Is It Over?
Yeah, it's probably over. Though voters in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania shouldn't care what other voters think, they do. And Hillary losing pretty big yet again, this time in Wisconsin, shows that her constituency has migrated enough to Obama that she can't come back.
The schedule's been working against her in the past few weeks and whatever lead she still holds in some polls seems likely to evaporate. She needs to win convincingly in the major states coming up, but the question is can she win at all. I don't think even the Soggy Bottom Boys could save her now.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:19 AM
10 Comments:
Last night I did a hypothetical state by state delegate count for the democrats if they were using the Winner Take ALL (WTA) system that the republicans are using. NOT counting Michigan and Florida, the current count would be Clinton 1032 and Obama 936. It is likely that the ten state sweep would not have occured because Hill would have had a commanding lead after her New York, New Jersey and california wins. Certainly if they were using the more sensible WTA method, Hill would now enjoy a comfortable lead. Interesting!
above comment from AAGUY
That's the great irony of the whole campaign. When it gets close like this, what determines the winner has more to do with chance than strategy.
The ten state streak (346 delegates by WTA) is 1 delegate less than the number of total delegates from California. I think this "everyvotecounts-proportional representation" thing is actually hurting the Dems chances nationally. If one looks at Clinton from a WTA perspective she is the better candidate to win electrally in NOvember. This notwithstanding the big MO which Obama currently has(and maybe never would have had otherwise.)
AAGuy
From that standpoint, it's states like Ohio (and Florida?) that make the difference. It's hard to imagine the Democrats losing California. On the other hand, change in the rule in politics--not that long ago, California was a Republican mainstay. Perhaps if McCain can get enough Latino votes he has a shot.
To follow up on that point, do you think McCain should simply disregard the anti-illegal immigration forces in the Republican party and make a strong bid for latino votes? I don't thik such a bid has to include out-and-out amnesty - first off latino citizens in the US are not uniform in their desire for another amnesty many 1st gen immigrants having come to the US legally themselves. But McCain could win points by talking about the important contributions latino's make to the labor force in the US, saying we need to control our borders, and establish a regulated method for people who "yearn for liberty (and a job)" to come the the US.
I am starting to (slightly) question the conventional wisdom that says Obama is harder to beat than Hillary.
That is probably true. But if it were McCain vs Hillary, and two weeks before the election McCain made a sexist comment, he would lose in a landslide. Yet the comparable case (mutatis mutandis) is not true. The reason is, simply, that women make up half the electorate, and African-Americans don't.
Also, a McCain-Obama race might restart the drift of Hispanics to the GOP that Bush briefly began. In the long run, this really helps the GOP. This works regardless of whether Obama wins in November.
Let me also be the first to predict that the GOP has hurt itself with Mormons in a serious way, due to the (perceived or real) anti-Mormon bias of some Romney opponents.
My outer hopeful semi-cynic has been hoping the Democrats nominate Hillary because she'll lose. But now my spiteful inner cynic is half-hoping that Obama becomes president, because this is the only way to disillusion his disciples. The various paeans of devotion quoted at the Obama Messiah blog cannot possibly continue under a President Obama, who -- despite his best efforts -- will be forced to advocate specific strategies, which will in turn force him to engage in partisan and factional politics. Yes, it's true.
I wonder what this guy will say?
It's hard to believe that anyone could increase his votes by going against the anti-illegal immigration vote. No matter what you might have heard, this stance is hugely popular, all over the country, in every state, with almost every group. But the question is would McCain then lose any votes to his Democrat rival, who no doubt will be just as "bad" as he is. Also, this is one of the most powerful issues among conservatives, so the question is would this stop McCain's supposed base from coming out.
I've written in the past about Obama's weaknesses. Mostly he's quite unknown and can succeed because people want to believe he agrees with them on the issues. If he starts talking about particular issues, he could lose those votes, and it won't be that easy to avoid talking about such things during the actual race. (Not that McCain doesn't have major weaknesses too.)
I know Obama will try to couch his ideas in comfortable language, and emmphasize his more popular ones, but it's still not as easy to pull off against people who actually disagree with him, as opposed to Hillary.
Yes, I see this too. It was easier to win arguments with Clinton over how much to raise taxes (since both supprot the same basic premise that taxes should increase). Against McCain, Obama will have to say "I want to raise taxes," against McCain saying "2 and a half trillion dollars should be enough to run any government and I will not raise taxes." It is a stark contrast, which no amount of charisma should obscure.
He's not stupid. He won't say "I want to raise taxes." He'll say "I'm finally going to get rich people to pay their fair share by removing all the outrageous tax cuts passed by the man you all hate, George W. Bush, and also make the corporations cough up a small amount of their obscene profits."
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