Time to go buy some stock in whoever makes Maalox.
Because the Democratic Party's about to order in bulk.
By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 | DNC | Spring of Pain | Swing States | The Best Democratic Primary EVER — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Spring of Pain is well on its way to becoming the Summer of Weasels Gnawing on Entrails* for the Democratic Party, and may I be the first to congratulate them for it? There's a bit of lopsidedness to the general election results so far, you see:
PRINCETON, NJ -- In the 20 states where Hillary Clinton has claimed victory in the 2008 Democratic primary and caucus elections (winning the popular vote), she has led John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily trial heats for the general election over the past two weeks of Gallup Poll Daily tracking by 50% to 43%. In those same states, Barack Obama is about tied with McCain among national registered voters, 45% to 46%.
[snip of graphs]
In contrast, in the 28 states and the District of Columbia where Obama has won a higher share of the popular vote against Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries and caucuses, there is essentially no difference in how Obama and Clinton each fare against McCain. Both Democrats are statistically tied with him for the fall election.
[H/T Hot Air]
And guess what? It's all about the swing states, baby.
Read on.
Read the whole survey, but let me extract some of the meat for you here: the really important issue is what Gallup's swing states are doing. Gallup defines Hillary's swing states as being Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, and New Mexico; and Barack's as being Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, and Wisconsin. While they both do equally well against McCain in their own swing states, and about equally badly in their primary opponent's swing states, there's one small problem for Obama: the EVs of Clinton's swing states totals 105, while his swing states' EVs equal 54. Even taking out Florida and Michigan, the ratio is 61/54.
To put this into perspective: I will, right this moment, make a deal with the Obama campaign. I will spot them the EVs of Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, and Wisconsin, in exchange for those of Arkansas, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. Note that I'm not even insisting on Florida and Michigan: we can fight for those states normally - heck, we can even agree that we keep Florida and they can keep Michigan. More than fair, right? - given that I'm giving up 2 EVs from 2004, and everything.
And that above scenario is the reason that I'm suggesting you invest in antacid vendors. The central problem here for the Democrats is that their current front-runner is an inexperienced liberal peacenik. The United States of America does not elect liberal peaceniks President (the "inexperienced" part is merely a garnish). If they go with the person that actually has a shot, she probably will pick up most of the front-runner's supporters... after they're done screaming, ranting, raving, and throwing things for a while. But said supporters will be absolutely disinclined to do anything but vote... which is a problem, given that the DNC is hurting for cash right now. And God forbid that the establishment Democrats' eventual choice of a candidate loses the general election; they'll be hunting party officials through the halls with pitchforks and torches.
So, what's the solution?
I told you: Maalox. Or maybe a time machine.
Moe Lane
*It sounded better in my head than it looked on the screen, sorry.
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Time to go buy some stock in whoever makes Maalox. 9 Comments (0 topical, 9 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
As for McCain's Veep... shoot, my last position on the topic was to let the convention decide. Better chance of getting an acceptable conservative that way.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Moe,
Maalox (at least under that trade name) is a product of Novartis AG of Basel, Switzerland. The ADRs trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol NVS.
And get this - back in September, 2006, over-the-counter Maalox was officially certified as being kosher.
Hey, you asked....
Actually it has a certain vividness to it.
As a title on a straight to DVD movie, it would do well either as a comedy (democratic entrails) or Horror (GOP entrails) and would probably develop a cult following in the midnight movie crowd.
The greatest single cause of Atheism today is Christians who profess Jesus with their lips & then go and deny him by their lifestyle. That's what an unbelieving world simply finds..unbelievable -Brennan Manning
Assuming Sen. McCain can compete well (always a risky assumption with any political campaign) the Dem's are stuck. They either go with the aforementioned inexperienced liberal peacenik or they go with the ruthless slightly more experienced slightly less liberal Sen. Clinton. If they go with Sen. Obama they get all of his flaws. If they go with Sen. Clinton they get all of her flaws plus the outrage of a huge chunk of the far left base. Not a fun prospect for the Dem team.
But did they poll the dead people? They for the most part put the dems over the top in their winning years.
Because no matter who wins, he will probably start his administration with something greater than 40% disapproval rating, possibly greater than 50%. On both sides there will be a statistically significant number of people voting for them who disapprove of both sides, but disapprove of the one they voted for less.
Obama would still get a honeymoon. McCain would not, especially when he pushes comprehensive immigration reform in January as he's promised. The best we can hope for is gridlock for two years, and that's only if the Congressional leadership gets completely turned over.
But your talk of "swing-states" got me thinking of VP choices. The conventional/punditry talk of the VP sweepstakes is that the choice has to have some geographical tint to it, the "if I pick the (ex)-Governor of state A, then I'll win that state that othewise I would lose by 10 points". Of course, historically winning tickets have been based on anything and everything BUT such logic. For example, did Cheney "deliver" Wyoming to GWB? What of Clinton/Gore, 2 southerners? What state exactly was GHWB from that he was/did deliver to Reagan? Was Mondale necessary for Carter to win Minnesota? Was Quayle necessary for GHWB to win Indiana?
Point is, and I am not opposed in particular to any of the names given in terms of he/she is going to deliver state x to me, but I think McCain's choice should be made on the basis of anything but the state/geographic issue. And, that point being made, I repeat my preference for Sen. John Thune.