Big Sky

Rasmussen has Obama beating McCain 48-43 in Montana. Eric Kleefeld comments:

Democrats can be very successful at the state level here -- they have the governorship and both Senate seats -- but the presidential vote has historically been much tougher to crack. The state has voted Democratic only twice in the last 50 years: The Lyndon Johnson landslide of 1964, and Bill Clinton narrowly winning its three electoral votes in 1992.

What's interesting to contemplate here is the role of effort. Democratic Senate candidates in Montana campaign in Montana. Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Montana campaign in Montana. I don't believe that Democratic presidential candidates typically do campaign in Montana. But Barack Obama has been putting some resources into the state. And there's long been a real question in my mind as to how much of the gap at the presidential level can be made up merely by showing up. Now that said there's a good reason Democrats don't normally campaign in Montana, which is that in addition to having a conservative track record it has very few electoral votes so it's hard to imagine it being the pivotal state.

But this kind of thing does have governance institutions. If Obama were to win the election, but lose Montana by the same 59-39 margin that Kerry faced, then Senators Baucus and Tester are going to take that into account when considering how supportive of Obama's legislative agenda they ought to be. If it's close, or if Obama wins, then they face a different calculation. That kind of thing is the significance of playing for the landslide.

Comments

Although you're probably right and Montana's 3 electoral votes won't be the deciding factor, we don't have to go back very far to find an election where that did happen: 2000. Everyone focused on FL in 2000, but NH (okay, with 4 votes) was just as critical.

Posted by DanG | July 3, 2008 10:01 AM

This is good news for Obama. What are the downsides of running ads in Montana and North Dakota? Media buys have to be pretty inexpensive in comparison to other states and running in places like these probably increases his profile as a pro-Western candidate in more electorally valuable states like Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico. He's not just stretching the map but also trying to create an entire base of support beyond the Northeast. Good idea.

Posted by Unreal Veal | July 3, 2008 10:16 AM

Montana also has one of the largest (proportionately) libertarian/right-wing fringe populations in the country. LP candidates always make the ballot and can count on about 2 percent of the vote; Ron Paul got 22 percent in the June primary and 25 percent in the February caucus. This is one of those states where a 4-5 percent Barr vote could make the difference.

Posted by Dave Weigel | July 3, 2008 10:20 AM

Also, is spending a day in Montana really the worst thing Obama can do? Both candidates are spending time outside the US in this campaign (McCain recently got all confrontational when asked why he is going to Colombia and Mexico now). Spending a day in what appears to be a toss-up state out West isn't that bad an idea, especially if it can increase his appeal to the Rocky Mountain West overall.

Posted by Reality Man | July 3, 2008 10:23 AM

That's why I'd like to see Schweitzer brought in as a Veep choice -- as the anti-Cheney -- with the caveat that he might well prefer staying in Montana.

I don't think there's the same potential turnout gains in the mountain west as there is in the Deep South, but there are other payoffs. After years of being written off, the Democrats in that region are going to reward investment of time and money, while the entrenched GOP organisation can be marked by a degree of complacency or in-fighting.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 3, 2008 10:27 AM

"Institutions" is just not that similar to "implications."

Posted by washerdreyer | July 3, 2008 10:30 AM

This is another reason that siege-like primary was so incredibly helpful to Sen. Obama: he has organziation in all these states and volenteers. But most importantly, he's been to all these states and campaigned there too. So on some level, the resistance to him in such an anti-republican climate is lower.

I think the campaign is playing to win the map as a whole; and that's the fundamental difference between McCain and Obama. One side is on the defense and the other is playing offense.

Posted by Rhoda | July 3, 2008 10:36 AM

is spending a day in Montana really the worst thing Obama can do?

Obama is spending the 4th of July in Montana. (He's in North Dakota today.)

Posted by Dave Weigel | July 3, 2008 10:42 AM

Matt,

Flying home from DC a few months ago I sat next to Mrs. Tester. We talked politics. She correctly predicted the outcome of the primary and said that Obama would beat McCain there.

As Obama does not appear to be resource-constrained and McCain is, the calculus is not simply "what does it cost me" from Obama's POV, but "what does it cost McCain".

Get out of the beltway and off the east coast a little more Matt.

Posted by notchris | July 3, 2008 10:48 AM

One day well be free, we wont care, just you wait and see
til that day can be, dont let it get you down.
When I feel that the world is too much for me
I think of the big sky, and nothing matters much to me.

Posted by mark | July 3, 2008 10:52 AM

I've said it before and will continue to believe it through the election: I love that we're seriously contesting Montana, Indiana, Alaska, North Dakota, North Carolina, and so on. The bigger and broader the win, the better.

Posted by jbryan | July 3, 2008 11:04 AM

If Obama wins Montana, I'd take that as an excellent sign that Colorado and New Mexico are going blue as well, and that would be game set match. Funnily enough, Montana was a state Obama kinda sorta didn't pay attention to because it was clear what was going to happen on June 3 no matter the MT margin. I'm sure there was plenty of grassroots activity though, and that's paying off now.

Posted by Chris O. | July 3, 2008 11:04 AM

the calculus is not simply "what does it cost me" from Obama's POV, but "what does it cost McCain".

And raises the question of whether the institutional GOP in those states is positioned to defend their electoral votes: This from the Fargo Forum:

State Republican Party officials tend to dismiss Obama’s appeal to North Dakotans. But remember, these are the same people who endorse congressional candidates (sometimes three times) who rarely get an anemic 30 percent of the vote against Democratic incumbents. These are the same people who grudgingly support Gov. John Hoeven only because he’s wildly popular; some of them believe he’s not “Republican enough.” Their analysis of Obama’s chances is partisan boilerplate.

If McCain can't rely upon the state GOP in places like ND and MT, he'll have to invest personnel as well as money, but shuttling in outsiders to those states late in the campaign might itself be counter-productive. (Think Mythical Man-Month.)

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 3, 2008 11:13 AM

If Obama wins Montana, I'd take that as an excellent sign that Colorado and New Mexico are going blue as well, and that would be game set match. Funnily enough, Montana was a state Obama kinda sorta didn't pay attention to because it was clear what was going to happen on June 3 no matter the MT margin. I'm sure there was plenty of grassroots activity though, and that's paying off now.

Posted by Chris O. | July 3, 2008 11:19 AM

At least from my experiences in Indiana, I'd say that showing up is half the battle. The attitudes toward the national Democratic Party, and liberal governance, are nothing less than toxic in some areas. But it's rarely an antipathy born of personal experience... it's all straw-man arguments and jerking knees. Simply showing up, speaking without condescension, and differentiating yourself from a Straw Liberal gets you halfway to victory. Clinton and Obama campaigned hard for Hoosier votes, and as a result the polls show a fairly tight race in November.

I seriously doubt that Obama will carry Indiana in 2008. It really is, with the exception of a few pockets, a very culturally conservative state. And as a black politician from Chicago, the deck is stacked against Obama with some of the voters in Southern Indiana who swung to the Democrats in 2006. But even a hard-fought narrow loss will have long-term benefits in terms of shifting political attitudes and building an infrastructure for 2012 and beyond. Not to mention the tactical benefit of forcing McCain to spend time and money there that could have been spent in Ohio and Michigan.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 3, 2008 11:44 AM

I seriously doubt that Obama will carry Indiana in 2008. It really is, with the exception of a few pockets, a very culturally conservative state.

It seems like Indiana would be a superficially competitive state, sort of like CA is for the GOP right now (Bush seemed to think he had a serious chance of winning in '00 as I recall). You've got pretty hardened partisan bases for both parties, just one of them is bigger than the other and there are relatively few tossup voters.

In other words, a good candidate is still really unlikely to do better than 49-51, no matter how hard they campaign there.

Is this true and what other states are like that?

Posted by BFR | July 3, 2008 12:01 PM

John McCain is the Republican's patsy, the guy who is going to get slaughtered because Americans aren't going to give anyone associated with George Bush another chance to destroy this country.

Tragic thing is, McCain used to stand for everything anti-Bush. When Bush and Rove went after McCain in South Carolina back in 200, I thought John would be the man to stand up to them and beat them back. But McCain is all bluster and hype - he doesn't have the political ground game to win these battles.

Then, in defeat, in what was even then clearly a great tragedy in our country, McCain embraced Bush and his policies. That means McCain embraced the man who smeared his family and did it with a smile. Now the very political operatives who used to work for Bush are now in charge of McCain's own presidential campaign. That's like having a fifth column guarding you.

I used to have love for McCain, back when I still thought he had character. Standing up to Bush on tax cuts showed character. But now, he's sold that character out for political expediency. Now McCain is clearly lacking in character. Which is one of the saddest stories in recent American political history. The once great Straight Talk Express has crashed and burned. Oh, what could have been!

McCain is toast and Obama is going to win this thing in a popular and electoral landslide.

Life is such - McCain made a deal with the devil to get the nomination. In return, the devil got McCain's soul. Without that soul, McCain doesn't have the juice to actually win the Presidency.

So McCain gets punished for Bush's sins.

Posted by The Tragedy of John McCain | July 3, 2008 12:13 PM

I'd love to see Barack pick off a large chunk of real estate in that big swath of red in the middle of the map - even if the total return in terms of votes (electoral and popular) is not that great. Optically, the huge band of red on all of our electoral maps is kinfd of disheartening, and I'd love to see the narrative change, even if it's all form over substance.

Posted by MDK | July 3, 2008 12:13 PM

It seems like Indiana would be a superficially competitive state, sort of like CA is for the GOP right now (Bush seemed to think he had a serious chance of winning in '00 as I recall).

I keep going back to the primary, where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama got more votes (in a primary!) than John Kerry got in the 2004 general election -- by quite a substantial margin. Even if you make a wildly generous overestimate of Limbaugh meddlers -- say they account for, I don't know, 10% of the primary vote -- that's still 156,000 votes more than what Kerry got. What's more, even if you shave off that 10% combined total, it still puts the Clinton/Obama primary vote only 300k votes shy of what George W. Bush got in the 2004 general election.

It's pretty astonishing. There was nothing like that in 2000 for the Republicans in California, and not too many other examples like that this year, either, as crazy as the primary season has been. That's one of the big reasons I'm optimistic we can put Indiana seriously in play -- it's not only that the polls are showing an incredibly close race, but also that the Democrats have already gotten a crazy number of people in the state to vote for them. If they can get that many in a primary, I can certainly see them getting more in a general election.

Posted by jbryan | July 3, 2008 12:37 PM

That's one of the big reasons I'm optimistic we can put Indiana seriously in play -- it's not only that the polls are showing an incredibly close race, but also that the Democrats have already gotten a crazy number of people in the state to vote for them.

I know next to nothing about Indiana except that I've heard it's a big Klan state and super conservative, with the exception of the Chicago area suburbs.

Logically, what you're saying makes sense to me but intuitively, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the notion that places like Indiana can be contested.

It strikes me as similar to GOP commentary about how they're going to win in places like WA or CA. Seems plausible on paper, until you do the math and realize that in order for the GOP to win in those places you have to get people in places like SF and Seattle to start voting GOP in fairly significant blocks. Just not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Posted by BFR | July 3, 2008 12:53 PM

Seems plausible on paper, until you do the math and realize that in order for the GOP to win in those places you have to get people in places like SF and Seattle to start voting GOP in fairly significant blocks. Just not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

But it already has happened. The two candidates in the primary already identified a whole lot of winnable people and got them to go out and vote in a very significant block. In fact, they found more people than voted for John Kerry in the 2004 general election and almost as many as voted for Bush. Can they find some more for the actual general election? I certainly think it's possible (especially when the Pollster aggregate currently has Obama narrowly ahead).

What happened with the Republicans in California was that they made a lot of noise about the state being competitive in theory. They did the same in Hawaii. But there wasn't a lot outside of the "on paper" concept to suggest they were really winnable. If the Republicans had had a primary in Washington, though, where they got more votes than Bush did in the '04 general and almost as many as Kerry got AND they were polling ahead in the state AND they have a financial advantage that allows them to play offensively... yeah, I'd be pretty concerned.

Posted by jbryan | July 3, 2008 1:15 PM

But it already has happened.

Well, I hope you're right. I'll be skeptical until we start getting closer to November...

Posted by BFR | July 3, 2008 1:34 PM

Is this true and what other states are like that?

Well, you have states like Mississippi, where Obama can expect to improve turnout among African-Americans, but by doing so pretty much ensures that he won't get the 20-odd percent of white voters needed to win the state. It's that racially polarised.

I think Georgia is a bit like like that, in that every black voter newly registered and motivated to vote probably mobilises an otherwise apathetic white voter who's been getting emails about how Hussein X Obama will confiscate his lawn tractor.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 3, 2008 2:19 PM

Agree with pseudonymous in nc: There are places, such as Montana, Indiana and New Hampshire, where Obama's showing up won't hurt local Democratic candidates and could well help. But there are other places, especially in the Deep South and racially polarized suburban-exurban districts, where activism on his behalf lead to pro-GOP blowback. You can bet that in Mississippi, Senate candidate Ronnie Musgrove and House freshman Travis Childers are hoping Obama stays as far under the radar as possible.

Posted by allbetsareoff | July 3, 2008 4:29 PM