistent weak-spot for him going into general. Hillary is probably not going to be the nominee. Although if she were her weak-spot would be men, college graduates, upper-class people, political independents, and people from states Al Gore failed to carry. (She could maybe get New Hampshire though)
Thomas R,
Well, the traditional start to Obama doing better among those groups would be for Clinton to graciously concede, endorse Obama, and start campaigning for him.
In other words, this is always going to happen in a closely contested nomination in some form or another: the loser will have a substantial number of supporters, and so the winner will need to convert the loser's supporters once he or she has won. And usually part of the way in which that gets done is that the loser helps the winner.
Well, there's one problem with your theory: Everyone knows that Mississippi will go Republican in the fall. A win there for Obama is as irrelevant as a McCain victory in, say, Vermont.
What's going to matter is what happens in FL and MI.
James Robertson,
I think it is fair to say Mississippi is not likely to be a swing state. But there are many, many more potential swing states than MI and FL. And in fact, I am not sure FL is really a swing state (I think McCain is quite likely to win), and MI is likely to be solid for Obama, although it may be close for Clinton.
"Even the 12 point win Clinton's probably looking at in Pennsylvania can't genuinely turn this around for her."
Will you really feel comfortable going into November, where PA is a must-have, with a candidate who got thumped by 12 points there? Will you be consoled that he won big in Idaho and Nebraska?
Next up: Bill hires someone to take out Obama!
If at first you don't succeed, either bribe them or assassinate them!
That's how the Clintons think.
bob h,
Obama losing the Democratic primary in PA to another Democrat who happens to be relatively popular in both Appalachia and the Northeast Corridor wouldn't really tell you anything in particular about whether Obama is likely to lose to McCain in the general election in PA.
What is this mania with comparing primaries to the GE? Obama won't be running against Clinton in the general, will he? I'm sure McCain is conceding Michigan, Iowa, and Lousiana already since he lost primaries there.
By the way, although I personally think Obama will win PA, particularly if the Clintons campaign for him, he does not actually need to. For example, the SurveyUSA 50 State poll had him losing PA but still winning the election. Again, though, I think he will end up winning PA.
Just to back up that point:
SurveyUSA had McCain beating Obama 47-42 in PA, and Clinton beating McCain 47-46. Note that McCain's number barely changes, but some of the people expressing a preference for Clinton apparently converted to undecided when Obama was the hypothetical nominee.
Typically, what we have seen is that Obama's head-to-head numbers versus McCain improve once he starts actively campaigning in a state (a sort of primary spillover effect). If you assume that effect will happen in PA, plus add the Clintons hypothetically campaigning for Obama in PA (which I think would convert most of those would-vote-for-Clinton/undecided-about-Obama people), I think it is a good bet that Obama end up ahead of McCain in PA going into the general election campaign.
By that logic, why don't we pick a handful of "battleground" states, and just have primaries there instead doing it in all 50 states? What's the point of wasting all this time, money and effort when we can just concentrate in 5-10 states and have them pick the candidates?
If Obama gets thumped in the white vote in Pennsylvania anything like he did in Mississippi, his nomination is in big trouble. The superdelegates will have to consider throwing the nomination to Hillary.
If Obama gets thumped in the white vote in Pennsylvania anything like he did in Mississippi, his nomination is in big trouble. The superdelegates will have to consider throwing the nomination to Hillary.
Wow.
If Obama's lead is due to black support, it must be overruled by party elites. If white people's choice of candidate is different from the candidate chosen by all democratic voters, the votes of non-whites need to be overturned to honor the white choice.
See, that's just plain racist.
Undecided, you should stop for a moment and consider the implications of what you just wrote -- basically, that the superdelegates should pick whichever candidate more white people vote for in a primary. And caucuses are undemocratic?
yes Undecided, because, what, 40+ states in, it's still not clear whether or not Obama can win white votes...I mean, it's not like he won Iowa, Connecticut, Washington State, Missouri, Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, Vermont, Kansas, Wisconsin, Wyoming, or anything like that.
Further, since when are Iowa, Missouri, Virginia, and Colorado not swing states that matter greatly in the general?
And since when is a Democratic primary representative at all of how candidates will fare in the General? Is anyone worried that Clinton will only garner 10% of the black vote in the general election? No? Then enough of the idiotic hand-wringing about Obama not winning enough white voters (which is also, in and of itself, factually incorrect, as well as being analytically stupid)
And lastly, Petey: your argument that supers will go with the results of "closed" primaries and caucuses seems pretty, well, stupid, to be blunt, considering it's DEMOCRATS who decided they wanted OPEN primaries and caucuses in the states that held open primaries and caucuses. If the will of Democrats in Missouri is that Indies should have a say as well, then including the votes of Independents would be doing precisely what you claim the supers will do: respecting the choices of Democrats.
In fact, would you are suggesting here:
The superdelegates will protect the legitimate choice of real Democrats
Is not "protecting" anything, it's a patronizing and overly paternalistic "Petey knows best" approach that says "You silly fools who want open votes, we're gonna ignore you cause you don't know what's good for the party". Now that's a way to build the party!
Keep clinging to that dream. Cause, you know, so far, that prediction really jives with reality, what with super-delegates breaking for Obama at an absurd clip in the last month, something like 80-10. You really got that one pegged perfectly, almost as good as your "John Edwards is going to win this thing" post-Iowa predictions.
Oh, I give up, you guys. I've done the math and Obama it is. Yes we can!
Will you really feel comfortable going into November, where PA is a must-have, with a candidate who got thumped by 12 points there?
PA is only a must-have for Hillary. After Ohio, only a few have any expectations of Obama doing better in PA than he did in Ohio. Regardless, he'll still have his pledged delegate lead, and he'll either still have the popular vote lead or regain it with NC. Outside of managing expectations and keeping the vote close enough, PA is irrelevant at this point to the Obama campaign.
A John Edwards win wouldn't have been legitimate anyway because he would have never been able to carry the most Democrats against HRC's machine politics. And don't get me started on caucuses which unfairly benefit activist candidates like Edwards...
Uh, Michael? You've been trolled.
Heh...
my bad Fausto. But yes, I think you're right. It's sad, but that was actually a pretty believable post from Petey
"Men go 61-38 for Obama. Women go 58-39 for Obama. Basically, Mississippi loves Obama."
Only 27% of whites voted for him, in a state that's 64% white -- polarized white. But he puts MS in play, right?
He can't sell old people, Latinos, blue-collar whites, married women, and southern whites, how is he going to win this election again?
If Obama's lead is due to black support, it must be overruled by party elites. If white people's choice of candidate is different from the candidate chosen by all democratic voters, the votes of non-whites need to be overturned to honor the white choice.
Bah, those darkies should know their place.
...yes, undecided is scum. But of course the Clinton campaign has been saying things like this all along, then turning around and whining about how it's Obama's people who are injecting race into the campaign. People keep saying that the Clintons aren't racist, they just use race as a political tool. That's a distinction I'm not sure I recognize.
OK, guys settle down. It appears that Obama has an insurmountable lead in the pledged delegate count, but Hillary still has a path to victory. She would need to close the delegate lead to less than 80 and come out the winner in the popular vote. Both those are still possible. If she does she can argue to the supers that she is still the better candidate, because of her ability to win the big states and because of her popular vote lead. A win because of the supers would still be a legit win (and I say that as an Obama supporter).
Besides in politics, two months is a long time. It could come out tomorrow that Obama has been patronizing a high-end call girl ring That would seem impossible, but as the events of the last few days have revealed, it ain't impossible.
Bottom line, HRC simply cant be counted out yet... and she has a perfect right to take her campaign all the way to the convention.
"Even the 12 point win Clinton's probably looking at in Pennsylvania can't genuinely turn this around for her."
You can't really believe that. Of course Senator Obama is the favorite, but if Senator Clinton wins Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida* big...those swing states are worth 69 electoral votes. I appreciate Obama winning Virginia and Iowa, but those states are small potatoes compared to the Big 3.
The problem with a delegate count is that it assumes that we care what everyone around the country thinks. We don't. We care about what swing state voters think. And Senator Clinton still has the chance to lock up the most important states. To say she's out of it is disingenuous.
So, Pennsylvania. Governor: Democrat. Senators: 1 Democrat, 1 Republican. Registered Democrats (2008): 3,948,775. Registered Republicans (2008): 3,248,583. 2000 Census shows total population 18 and older as 9,358,883, and the 2007 Census population estimate only has the state's population increasing by about 200,000. I think it's safe to say that there will be about 2 million Independents (or members of other political parties) in PA. Obviously not everybody's going to vote. But just going by party affiliation, the Republicans would have to win about 65% of the Independents to win the state, no matter who the Democratic candidate turns out to be. I really don't see that happening.
Even the 12 point win Clinton's probably looking at in Pennsylvania can't genuinely turn this around for her.
What a depressing thing to read first thing in the morning.
Come on Matt. Don't do this. She's down, but she's the comeback kid. You can't count her out. You can't underestimate her. It's always darkest before the dawn. She will pull a rabbit out of her hat and win the nomination. Handily.
Come on. Re-predict that, please.
Rusty, it's totally incorrect -- confused thinking -- to think that the one who wins (loses) the Dem primary in a state is certain to win (lose) the election.
Hillary is a weaker candidate in the fall. She stars with 45% of the population dead set against her. That's a huge obstacle. Check out the swing states super delegates -- they are breaking big in Obama's favor. Because they know what a disaster a Clinton candidacy could be for Dems in their states.
Personally, even after a PA loss I would still give Obama his shot to challenge and hopefully change the black/white CW. But I'm not a superdelegate. A double digit win in Pennsylvania - with a huge racial component - by HRC is going to give her an argument to make that the more people know about Obama, the less they are comfortable with him. I don't see how you could keep ignoring the numbers.
Pennsylvania is going to be a tough but necessary nut in November. Obama needs to show some strength there in the primary. He's got six weeks to make the sale.
The problem with a delegate count is that it assumes that we care what everyone around the country thinks. We don't. We care about what swing state voters think. And Senator Clinton still has the chance to lock up the most important states. To say she's out of it is disingenuous.
1. Obama creates a lot more swing states, many of them sizable -- North Carolina and Virginia are 2 good examples. Clinton will depend on those Gore/Kerry swing states, and it would be another nail-biter election.
2. Everyone in the country deserves some say in who their president is going to be, not just those in past "swing states." Electability may be the most important consideration for superdelegates, but it surely won't be the only consideration. Simple fairness has to matter, as well. (That said, I still believe Obama's map-changing qualities and superior political skills make him more electable than Clinton.)
As far as closing the delegate gap, why is 80 Hillary's magic number for legitimacy?
Even if somehow 80 was a magic number (and the magic number is actually her edge in superdelegates, which is now a lot less than 80), how does Clinton get Obama's lead down to 80 in the remaining contests? She will be lucky, in fact, if Obama's lead doesn't keep growing, and she is going to cut it in half?
By the way, at this point I just don't know what to do with people who are still willing to argue that the latest Clinton "firewall" is the only important state. Argue with them? Mock them? Ignore them? I can't decide.
an argument to make that the more people know about Obama, the less they are comfortable with him.
Or that PA is still Pittsburgh on one side, Philly on the other, and Alabama in between.
Obama's argument is that his path to the presidency goes through different states, and ones that potentially deliver more downticket. Swing-state and red-state Dems are endorsing Obama for a reason: he may not win some of them, but he'll force McCain and the GOP to spend big money in all of them.
Time was, people thought these were two "dream candidates." If the argument is that Obama doesn't beat Clinton in state x or among demographic y, and it's somehow fatal to his general election chances, aren't you really saying that Clinton is somehow fatally flawed. As in, how's he gonna win Ohio if he didn't even beat *Hillary Clinton*?
You'll see rallying around Obama, especially because in terms of generational appeal and his policies, he's such a contrast with McCain. The risk is not whether Clinton's kitchen sink strategy sticks -- since she knows her attacks are garbage anyway --but whether her and Ferraro's attempts to create resentment are successful. I tend to think they won't be, but there is a certain percentage of people who think like GF, which is why Clinton won't disavow. Thankfully, it's not 1984 and the Democrats can take Vermont this time.
I think Clinton's only staying in to destroy Obama so she can run on the "I-told-you-so" platform in 2012. This increasingly bitter identity-politics food fight is destroying the Democratic Party from the inside.
Think Ferraro doesn't have the Clintons' blessing? Think again. Ferraro's managed to get the debate exactly where the Clintons have been trying to get it for the last two months, only a lot more subtly than Bill reminding people that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina too.
Only 27% of whites voted for him, in a state that's 64% white -- polarized white. But he puts MS in play, right?
Kerry only got 14% of the White vote in Mississippi in 2004. So, Obama is doing much better and is less polarizing than Kerry. If he can get 27% in the general he will win the state most likely.
If you take out the 12% of Republicans that crossed over to keep Hillary alive and attacking, Obama would have probably done 35-40% with Whites in Mississippi. That is pretty astounding.
If Obama has the lead in pledged delegates and/or the popular vote and the nomination still goes to Clinton, she will have to spend a lot more time than any Democratic nominee should have shoring up African-American support. Also, since many caucus states don't release their popular vote count, many states don't let people register with a party, etc., Clinton will only have the potential to say she has the popular vote lead based on statistical manipulation, not actual facts.
Clinton said she had to win this month, yet she is going to exit March having made no actual dent in Obama's delegate lead. She doesn't know what's she's doing anymore.
During the six-week interval, I'd like to take this opportunity to further decrease Hillary Clinton's chances, by making my case to the good people of the State of Pennsylvania. I know Hillary would do anything to keep her friends and potential allies in that battleground state. I just find it remarkable that Hillary remembers eating ice cream at Foster Farms (hmm), as a child in her home-movie video of Penn., when she cannot or will not acknowledge more cogent matters – the good people of Penn. deserve to know about, at a much later date: http://theseedsof9-11.com
Also, Bush lost the 2000 NH primary to McCain. However, that same year he won it in the general. People lose states during the nomination contest and win them in the general all the time. Does anybody think Obama would lost in Massachusetts or that Clinton would lose in Vermont?
The electorate in the general election is nothing like the electorate in a Democratic primary, especially in Mississippi. That's not racist, it's just true. That Obama succeeds in primaries on the basis of monolithic black support does not make him a strong general election candidate. The Democratic candidate is going to have that support anyway. Obama may well be a strong candidate anyway, but it's not immediately apparent how someone who has a hard time with white Democrats is going to win a general election where whites are a:) presumably less liberal, b:) presumably more racist, c:) 75% of the electorate rather than the 40%-60% of the electorate in Democratic primaries. And let's not even start on Obama's trouble with Hispanics. McCain is so awful and insane that it's still the Democrat's race to lose, but Obama appears to have some real weaknesses.
The idea that Obama will create "new swing states" has a whiff of kool-aid to me. Many Obama supporters are far too in love to be objective. There is little reason not to expect the battleground to continue to be the traditional swing states like Ohio, Florida and Penn where Hillary is proving superior.
That Obama succeeds in primaries on the basis of monolithic black support does not make him a strong general election candidate. The Democratic candidate is going to have that support anyway.
Yes, we can always take that African-American support for granted. Its not like they could stay home or anything.
Also, never mind that Obama has been the one getting crossover support. Colorado was a battleground state in 2004, but didn't get as much attention as others. Early polling shows him beating McCain and Clinton losing. I could easily see Obama doing better in Virginia than Clinton. The anti-Obama crowd within the Dems would have a point if the alternative wasn't quite possibly the most well-known Democrat not named Sharpton. Most Americans just plain hate her. If you think she's electable, you really are out of touch.
"The anti-Obama crowd within the Dems would have a point if the alternative wasn't quite possibly the most well-known Democrat not named Sharpton."
That should be "The anti-Obama crowd within the Dems would have a point if the alternative wasn't quite possibly the most hated well-known Democrat not named Sharpton."
Let's focus on the voters that count -- white voters.
Since the end of World War II, there has been exactly one Presidential election where the Democratic candidate won the votes that counted. And yet the Democrats have held the White House for 24 years in that period.
As serious concerned liberals, do we really want to extend America's legacy of illegitimate leaders by selecting Obama as our candidate?
Let democracy reign. Hillary '08.
"Rusty, it's totally incorrect -- confused thinking -- to think that the one who wins (loses) the Dem primary in a state is certain to win (lose) the election."
Of, of course. I would never argue otherwise. But if Senator Clinton takes the biggest swing states - in other words has more support there than Senator Obama - then that won't be ignored. PA, FL, and OH are seared into the minds of many Democrats and presumably many superdelegates. So to say Senator Clinton is out of it isn't accurate. I'd argue that if Clinton wins PA she's almost even and that is she pulls out PA by double digits that she may even pull ahead.
As for arguing that primaries should allow every state to have a say...well, there seems to be a disconnect there. One prominent argument for Obama is that he's the candidate most likely to destroy McCain. More electable. Nationally, that's true. But every state doesn't matter. There's no way around that. CA and NY and IL don't matter. Swing states matter.
The lack of comprehension around here about what the superdelegates will do just goes to show you that Americans have no experience with Parliamentary systems.
Why won't superdelegaes supports Clinton? Because she's losing. If I look at the delegate math and one candidate is behind by 100 or more delegates, why would I back that candidate? Unless a lot more people make the same silly calculations, I'm backing a loser. Worse yet, most of the supers have already committed. Now Obama probably won't hold it against too many supers who backed Clinton from the smart- she was the establishment candidate after all. But if a super commits to Obama and then tries to switch to Clinton but Obama still wins... that person can look forward to spending the next 4 years in political purgatory. It's even worse for actual pledged delegates. That's why nobody will be abandoning Obama and Clinton will have to get a lot closer in pledged delegates to win the election. And that won't happen unless a huge scandal emerges about Obama. The responsible thing for Clinton to do at this point is to stay in the race, continue making a positive case for herself and her issues, but stop attacking Obama. If he falls, he falls. But she can't make it happen at this point.
The idea that Obama will create "new swing states" has a whiff of kool-aid to me. Many Obama supporters are far too in love to be objective. There is little reason not to expect the battleground to continue to be the traditional swing states like Ohio, Florida and Penn where Hillary is proving superior.
Yes, those traditional swing states. With a long and glorious history of two elections being the critical swing states.
The superdelegates only exist to overturn the pledged delegates. They have no raison d'etre otherwise. If changing the primary math wasn't occasionally a desired outcome, you wouldn't have them.
mpowell:
The length of the "tradition" doesn't change my point. I don't buy that Obama creates new swing states and I think he's got a big problem against McCain in Pennsylvania. (I live there and hear what people think)
For all this talk about how open primaries or superdelegates mess with the system, you're forgetting the real problem: the proportional delegate system. This simply makes no sense for both Clinton AND Obama to be able to win significant victories in various states and yet have little resulting net gains of delegates. This is becoming a real distortion of the process, because it isn't producing clear victors, leaving us to start arguing over whether superdelegates should/are be involved in deciding the process.
Undecided: If you want to argue that Obama can't bring any states into play that Clinton does, you're welcome to argue that. I just wanted to point out that this is not a long-time arrangment. In fact, I would argue that history is against your position. Political coalitions shift over time and now that Reps are running McCain instead of Bush, that will shift the dynamic a lot. Clinton may win in some of the states Kerry needed, but the evidence is that she'll lose a lot of western states that Kerry had little trouble with. Obama will defend those places much better and bring some other unusual states into play- the coastal south, for example. Thinking that all the states will break the same in 2008 as in 2004 with the exception of 2 or 3 is misguided and not supported historically, in my opinion.
If the election is a real blowout, which I think is a possibility, Obama could even win a state like Texas. But at that point, talking about 'swing states' doesn't really matter.
I think SuperD's only would go against the outcome of the pledged delegates if there's a process argument to be made. All of the arguments Clinton is pitching to the supers are ones she already made to the voters, and they didn't bite.
When was the last SuperD to come out for Clinton, anyway? I mean, Obama's gaining everywhere he goes and she just lost Spitzer.
Fuck this offensive "only the big swing states matter" crap. I'm so tired of it. I don't care if Obama will win North Dakota in a general election -- as long as these people are electing Democrats to Congress, contributing money to our party, and engaging in activism on behalf of progressive causes, they've earned their voice in our process, a process that was agreed to by all at the outset and that Obama is winning fair and square.
By the way, although I personally think Obama will win PA, particularly if the Clintons campaign for him, he does not actually need to. For example, the SurveyUSA 50 State poll had him losing PA but still winning the election. Again, though, I think he will end up winning PA.
Posted by DTM | March 12, 2008 8:05 AM
I'm a Obama supporter and we need to be really realistic.
Obama will not win PA. All he needs is to lose under 10%. That is it. What he has to do is to set very low expectations. However, We have been woeful in the art of spin and media churning. We need to gain the upper media narrative.
mpowell,
I agree it is safe to assume the superdelegates won't forget how close certain Kerry states were in 2004 (such as Wisconsin and Minnesota) when contemplating "swing states". I also suspect they will remember the 2006 election, in which Democrats took congressional seats away from Republicans in many "red" states (many of the superdelegates actually being those people, in fact).
By the way, I think the most one could reasonably say is that winning PA might stop the superdelegates from continuing to swing to Obama (although winning Ohio didn't do that, so why PA?). But even that doesn't matter: her superdelegate lead is now way too small to make up her pledged delegate deficit. And that is what the dead-enders tend to ignore: "winning" the superdelegates by her current margins still means losing the nomination.
Yes, we can always take that African-American support for granted. Its not like they could stay home or anything.
Posted by ntr Fausto Carmona
Isn't that what the Democratic party has been doing for a long time? Just like the Republicans have been using Christians? Hey, where else do they have to go?Black voters certainly could stay home. If Clinton is nominated, many, though probably not most, will. Anway, per the 2004 CNN exit polls, the electorate in 2004 was 77% white, 11% black, 8% Hispanic. Let's assume that the white share drops to 75% in 2008, while the black share remains more or less the same. This is probably pretty close. If HRC runs 5 percentage points better with whites than Obama does, she can afford to receive 34% fewer black votes. If she does 7% better with whites, that's 48% of the black vote. Does anyone here think HRC would get 35-40% fewer black votes than Obama? Maybe, but that seems less likely than that Obama would do 5-7% worse among whites than HRC would.
Kelly,
I was talking about in the general election in that post. I agree he is likely to lose PA in the primary.
By the way, I always thought that Carville quote was kinda dumb. The fact is that Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and West Virginia in between (not Alabama). And the fact that most of PA is Appalachian is why he will likely lose the primary--and, for that matter, the West Virginia primary. But in the general election against McCain, I think PA is a fine state for him: he wouldn't do quite as well as Clinton would do in the rural areas, but I suspect he would do as well or better in the suburbs around Philly and Pittsburgh, and in PA that is the ballgame in a statewide election.
Doh! Can't edit post for formatting. Oh well. Note to self: Use "Preview".
By the way, I always thought that Carville quote was kinda dumb. The fact is that Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and West Virginia in between (not Alabama). And the fact that most of PA is Appalachian is why he will likely lose the primary--and, for that matter, the West Virginia primary.
I don't think it is Carville's quote - I have heard it for a long time.
But you are correct - the rest of Pennsylvania is a lot more like West Virginia than Alabama.
TheOtherCyrus,
The problem with your analysis is that Clinton isn't doing better with white voters in general. She is only doing better with white voters in certain regions, but Obama is doing better in other regions.
And her regions are mostly the wrong ones from a strategic perspective. For example, if she would marginally outperform Obama among white voters in the interior and Gulf Coast South, she still wouldn't beat McCain in most of those states, except maybe Arkansas. Conversely, marginally outperforming Obama among Northeast Corridor white voters also wouldn't matter because Obama will win those states anyway.
The only legitimate "white voter" advantage I can see for Clinton is that she outperforms among Appalachian white voters, and there are Appalachian regions in some "swing" states like Ohio and PA. But mostly those states have enough other areas in which Obama will be stronger to make it a wash or better for him, except for perhaps Tennessee (which combines Appalachia with the interior South).
So, I think you add this all up and you get to Clinton's "white voter" advantage being relevant in Arkansas, and maybe Tennessee. Meanwhile, Obama's "white voter" advantage is relevant in a wide swath of potential swing states, including states in upper New England, the Midwest, and the West. Consequently, if you were going to pick a candidate on the basis of who has the more compelling "white voter" advantage for the general election, it should actually be Obama, not Clinton.
The superdelegates only exist to overturn the pledged delegates. They have no raison d'etre otherwise.
Not true. They also exist to allow Dem elected officials and national bigheads to be delegates, and have access to the convention, without wholly displacing non-elected state and local Dem bigheads.
Another possible purpose of superdelegates is to prevent a distant third place candidate from playing the kingmaker role.
That Obama succeeds in primaries on the basis of monolithic black support does not make him a strong general election candidate. The Democratic candidate is going to have that support anyway.
I assure you this is not the case. If you steal the nomination from the black guy that won it fair and square, black folks will not vote for you. I'm sorry you can't comprehend this. All I can ask you to do is imagine the shoe was on the other foot.
You've already lost the nomination. All that's left to decide is how much worse do you want it to get?
Matt,
I didn't know that being a journalist meant going to cheerleading camp and taking PR classes. This race for the nomination is far from over. It is going to be a street fight. Obama's numbers in MS were lower. Hillary has at least a minimum of 11 delegates.
With the exception of Illinois and Missouri, Obama has not won any big states. He won Missouri by a 1% margin. You can spin your numbers any way you want, but FL and MI are going to come into play. It is called campaigning. It was the Florida governor and the Republican legislature that messed up the calendar. The DNC willingly fell into their trap.
If their votes are not allowed, the Democratic voters will feel alienated from the party. I must say, I find the Obama bloggers totally out of touch with main street America. Obama preaches hope, however his web followers are reading from a different script. By demeaning the other side whether it's Hillary or McCain, you have basically written off the votes of their supporters.
Obama's victories in these red states are meaningless because the Republicans will win them. Hillary's camp takes nothing for granted. She has also pulled within single digits in NC.
With the exception of Illinois and Missouri, Obama has not won any big states.
----georgia was #10 in the 2000 census, ahead of #17 missouri. obama crushed clinton there. or does it not count b/c it had too many black people?
Obama's victories in these red states are meaningless because the Republicans will win them.
---first, he's going to be more competitive in them than clinton ever would, forcing mccain to spend money and time there. second, you think if he's nominated, he's going to lose CA, NY, MA in the general because he lost them in the primaries?
Comments closed March 26, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
And this gives Obama about 90,000 more votes to pad his popular vote lead closer to a million. Hillary is going to need at least 20-point wins in PA, FL, and MI to reverse that margin. This thing is over. All that remains is the question of how badly is Hillary willing to further tarnish her legacy in order to hold out for that vision of power vanishing in the distance.
Posted by Mike | March 12, 2008 1:15 AM