Barack Obama is a Weak Nominee...UPDATED
By Susannah Posted in Archived — Comments (71) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Yeah, yeah, I know. The conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama is this “rock star” and an unstoppable force that John McCain will completely succumb to. Well, I’m about to blow a hole through that theory big enough to drive a truck through. Yes, John McCain could still lose the general election to Barack Obama; however, his quest to beat Obama is not as quixotic as some might think. In actuality, Obama is really a weak nominee, who lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by over 300,000 votes, and who had to be dragged over the finish line by superdelegates (party elites) and the liberal media.
1) Barack Obama didn’t win any large blue states or major swing state primaries, except MO (which he won by one percentage point). Hillary Clinton won OH, PA, TX (not a blue state, but she won Latinos by a large margin), NY, FL, NJ, CA, MA, and MI. Hillary also won big in TN, AR, WV, and KY—all states that Bill Clinton won twice (and, no Democrat has won the presidency, since 1916, without winning WV). Not to mention, Clinton won every “Latino state” from TX all the way to CA, except CO which held a caucus. Furthermore, in most polls taken before she got out of the election, Hillary Clinton actually beat John McCain in OH, PA, FL, MO, NV, AR, WV, and KY (recently, according to a Rasmussen poll)—whereas Barack Obama is actually losing to McCain (badly in most of them) in almost all of these states, except OH and PA (look on Real Clear Politics). However, McCain keeps it close in OH and PA against Obama, but he loses badly to Clinton in these two states. The only two “swing states” (if you want to call them that) that Obama is competitive with McCain, where Clinton is not, are CO and VA (Obama also does slightly better in IA against McCain, but Clinton is still competitive there). However, Obama’s whole VA/CO Candyland/ Fantasyland map is totally less realistic than Clinton’s FL/OH/PA/WV/AR map is, because A.) When is the last time a Democrat won VA or CO and B.) CO was a caucus and Obama doesn’t do so hot with Latinos, so who knows really how big his support in CO actually is. Here are some links to maps and polls backing up what I just wrote.
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=56a201bd-db14-4567-bba...
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x2882.xml?ReleaseID=1164
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/poll_hillary_bea...
http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.aspx?aID=105365.85666.117507
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2...
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/Roves_maps_Obama_gains_Clint...
Now, it should be noted that Obama beat Clinton with a lead of 126 pledged delegates. He netted 140 delegates total from the caucuses. Bottom line, Obama’s entire pledged or elected delegate lead comes from caucuses in red states (dominated by liberal party activist), such as ID, ND, KS, NE, AK, and UT (which was a primary, though)—states that he will never win in the general election. Obama garnered 12 delegates from ID, winning there with around 13,000 votes, whereas Clinton garnered only 10 delegates out of NJ, winning there with over 100,000 votes. Now, in reality, which state do Democrats have a better chance of carrying in the GE—ID or NJ? Finally, if you only look at TX, you will see that Hillary won the popular vote in the primary that day; however, Obama won the caucus that same night. Why is that you might ask? Well, first of all, it must be noted that Mark Penn (Clinton’s chief strategist) made an idiotic mistake by failing to properly organize in the caucus states. However, it must also be noted that caucuses start at a particular time, can last for hours, and are frequently located at out of the way locations. In other words, they favor people with a lot of time on their hands—i.e., students and wealthy “latte liberals”. However, anyone can vote in a primary at anytime in the day that they wish. People with kids, people who work shifts, elderly people with arthritis (who can’t stand for long periods of time) or taking medications, people caring for sick parents, and active military personnel are all disenfranchised with caucuses. In other words, a lot of Hillary’s voters are disenfranchised via caucuses. For these very reasons, the New York Times wrote a recent op-ed stating that the Democratic Party should do away with all caucuses and Gail Collins wrote a very good column describing the absurdity of caucuses, both are linked below. And lastly, the third link shows a map of the states each candidate won—which state looks like an outlier (hint, hint, the abbreviation is SD)?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/opinion/08sun1.html?ref=opinion
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/opinion/14collins.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/10/delegate.map/
Furthermore, Obama was also able to rack up delegates and create the illusion of large support, in southern red-state primaries like VA, NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, and LA with overwhelming African-American support. Obama won upwards of 93% of African-American support in most primaries—which gave him victories in a lot of southern states that, once again, he will never win in the GE. A perfect example of this is NC. In the most recent Survey USA poll taken before Hillary conceded, she was actually beating John McCain by six points in NC, whereas Obama was losing to John McCain by eight points. Keep in mind that NC is a state where, in the primary, Obama beat Hillary by 14 points. What gives, you may ask? Well, African-Americans make up about 40% of the NC Democratic primary voters, whereas in the GE, they would get swamped by Republicans and “Heath Shuler” Democrats. Furthermore, even in states that Hillary won by over 200,000 votes, like PA, Hillary only won around 10 delegates more than Obama did, because Democrats award more delegates to African-American districts than they do to white working class or Hispanic districts.
Bottom line—no one really knows how much support Obama really has in the Democratic Party or on the electorate at large. His entire support could turn out to be a house of cards.
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=89a1b144-de19-4715-bb6...
2) Obama had all of the advantages—he had more money, he had a biased media in his back pocket, and had the DNC on his side, yet he still couldn’t seal the deal. Every time he had a chance to knock Hillary out of the race for good (NH, Super Tuesday, OH/TX, PA, IN), he fell flat on his face. In most states, Obama outspent Hillary 3-1 (4-1 in some states), yet he could never quite “slay the dragon”. In fact, he even lost SD on the day that he “clinched” the nomination—or the day that superdelegates dragged his wounded carcass over the finish line, depending on how you want to look at it.
3) Hillary has the better “base” for the general election based on the Electoral College. Look who votes for Hillary—white working class (or Reagan Democrats), Latinos, Catholics, Security/soccer moms, and seniors. All of these people have voted for Republicans in the past in significant numbers—they are “swing voters” and they largely determine how elections will turn out. Now, let’s look at who votes for Obama—upper-income or “latte liberals”, African-Americans, and young voters (18-29). Hardly any of these people ever vote for Republicans. Also, Florida has many Jewish and Puerto Rican voters, two groups that Obama lost by large margins.
Furthermore, Hillary’s base is mad and they will actually be open to voting for Republicans, that is if Republicans play their cards right and show Hillary and them a little respect, but I digress.
White women who voted for Hillary are angry, because they feel that Obama, at worst, ran a blatantly sexist campaign, and at best stood there silently and benefited from sexist, misogynistic attacks at Hillary’s expense from dirtbags like Chris Matthews (“Hillary is witchy”, “shrill”, and “like fingernails on a chalkboard”) and Keith Olbermann (“Someone should take her into a room and only HE comes out”), and bloggers at left-wing sites like Daily Kos, while never speaking up—no one in the DNC did either, but I digress. Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, Obama told Hillary at the NH debate that she was “likeable enough”, refused to shake her hand at The State of the Union Address, said that, Hillary’s “claws were coming out”, and that “Periodically when she’s down, she lashes out in order to boost her appeal” (in regard to Hillary). Obama also acted like he was brushing dirt off of his shoulder at a rally when discussing Hillary, and some people even think that he was really flipping her off at a rally when he acted like he was scratching his cheek with his middle finger. Furthermore, Obama also had numerous surrogates making sexist comments about Hillary, like Jesse Jackson Jr. (Obama's national campaign co-chair), saying that, “Hillary cried for her hair, but not for Katrina victims”, and like Rep. Steve Cohen of TN saying that, “Hillary is like Glenn Close in ‘Fatal Attraction’, and should have stayed in the bathtub” (McCain called Cohen out on his remarks, whereas Obama has not—Cohen has since apologized). Oh, and finally male members of the DNC and the media have been trying to push Hillary out of the race since February, even though she was only down slightly more than 126 delegates (in the end) out of over 4000 total delegates, and wound up getting more votes than Obama. Furthermore, Jesse Jackson (in 1988), Ted Kennedy (in 1980), and Jerry Brown (in 1992) were down by way more delegates than Hillary was to Obama, but they did not face overwhelming demands that they get out of the race. Anyway, you get the idea of why white women think that Hillary received grotesque treatment by Obama, the media, and by the DNC. Here is the link to the video of Jesse Jackson, Jr. making his infamous comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNrlSn7ndAA
Now, Reagan Democrats and Latinos are angry because they feel that the media and Obama supporters have been disrespectful of them by calling them “racist, uneducated, low-information voters”. And to add insult to injury, Donna Brazile even went so far as to say that, "We don't need white working class and Latino voters to win anymore"--not a good way to win friends and influence people if you ask me, but I digress.
And finally, Catholics, Reagan Democrats, and Jewish voters are really worried about his unsavory friends, like Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, and Bill Ayers. Not to mention, the residents of FL and MI aren’t particularly thrilled about how they’ve been treated by the DNC, and how Obama got his lawyers to block revotes in those states. So in conclusion, my point is that millions of Hillary’s voters are angry about how Hillary was treated by the Obama campaign, the media, and the DNC, and they are up for grabs if Republicans are savvy enough to go after them.
4) As our own Dan McLaughlin has so beautifully documented here, Obama had been drastically losing momentum. Since March 4th, Obama has lost nine out of the last fifteen primaries. He lost OH, TX, RI, PA, IN, WV, KY, PR, and SD to Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, he lost OH, PA, TX, WV,KY, and PR by more than 100,000 votes, and he lost OH, WV, KY, PR, SD, PA and RI by double digits. Not to mention, he lost WV, KY, and PR by more than 35 points (WV and PR by more than 40 points). All in all, he was down over 600,000 votes, since March 4th, by the time the race ended. What is the simplest explanation as to why Obama had dropped off so drastically when he got to these states? Is it because the people who live in them are more “racist” than the people living in the rest of the country, or is it that they found out about all of Obama’s unsavory friends and acquaintances (such as Wright, Ayers, Rezko), were aware of Obama’s “bitter” comments, and just knew more about him than the people did in the states that voted earlier, because the media had given him such a free ride?
On a side note, this may go totally against conventional wisdom, but IN and SD were big indicators of how much Obama was losing steam. IN was a state that Obama was supposed to win (because it shares 30% of it’s media with the Chicago media market, and because Obama had won all of the other previous sates that bordered IL), and it was a state that he was winning in up until around a week before it voted. Not to mention, SD was also a state that Obama was supposed to win, because he had won all of the surrounding Mountain West and Great Plains states that held caucuses at earlier dates. Obama had previously won ND by over 20 points, but he lost SD by 10 points—probably, in part, because ND voted on Super Tuesday before people really knew a whole lot about him, but also, because SD held a primary and ND held a caucus. I mean, are the people in SD really that different from the people in ND, or was it just easier for Hillary’s supporters to vote for her in SD? However, the main reason why SD was such an embarrassment for Obama, was because the media had been announcing all day long that Obama was the presumptive nominee, that Hillary was going to concede that night (she wasn’t planning on it), and the DNC had been busy dragging out superdelegates throughout the day in order to push Obama over the top and suppress Hillary’s vote and give the appearance that the voters, not the superdelegates, were putting Obama over the top—and he still lost by ten points.
So in conclusion, Barack Obama is not the “juggernaut” that he appears to be—at least not when one actually breaks down his numbers versus Hillary Clinton’s numbers. Furthermore, it looks like Hillary’s voters, or the “Hillocrats” as Pat Buchanan calls them, are going to be the swing voters during this election cycle. In other words, Hillary’s base will control the outcome of this presidential election. If John McCain can peel off around 25% of them, then he is American’s 44th president—if he can’t, then Barack Obama is the next president. Hillary’s voters feel that both they and their candidate have been disrespected by Obama, his supporters, the media, and the DNC; therefore, some of them will be up for grabs. However, in order to win over enough of them to sway the general election, Republicans are going to have to do something that comes completely unnatural to them—they are going to have to show Hillary Clinton a little respect (John McCain has already started doing just that). And no, you can’t bash Hillary but then say that you respect her supporters—they won’t buy it. If some continue to make sexist comments about Hillary and call her a “witch”, then her female supporters will take it personally and stay home. If some of you continue to call her “evil”, then many of her supporters will be personally insulted that you would say that they would vote for an “evil” candidate and you will lose their support. Hillary supporters understand that Republicans don’t agree with them on everything. However, it has been my experience in life that people will forgive you for disagreeing with them—they won’t forgive you for disrespecting them. Not to mention, given that Hillary’s supporters have already had so much disrespect thrown their way (from the media, the DNC, and Obama’s supporters on the blogs), the very last thing that they will be receptive to is Republicans dissing her and gloating over her demise (and by extension, dissing them). Now, I realize that some of you would rather eat your own livers than say nice things about Hillary Clinton (like you respect her strength or her grit, etc.), but ask yourselves what is more important—the short-term fun of gloating over her defeat, or winning the general election? The choice is yours.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PatrickJBuchanan/2008/05/09/the_hilla...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR200805...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/prochoice_democrats_an...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/getting_bubba.html
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/063kva...
Thanks GC. Your opinion means a lot to me. :-)
I pray every night that you are correct... we will see. the problem is the media bias and the money advantage that he had before he still possesses..
so it doesn't matter if it is unfair or not, the same forces that allowed him to win before may allow him to win again..
"Small town folks get bitter after which they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment"- Barack Carter Obama
Yes, but Obama outspent Hillary 3-1, sometimes 4-1, in those 15 contests and he still lost by double digits in most of them. Money will only go so far if people decide that you are inexperienced, have shady friends, and don't share their values.
I think that in the beginning of this election, people really didn't understand exactly how biased the media was--and that really hurt Hillary. Now, thanks in part to SNL, I think that people are "on to" the media and know that they're in the tank for Obama. Therefore, now, I think that people take the media adulation towards Obama with a grain of salt.
I came across the Noquarter site, and have been reading some of the blogs there.
They realize that Obama is dangerous for this country and are putting America first and doing what it takes to see that he stays out of the white house.
The Obama trolls posting there posted some of the most vile stuff I have ever seen on a website, it made me angry to see people being treated that way.
If this is what his base is like I really fear for this country.
I know we will not agree on all things but I believe we have found common ground when it comes to Obama.
Mark
I often joke that Obama is a uniter in that he's uniting all different sorts of people against him. But all kidding aside, yes, you are right in that Obama has literally some of the most vile supporters on the internet--worse than Ron Paul supporters. I think that if Obama does lose in Nov, it can, in small part, be attributed to his obnoxious supporters on the blogs who undercut his entire message of "hope and unity".
I once was aboard the Obama-is-a-sure-thing train. That ended with the deer in the headlights response to Wright and all that followed. If Republican MOCs have the stones, even if McCain does not, this fraud can be brought to light when legislation is proposed that actually could reduce fuel prices, among other things.
...and very in depth. Really good job.
I have a minor quibble with you regarding Hillary Clinton's supporters, as I think the only really strongly pro-Hillary voters are the left wing feminists, who unlike the blue collar white Democrats, the Hispanics, and the Jews, are never going to vote for McCain. However, I do agree with you that it is pointless to attack Hillary; she already lost. (Of course, McCain seems to like her, so he won't criticize her anyway.)
I have three additions to your list. These are:
5) Obama's personal qualities - Obama has some problems with his judgment and his lack of experience. His problem with judgment is demonstrated by his many gaffes, his willingness to surround himself with racists and fools (even after he became a national figure), his unwillingness to admit errors (see NRO), and his apparent belief that he knows all that he needs to know to be President, and no more learning is necessary (also see NRO). His experience problem is that he has been in the public eye for only about four years, and he has only been in TWO competitive political campaigns throughout his life. These were the Congressional race he lost in 2000, and his presidential primary victory (which you show was actually tilted in his favor). In 1996, when he won his state Senate seat, he won the seat in the primary by challenging his Democratic primary opponents signatures (this was a one party district). And his 2004 US Senate race campaign was also won under unusual (and not helpful for building campaign experience) circumstances. These facts have also contributed to his many gaffes. (In contrast, McCain has been in the public eye for over a decade, and has had two competitive presidential races, at least two competitive US Senate races, and at least one competitive US House race.)
6) Obama's physical characteristics - Obama has a number of physical problems as well. The most obvious is the fact that he is black. Unfortunately, there are people, in both parties, who will vote against Obama simply since because of his race. (BTW, there are also people voting for him because he is black, which is just as bad; but these people are smaller in number than the others.) Also, Obama has a funny name - undoubtedly some people think he is Muslim (although he isn't) or is a foreigner (also not) because of his Muslim and foreign sounding name. Further, Obama is a gangly guy, with big protruding ears, which some people will think look unpresidential. President's are supposed to look "dignified." Finally, Obama is young looking, which, once again, violates the idea of what a President is supposed to look like.
7) Obama is very left wing - Nuff said.
Unfortunately, there are people, in both parties, who will vote against Obama simply since because of his race. (BTW, there are also people voting for him because he is black, which is just as bad; but these people are smaller in number than the others.)
I disagree with this, for the following reason. If somebody is not voting for him because he is black, and they don't like black people, that is different from the people voting for him because he is black, for the following reasons: they think it would be good for the country to have a black President, from a historical perspective or whatever, they want a role model for their kids, to show them that being black won't stop you from even being President*, they think it would be good for America's image abroad, etc. That is different from someone voting against him for racist reasons, which is what you are implying.
Maybe there are non-racist reasons for voting against someone for being black (other than you are worried other people won't vote for them on racist grounds) but I never hear them. If someone wants to explain, I'd be all ears.
*I saw an interview with Chris Rock, after learning that an (black) ancestor of his was a high-ranking guy in the Union Army, and he said it would have changed his outlook as a kid if he knew it. He said that as a kid, he thought he would "pick up things for white people" as an adult, that there was an inevitability that he would be nothing as an adult, and the only reason that changed was his wandering into a comedy club at age 20.
and next to Zell nationwide ever. Lieberman is third today.
more later
But suffice to say that Susannah is exhibit A for why conservatism is more important that republicanism, and I am a party man.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
You make good points, but I have to disagree with one thing that you said. Hillary won huge victories in KY, WV, and PR (by over 35 points in all three) after she lost NC when the media officially declared that the race was "over"--that demonstrated a strong devotion to her in my opinion. Not to mention, people voted for her in SD after the AP had announced that Obama had already wrapped up the nomination. I don't think that all of the people in those sates, that contributed to those large victories were all "left wing feminists". Furthermore, not all women who vote for Hillary are "left-wing feminists"--some are, but a lot of them are suburban "security moms" (who think that Obama is too naive on foreign affairs) who helped put George W. Bush over the top in 2004. Oh, and there also seems to be genuine affection for the Clintons in the Hispanic community (see PR), but I digress.
Anyway, I do agree with your points that Obama looks too young to some people (which might further emphasize the perception that he's inexperienced), that he is too liberal, and that he appears to have questionable judgement when it comes to picking his friends and associates. I do think that a very small number people might not vote for Obam because he is black. However, according to the polls, there are actually more people who won't vote for Hillary because of her gender, or McCain because of his age, than people who won't vote for Obama because of his race. Of course, people in Ohio and Appalachia didn't vote for Kerry or Gore either--not because of their race, but because they were viewed as elitists, just like Obama is.
People like Obama demagogue gas prices while they secretly cheer their increases to achieve ideological ends. Sen. Clinton, despite what others here will admit, doesn't. That ideological difference must be exposed. I hope, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the GOP is up to the challenge.
are supporting him because he is black is likely much higher than those that refuse to vote for him because of race.
......GREAT POST!!!!
Love it!
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Thanks guys. I'm glad that you like it. :-)
Okay, here goes:
1) Okay, this seems to boil down to two arguments: that Obama's support was weaker than it seemed and that Clinton is better in the general.
The first: however anyone slices up the data, looks at caucuses vs primaries, African American support, latino support, etc., the best way I think to see total support among Democrats, is to look at polls of Democrats. Not at one poll, but at as many as possible. I will cite one of the sites I always cite (that was not intentional) here, pollster.com. It shows Obama with a clear and growing lead among the Democratic Party that has been there since around Super Tuesday. People say his support has dried up since then, but this shows his support going up. He did worse later on because of the states that voted later on; in fact, in states like Pennsylvania, he made up ground over time. There, he went from being hugely behind to only sorta behind as time wore on. He still lost, and so people said he was doing worse, when actually he was doing better, than before.
The second is the electability argument, which I suppose is where the swing-state talk comes from. First let me say most polls show us winning Colorado, Clinton won it once and lost it by like a point once, and it polled about the same as the national vote in '04, so within a few points, but the main point:
Polls show Obama over McCain by about the same amount as Clinton . The only argument that can be made here, then, is one about states, that is, the arbitraryness of the Electoral College benefits Clinton. Here I do think that Clinton has an edge, but I also think that Obama would win the Electoral College also. With Clinton's dropping out, his support has risen in recent polls (look at all the stuff I liked to above). There are a number of places where he is competitive even if McCain is favored, and will campaign (as he is a good fundraiser/organizer), and we will pick off some such places (examples: Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana maybe, etc).
2) It is a short memory to say Obama had all the advantages. Up to Iowa, nobody gave Obama a shot, Clinton was inevitable, etc. She had all the institutional support early on, the media wrote Obama off until he won some places, etc. As for the money thing, you say this like it shouldn't count. It is true Obama raised more, and that is a point in his favor! It will take a lot of money to combat the smears various Republican groups will throw at him, and to compete everywhere. For that last bit, keep this in mind: we took control of the Senate in '06 by winning in Montana and Virginia. Back then, the DNC was ridiculed for doing party-building in Mississippi, and recently we won a house race there, which put the Republicans in panic (and also, we are competitive in a Senate Race for 08). So that money will help a lot, and a lot of doors will open if we compete in as many places as possible.
3) First, now that it is over polls show the party unifying quickly behind Obama (links above). As for the respective bases, other than latinos Hillary's base is not one for the future. Seniors, white people, Reagan Democrats - declining in population (same in strong Hillary states Ohio and Pennsylvania, and when I say population I mean relative). Obama's base of non-whites, "creative class" people (whatever that means), young people, all increasing in population/influence (those same students will be around for awhile), and so is a good group for the party in the years to come. As for the misogynistic stuff, first of all black voters could have said the same thing had Hillary won. There was plenty of racial stuff swirling around. People talk like Obama won via some nefarious conniving this-or-that, but he won because he had more support. More people in the Democratic Party supported Obama than Clinton. WRT the popular vote argument, it only works if you count Obama as having 0 support in Michigan, which is not true.
I am Jewish, I am not worried. The best thing that could have happened for MI and FL was for Hillary to drop out, at which point with the politics out of it the DNC would have seated them in full.
4) Polls show Obama's support going up, solidly for like a month or two now. You can't count Indiana as a Hillary win and dismiss Missouri as being essentially a tie. Hillary won South Dakota because she campaigned way harder, and Obama was pulling back by then.
The larger point is, on the issues Obama is way closer to Hillary and her base than McCain. As for campaigning, I will again point to exit polls, consistently showing people had the impression that Hillary campaigned unfairly more than Obama. As for the misogynistic stuff, no doubt it exists but the worst I have seen is things like the "Hillary Clinton Nutcracker" and "Citizens United Not Timid", and anti-Hillary group started by Republican Roger Stone with a totally coincidental acronym (that one especially makes me cringe). If Hillary won and was now running in the General I would be yelling about all of that stuff non-stop here and everywhere else. I would go on, but I am tired of this comment, it has gotten way too long...except to say, really we will win Colorado.
Also, I forgot to say it earlier, but polls I saw somewhere I forget where show Obama winning over Hillary's latino supporters now that it's over.
Despite your optimism, Obama ultimately will lose in a landslide. If you really crunch the numbers, the only states that should flip are Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. I will concede the "map" will chage, but it is not in a way you want.
States that, according to polling info I have seen, are favored to flip to Obama are Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico. If that happens and he holds on to all Kerry states he wins.
The biggest potential McCain states are Michigan and New Hampshire. If only NH flips it is a tie, if Michigan does then Obama is losing, but he has a number of other states in which he is only a little behind. Wisconsin is a McCain target but favors Obama.
this site has good info, is run by a guy who made his name with baseball stats. He has a percent chance either guy will win each state. What I said about who is favored where is in line with what he said, and he has a methodology and everything. FWIW, he has Obama winning with 275.5 votes (the half is the result of having various probabilities worked into the model).
president. As it is, despite the illegal alien advantage Obama, the likely result is 326-209 and I suspect you folks know as much. Our MoC's should run with that probability.
for any Jewish American to support Obama is simply galling.
Reverend Wright: "Israel is a dirty word! But don't be scared"
Farrakhan complimenting Obama as a great man
Edward Said being personal friends and working with Rashid Khalidi on the Woods Foundation giving money to Palestinians associated with the PLO
Hamas running phone banks for Obama during the primaries and Hamas spokesman proclaiming they want Obama to win
Obama flip flopping on Jerusalem
Obama wanting a nuke free Middle East while at the same time talking with Achmedinijad without conditions
Robert Malley
Tony Lake
Jimmy Carter
Michael Moore
Samantha Power
Zbiegniew Brezinski
I could go on. Any Jew who votes Obama is simply a liberal who was born Jewish but could care less about Jewish issues (life issues, Israel)
"Small town folks get bitter after which they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment"- Barack Carter Obama
Nor to see the injustice of Jim Crow. Likewise, is equally abhorrent for Gentiles or Jews to support Obama.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
est champions are Christians.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
American Jews are a lot like Isrealis - politically they are a diverse lot and only a minority could be construed to be solidly conservative (by American standards):
Reform leader: 'Christians for Israel' hurt country
Michal Lando, The Jerusalem Post, April 3, 2008Addressing the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in Cincinnati, Ohio, Rabbi Eric Yoffie addressed his disagreement with colleagues who say that the connection with Christians United for Israel (CUFI) is needed in a time where Israel needs all the support it can get...
"What [Hagee and his allies] mean by 'support of Israel' and what we mean by 'support of Israel' are two very different things," Yoffie said. "Their vision of Israel rejects a two-state solution, rejects the possibility of a democratic Israel, and supports the permanent occupation of all Arab lands now controlled by Israel."
...Yoffie suggested that Hagee's brand of evangelicalism was losing popularity in favor of a more moderate approach. His and his followers' approach to Israel was "extremist" and did not represent that of most evangelicals, Yoffie said.
Counterpoint: Merge Reform and Conservative Judaism
David Forman, The Jerusalem Post, March 13, 2008in the States, there are cracks in the once impenetrable Conservative wall, with musical instruments used to enhance Shabbat services, the ordination of gays and lesbians, and even some grudging recognition of children of patrilineal descent as Jews.
Would the Conservatives here deny that one of its own rabbis performs same-sex marriages, or musical instruments are played in some of its synagogues on Shabbat? Conservatives, on both sides of the ocean, are fast becoming a mirror image of Reform.
...And while the Reform movement's Israeli rabbinic program has grown, the Conservative movement's has shrunk, with many Conservative rabbis employed by Reform institutions.
"Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and blood-thirsty, in their own regions the Wahhabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account" - Winston Churchill, 1921
conservatives. In fact I referred to liberal Jews.
If you want to make a point, however false, just come out with it. Don't pretend to be replying to someone.
We call that a non sequitur.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
You can be liberal and jewish and still care for Israel - that's true for Americans and Israelis. Furthermore, if you have been following Israeli politics, then you understand that American Evanglicals are far from being universally regarded as true friends and supporters. So trying to make Jewish-Isreali support a left/right issue (in either country) just isn't going to fly.
"Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and blood-thirsty, in their own regions the Wahhabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account" - Winston Churchill, 1921
what they say doesn't negate the facts of how strongly evangelicals supprt Israel. See Dennis Prager and Michael Medved to get your mind right.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Israel's greatest champions are Christians
The greatest champion of Israel I know would have to be a member of my (non-nuclear) family, who is Israeli and fought in an Israeli War. And he is Jewish.
I would argue this further, that the Dems in the end are better for Israel and Bush has been bad for Israel, but I don't wanna get away from the point of this diary. Plus that opens up a whole can of worms...
I would argue this further, that the Dems in the end are better for Israel and Bush has been bad for Israel, but I don't wanna get away from the point of this diary.
Yeah, when I think of people who are good for Israel, I really think of the Democrats.
I mean, Jimmy Carter alone has done so much to help Israel.....
(Yes, that is sarcasm)
----------------------
Dependence is Slavery.
the contrast with Obama, Hillary would also have been a weak candidate. The weakness is existential. Its leftism that Americans reject. Its weakness vs the evil abroad that Americans reject. Its racism that Americans reject.
Obama has hung with racists for 20 years.
The cruel joke on the left: They imagine average Americans (see repubs) are racist. But the fact is that they project their own racism upon a public that is not racist and all things being equal would choose black.
But Obama is a leftist and his color is irrelevant.
MLK's dream kills Obama.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
You make some good points. Here are my counterpoints.
1) National polls are not necessarily a reliable method to determine support in a primary, because they reflect the media bias and who people (that are not following the race that closely) perceive to be winning, i.e., people want to pick a "winner". Also, neither the primary nor the general are national elections, therefore battleground state polls are much more reliable in predicting Electoral College victories.
2) Even though people thought Hillary was inevitable, in retrospect, it is obvious that the Democratic primary was set up to favor Obama with the caucuses (that are easier for young people and "latte liberals" to attend), proportional allotment of delegates, and FL and MI being disenfranchised. Many people do not realize this, but IA, SC, and NH also moved up their primaries, and nowhere in the rules did it require FL and MI to be stripped of all their delegates--it called for them to cut in half. If the Democrats had done what the Republicans had done, and cut FL and MI delegates in half originally, then Hillary would have had the momentum going into Super Tuesday (instead of Obama with his SC victory) and this whole primary could have turned out differently. It should be noted that Howard Dean is not a big Clinton fan, and is an Obama supporter.
3) Obama took his name off the ballot in MI a) because he knew he would lose the contest and b) because he was trying to suck up to IA voters. In other words, Obama was trying to game the system and he should pay the price for voluntarily taking his name off the MI ballot. Furthermore, it would have been impossible to give Obama all of the "uncommitted" votes in MI, because Edwards and Richardson had also taken their names off the ballot (Dodd, Kucinich, and Gravel left their names on the ballot), so it is impossible to figure out exactly how many of the "uncommitted" votes he would have gotten in MI. Bottom line--more people voted for Clinton during the entire primary process than voted for Obama (over 300,000 more), and the superdelegates gave the nomination to Obama.
4) IN is a solid red state with a small Democratic party, so it is totally unlike PA, MI, and OH. Furthermore, like MO, it borders IL, and 30% of IN is in the Chicago media market. Therefore, like MO (where he had Claire McCaskill helping him out), IN is a state that Obama should have won. I never said that MO was a "virtual tie" (although Bill Richardson said Clinton's NM win was a virtual tie), I said Obama won MO like Clinton won IN. However, one more interesting thing is that Clinton has been beating McCain in the MO poll and Obama has been losing to McCain--see above link in original post for poll.
Obama had his lawyers block plans to hold re-votes in FL and MI, so that definitely further demonstrates that he knew that he was going to lose in both of those contests.
1) First, I don't see why the person who the media favors will come out better in polls. It isn't like NBC sees a Gallup poll, thinks "Oh Obama is so great this must underestimate his support" and gives him 5 extra points. Polls can be wrong; this is why I used a website that has a moving average of polls. I only know of one example where the polls were way off, and that was New Hampshire; that could be chance, or more likely, that it is hard to measure what is going on when things are happening so quickly.
As for people wanting to pick a winner, that may be true but it is a bad idea to get into discounting people's support due to why they gave said support. Hillary got a lot of extra support in earlier states for being more well-known (by same said people who don't pay too much attention). Not to mention having every advantage early on for being well known (Joe Scarborough said in late 2006 something like "Obama, you are gonna get crushed by Hillary, don't even try" and that was the CW at the time). In terms of who had more support in the party, even if a lot of Obama's extra support came from people piling on the winner that does not change the fact that he had more support. If one wants to argue that this means that he is less electable, well I say General Election electability is a totally different beast and we need to look at the numbers for that separately.
As for the argument that for the General Election we should look at only certain battleground states, two things. First, Obama will win different battleground states (he will win New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa (he is favored, right now, in those 3 states)). If he holds Kerry's 2004 states as well, that puts him at 273. And he has chances in various other places, and is likely to do well in >=1 of them. I do think that the Electoral College favored Hillary, but I think either would win, in the aftermath Obama's Map is looking better (yesterday I said this site has him at 275.5 votes, now it has him at 278.0). In the end, as the campaign goes national and Obama gets the chance to respond to poll numbers in the battleground states (shoring up weak ones etc) those numbers and the national numbers will come closer together. This is why I think times when the popular vote and Electoral College are at odds are so rare, and it only happened in a year where the popular vote was exceedingly close. (btw Gore totally won Florida).
2) Two things about caucus states. First of all, caucus states were not picked randomly, they tended to be in the West, where Obama did well already. The caucus part helped, but Obama would have won, say, Idaho (where he got 79%) if it were a primary (look at for example Utah). I have argued here before that caucus states actually depress Obama's pop. vote number (because if, say, Idaho was a primary, more people would have voted and Obama's absolute victory margin would have increased even if his percent margin decreased).
Second, Obama did well in caucus states in large part because he chose to compete in them, put lots of resources there, etc. If, for example, states were winner take all, he would not have spent time campaigning in states where he already had won (example, South Carolina) and spent time in close states (I am talking mainly about Super Tuesday here, but also for places before TX/OH when they came quicker and in bunches. As for there he would have likely given up OH early and invested more time in TX, and so may have won there (he lost by 4 points there). If the rules were different then Obama (and Hillary) would have campaigned different, the rules seem to favor Obama because he ran a smarter campaign than Hillary in terms of taking what the rules gave him (supposedly Mark Penn thought California was winner-take-all for delegates and so planned to win it all on Super Tuesday by winning CA).
If there were no caucus states, Obama would have run a different campaign, targeting different states.
In every early state, and for that matter many late states too like PA, Obama trailed badly at first and had to campaign to close the gap. If FL and MI mattered, and he were allowed to campaign there, then he would have campaigned there and closed the gap, and then even if they still went for Hillary it would not have been by as much. If they mattered but he couldn't have campaigned there...well that would be undemocratic.
Harold Ickes, a big guy in Hillary's campaign, voted to strip FL of all its delegates (or MI, I can't remember and am typing this offline, but the first one to be voted on set the precedent for the other). Hillary, back when she was "inevitable," did nothing to help FL and MI, even though you figure that being inevitable is the exact position from which one can show leadership on such an issue. Back then though she had all the institutional support and a big superdelegate lead, so possibly did not want to rock the boat.
If there were no superdelegates Obama would have won after Oregon and Kentucky, straight up on pledged delegates. The way I see it (this applies to the Electoral College too) the primary rules take the popular will, put it in a blender then give a result and everyone hopes that it gives the result in line with the popular will. What happened in 2000, for example, was not the Electoral College favoring Republicans but it was the arbitrary nature of that blender. In this case, Obama had a narrow but clear lead in support, the Michigan thing I regard as simply part of that blender.
There are two attitudes to take here. One is "the rules are the rules" and the other is "screw the rules, what do the people want?" The first attitude leads to Obama being the victor. Under the second, Obama has more support. The only way to arrive at Hillary having more support is to count Obama with 0 votes in Michigan, to which I say "that is due to a rules disupte. Screw the rules, what do the people want?" and clearly there are Obama supporters in Michigan.
I disagreed with the FL/MI rulings. But once the rules are in place, it is unfair to the insurgent candidate who relies on the rules being what they are (in order to pick his spots and campaign where he can be effective, since he can't match the favorite everywhere), to change them after the fact.
3) Hillary said at the time (I am paraphrasing) "Everyone knows the Florida/Michigan contests will not matter" and "I agree with the DNC rulings." If she was protesting the ruling, she should have actually protested the rulings. She was inevitable at the time, she had some leverage to do so, and to be honest she would have gained like a million points in my book for taking on the DNC (I may have even voted for her, who knows). She did not, until it was her only chance at winning - why would anyone expect me, an Obama supporter, to think anything other than that it was all opportunism? Did Obama cater to Iowa? Yes, so did Hillary and everyone else by going along. And so did McCain when he came to my college (which isn't even in Iowa) and said that the current system is good because of how great people from Iowa are (he really said something to this effect, the implication was that they are better at this than other states). It is impossible to figure out support in Michigan, especially since many people, including Hillary supporters, stayed home after everyone (including Hillary) said it wouldn't matter.
4) I was responding to this:
Barack Obama didn’t win any large blue states or major swing state primaries, except MO (which he won by one percentage point).
Later on you mentioned Indiana without same caveat.
As for MI/FL revotes, I don't know the details about what happened with them, but there are legit concerns about a revote. I heard that in Michigan, it is against state law to vote in both parties' primaries. And many Dems, hearing that their primary would not matter, voted in the Republican one (which did, at least more so). And said people would be more likely Obama supporters, since he was not on the ballot and Hillary was.
Also, one more thing: I have never had a latte, I don't even know what is in a latte, and I hate coffee. I only go to Starbucks because they take Dining Dollars - or rather, went to Starbucks freshman year; now that I don't have a meal plan I go to Wawa.
Wow, that was long.
Hillary is also favored to win NM against McCain and is competitive in Iowa, although Obama does slightly better in both states against McCain (Hillary won NM as well as all of the other Latino states in the primary). As I previously stated, VA and CO are the only swing states that Obama is competitive in that Hillary is not competitive in. However, as I previously stated, Hillary is beating McCain in polls in a plethora of swing states that Obama is not competitive in, such as, FL, KY, WV, AR, MI (he does better in MI)—and she does better against McCain in OH and PA which have more Electoral votes than CO and VA. Here is a link to NM polls,
http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_...
1) National polls are not the best way to measure support, because we do not have national elections. Also, we have actual results because people have voted in primaries—and Hillary received more votes, so examining the actual results of the contests is the best way to measure support—and Hillary has more support.
2) With regard to caucuses—you are somewhat correct. If Idaho held a primary, Obama most likely would have won it with numbers similar to the results of the Montana primary—in which he won with 57% of the vote and netted 2 delegates, contrast that with Idaho, in which he won with 79% and picked up 12 delegates—that is a pretty big disparity. Obama also won with big margins in Great Plains states that held caucuses—two states with similar demographics as these states that did not hold caucuses are OK and SD, and TX has many counties that have similar demographics (although some counties would have more Latinos)—Hillary won both primaries and won with big margins in rural west Texas counties. Once again, check out the map Susannah linked to from CNN, SD is the outlier and it held a primary. Caucuses suppress voter turnout and are easier for voters in the demographics that Obama attracts to participate in, so if there were no caucuses Obama would not have been able to game the system in the way he so successfully did. Also, Texas held a caucus and a primary on the same day—Clinton received more popular votes and Obama won the caucus and received more delegates.
You then mention two “attitudes” one can take when looking at the results and say Obama should win under either “attitude”. The assumptions you appear to be making is that the elected delegates reflect popular will and that DNC rules make actual votes in FL and MI disappear. Once again, Hillary won the Texas popular vote and Obama won more delegates out of the contest and the same thing happened in NV and NH. So, clearly elected delegates are not an exact representation of the popular will. Also, both candidates knew the superdelegates were part of the process, so acting like Obama devised a strategy without the superdelegates in mind in disingenuous—because Obama won the nomination with the support of superdelegates. Both candidates knew the superdelegates were allowed to use discretion with regard to the decision of which candidate to support.
3) Hillary would have won MI on the original date and Hillary would win a MI primary if the contest were held today--the actions of Obama are all the evidence one needs to examine in order to figure out what his campaign thinks the results would be if MI held a revote.
before I go into round 8 million of me vs everyone else on this site, I want to do a brief overview thing. Which is (I said this before but will repeat it) that I am looking at this with the idea that there are two attitudes about the whole thing" 1)"the rules are the rules" and 2)"screw the rules, who had more support." This, at least, for the question of who "really" won, if Hillary had it stolen from her, etc.
I am willing to argue either. But what bugs me is that Hillary supporters borrow from both, using one or the other as they see fit (that is helps Hillary), sort of leading to a gerrymandered argument that isn't really consistent. Example is when Hillary supporters say she won the popular vote, which should really matter (that is, screw the rules and the political stuff, what do the people want). When I point out Obama had >0 support in Michigan in actuality, they say that it was a political mistake, he should pay for it, etc. Well that's great, but I thought we were saying screw the rules and politics and focusing on the popular will!
1) National polls are the best way, under outlook 2 above, due to the following. Because when trying to discern the popular will from the results, a number of problems come up. For example, what to do about Edwards, Dodd, etc. voters in early states, weighing caucus states vs primary states, MI/FL, etc.
You can just do a simple adding up of votes, but it is hard to say it truly reflects people's will due to all of that stuff (especially FL/MI issues). If you want to say "tough, that is how the popular vote worked out," well that is fine, but then the popular vote doesn't count for the popular will, or for the official result; it is just an arbitrary metric.
Your argument ignores the lack of voice for Michigan Obama supporters. How do you say that a metric giving Obama zero support in Michigan "is the best way to measure support"? I say there is no way this is a metric for popular support. If you think Obama was dumb to take his name off the ballot, go ahead, but that does not change the fact that it is not a metric for popular support.
So in lieu of that, I leave the polls as the best way. If anyone reading this thinks that the polls (not a poll, all the polls) are somehow hiding a huge number of Clinton supporters, I hope you share the argument, until then I am going with the notion that, there are more Obama supporters than Clinton supporters in the Party. Let it sink in: there are more supporters of Obama in the Party than Clinton.
2) Montana and Utah had primaries, Obama won. South Dakota was once Obama started to wind down and shift to General Election but Hillary went hard there.
Take Texas as an indication; Obama's support went up 9 points from Primary to Caucus. Apply that to Western states and Obama wins all of them in a caucus. I had a longer response here but this is a better view; I think it is hard to say those contests would have gone Hillary with a primary.
I do not assume that pledged delegates indicate popular will, I think the national polls do though. As I said, the pledged delegates take the popular will and put it in a blender (these disparities often have to do with odd ways delegates are apportioned). The pledged delegate argument I made is only to say that "the superdels gave it to Obama" is wrong, he won on pledged delegates. But if you really want to get at popular will, look at polling data. I did not intend to imply, and I don't think I did imply, that Obama had no superdelegate strategy, but it would have been easier for him had they just not existed (Clinton had a big superdelegate lead initially remember, Obama caught up on pledged delegates, which aren't a perfect indicator of popular will but better than superdels). Going back to our two outlooks, if the rules are the rules than there is no issue. If you say screw the rules, the superdelegates are whack, well then it is still pretty hard to say the superdels gave it to Obama when they really gave Hillary a big lead initially, and a lifeline at the end.
3) Assume this is true (I don't know, it is possible Obama campaigning would change it as it did many other places, but for now assume it is true). Then it doesn't change what I said, namely that Hillary was not a champion of MI/FL but of her own chances (as you would expect for a politician, her advocacy on her own behalf does not bug me but the Obama-is-illegit stuff does). And it doesn't change the fact that any popular will measurement that accounts for Obama support in Michigan reaches a conclusion that Obama had more popular support nationwide. The issue with the counting of Michigan, as some do it (many for Hillary 0 for Obama) is not that Michigan is counted, but that Obama supporters there are not.
This whole "Obama should pay the price for taking his name off" thing is dumb, for a few reasons but firstly for this one: it is not about Obama, it is about the voters. When you "punish Obama" you are really punishing his supporters. You are taking away people's voices in the name of "punishing Obama" for something you don't agree with - what happened to counting every vote and counting every voice? "Punishing Obama" sounds a lot like punishing Florida and Michigan - the exact idiocy that caused this all in the first place.
It comes down to the two outlooks. If you go by the rules, Obama wins. If you go by popular support, than any purely popular-support-counting metric that accurately reflects popular support shows Obama supporters more numerous than Hillary supporters.
Either the rules are the rules, or screw the rules and politics, who has more popular support. Scenario 1, Obama wins.
Scenario 2, Obama has more support. The only other conclusion arises from counting the popular vote and giving 0 support to Obama in Michigan. Too bad because he was not on the ballot, you say? I say, screw the rules and politics, we are considering who has more support here, and Obama had support in Michigan, and said support puts him over the top nationally. Punish Obama, you say, for taking his name off the ballot? Screw the rules and politics, I say, count popular support! Obama has more of it.
All who ran suck. John Edwards sucked. That little alien looking abomination Kucinich sucked. Mike 'Men at Work' Gravel sucked. Biden as always sucked. Big deal, they all sucked, suck, will suck, and have always sucked. Slap some lipstick and rouge on Lenin and he could probably make other leftists (who also suck) faint like Obama (who definitely sucks). It will be fun to see how angry the natural Obama will be when he loses badly in November and becomes just another has been, also ran, angry Senator in a long sordid line of leftist Senators who all suck. Liberals and liberalism suck, and suck badly. They all think America sucks and want to radically change it, and that really, really sucks.
Tim Schieferecke
The ridiculous part of this whole argument is that I am arguing with another Democrat, on a Republican website. I am not sure why, since like Kanye West said, this is family business...
For the record, I don't think America sucks.
The rules of the Democratic nominating process are pretty simple--a candidate needs 2117 delegates to win the nomination. Two kinds of delegates exist, super and elected. The superdelegates are individuals that can exercise judgment--they are not required to rubber stamp the elected delegate leader. A superdelegate can consider which candidate received more votes, which candidate won FL and MI, they can consider the elected delegate count, and which candidate is stronger for the general election--those are the rules all the candidates agreed to in advance. Neither Obama nor Clinton got anywhere close to 2117 elected delegates. And just for some historical perspective, both Gore and Kerry won enough elected delegates that neither of them needed superdelegates to put them over the top. Obama won the nomination within the rules all parties agreed to in advance--the superdelegates put him over the top despite more people voting for Hillary.
having a hard time with the site so this is it for me for right now.
This is all true in a technical sense, but you put it together in a way that implies something untrue. It is true that Obama needed superdelegates, as Hillary would have, even though he would be better off without superdelegates around. It is true that "more people voted for Hillary," even though this is not representative of popular support (like I said if someone has a reason for why a 0-Obama-Michigan-support count is representative, please share).
Okay. But you put it together with:
the superdelegates put him over the top despite more people voting for Hillary.
This gives the impression, IMHO, that Obama won through superdelegate support despite having less popular support. Which is not true.
The statement "Obama won through superdelegate support despite having less popular support." Do you think that this is true, or false? I ask because this is the message that last sentence conveys, IMHO, and I think it is false. Also, is this what you meant by the last sentence?
You are entitled to your opinion, but I do not buy your argument that national polls are a good way to measure actual support.
If you want an objective analysis of which candidate has more support, then I would suggest you read Jay Cost's column from Real Clear Politics titled-"Obama Wins on Points". Cost concludes that we really do not know who has more support. I personally think a good tie breaker in a situation where both candidates split the party equally is to go by which candidate is stronger for the general election, and Hillary is clearly the stronger general election candidate. Here is the link to Cost's column,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2008/06/obamas_tko.html
I personally think Hillary has more support based on the fact that caucuses are undemocratic and clearly distort popular will (see TX), FL and MI would have gone for Hillary if revotes were held, and Hillary received more votes in the contests during the nominating process. That said, the superdelegates gave the nomination to Obama and he is the Democratic nominee for president and he joins an exclusive club that includes McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry.
You can think that the polls are bad, but do you have an explanation for why they all show Obama ahead? By a lot? Not being able to explain this, at all, is akin to a theory of gravity that predicts the moon falling out of the sky.
Caucuses may well underestimate Obama's support. His support went down 9 points caucus-to-primary in TX, participation went up about four-fold. Applying the same to Colorado, a primary woulda given Obama about an extra 37,000 votes.
Assume this is true about MI/FL, that doesn't change the fact that any tally giving nonzero Obama Michigan support puts him ahead nationally. This is like me saying Kerry won the popular vote in 2004 because I discounted Bush's votes in California, saying Kerry would have won California anyway.
Obama has more support. There are more Obama supporters than Hillary supporters in the Democratic Party; this has been true since February. All the invisible people, the hard working down-on-their luck yet patriotic and optimistic Americans and strong fighting Democrats for which Hillary fights (and I mean that with sincerity, she is on my side after all), whose voice she represents? Show me them all, how many of them there are, line them all up in one big line. Imagine this line, see it in your head, it stretches from New York to Little Rock, something like 18 million people. Really more, because many people could not vote. 20 million, 30 million? Then for each and every one I will produce an Obama supporter, I will make a line with the exact same length, a single Obama supporter for each single one of those invisible people. And at the end of it all will be me, standing there by myself, an Obama supporter, with no Hillary supporters left, me the 50%+1 man, with nobody left on the Hillary column to match.
That is because there are more Obama supporters than Hillary supporters. An extremely close race, and I would not be rubbing this in if it weren't for people claiming otherwise, but this is the truth. An extremely close race in which one candidate came out on top, as one candidate must.
Hey Zombie,
You wrote that "There was all kinds of racist stuff swirling around". I have no doubt that nutburgers on the internet probably wrote racist emails about Senator Obama claiming that he was a "secret Muslim", just like there were nuts who wrote sexist things about Senator Clinton. However, I want you to name me one major TV pundit, politician, or blogger (like Andrew Sullivan, Kos ,etc.) that wrote ANYTHING racist about Obama, because right now, I just can't think of one. However, I literally can think of endless examples of sexist and misogynistic comments about Senator Clinton from pundits on TV, bloggers, Obama surrogates, Democratic party members and political figures, and from Obama himself.
And no, Bill Clinton using the word "fairy tale" to describe Obama's Iraq war record, or Hillary saying that LBJ passed the civil rights legislation and that white working class people vote for her, does not count. Every reasonable person knows that those were false charges of racism, and those smears are one of the many reasons why Clinton supporters are so angry with Obama, his campaign, and the media, and why many Clinton supporters won't vote for him.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
A few things I can remember...Fox News referring to Michelle Obama as Obama's "baby mama" (which refers to a woman who a man had a child with but is no longer involved with - not a woman a man is married to for six years before having a child).
Also, a Fox News host asking if Obama's fist pound was a "terrorist fist jab" (I am not sure if that is racism or idiocy but I doubt this would ever be said about a white candidate).
Keep in mind that the Muslim stuff first gained steam when Fox News reported that he went to a Madrassa and learned extremist Muslim teachings.
By the way, here is a poll showing that as of late April, 13% of people thought he was Muslim, another 26% unsure, a total of almost 40%. So the email smears thing has had some effect - 40% is too large a number to ignore. (search the page for the word 'muslim' to find the poll I am talking about) (the numbers have come down a little since so that's good).
Rush Limbaugh's "Barack the Magic Negro"
Bob Johnson, BET founder and first ever black billionaire, saying "when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book" which was seen as basically calling Obama a drug dealer (he first denied this, saying it was a reference to his community organizer days, later he apologized) (someone will say that since he is black he can't be racist, well I don't think he is racist but that doesn't change the fact that he can use racial attacks, getting a little carried away in his Clinton advocacy (he said something like this in his apology))
I remember some guy on some news show, I forget who, saying something like "they only support him because he is brown; it is like he's mammy"
The Geraldine Ferraro thing - the first time I heard it I thought she was wrong, but that's it. But then it came out that she said the same thing about Jesse Jackson in 1988, and it looks to me like just a thing to say about black candidates you don't support. Plus how she kept saying that they are attacking he because she is white. (I don't think she is racist so much as willing to use a racial attack to help her candidate).
I think that the race stuff is less overt than the misogynistic stuff, because it is less accepted, but I think it was still there. And forgetting about the media, in the WV exit polls 22% of people said race was a factor, and the more someone said race was a factor the more likely they were to vote Clinton (the opposite effect was in place for Clinton wrt gender).
I want to say real quick that the people you call "latte liberals," the Obama supporters, the bleedin' hearts, are the ones that normally would be on the front lines yelling about the misogyny stuff (if, for example, it was Clinton v McCain and we were in the middle of the General Election). The only reason that doesn't happen is that charges of misogyny often come within larger pro-Hillary/anti-Obama arguments, and it is human nature to reject the stuff that goes against your own guy, even if you agree with a lot of it.
One reason I would have enthusiastically supported Hillary in the General Election (other than agreeing with her on most issues) is to see the collective head of all the misogyny-peddling people who go on about how real Americans hate Hillary Clinton explode. It would be a giant screw you to all the people who do things like put up "Iron my Shirt" signs at her rallies. And btw, after New Hampshire Kos said something very similar wrt the media people making fun of Hillary.
to quote gamecock, more later (this post is getting long, I wanna break it into smaller pieces)
also, I looked up a latte, turns out it is coffee with milk - I don't like coffee, so I guess I don't like lattes.
First of all, I agree that Michelle Malkin's comment calling Michelle Obama "Barack's baby mama" did sound racist; however, I don't think that was Malkin's goal. I think that she was making fun of Michelle Obama introducing Barack Obama, in 2004, as her "baby's daddy".
Second of all, the "terrorist fist jab" comment from Fox was really more stupid and tacky than it was racist. However, I must say that I thought that the Obamas doing the "fist jab" in the first place came across as arrogant, undignified, and like they were gloating (or high-fiving each other), or rubbing Hillary's supporters face in their loss, so I kind of think that they deserved whatever they got on that one.
I think that the "Madrassa" thing was more shoddy journalism than anything else. However, you can bet that if any other candidate had been educated in Indonesia as a child, that the media would be trying to dig up whether or not they had had any Islamic influences as a child--so I don't think that it's a "race thing".
The Barack the "Magic Negro" thing was Rush Limbaugh making fun of something that a black columnist had written. Yes I agree that it was a bit much, however, I really don't care what Rush Limbaugh had to say about the Dem primary (he said plenty of sexist things about Senator Clinton, going on rants about her aging), because he had no power to really influence Democratic voters or superdelegates. I was specifically talking about sexist comments from liberal pundits and reporters (who have influence on Democratic voters and superdelegates), like Olberamnn, Matthews, David Shuster, and Jack Cafferty and liberal columnists and bloggers, like Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Bob Herbert, Andrew Sullivan, and posters on liberal blogs, like The Daily Kos. Put it this way, if I had to list all of the sexist comments that I had heard from so called liberal pundits on TV, or read from so called liberal columnists and bloggers, I would still be listing them at this time tommorrow if I started right now. However, I never heard any racist comments from any of these people.
And, as far as Bob Johnson's comment goes, I think that he was alluding to Obama's past drug use, but I don't think that he was calling him a "drug dealer". To quote Ramesh Ponnuru "Bringing up Obama's past drug use is not racist." I, personally, think that it's tacky and that nobody cares, but it's not racist. Was it racist when people brought up Bill Clinton's "not inhaling" in 1992? Was it racist when people brought up George W. Bush's rumored past cocaine use or his past DWI when he ran in 2000? I mean, Obama did write about his drug use in a book--what did he expect?
As far as Geraldine Ferraro goes, I thought that it was extremely unfair what the Obama campaign and the media did to her. She was simply saying that Obama was helped out by getting 93% of the black vote in a Democratic primary (hello, Captain Obvious) just like Hillary was helped out by getting a healthy chunk of the women's vote, Romney was helped out getting a huge chunk of the Mormon vote, and Huckabee was helped out by getting a huge chunk of the Evangelical vote. There is nothing wrong with pointing these things out, and it doesn't make you a racist to do so.
And finally, yes, Obama himself made several sexist comments. He said at a rally that, "Hillary's claws were coming out" (you wouldn't say that about a man), he said that, "Periodically, when she's down, she lashes out in order to boost her appeal" and he "brushed off" his shoulders when discussing her at a rally--an outward sign of disrespect--and, some think that he even flipped her off at a rally.
Oh and don't even get me started on Obama's surrogates. General McPeak said that, "Obama's not having crying fits and finding his voice at sixty" (when he was standing on stage next to Obama no less), and I already quoted Rep. Steve Cohen and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. in my above blog. Oh, and how could one forget about Air America talk show host, Rhandi Rhodes, calling Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro "f***ing wh*res" at an Obama fundraiser. By the way, Obama never once called out any of these people, whereas Hillary called out all of her surrogates who went over the line--and none of her surrogates went over the line to the degree that his did. The sad part is, that Obama could have had a real "Sister Soulja moment" calling out his surrogates, the pundits on TV, or any of the numerous bloggers that allowed sexist bile to be spewed on their websites (Daily Kos and Huffington Post)--instead, Obama continued to post on those very websites and even emailed Oblermann's misogynistic rantings regarding Hillary Clinton (his special comment) out to other reporters. Not to mention, John McCain was the one who called out Steve Cohen and strongly condemned Father Pfleger's remarks (Obama did a half-ass job with the Pfleger comments, and didn't even mention Cohen) regarding Hillary Clinton. Bottom line, McCain is a leader and Obama is not.
After Hillary conceded Daily Kos wrote a series of "why Hillary lost" posts, and one was titled "Why Hillary Lost: The Nutcracker" and ends with
But you don't need to know the answer to that question to know that Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign was deeply hurt by a casual, mainstream sexism that earned far less of a backlash than one would have hoped when she entered the race.
For that, all you need to know about is the nutcracker, and the silence that attended it.
If you had a poll there (a big bastion of Obama support) something like "was Hillary's campaign hurt by sexism?" and the choices were "no", "yes, but it was not the main reason she lost" and "yes, it is the main reason she lost" I bet the spread would be 2% no, 78% not main reason, 20% main reason. (the 78% would cite the war and superior organization).
(by the way, there was also racist Obama merchandise, like a picture of curious george with Obama's face on it or something like that, I think the nutcracker thing was more widespread but I am not sure)
My point is, neither the Obama campaign nor his supporters are the source of this stuff. Keep in mind that I have seen a lot of very anti-Hillary stuff on this site like "Hillary body counts" alleging that she has had many people killed in order to get to the top, and one commenter I remember saying "I just hate her, I just can't stand the sound of her voice, it makes my skin crawl" or something like that. Glenn Beck said something like "she is the quintessential b***h." When that happened all of the liberal bloggers were up in arms.
My point is, I also think this is all absurd, but it has come from the right a lot up to and including this campaign (plus idiotic anchors, by which I mainly mean Chris Matthews). Most of the anger at Hillary from Obama people I don't think was misogyny but the impression that she was hurting the party by not only staying in but continuing to attack Obama harshly even after it was clear she was going to lose (really before that, when it became clear she could only win via massive superdelegate intervention).
I have seen on this site people arguing that the Demcoratic Party is racist and ignores the needs of its black supporters. If Hillary had come back and won at the end, you can bet that the people on this site who are now agreeing that the Obama camp was misogynist and Hillary supporters should support McCain now would be saying that the Hillary camp was racist, that is why Obama lost, that the Democrats ignore black voters, and that black voters should back McCain instead of Hillary as a result.
My point is, I don't think the Obama side was misogynist, I think the main culprit is the press. I think there was a lot of anger at Hillary from the Obama side especially later but not gender-based, more unity-based I guess. You can point to what some Obama surrogates said, but no more than I can point to what Hillary surrogates said. If it seems that Hillary was harsher on these people than Obama, I think they both just react to the media, which as I said openly tolerated straight-up misogyny more than it tolerated racism.
And sympathetic figures on the right, I think they would be saying the same things about Hillary if the tables were turned. Like I said, it is human nature for people to support arguments that seem to help their guy, so if Hillary won and then I came on here saying she won due to racism I would get a lot of agreement.
What a shame if high gas prices help elect Obama... When Obama is part of the reason we have high gas prices.
McCain has many weaknesses as well. ALSO, do not underestimate how low the republican brand has sunk. I actually think that McCain has only about a 35-40% chance to win.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
I'm not saying that Obama doesn't have advantages by having more money and the media in his back pocket. I'm just saying that it's not a "slam dunk" for Obama, and that he is weaker than he seems--especially since I think that most Americans are, now, aware that the media is in the tank for him.
I have no doubt in my mind that McCain is going to win in November, even if the Democrats do end up keeping Congress, why?
1st of all, one has to look very carefully at Obama's history and take note of his past association with Islam as well as his past association with Rev. Wright's church which slams whites and America (a church that Obama's big endorser Oprah Winfrey had once belonged too, but she left that church herself long ago because of the crap from Rev. Wright, so I can give Oprah credit for at least having some sense, even though her support for Obama certainly has hurt her image for sure).
McCain will be picking up loads of Republican supporters, not just the ones who have willingly stood by him but also Republicans that haven't been too fond of him for years (i've criticized him over numerous things myself, I will make no secret of this and I am not going to pretend I never did any such thing, cause I am speaking of this as an honest man).
While I have been justified on things I have criticized McCain for, there are things about McCain that are praiseworthy too, not to mention if we look at McCain's record and Obama's record and we weigh out the positives and negatives on each candidate, it is obviously clear who deserves our vote.
It is no suprise that loads of Democrats that rooted for Hillary are putting aside party difference to vote for John McCain, some of them never would have voted for a Republican for President till McCain and Obama came along, some of them even belong to what I refer to as the Church of I Hate Bush (or the Church of Hating Bush).
Let's see here, Democrats who endorsed Hillary are rooting for McCain (even Democrats who are religiously devoted to hating Bush are rooting for McCain too).
Is the fact Bush and McCain have disagreed on some things part of why some Democrats who hate Bush are voting for McCain?, probably not with a lot of those Democrats, some of the Democrats who hate Bush are even fully aware of just how dangerous Barack Hussein Obama really is (and yes I am using his middle name of Hussein because I want people to know full well about who he really is).
McCain bravely fought against the Communists in the Vietnam war, he was captured and held as a POW, but he was lucky to have made it back to the USA to prove that he can be a strong leader even if you do disagree with him on certain issues.
McCain's son is fighting in Iraq, which means that to all those Liberals out there who claim that Republicans who voted for war didn't send their own kids to war, well party is over for those Liberals cause 1 Republican who voted for war as a son fighting and he still supports the war, and that Republican is John McCain who actually visited Iraq during the campaign.
Obama has never served in the armed forces, he didn't even at least serve the National Guard like Bush did (what do the Liberals have to say about this?)
Obama hasn't even visited the troops in Iraq like McCain has done.
Obama would cut and run from Iraq but McCain would at least wait till time of departure is right before we leave Iraq.
The choice of candidate is obvious not just to Republicans like me, but it is also obvious to some of the Democrats out there that at least have some sense left in them.
I know that McCain is the right choice for America
Ryan McReynolds
Republican candidate for Precinct Delegate
Birch Run, Michigan
Nobama for me.
I am now a McCain Democrat :)
Another Obama weakness I believe is overexposure. In poltics, timing is key. Obama peaked too early. This may be the single greatest effect of the protracted Dem primary. People became engaged early, the became infatuated early, but rarely does reflexive infatuation last a whole year. After a year a big speeches, Obama's soaring tone will sound droning. He will become another politician and really what does he have other than charisma and infatuation. Nothing. Rove and Bush were masters of this. It matters not who peaks in April or July. Look for who is peaking in October. It will be bearly impossible for Obama to maintain momentum for a whole year.
I think that you make an excellent point. Obama did totally peak in February. Now, I personally have two theories as to why this happened. First one is that the media finally started vetting him, thereby making public all of the unsavory friends that he had that people were reading about online and hearing about on talk radio (Wright, Ayeres, Rezko). My second theory is that the writers strike ended and Saturday Night Live was finally able to spoof the media for their Obama lovefest, thus embarrassing them into finally covering him at least somewhat like a candidate, instead of like the "second coming".
Oh, and you are right about his speeches as well. I remember the first time that I heard an Obama speech (2004 Dem convention), I thought that, "This guy was amazing". Now, I have to either change the channel or mute it when he gives a speech, because I've heard it all before and it now gets on my nerves.
You guys are awesome - who wants to sign up for military service? We're gonna need some more true Americans for the war with Iran.
BTW sparky, I would be on the pointy end of that spear. I'm sure that I won't see you there.
"Even if you think our presidential choices this election year are between disgust and disaster, anyone who has ever been through a real disaster can tell you that this difference is not small. It is big enough to go vote on election day." - Thomas Sowell
What is this, 2003?
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Just a thought, but isn't Ohio supposed to be very similar to Michigan, but tilting slightly more to the right than Michigan? Yet, polling for Ohio is about the same as polling for Michigan. Maybe some voters in Michigan are angry at what the Democratic Party did to them in the primary and are considering voting Republican as a result.
That's a possibility, but here's I think the more probable reason: the black voters in both states. In 2004, Kerry won the black vote in Michigan 89% to 10%. He won the black vote in Ohio 84% to 16%. So, his support was more solid in Michigan than in Ohio. This is likely due to the city of Detroit, but I digress. This can be looked at in 2 different ways. One is that Obama can improve on Kerry's numbers in Ohio among black voters enough to put him over the top in Ohio. Another is that Obama will have difficulty improving on Kerry's numbers in Michigan so this creates an opening for McCain in Michigan. In case you were wondering, Pennsylvania's black voters went 84% to 16% for Kerry, exactly the same as Ohio's.
In conclusion, I believe that whoever wins Ohio will also win Michigan. Pennsylvania will tilt to the left of both Michigan and Ohio. This explains why the polls in PA, MI, and OH are the way they are. Obama is polling stronger among blacks in Ohio and Pennsylvania than Kerry did in 2004, but probably not much different in Michigan. This election will be decided in Ohio and Michigan.
No way. Mich and Ohio are trending in two completely different directions. Its not all about race. All power corrupts and all polticians fall into this trap. Plus, the populace can be fickle. Politically, Republicans wore out there welcome with the a-poltical class in Ohio (but I hope they remain conservative at their core). The reverse is true in Mich. The a-political class is tired of one state recession and failed Dems. Mich is ripe for the Repubs.
"people will forgive you for disagreeing with them—they won’t forgive you for disrespecting them."
Republicans have to keep reminding Democrats about the disrespect that was continuously thrown Hillary's way.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson