Inferences

Patrick Healy has an excellent article in the Times making the point that it's illegitimate to make inferences of the form "A lost State X in the primary, therefore A will lose State X in a general election" or "A lost Demographic Y in the primary, therefore A will lose Demographic Y in a general election." If Clinton loses Demographic Y that could be because their preference is Obama > Clinton > McCain or it could be that they think Obama > McCain > Clinton and their behavior in the Obama/Clinton race doesn't give us any evidence.

The best evidence we do have to test these claims is provided by the early general election polling matchups, we can at least illustrate broad trends. According to Gallup, Clinton and Obama are both tied with McCain:

In head-to-head matchups against presumptive Republican nominee McCain, Clinton and Obama perform almost exactly the same. In Gallup's latest tracking of the general election, based on interviewing conducted April 18-22, McCain has a one-point lead over both Clinton and Obama. In the April 18-20 USA Today/Gallup poll, both Clinton and Obama were slightly -- but almost identically -- ahead of McCain among likely voters. In neither instance is there any meaningful difference in how the two candidates stack up against McCain.

Obviously, there's no way Clinton could be tied with McCain without picking up the lion's share of Obama supporters, and there's no way Obama could be tied with McCain without picking up the lion's share of Clinton supporters. Basically, there's nothing to see here.

Comments

Right, but what about Nader? I know it sounds ridiculous, but don't forget that he's running, and a lot of disaffected liberal democrats may well vote for him if their preferred candidate doesn't get the nod. I hate to say it, but I think it's worth worrying about.

Posted by alex | April 24, 2008 10:36 AM

Adding onto this, every time I see analysis of this type, it's never put in context with similar polling during similar nomination contests. I want to know what the head-to-head was between Mondale/Teddy V Gipper in 1980 before and after the nomination was settled, what fraction of supporters of one candidate or the other said they'd switch parties if it came to it, whether they did or not once the general election rolled around.

Basically, all of these state and national head-to-head match-ups between Clinton/Obama and McCain are ignoring what'll happen once intrapartisan rancor begins to dry up after Obama's nominated, and there's got to be some historical precedent here that'd merit inclusion in these sorts of articles.

Posted by Zach | April 24, 2008 10:37 AM

Adding onto this, every time I see analysis of this type, it's never put in context with similar polling during similar nomination contests. I want to know what the head-to-head was between Jimmy/Teddy V Gipper in 1980 before and after the nomination was settled, what fraction of supporters of one candidate or the other said they'd switch parties if it came to it, whether they did or not once the general election rolled around.

Basically, all of these state and national head-to-head match-ups between Clinton/Obama and McCain are ignoring what'll happen once intrapartisan rancor begins to dry up after Obama's nominated, and there's got to be some historical precedent here that'd merit inclusion in these sorts of articles.

Posted by Zach | April 24, 2008 10:39 AM

Although in polls I have seen, they often get to roughly the same total number in different ways. For example, Obama often does better among independents and Republicans than Clinton, and Clinton does better among Democrats than Obama. And where the pollsters have asked, that appears to be because Clinton's Democratic supporters are less willing to commit to supporting Obama than Obama's Democratic supporters are willing to commit to supporting Clinton.

But I strongly suspect that is a temporary effect. If Obama becomes the nominee, and if the Clintons stop attacking him and start campaigning for him, I suspect most of those remaining Clinton supporters will in fact convert into Obama supporters.

This, by the way, is one of my ongoing pet peeves with the media coverage of this contest. People in the media are always talking about whether Candidate X will be able to convert Candidate Y's supporters, and vice-versa. But it is important to note that usually the nominee will not have to do this alone--he or she will have the help of the other candidate once the nomination is decided.

So, the real question will be whether Obama AND the Clintons will be able to convert Clinton's supporters to Obama, not just whether Obama alone will be able to convert Clinton's supporters. And of course once he has the Clintons' help, that will be a much easier task.

Posted by DTM | April 24, 2008 10:44 AM

A legitimate question that no one has asked:

Why is it that when a state is "tailor-made" for Hillary--as I'm sure we can all agree is the case with PA--why is a 9 pt victory at all impressive?

When Obama has a state "tailor-made" for him (and we won't count Illinois), he crushes, he destroys. 9 pts is nothing. But 9 pts in PA after an initial 20 pt lead for Hillary?

Pathetic, really.

Posted by Connor | April 24, 2008 10:49 AM

A legitimate question that no one has asked:

Why is it that when a state is "tailor-made" for Hillary--as I'm sure we can all agree is the case with PA--why is a 9 pt victory at all impressive?

When Obama has a state "tailor-made" for him (and we won't count Illinois), he crushes, he destroys. 9 pts is nothing. But 9 pts in PA after an initial 20 pt lead for Hillary?

Pathetic, really.

Posted by Connor | April 24, 2008 10:50 AM

Here's a question, though. Democratic voters so far have outnumbered Republican voters, yet neither Obama nor Clinton hold a "Democratic voter vs. Republican voter" edge. Evidence would seem to suggest that both Clinton and Obama shed a percentage of Democratic primary voters when the question shifts to the general election, right?

Posted by west coast | April 24, 2008 10:56 AM

I voted for Obama, but would vote for Clinton now. I simply do not understand what policies Obama has. I do not like his health care policy, I do not find anything interesting in his economic policy, I do not even know whether he intends to pull out all our troops from Iraq.

Clinton has policies I understand and like and trust. I keep waiting for Obama to change, but I am growing tired of waiting and I do not own a gun. I am tire of disdainful excuses from Obama. Where is the policy?

Posted by Jennifer | April 24, 2008 10:57 AM

Uh Connor that is what 3-1 spending on television nets you 11 points. Come on buddy. Read.

Posted by Obvious | April 24, 2008 10:59 AM

Obviously, there's no way Clinton could be tied with McCain without picking up the lion's share of Obama supporters, and there's no way Obama could be tied with McCain without picking up the lion's share of Clinton supporters.

Just so we don't confuse the innumerate ones among us, it would be better to put like this: "Obviously, its very unlikely that...".

Its obviously possible for them to be tying McCain without picking up the lions share (or indeed any) of the other's supporters.

Posted by Jim W | April 24, 2008 10:59 AM

"Uh Connor that is what 3-1 spending on television nets you 11 points. Come on buddy. Read."

To use the amount of money Obama spent on TV ads as some kind of metric of his eventual success or failure is pretty ridiculous. Such exposure makes little difference to a series of demographics dead-set against a particular candidate.

Posted by Connor | April 24, 2008 11:06 AM

Evidence would seem to suggest that both Clinton and Obama shed a percentage of Democratic primary voters when the question shifts to the general election, right?

My hypothesis is that there is a not un/insubstantial(sp?) number of registered rural Democrats who consistently vote for the Republican when it comes to the Presidential race. It would be great if they would switch their registration so we could have a clearer picture of which registered Dems are truly "on our team" and can be counted on v. which are Registered Dems only. I suppose their could be a similar group of registered Republicans (Northeastern Rockefeller Republicans) but my gut tells me that it is a smaller group. This may help explain why our Dem candidates always have a harder time holding our coalition together than the R's.

Posted by drjimcooper | April 24, 2008 11:10 AM

If you really want to break it down to that level, you can look at it as a monty hall type of problem. There are six initial possibilities, with half having the voter preferring Obama to McCain:

Clinton > Obama > McCain
Clinton > McCain > Obama
Obama > Clinton > McCain
Obama > McCain > Clinton
McCain > Clinton > Obama
McCain > Obama > Clinton

For a random clinton over obama voter, we can eliminate three of these, leaving us with these possibilities:

Clinton > Obama > McCain
Clinton > McCain > Obama
McCain > Clinton > Obama

In two out of three of these, the voter prefers McCain to Obama. Obviously there are a lot of other variables involved here, but it is negative evidence at least.

Posted by Anonymous | April 24, 2008 11:16 AM

west coast,

Generally there is a rally-around-the-flag effect once a party determines its nominee, and currently only McCain is the beneficiary of such an effect. Indeed, back when it appeared to many that McCain had little chance to win the Republican nomination, he used to do much worse in head-to-head polls against both Obama and Clinton.

Posted by DTM | April 24, 2008 11:16 AM

The Two-headed Giant that Barack is battling — the Clintons, a Political Couple which has a hard time being truthful, and the Republican Spin Machine, which also includes Cable Television, are very good, I would say excellent at re-labelling a person and re-characterizing them by use of the Media, brought and paid for by the Republican Party, mostly to shape, mold, distort, lie, carricaturize a person so the very thing they are, is not seen and that which they are not,is seen all in the hopes of continuing their Power and Domination over the American people!

Barack's achievement in Pennsylvania -- to close the enormous gap between him and Clintons was a monumental success and not given any credit by the Republican talking-points media. Instead they ask, "do we really know who Barack is?" -- They slyly ask, "why can't he close the deal?" This after showing him bowling over and over again and stating how he cannot relate to blue-collar workers with such a low bowling score or showing skits from Saturday Night Light which casts him a poor light, along with continuing whipping of Rev. Wrght and now his self-inflicted wound, bitter. They do not report the news anymore, they do not inform us of Iraq and other pertinent news but rather pass on Gossip, fit for the Enquirer Magazine or Entertainment Tonight, so far we have fallen!

Then there is the fact that the Clintons, a dynasty in their own right, have an army of political hacks all over the country that owe them, and they call in their favors one by one, which skewes the odds in favor of the Clintons. Barack does not have that long coattail to depend on. But, what he does have are political people who are tired of the spin and dishonesty and loyalty to the corporations and who want change, so they forge alliances with Obama whom they know incorporates the best hope for unity, and inspiration which can bring about real change and a break from the past of corporate greed and domination. Obama does not have to tear down his opponents or speak with a Loud Voice for the masses to hear him, although he is up against a Mighty Giant in the Clintons and the Republicans: Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan, Wolf Blitzer, and Fox News TV which berate, distort and belittle Barack and his accomplishments on a daily basis, 24 hours a day, and yet he is still standing and still getting endorsements, although bloodied and bruised, as Rush Limbaugh asked his loyalists to do.

Ironically, the very Republicans that are helping Hillary today, will turn on her like a mighty sword come Fall if she becomes the nominee! It seems they know things they are holding back on because they are trying their darnedest to get her to become the Democratic nominee. For years they had planned this and it is obvious that she is the one they really want to run against, and so for now she has a stalwart ally in the Republicans, again for now.

As Michael Moore so ably pointed out in his recent endorsement of Barack, Hillary Clinton chides Barack for his Pastor, Rev. Wright, yet who did they turn to when Bill was facing Impeachment due to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, who did they call -- yes, the very Rev. Wright himself, such hypocrisy! And, Remember, according to the Clintons, this was all supposed to be over by Super Tuesday!

However, despite the enormous odds and challenges, and brain washing, we, the people, do have a say in this process of ours, although that too can be suspect with some of the "voting machines" still in process. We can reclaim our Power! We can chose to turn off those so-called television news shows which are used as hack jobs instead of truly informing the news. Yet in spite of the odds, Barack continues to battle on for the peoples' true independence and for the people to have a true democratic say in this process of ours!

Posted by angellight | April 24, 2008 11:25 AM

Look, both Saint Barack and Hillary Satanus are pretty unappetizing candidates, and both are doing rather badly in the national horserace polls for a campaign year which *should* be a total Democratic blowout.

Even aside from poor Barack losing the non-black PA vote by 26 points despite all his endorsement and massive advertising advantage, I'd argue he's the weaker candidate in other ways as well.

In particular, he's reached this point in the campaign still having a bit of the "blank slate" advantage, in which his "new face" and policy-ambiguity allows lots of voters to see exactly what they want to see. That's why he's still polling pretty well among Republicans and Independents. But I doubt that can continue through to November. As an example, he's already lost David Brooks who was hero-worshipping him just a few months ago.

As an example, at SOME point he'd have to say whether or not he'd rapidly pull out of Iraq. Whichever answer he gives will cost him votes.

Posted by RKU | April 24, 2008 11:54 AM

RKU,

Feel free to get back to us when you absorb the first sentence of Matt's post ("Patrick Healy has an excellent article in the Times making the point that it's illegitimate to make inferences of the form 'A lost State X in the primary, therefore A will lose State X in a general election' or 'A lost Demographic Y in the primary, therefore A will lose Demographic Y in a general election.'"). Because frankly, anyone who can't grasp a point as simple as that is unlikely to have much else worth saying on politics.

Posted by DTM | April 24, 2008 11:58 AM

nothing to see here, move along. 1) National poll (not Electoral College weighted) 2) registered voters, not necessarily actual voters (and who actually answers these surveys anyway?) 3) long time until head to head contest is actually voted 4) unresolved Dem.. nominee issue muddies head problem.

Data without information. stop.

Posted by mike c | April 24, 2008 12:04 PM

" he's already lost David Brooks who was hero-worshipping him just a few months ago."

That was to be expected. Brooks recognized his charisma but hoped Obama would pull the party to the center. Now Brooks recognizes Obama is a liberal just not a polarizing liberal like Hillary.

Obama has *ice* in his veins. Remember his racism speech? His *dirt off the shoulders* moment?

He's been holding back on Hillary, b/c he needs her supporters. He won't hold back as much on McCain.

Posted by Peter K. | April 24, 2008 12:04 PM

An interesting question is whether the Clinton supporters that are telling pollsters they will vote for McCain, come primarily from her blue collar demographic, or from her female demographic. The former would be a lot more worrisome than the latter. It hard to imagine that the contingent that is angry that a woman will not her chance at the nomination will react by supporting McCain over Obama. And with Roe v Wade on the line it is hard to see the Ellen Goodman contingent even sitting the race out due to pique.

But the blue collar Clinton supporters may actually be more in tune with McCain than with Obama on what is important to them for voting purposes.

There is the same division among Obama supporters, but it shows up easily in the polls. Obama's democratic supporters (blacks and liberal intellectuals) would, of course, side with Clinton. Independents and new voters would not necessarily do so. But the polls already are reported in a way that reflects that.

But I have not seen anything on whether the group that claims McCain is there second choice to Hillary are predominantly white males or women.

Posted by Lon | April 24, 2008 12:06 PM

Reading Sullivan today- it appears the Clintons are going to bully Michigan into the convention.

Nothing short of 30 point losses in NC and IN are going to stop them.

I also agree with angellight, though in less of a cocksucking way. I find it really impressive that (according to Rasmussen) he leads both Clinton and McCain today, when it's pretty clear that we're seeing the fusion of two incredibly powerful forces (the Clinton Machine and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy) trying to take him down. I often doubt his ability to pull it off, simply because it's unlikely anybody can, but I guess that's where "hope" comes in.

Posted by 55 | April 24, 2008 12:13 PM

As mike c points out, you're committing yet another error in your suggestion: the national polls aren't directly correlated with electoral victory. State-by-state polls and analysis (see fivethirtyeight.com) are much more helpful. Obama had a long time electoral lead against McCain over Clinton but the recent downswing has left them essentially tied. But O has never trailed C in his chances for electoral victory against M.

Posted by k | April 24, 2008 12:15 PM

Basically, there's nothing to see here.
********************************************

That's right - move along

Posted by Campesino | April 24, 2008 12:19 PM

By the way, of course the GOP shills in the media will rally around McCain. They are basically as reliably partisan a crowd as GOP elected officials, and for the same reason: their careers depend on remaining within the good graces of the Party.

But in the end the GOP's media shills don't matter. The people who matter are the moderate Republicans who are deeply disaffected with the Party, the ones who don't like the war, don't like the corruption, and are sick of the divisive politics. These people already voted to kick the GOP out of power in 2006--despite what the GOP media shills were telling them then--and all indications are that they are ready to do so again in 2008.

Posted by DTM | April 24, 2008 12:20 PM

An interesting question is whether the Clinton supporters that are telling pollsters they will vote for McCain, come primarily from her blue collar demographic, or from her female demographic.

They're mostly coming from the old demographic. Possibly Hispanics as well (especially in the Southwest).

Posted by Alex | April 24, 2008 12:27 PM

Lon,

Again, though, Clinton does not get uniform support from lower-income white voters across the country. Rather, that support is concentrated in certain regions, basically the Northeast Corridor, Appalachia, and the interior South, which is exactly where you would expect Hillary and Bill to run strongest.

In contrast, McCain is no more from those regions than Obama is, and of course these are people voting in the Democratic primary. So, once Obama is the nominee and Hillary and Bill are (presumably) campaigning for Obama, I doubt McCain is actually going to convert unusual percentages of them to his side.

Posted by DTM | April 24, 2008 12:28 PM

When I hear main stream media morons (cough....Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan....cough) practically drop a lung/pop a vein about how concerning it is Obama can't win a state like Pennsylvania because he can't reach a certain demographic, I just sigh and weep for the American people that rely on such drivel for information.

One simple analogy highlights the utter ignorance of their argument. Obama gets 95% of the black vote. Hillary obviously can't seem to reach that demographic. The black vote is vital to winning the general election, therefore Hillary can't win against McCain in the fall. Unfortunately for Republicans and Hillary supporters, this line of reasoning is equally ridiculous when applied to Obama. It is depressing that the MSM continues to allow the spinsters to use this reasoning.

This is all a game to make sure this process drags out for rating. The primary is over. Obama won.

Finally, to the posters who said this:

"Clinton > Obama > McCain
Clinton > McCain > Obama
McCain > Clinton > Obama

In two out of three of these, the voter prefers McCain to Obama. Obviously there are a lot of other variables involved here, but it is negative evidence at least."

I'm hoping this was a joke post and you are being sarcastic because this isn't evidence of anything without assigning reasonable variables to the possibilities (which are far from equal). You are better than this. Think it through next time.

The real story is why are Republicans so passionate in their support for Hillary, the woman they are supposed to hate? Why are they running negative ads against Barack in N.C.? Why did they vote for Hillary in Texas? Why is Hillary turning to the Republican attack machine for support?

Perhaps because pretty much everyone, including Republicans, knows Obama would destroy McCain in the general? Perhaps indeed.

Posted by Personofaverageintelligence | April 24, 2008 12:40 PM

DTM:

Feel free to get back to us when you absorb the first sentence of Matt's post ("Patrick Healy has an excellent article in the Times making the point that it's illegitimate to make inferences of the form 'A lost State X in the primary, therefore A will lose State X in a general election' or 'A lost Demographic Y in the primary, therefore A will lose Demographic Y in a general election.'"). Because frankly, anyone who can't grasp a point as simple as that is unlikely to have much else worth saying on politics.

Look, I had read (and comprehended!) the first sentence of Matt's post. More importantly, I'd already read the Healy article, probably before Matt did.

However, I *disagree* with Matt (and also with much of Healy's article). It's also pretty funny that Matt didn't link to a longer and more prominent NYT article right next to Healy's pointing out that Obama's gigantic weaknesses in the non-black vote in PA and elsewhere might leave him very vulnerable in November.

And Obama's been blown out by an average of well over 20 points among non-blacks in the Mid West (e.g. OH, MI) as well, so it's not just the South or Appalachia. And he was blown out similarly in gigantic CA. Since he's been losing the non-black Democratic primary vote by a *average* of about 30 points nationally, he'd have to be losing very heavily almost everywhere, just by simple arithmetic.

Silly Obamabots just hate all that there "racist" arithmetic...

Posted by RKU | April 24, 2008 12:45 PM

RKU,

Well, you proved my point. For example, Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan, and Ohio has a substantial Appalachian section where Clinton ran up huge margins. But these more specific errors are to be expected from someone who cannot grasp something as simple as the fact that primary results are systematically incapable of predicting general election results.

So again, feel free to get back to us when you develop even a rudimentary grasp of politics.

Posted by DTM | April 24, 2008 12:57 PM

RKU,

Doesn't the post directly above yours pretty much destroy your argument?

"Obama gets 95% of the black vote. Hillary obviously can't seem to reach that demographic. The black vote is vital to winning the general election, therefore Hillary can't win against McCain in the fall. Unfortunately for Republicans and Hillary supporters, this line of reasoning is equally ridiculous when applied to Obama."

That's the exact reasoning you are using. Are you just being silly or are you actually trying to make a valid point?

Posted by Am I Missing Something? | April 24, 2008 1:02 PM

Obama had the spending advantage (and by the way, why is that held against him? His ability to raise money will stand the Dems in good stead in the fall), and HRC had name recognition/good will, Ed Rendell, and ideal demographics. [See.] In the end HRC beat him by 9 points. In the fall, both Rendell and HRC will campaign for Obama. Meanwhile, McCain will be the subject of reality based exposure rather than a free ride. Yes, I think Obama might win PA in the fall, despite what today's Obama-McCain polling may show.

As for the responses of partisans to the question about whether they would vote for the other dem, I'd wait until the polls after the convention to draw any conclusions about it. Right now there is likely a strong measure of gaming the polls together with enthusiasm/anger at work.

Posted by bemused | April 24, 2008 1:16 PM

Am I Missing Something?

Well, Yes You Are Missing Something.

Obama's core primary strength has been overwhelmingly confined to blacks and affluent liberal white yuppies. But outside Democratic primaries, there are very few additional members of these groups to be found. That's a BIG problem for November.

Here's another way to think about it. Blacks will be 10% of the November electorate, and it's a perfectly fair concern that Hillary's nomination would cause a major drop in black turnout in November. That would be a big problem for the Democrats.

However, it's extremely unlikely that blacks or liberal yuppies would vote Republican in significant numbers---they'd just stay home or maybe vote for Nader or something.

On the other hand, Obama's greatest unpopularity---working-class voters and Latinos---is exactly among those groups that frequently "swing", and might easily vote McCain if they don't like Obama.

Now simple arithmetic means that just a 1% *swing* of the non-black November electorate to McCain is as bad as a 20% *decline* in black November turnout. That's a gigantic potential risk for the Democrats.

However, I do admit that simple arithmetic was invented by Adolph Hitler and popularized in America by the KKK...

Posted by RKU | April 24, 2008 1:18 PM

Reading the tea leaves, which is what all of this is about, the fact that one Democratic demographic prefers candidate A and another prefers candidate B seems irrelevant to whether the Democratic demographic would shift to a Republican in the fall.

What's keeping this debate alive, in fact, is the assumption of racial prejudice on the part of white voters, to wit: low-paid working white men will never vote for a black candidate. I don't know what's more pathetic, that this assumption might be real, or that media and political elites on both coasts behave as if their assumption is real.

Currently the McCain vs X polls are polluted by the ongoing Democratic fight. Once that fight is over, I expect that McCain's numbers will prove as illusory as Hillary's inevitability....only six months ago national polls gave Hillary a 25-30% lead over Obama, today they show her behind by 10%.

Posted by west coast | April 24, 2008 1:23 PM

RKU if you think Latinos are going to vote for Republicans in the fall, you're nuts. Republicans are the party of immigrant bashing.

Posted by bemused | April 24, 2008 1:25 PM

bemused - you're right, but some people believe that McCain could be more appealing to Latinos than the average Republican. Wingnuts don't call him "McAmnesty" for nothing.

Posted by Abby | April 24, 2008 1:30 PM

RKU,

You wrote,

"On the other hand, Obama's greatest unpopularity---working-class voters and Latinos---is exactly among those groups that frequently "swing", and might easily vote McCain if they don't like Obama."

Your whole argument relies on this premise, a premise for which you have no evidence. And it is a premise that can't be proved by a primary election. Many of the very people you assume "might easily vote for McCain" are frequently referred to as the "democratic base." Moreover, I fail to see how voting for Clinton over Obama in a primary means a particular demographic "doesn't like Obama." That may be true, but thus far I haven't seen any evidence of this.

I don't think I am missing anything. I think the fundamental premise underlying your argument is something you have made up to support your claim.

Posted by Am I Missing Something? | April 24, 2008 1:45 PM

Am I Missing Something,

Of course, RKU's response to you required confusing the subset of working-class white people voting in the Democratic primaries with the much larger set of working-class white voters who will vote in the general election. That larger set may well contain a significant number of swing voters (although not all that many, actually, if you look at recent elections). But the smaller subset voting in the Democratic primaries undoubtedly contains far fewer swing voters, and in turn there is no real reason to assume that the swing voters in this subset are representative of the swing voters in the larger set, nor even reason to assume Clinton is even winning among whatever swing voters exist within this subset. And all that is a good demonstration of why RKU's argument is fundamentally flawed.

Generally, essentially you can boil the issue down to this relatively simple proposition:

Both Obama and Clinton would very likely need to convert the vast majority of the people voting for the other person in the Democratic nomination contest in order to win the general election, and then will also have to win a lot more voters who did not participate in the Democratic nomination contest.

Of course that proposition necessarily applies equally to Clinton and Obama, which is somewhat obvious, and should have been obvious from the beginning. But RKU is apparently unwilling or unable to grasp the obvious.

Posted by DTM | April 24, 2008 1:56 PM

At least the intelligent media is calling out Hillary on her bullshit:

http://www.redlasso.com/ClipPlayer.aspx?id=abc238bd-7e27-4ee7-ac64-b54b86b9ace3

Posted by 55 | April 24, 2008 2:00 PM

"Why is it that when a state is 'tailor-made' for Hillary--as I'm sure we can all agree is the case with PA--why is a 9 pt victory at all impressive?"

Exactly. What's so impressive? Political algebra makes sense, but from my standpoint, the dramatic price manipulation in real estate, food, gasoline, etc., must also influence voters. Candidates of either stripe must address these issues, or admit they're powerless. And, so far they have not. So far it's been, you know, I learned to shoot down at lake Granola. It won't matter one iota who is in the White House, except to those who actually get elected, if the basic economic concerns of American's aren't met. That's their job. We're not running out of anything on this planet, nearly as fast as the means to pay. Ask Hillary's chauffeur: http://theseedsof9-11.com

Posted by Peggy McGilligan | April 24, 2008 2:10 PM

Previous nomination contests are not reliable precedents because of the elephants in the room: race and gender. Each candidate will face resistance from a percentage of the other's supporters because of their identities. For some people, it will be overt (I won't vote for a black/I won't vote for a woman); for others, it will be by proxy (Obama is anti-American; Clinton is a liar). (Note: This is not to say that everyone who has concerns about Obama's patriotism or Clinton's trustworthiness is using those concerns as proxies, but some of them are.)

Posted by Brian | April 24, 2008 2:17 PM

Questions in two areas:

1. The winner will be president of all 50 states. Why is it bad that two of the candidates are campaigning in all 50 states? Isn't there an advantage gained from building organizations in states that McCain hasn't bothered to visit? Where are the articles suggesting that McCain will be weak because he "only" campaigned in 20 or 30 states?

2. Do we really think that the Clinton supporters who prefer McCain over Obama, would vote for Clinton against McCain? Aren't these "Reagan Democrats" who still vote in the Democratic primary, but then vote Republican in the general?

Posted by veblen | April 24, 2008 2:39 PM

RKU:

"Obama's core primary strength has been overwhelmingly confined to blacks and affluent liberal white yuppies. "

Yeah, blacks and liberal yuppies are the worst!! Wait ... how can Obama be winning the popular vote with just blacks and liberal yuppies? (btw, affluent yuppie is redundant).

Posted by Peter K. | April 24, 2008 2:39 PM

Brian,

That is likely true, but I see no reason yet to believe those percentages are going to be particularly high. And for that matter, for all we know the nominee's race/gender would make it easier to convert a certain percentage of the other candidate's supporters, and so the net effect of all this could be even smaller, or actually positive.

Posted by DTM | April 24, 2008 2:43 PM

"Obviously, there's no way Clinton could be tied with McCain without picking up the lion's share of Obama supporters, and there's no way Obama could be tied with McCain without picking up the lion's share of Clinton supporters."

Is this obvious? Think about the recent PA primary results. Now, obviously, turnout in the Republican primary was depressed due to the fact that McCain has already won. But the fact that Dem turnout was 4x greater isn't just due to that, either.

As the numbers stand, suppose Obama wins the nomination. Now, you could have fully 3/4 of Clinton's supporters in the primary break for McCain and Obama could still win PA, if turnout remained constant.

I know that is by no means a decisive argument, or even really any evidence, that most people aren't (like me) Obama > Clinton > McCain, but it does, to me, cast some doubt on the idea that it's obvious what the explanation for tied national polls is.

Posted by greg | April 24, 2008 3:03 PM

oops, I meant 2/3, not 3/4. still a significant majority.

Posted by greg | April 24, 2008 3:06 PM

Are college-educated whites more or less of a "swing vote" than latinos?

Posted by WillieStyle | April 24, 2008 3:18 PM

Having the preference Clinton > McCain > Obama might be quite common, even if it doesn't make any sense in terms of the left-right spectrum. The two-party system is all about obscuring this sort of issue by reducing everything to a single binary choice.

I'm not sure who would actually have this preference (unless the old big-spending racist demographic is still out there). But as far as I know nobody's out there asking.

Posted by AlanC9 | April 24, 2008 4:33 PM

It's a bit late to be posting on this thread, but for the sake of future readers: Alex asked "What about Nader?"

If the last 7 years has taught liberals/progressives/left-wingers nothing else, it's that you can do a lot worse than vote for the Democratic candidate. If I ran into Ralph in a bar, I'd be happy to do a night in the can after pouring my beer over his head.

I don't think too many people are going to fuck around with Nader, when it's quite obviously a vote for McCain.

Posted by cmholm | April 24, 2008 10:29 PM

By the way, a lot more Democrats voted for Bush in 2000 than Democrats voting for Nader. Of course some Republicans also voted for Gore, but not as many as Democrats voting for Bush. In fact, if you take Democrats voting for Bush minus Republicans voting for Gore, you get a much bigger net advantage for Bush than if you take Democrats voting for Nader minus Republicans voting for Nader. Bill Clinton, incidentally, won his cross-overs battles in 1992 and 1996, and Kerry lost his cross-over battle in 2004 (in fact the net effect of Kerry's cross-over loss pretty much explains his entire margin of defeat).

The practical point of all this is that although Democrats often blame Nader for 2000, in truth what really made the election close enough to lose was Gore losing the cross-over battle. Generally, who would be more likely to win a cross-over battle with McCain should be an important component of any electability analysis for this contest. Of course given the Democratic Party's likely party ID advantage, winning the cross-over battle may not be strictly necessary. But keeping it as close as possible will maximize the odds of winning, and actually winning the cross-over battle would not only make victory in the presidential election extremely likely, but also do a great deal to help downticket races.

Posted by DTM | April 25, 2008 8:00 AM

RKU, you bring up fair points and probably make the best anti-Obama points on this blog. However, by the same token, just because Obama is black and Clinton is a white women doesn't mean that the old need to capture independents and crossover voters won't matter. Polls in PA showed Obama getting 53% of the support of independents, but since the primary was closed to only registered Democrats, they couldn't vote for him. Since I'm guessing white people are more likely to be independents than black people (one of the two biggest ethnic demographics supporting Democrats, with the other being Jews), having this demographic vote for him would have probably been able to bring down his deficit with white voters vs. Clinton. When you look at purplish states that Democrats can win, Obama won white support in just about all of them (such as Virginia) with the exceptions of PA and OH, which became media obsessions over other states in 2000 and 2004. With these two exceptions, Obama tends to only do rather poorly with whites in states that simply won't go Democratic (MS, Tennessee, etc.).

As for any problems he has with Latinos, remember that much of the Latino population is in a few states that are basically gimmes for the Democrats (like California, New York, etc.) or in states that Democrats have no chance at winning (Texas, Arizona). It is also a fallacy to think that supporting Clinton now makes Latinos too racist or whatever to support Obama. The Clintons built up popularity among Latinos in the 1990's and they are now reaping those rewards electorally and there is nothing wrong with that. After all, the second-most common interracial marriage in the US is between a black man and a Latina.

Posted by Reality Man | April 25, 2008 11:01 AM

Obama tends to only do rather poorly with whites in states that simply won't go Democratic (MS, Tennessee, etc.).

I was thinking about TN. If you had massive black turnout (which would happen with Obama) even if he turned off some white dems as long as they didn't actually go throw a ballot for John McCain he could possibly beat McCain there. I don't see the bible belt turning out for McCain the way they did for Bush.

Posted by Ed Marshall | April 25, 2008 11:13 AM

"I was thinking about TN. If you had massive black turnout (which would happen with Obama) even if he turned off some white dems as long as they didn't actually go throw a ballot for John McCain he could possibly beat McCain there. I don't see the bible belt turning out for McCain the way they did for Bush.

Posted by Ed Marshall | April 25, 2008 11:13 AM"

Tennessee is only about 17% black. In addition, neither Gore (a local boy) nor Ford (black, local and charismatic) were able to win there. Granted, Ford almost won and probably would have if in the last two weeks of the campaign he wasn't doing stupid thing like interrupting his opponents rallies, but a lot of Southerners vote for Democrats for Congress or governor (after all, they are from TN) but refuse to vote for a Democrat. If Gore can't win there, I doubt the person often seen by Southern white independents as a communist lesbian is going to win.

Posted by Reality Man | April 25, 2008 11:38 AM