I can't make the argument any better than Marie Cocco and her post on Truthdig.com whether you're for Senator Clinton or Senator Obama or on the fence: We all should agree on one fundamental objective -- we must win back the White House in 2008, if for no other reason than to save us from a Supreme Court with an anti-Roe vs. Wade majority. Please read carefully the facts set forth by Ms. Cocco below in her post, "Fun with Numbers." In addition, if necessary, please re-read my prior two blogs ("Obama vs. Clinton on Electability II: Newest Pew Data Proves Obama Vulnerability Against Senator McCain Compared to Senator Clinton" and "Recent Polling Data Shows Serious Concerns About Senator Obama's "Electability" Over Senator McCain vs. Senator Clinton's") that sets forth recent indisputable polling data by Gallop, USA Today, and Pew Research Center that show up to 15-20 percent of today's Democrats say they would defect to Senator McCain if he were the nominee of our party vs. half or less that amount would defect if Senator Clinton were the nominee. This potential latest generation of "Reagan Democrats" -- literally perhaps the children of the 1980s version, who are likely to be called "McCainocrats" -- is something serious to worry about if Senator Obama is the nominee.
To repeat what I said in my prior blogs: I know Senator Obama shows strength among independence/declines to offset these current defections in the Democratic base. These polls show Senator Clinton and Senator Obama ahead of Senator McCain or in a dead heat with him by approximately the same margin. But I continue to worry -- and Ms. Cocco's piece below increases my concern -- that independence/declines are a fickle group of voters to rely on, especially when they say they are for a candidate such as Senator Obama early in March 2008 about whom they know virtually nothing.
To repeat: Please read this piece carefully below if you are an Obama supporter and ask yourself, is there something to worry about if Senator Obama is the nominee?
Fun With Numbers
Posted on March 5, 2008 at TruthDigby Marie Cocco
WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton is not the only Democrat with a math problem. But the arithmetical difficulty that Barack Obama faces is fundamentally different from Clinton's: She doesn't have the numbers that plot a clear path to the nomination; he doesn't have the numbers that plot a clear path to a Democratic victory in the fall.The spin-of-the-day from the Obama campaign on the morning after Clinton's victories in three of the four states holding primaries Tuesday was that the New York senator cannot possibly overtake her rival's lead in "pledged" delegates--that is, those won in primaries and caucuses--and therefore has no chance of winning the Democratic nomination.
The arithmetic conveniently leaves out an essential part of the equation: Neither Obama nor Clinton can secure through the primaries and caucuses the 2,025 delegates necessary to win at the Denver convention without the votes of the superdelegates. And Clinton's stunning performance Tuesday, particularly in Ohio, makes Obama's argument that superdelegates should automatically back the will of the voters--and not use independent political judgment about who can best compete against Republican John McCain in November--look like an awfully simplistic calculus.
Add up all the states he has won in his historic drive to become the nominee, including all of those small and deeply "red" Republican states where the Obama supporters boast of their candidate's transcendental appeal, and so far Obama has won in places representing 193 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Add up Clinton's victories thus far and she has triumphed in states representing 263 electoral votes.
Of course, some states in Clinton's column--Texas comes most readily to mind--that have a large trove of Electoral College votes are highly unlikely to wind up Democratic in the fall. But the same holds true for Obama, whose strength in Southern Democratic primaries has rested on the huge margins he has run up among African-American voters. African-Americans are a crucial constituency for Democrats, but their votes in recent contests haven't been enough to win such states as Alabama, South Carolina or Georgia.
In a new memo, Clinton strategists Mark Penn and Harold Ickes point out that the 2004 Democratic nominee, John Kerry, lost these states and several others in which Obama has won primaries by 15 points or more. In Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Kansas and Alaska--all states the Obama forces point to with pride as evidence of an emerging "50-state strategy"--no Democrat has won the general election since 1964.
So how has Obama fared in those states that are the crucial building blocks of a Democratic general election strategy? He's won his home state of Illinois, plus Wisconsin, Washington and Minnesota. Together, these states account for 51 electoral votes. Clinton has won her home state of New York, as well as California, New Jersey and Michigan, representing a total of 118 electoral votes. This sum deliberately leaves out Ohio and Florida, which will be hotly contested in the fall.
There is a reason some states are called general election "battlegrounds." It is because partisan identification is roughly even, or because certain groups in the electorate, such as Catholics, Hispanics or blue-collar whites, switch their allegiances--or split their votes. That's why Clinton made so much in her victory speech about the "bellwether" nature of Ohio: "It's a battleground state. It's a state that knows how to pick a president. And no candidate in recent history, Democrat or Republican, has won the White House without winning the Ohio primary," she said.
There is no papering over the depth of the problem Obama faced there. He won only five of the state's 88 counties, an inauspicious foundation for a general election campaign. Clinton trounced him among Catholic voters, 63 percent to 36 percent, according to exit polls. She beat him among voters in every income category and bested him by 14 points among those making less than $50,000 annually.
This is why Pennsylvania, which is demographically similar to Ohio--and a must-win state for Democrats in November--is considered such fertile ground for Clinton on April 22.
The Democratic Party is indeed developing a general election problem, and it's only partly because Obama and Clinton will be sniping at one another for the next seven weeks. Obama, the leading candidate, still hasn't shown he has appeal in a large battleground state that will be pivotal in the fall. In this sense, Pennsylvania is where Obama's back, and not Clinton's, is up against the wall.
Marie Cocco's e-mail address is mariecocco(at)washpost.com.
You see it actually is good for the Democratic minded voters to see what the "Dem Party" is all about.
Then and only then can the individual voter decide what they will do in the General election....
I am NOT a card carrying follow the party right or wrong member... I of course have a bias toward my candidate of choice... I will vote for my states slate of Dem legislators. I will leave the Presidential choice blank if my candidate doesnt make the General... If my lousy single vote means that the Republicans continue to run the White House then so be it... at least I can hope that the Senatorial & Congressional votes I make will have a counter balancing effect for 08.
Then there are the long time followers of politics who support Obama. Some just wanted a change. But it was a change of face, a new guy, rather than a change of policy. Also many of them are caught up in one or both of the Hillary is Devil or Barack is Divine movements. Either of those dramas will blind them to what they should be able to see.
If Barack were the best bet to beat McCain, I'd be there. If Hillary shows the best chance, I'm hers. I may be a boomer, but I've passed the I-just-want-to-feel-good-about-me stage. My children and grandchildren need to have a world that isn't run by the neocons. I'm tired of the Democrats caving to the republicans. That's what has been happening in congress as they try to "cooperate". So I fear Obama's "cooperation" strategy is just another way to let the neocons have the world their twisted way.
http://icasualties.org/oif/
Respectfully, I did not even read your Post as your face has been on every network that wil have you, so I know your lines by now.. I saw you on A/C 360 last nite I wanted to put my fist through the TV!!
YOU and YOUR CANDIDATE NEED TO KNOW something.. I don't care how many states she won, or how many attempts to set her illegal delegates in FL and MI..SHE has so ANGERED so many Democrats with her disgusting, condescending, belittling of her Democratic opponent, and ENDORSING THE CREDENTIALS OF THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE is a slap in the face to many of us..WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS..?? I defended that "woman" and her hunsband for the past 15 years, until her antics and her win at all costs mentality, and her multiple personality disorder, and all the other crap she has pulled and ther is NOOOOOOOOO WAAAYYYYY I WOULD EVER VOTE FOR HER. You and your zealous promotion of her, as well as most of her surrogates is so arrogant.. you are failing to see the forest from the trees.. SHE has divided this party in a way I HAVE NEVER SEEN and I have lost all respect for her..With her "secret" website (HillaryIs44) and the war room full of hate and lies and filth, and her rabid supporters calling anyone who is not supporting her a ROBOT, or a CULT MEMBER, or a KOOL-AID drinker disgusts me. I am 51 years old .. I am white .. and I am poor..so I'm supposed to be her base. well I am not!! Her supporters (the majority of them) ever since IOWA have said they will vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee.. and she has made a lot of us so angry that I see more and more every day people that will not vote for her either. I am not a traitor to my Party, unlike your Hillary, so I will not cross over, I will just sit this election out for the first time in my life!! So stop the spin, please Mr. Davis, and tell your darling Hillary that she has lost a lot of support out here, and my suggestion to you and the whole HRC gang is to take it down a few notches on the stump AND on the TV.. Her behavior and her nasty comments are right from the Rove handbook, she's about as much a Democrat as Joe Lieberman.. at least the man has the courage to come out and endorse McCain, as his choice, and not try to dessimate the Democrat.. So you can tell Hillary , SHAME ON HER!! and as respectful as Sen McCain can be, he's not gonna be falling to her feet because she whines the Media isnt fair to her ... Enuf said, I asssume you get the point..
Only you are comparing apples and oranges.
First of all we are not engaged in a general election where its winner take all in each respective state, we are in a national primary and caucus situation where the candidate who gets the most delegates wins.
You are fighting the wrong war and using lopsided logic, you are not considering that in the general election Obama would most assuredly get the Hillary votes but conversely this may not be the case as a lot of independents and liberal republicans would not vote for Hillary but would vote for Obama.
So in the final analysis Obama right now has the most delegates and the most popular votes and no amount of twisted logic is going to change this fact and no amount of spinning is going to garner her more delegates in the primaries and unless she puts a gun to the head of the super delegates it appears mathematically impossible for her to win.
First, I think we all will agree that this fall's election should be a democratic victory.
Okay, we got that far together. Second, neither candidate will hit the magic number of 2,025 delegates.
Now, that wasn't that hard was it? Okay, third -- I find this somewhat frightening, but there are a large number of posters who are quite avid and quick to hurl invictive who don't have a clue as the difference between the nomination process and the electoral college. There is a difference -- so for those of you who think that the magic number in the fall is anything other than 270 electoral votes, please for the love of all that his holy, google "electoral votes or college" and please read it before you rain down on me like man-eating goats.
If you gotten this far in this post and understand electoral politics, there's hope that we can have some major leaps in understanding.
I like Sen. Obama. I think he is uniquely talented and has run a very sophisticated campaign, but I agree with the underlying premise of this post -- he can't win a general election. While my belief is in some measure based upon the reasoning of this post, there are some others that I can't believe didn't make it into this article.
In this primary season, there is an ABC (anybody but Clinton) ethos that runs deeper than the Marianna Trench. In large measure, for those indies and repubs who have crossed over in these primaries based upon the Obama enthusiasm, they will not hold come the fall. They can't be counted upon.
It is true that Sen. Obama has brought out a substantial number of younger voters and that is a good thing, but it isn't something upon which to depend. Unfortunately, too many young Obama supporters are reading their own press -- the young voters as a bloc who make it to the polls, will never out distance the 45+ crowd who will go repub on the national security issue. Change is great, but change for this group is in the basement on their hierarchy of issues.
The economic issues I believe are a wash between Sens. Obama and McCain. No one is going either way based solely upon handling of the economy unless one or the other focuses solely on this characteristic in their VP choice. Sen. Clinton will beat both on the economy for nothing else than fondly remembering the 1990's.
Finally, while I have to give kudos to Sen. Obama in the cleverness to wage campaigns in the red states, this article demonstrates that neither he nor Sen. Clinton will win them. It is as simple as that -- basing the Democratic nominee on around 70 delegates that have been garnered from red state caucuses is a recipe for disaster and will surely lead to defeat.
If you made it all the way here, thanks and please think about the vitriol that is being spouted next time you post.
The question I pose is this: Is it a desire to win in the fall or is it ABC -- if it is ABC, then you are an example of why this post is true and Sen. Obama will not be successful.
While it is difficult to prove a double negative, I'll try. We can't have a nominee based upon who it is not -- to nominate Sen. Obama, that is what we get. To get to that point it is based upon too large a contingency of indies and repubs who will laugh with glee at their foray into democratic politics and will enjoy a third term of GWB -- that will be a shame.
And that doesn't even take into account what has happened to Clinton's margins during the primaries; in general, the more people see of her, the less they like her, while the opposite is true of Obama. It's true that she managed to hang on to Texas and Ohio, but as in most of the previous primaries, including even those she ultimately won, she often went from 20+ to single digits -- or to being soundly trounced. The reason Obama leads in elected delegates is that his margins of victory were consistently larger than Clinton's. It is a serious error -- one that the party has repeated under the tender mercies of the short-sighted DLC and its adherents, including Davis -- to write off the red states, particularly when it is necessary to elect more Democrats to Congress in order to begin to repair the damage of the Bush administration.
This Clinton appears to be following the same strategy the last one did -- plot your own victory, regardless of the cost to the party, and the devil take Congress,
By the way, if you really think that the most important thing is that the democrats win in November, do you think you could suggest to Clinton that it is not a good idea to be arguing that the leading Democratic candidate is less qualified than the Republican nominee. That is the kind of thing one does if one believes that if they don't win the democratic nomination they want to take down the party with them.
Clearly, considering the state of our country economically and enviromentally, we are leaving them a chaotic landscape. Not to mention due to our lack of caring about our own citizen's health care needs and overall wellbeing, they will suffer the consequences of our choices in every societal arena.
We, the older generations, need to accept that continuing down the path too often traveled will not be to the benefit of our descendants. It's their turn - we had ours.
95%H + 100%O > 100%H + 65%0
Furthermore, it is ABSURD to think that in a general election, McCain will be more competitive in and could win California, New York, New Jersey, or Michigan against Barack Obama. Puh-lease. What planet or alternate plane of existence are you living in? The real bellweathers are places like Virginia, where new breeds of Democrats are winning by building coalitions with those unreliable Independents-- but they sure worked for Jim Webb, Tim Kaine, and Mark Warner. By your logic, is Clinton competitive in Virginia? No, but Obama is. Pennsylvania is another bellweather, as it is full of exurban moderates who love both Arlen Spector and Bob Casey, and whose support either candidate will need to make sure that Pennsylvania stays blue this year. Ohio is much less exurban and much more split along traditional urban/rural rustbelt lines.
Furthermore, the best polling data out there shows the following things: 1) massive discontent with politics as usual, 2) that those who traditionally considered themselves Republicans are now becoming Independents, and 3) Independents are beginning to operationally look more and more like Dems on the most important issues: Iraq, Health Care, Social Security, taxes, and national security. This shows all the hallmarks of a realignment of at least part of the electorate. Clinton, whose negatives are nearly as high among Indies as they are among the GOP base, has little hope of transforming these voters into New Democrats. Obama has shown that he can, and he will continue to do so.
I disagree with the idea that McCain's independent appeal is so great: his flip-flopping on the very issues that gave him his maverick moniker (vote against the tax cuts, McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy) are enough to either expose him as a phony or paint him as another 4 years of Bush with merely the promise that "I'll do the same things, only better." McCain can't risk becoming the Maverick again for fear of a loss of his base and a challenge from the Right, so I doubt that many independents, especially those in the swing states, will go his way. The best way for McCain to attract those independent voters (and galvanize his base at the same time) is to have Hillary Clinton become the nominee due towhat may be interpreted as (and will be interpreted as by Obama supporters) as a dirty trick, further playing into the (harsh and undeserved) narrative that the Clintons will do and say anything to get elected.
Ultimately, the superdelgates can and will exercise their independent judgment: it's just a very good that that all but 40-50 of them are directly elected in either their state conventions or as members of Congress and will have to account to their constituency. Those seen as being part of a corrupt bargain will pay for it with the loss of their offices, which is why I ultimately have confidence that the superdelgates will do the right thing and support who is not only the people's choice, but also the best candidate for the job.
I had to shake my head when I read the descriptive phrase, “recent indisputable polling data” in Mr. Davis’ post. Then, after I stopped giggling at this definitely pompous and possibly oxymoronic qualifier, I suppose that I had to admit that the numbers in his quoted poll are, well, indisputably numbers. But then again, how such numerical information is then parsed, interpreted, quoted, or compared to statistics in other polls surely must render such data anything but indisputable. But even if the specified polling data quoted by Mr. Davis is indeed accurate I figure the only plausible reason to use such an overblown lead in to it is to preface a bald attempt to blow smoke up the reader’s a**.
I would really appreciate it if the pro-Hillary crowd would stop characterizing Obama supporters as a bunch of idiots who made their choice based on charisma. I was never going to be a Clinton supporter, not because of her "likability," or lack thereof, but because of continual evidence of her disastrous judgment in areas that I find important. Ummm... Iraq. Iranian Guard, NAFTA, her campaign, to name a few. As a woman, I wish she would stop using her husband's experience on her resume. I do not think it is helpful to the cause of equality.
I chose Obama because of his record of promoting transparency and reducing the power of lobbyists. Early in his life, he chose public service over a big pay check. His speaking against the war was not a popular stance at the time, he was running for the Senate and he knew it could cost him politically, but he did it anyway. His priorities on national security make sense. He secured loose nukes and protected the dignity of our vets when they came home. His approach is not the same old top-down government that has led to apathy and the erosion of our system. A new approach is the only thing that ever changes policy; Washington will never change unless the people are engaged.
Clinton doesn't have a chance against McCain. If she "wins" the nomination with the tactics she's been using, you better bet that he will use her ethics against her and come out smelling like a rose. He will tear her experience argument apart. He will decry her attacks against Obama. He will question her legitimacy as a nominee. He won't even have to go back into the Clinton years for ammo. True or not, the majority of Americans see McCain as an honest guy and Clinton as another dishonest politician. We need new tactics to win the White House.