Why Is Jonathan Alter Saying Obama Is The Most Electable Democrat When the Numbers Say Otherwise?
Inquiring minds want to know why Jonathan Alter stated the following here on Huffington Post:
Most early head-to-head polls show John McCain and Barack Obama as the strongest candidates in a general election, a reflection of their slight edge over their primary opponents among independents, who make up at least a third of the electorate and often determine the outcome.
Now I read that and I scratched my head, because I don't remember seeing any general polling trend backing it up. An independent vote is worth no more, and no less than any other vote, what matters is how many votes you get total (and if Florida counts them).
And as HuffPo commenter IowaAndBeyond notes, the numbers seem to indicate that if anything, Edwards is slightly more electable than Obama. If you go to Real Clear Politics poll summaries you find that the weird thing is this, Edwards does better than Obama against every Republican opponent except Giuliani and in particular does better against McCain than Obama does--and McCain is the Republican candidate Alter thinks is most electable.
One can quibble that many of the polls are within the margin of error, but if so then the most generous conclusion one can draw from this is that both of them are, within the margin of error, about as electable as each other.
So I wonder, I really wonder, why Alter is saying that head-to-head polls indicate that Obama is the strongest of the candidates when they appear to say no such thing.
Odd. Very odd.
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The answer should be obvious:
The elite are SCARED of John Edwards populism. They're NOT scared of Obama because Obama is a corporatist. Both Obama and Hillary are essentially Republican-Lite - pro big business.
Remember, of course, that the vast majority of Republicans feel they only let the religious nut-jobs into their "tent" for the votes and regularly rile them with hateful policy to get them to vote, as they know these people aren't very (politically) bright and tend to vote with emotion rather than intellect. If they DID vote with intellect they'd see first that the Republicans aren't, don't and won't ever adhere to any form of ethics, and second, that voting for them if you're not already rich is definitely voting against your own self-interest.
What I wonder is why the author of this article doesn't know this already. ...Perhaps he's just trying to get us to think?
I think Democrab is on to something. How can this DEMOCRATIC result be trusted when I understand that Republicans (as long as they are registered) can walk in, change affiliation in an instant and skew the end tally? How does that reflect the true results. How many of the switchovers will switch back and vote republican?
The thing about Hillary that totally turned me off was about the "heat in the kitchen" line and fighting the Republicans in the Fall. Obama, Edwards...
I'm sure the good people of Iowa would like to think they exacerbate the electorate's choices.
But they don't.
They are a bunch of Bushwackers and right wing warlovers that just got to vote first in their little red state.
It's like getting the lead on the Patriots in the first quarter.
And independent voters shouldn't be voting in dem primaries.
Without a party philosophy, they're just groping around for a clue in the political universe.
Let 'em get their own primary candidates who think like they do.
Obama might win and would be a good democratic president, but I don't think he can sustain a full four quarters against Hillary, especially with Bill Belichick.
If you look at the head-to-head matchups over time, I believe Jonathan Alter is correct, Obama has done as well or better than the other leading Democratic Contenders.
If you take a snapshot, starting now, Edwards is doing a little better.
Perhaps Jonathan Alter was looking at the combination of head-to-head matchups plus a strong nationwide infrastructure supporting their campaign. From that angle, Obama looks much stronger.
First of all, John Edwards was not the candidate in 2004 - John Kerry was -- and he totally f*cked up by not going after the Swift Boat Liars. Do you honestly think that John Edwards would have left that shit out there for 24 hours? Give me a f*cking break. Edwards would have handled those lying assholes in a nanosecond (and yet, Kerry, who was actually a war hero allowed the coward AWOL Bush to take advantage here. Sad, fu*cking true.)
Guess what? Edwards still beat Clinton in Iowa despite being outspent by her (and Obama). We know that Hillary is on her way out, but Edwards has a much better chance of beating any Republican in the general elections than anyone, including Obama.
Get behind Edwards. He's not only better than Hillary, he's better than Obama (Edwards is the one fighting for the poor and the middle class!)
Hey, doofus!
I want Edwards! I wanted him befor Iowa and I'll want him after New Hampshire. Sorry to say, but your boy, Obama, is a corporate, suck-up milquetoast. I'd rather go with a real Democrat like John Edwards, who will actually fight the Reoublicans on behalf of the poor and the working class Americans.
Jonathan is saying that because he has an agenda.
The reason is that while Obama would be better than all of the Republican candidates, he does not represent the kind of threat to the status quo that John Edwards does. Most pundits and corporate journalists, Alter included, prefer elections to be about the horse race, where they can sit around the table in the television studio and opine on gotchas and campaign missteps and chuckle knowingly about John Edwards' hair, and sound informed and wise, without advancing the understanding of any viewer, except about how lazy and smug most of them are.
Dealing substantively with an election as if it was the most important activity in a democracy, is too much like hard work, and opens the pundit or journalist to too much criticism, precisely because substantive issues are bound to be controversial in a top-down democracy such as ours has become. They go along with the conventional wisdom, keeping their reputations safe, but, in doing so, they degrade their professions and take democracy further and further away from what the founders intended, to the detriment of all, including the rest of the world. Just ask the people of Iraq.
Why, you ask. Because he doesn't want a Democrat to win the Presidency. He can read the polls: he knows they show EDWARDS handily beating EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN while Obama doesn't (and is even close to losing a number of them). But. like so many others have stated - the "Village" is so frightened of an Edwards run and victory they'll spin, twist and fabricate everything and everyone. They have to protect their position in the mix - a position Edwards says needs a long overdue a realignment.
Relax, folks....a
is just not electable. Either Obama or Edwards can win. Hitlery will bring out the conservatives in record numbers to vote against her. And the independents will not go for Clinton. The only Clinton voters will be
some women who will vote for a woman....a
Does Edwards have enough TITS?
Like the Big Mother Sow of a Federal government, Edward's style, where every need or every want will be fulfilled by taking from one American and an Elite Gov group will decide who is worthy of this redistribution; Oh! don't forget, as a pay off to the public sector unions that 75% will be used for beaureacratic overhead. John, Shut Up and go comb your HAIR already!
The usual naked attempt to steer the results to the fluff candidate who poses no threat to the increasingly corporate status quo.
Edwards is being punished for using the "M" word in his speeches: MONEY. Edwards speaks the truth: Money has corrupted our entire political system.
Our whole government and every person in it, both parties, all the elections. Our international policy is corrupted by foreign interests paying bribes to U.S. politicians. Our young men and women in the military are sent overseas to fight wars to allow corporations to steal the resources from other countries.
Our jobs are sent to third world countries to be done by slave labor, and Bill and Hillary Clinton and most of the Democrats continue telling Americans that "free" trade will make us all rich. And if you lose your home and have no healthcare and have to sleep in your car in the meantime -- keep hope alive.
You cannot have an honest government, you cannot have a democracy, when every politician is on the take. It's not possible. The reason our country is so screwed up is because so many citizens see that corruption works in D.C., and use it themselves.
Corruption, fraud, and deceit are the new norm. Bill Clinton has done nothing since he left office except go from one corporate enterprise to the next collecting millions of dollars in bribes. All the politicians do the same thing. "Thanks for screwing the public. Let me give you tons of money."
Edwards must be crushed. The Democratic Party even more than the Republican party will be gunning for him. The media is on the side of the corruption. After all, their owners buy control of all the major news vehicles in the country through corruption. They know which side their bread is buttered on.
That's why the media won't cover Edwards. Biden with 4% gets more coverage than does Edwards with 27% support. Richardson gets more coverage.
The insiders don't like Edwards. Which is why the rest of us should support him. He must be doing something right.
The posts on this story demonstrate all too well why people support Obama. The vitriol on the left has become just as tedious, hateful and polarizing as the Rush Limbaughs on the right. I'm tired of it.
If any of you had an open mind, you would check out Obama thoroughly before trashing him. You would read his books, as I have, study his voting record, as I have, listen to his speeches, as I have, and determine that not only is he the last best hope for this country to get well, he is the candidate of a lifetime.
Oh. And by the way, the reason the "Obama-ites" are quiet today is because we're going to win in Iowa and we don't need to say anything else.
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