Why the Democratic Ticket Should Be Obama-Edwards, but Why it Will Be Obama-Clinton: Part I - The Map Turns Purple
Sen. Hillary Clinton is fresh off victories in the Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island primaries (although she did take less delegates out of Texas than Sen. Barack Obama). Listening to the mainstream media, one might think that her campaign is newly energized, on the attack, and now has the momentum. However this is a perfect example of why the cheerleading of the mainstream media is wrong. In their sycophancy of the candidates (both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama), they have shirked their duties of actually reporting and instead taken to simply parroting the talking points of the campaigns. There are two major exceptions to this: Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. Mr. Alter and Mr. Robinson both are aware that Clinton’s victories are pyrrhic at best. She may have “won” the popular vote, but she netted under 10 delegates. However as the media reports the primary and caucus victories as if they were general election victories one gets the impression that Sen. Clinton had a blowout victory, even though she is likely to have netted less out of the five elections in the four states than Sen. Obama likely will net out of Wyoming and Mississippi. However the major networks obsession with “calling” states as if they were winner-take-all (a la the general election) allows Sen. Clinton to claim that she has momentum, even though she is now further away from the nomination than she was before Texas & Ohio. Throw in the fact that Sen. Clinton will likely continue now until the convention and you can see why her victory is a pyrrhic one for the Democratic Party. They will continue to in-fight. Sen. Clinton will continue to praise John McCain, and denigrate Sen. Obama, giving red meat to the Republican Party in the general election.To make this abundantly clear, Sen. Clinton cannot win without overthrowing the will of the people. Even seating Florida, where the candidates did not campaign, and Michigan, where Sen. Obama was not even on the ballot by request of the Democratic Party (John Edwards also withdrew from the ballot), Sen. Clinton will fall short. A re-vote will benefit Sen. Obama but will raise complicated issues of double-voting: what if someone voted in the Republican primary for Sen. McCain, but then wants to vote again in the re-do Democratic election? This is something I have not heard addressed as of yet.
Since Sen. Clinton cannot win the pledged delegate count nor the popular vote (i.e. the pure number of people who voted for her), her only hope will come down to the superdelegates. Superdelegates have so far favored Sen. Clinton, by about roughly 250-200. There are still roughly 350 delegates who have not expressed their position publicly. What should be clear though is that the superdelegates will do what is best for the party. Nominating someone who lost the pledged delegate count and the popular vote is not good for the party. Therefore they will fall in line behind Sen. Obama, as he will likely have more delegates and more popular votes. He will be the nominee. We will not see the convention go past 2 or 3 ballots, in my opinion. I believe that there will not be a nominee on the first ballot because the uncommitted superdelegatess will allow the elected delegates to vote first, to show the country that no candidate garnered the necessary 2,025. The pledged delegates will show that Sen. Obama has the support of more people. Then the superdelegates will cast their votes in support of Sen. Obama, and he will be the nominee.
It also makes sense for the Democrats to nominate Obama because he has broader support amongst the states. Obama is the logical result of Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, i.e. running serious candidates in each and every state, instead of fighting in two or three highly contested swing states (e.g. Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania).
Now, you may wonder, why broader support matters. Four syllables: filibuster. In fact, it’s more important than just a filibuster, but using the Senate will be illustrative, particularly as the New York Times has already broken down many of the Senate races. Sen. Obama at the head of the ticket will help Down-Ticket Dems from Governors and Representatives, all the way down to dog catchers and utility district managers. This is also why superdelegates will probably back Sen. Obama: they themselves are mostly Down-Ticket Dems who need someone popular at the head of their ticket in their own states.
Now let’s take a look at the actual maps. Survey USA compiled McCain-Obama and McCain-Clinton matchups for each state. While I am aware that these are only polls, and polls can be woefully wrong, it explodes a number of Sen. Clinton myths about the general election: namely that she will fare better in Texas, and that somehow Ohio won’t vote for Sen. Obama. The maps on the SurveyUSA website are not so helpful because they don’t account for states where one Democratic candidate is stronger than another (it’s either red or blue). So to remedy that flaw, I compiled a few of my own map based on the data at SurveyUSA (god bless, insomnia). Here is the result.
States in dark blue are states where both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama beat Sen. McCain.
States in royal blue are states where Sen. Obama beats Sen. McCain, but Sen. Clinton does not.
States in light blue-green are states where Sen. Clinton beats Sen. McCain, but Sen. Obama does not.
States in light red are states where Sen. Clinton fares better than Sen. Obama does, but both still lose to Sen. McCain.
States in dark red are states where Sen. Obama fares better than Sen. Clinton does, but still loses to Sen. McCain.
Kansas, Tennessee, and Nebraska are given their own colors because they don’t fit this format:
Nebraska: Sen. Obama will win 2 electoral votes in Nebraksa, while McCain will win 3. Sen. Clinton would win 0 electoral votes in Nebraska, while Sen. McCain will win 5.
Tennessee: Sen. Clinton ties Sen. McCain there, while Sen. Obama would lose handily.
Kansas: Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama fare equally poorly against Sen. Clinton.
A few interesting things jump out at me from that map, Sen. Obama does better in the Mountain West, Sen. Clinton does better in the South, and they both win the Democratic states like New York, California, Hawaii, and Illinois. Not that big of a deal.
But let’s isolate each candidate. If a candidate is +/-5% then I have put them in purple. If the candidate maintains more than a 5% lead against Sen. McCain than I have colored them in dark blue. If Sen. McCain maintains more than a 5% lead against the candidate, I have colored that state red. I know, so original.
First, Sen. Clinton:
Then there’s Sen. Obama:
There should be something deeply disturbing about these maps should Sen. Clinton win the nomination. Mull those over, count up how many states Obama turns purple, and I’ll be back with Part II - Senate Races and the Purple Map.
March 8, 2008 at 7:28 am
This hypothetical match-up beats yours any day of the week.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has singlehandedly disabled the Democratic Party for the next eight years. Her husband did a similar thing when he cost the Dems the Congress and later cost Al Gore what should have been a clear path to the White House. It took about ten years for Democrats to recover from the insult.
The Gettysburg moment of February 5 decided the outcome of the primary. Hillary could have continued running an issue oriented campaign. However, she not only attacked Barack on the issues but also his very nature. She cast doubts about Obama’s religious affiliation, insulted his supporters as deluded fanatics, and in the ultimate act of betrayal, explicitly stated that John McCain is more qualified to be POTUS than Obama. In essence, HRC became the woman who agreed to Solomon’s solution of cutting a baby in half to settle a custody suit. With such open contempt his supporters could never adopt her. It was almost as if she didn’t think that she would need us in the fall campaign or actually believed her commercial depiction of the electorate as babies readily guided into bed.
The Dems can’t recover. Barack was a resplendent JFK. The personal and racial attacks were sure to come in a general campaign. But to have a white female fellow Democrat slinging calumnies has prepared the nation for when the heavyweight, no condom wearing, straight ATM Republicans get into the mix. Without such preconditioning by HRC the nation would have probably been repulsed at such a spectacle, the way it was when Bill Clinton first dropped his turds in South Carolina.
As it stands, Barack is trying to win a bike with a flat tire. By not putting Hillary Rodham Clinton in check, the party elders as well as the Black superdelegates who held steadfast even as HRC’s venom reached toxic levels fractured their party. HRC can’t get the nomination without mass defection and Barack is a once beautiful suit that’s emerged from the dryer after being laundered.
Needless to say, HRC is finished politically. She can never be a national figure. What she did can’t be undone in the next election cycle four years from now and certainly not within the current one. To openly proclaim the legitimacy of the Republican challenger over Obama has sealed her fate and maybe Barack’s.
HRC can’t be the nominee because of the immediate exodus which would ensue. She can’t be a VP because of the nature of her attacks. She can’t really throw her support behind Barack without openly marinating in hypocrisy. The scorn she has heaped on Obama and his supporters is irrational to a degree approaching Faye Dunaway’s portrayal of Joan Crawford.
Barack would need to craft a political version of Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods in order to win this thing. Chuck Hagel as VP would be a prerequisite for Obama to avoid becoming another Michael Dukakis. Such a bold maneuver could not only help retool and recalibrate the campaign, but revitalize the jes grew spirit which characterized Obama’s ascent.
Hillary has effectively ended her chance at higher office. Yet I’m at a loss to understand why the leadership allowed her to wreck the party? Al Gore and John Edwards should have thrown their weight behind Obama after February especially when McCain was the presumptive nominee. Howard Dean should have been more vehement about strict adherence to the rules regarding Florida and Michigan. The leadership should have spoken to big money donors and told them to refrain from putting more money into the Clinton campaign, and given off the record comments to superannuated political reporters like Bob Woodward about the futility of a Clinton resurgence. It was as if the owners of the manor just stood by idly as a mad woman defecated in the kitchen without thinking that eventually they would have to eat there. The Dems are dysfunctional.
March 8, 2008 at 7:30 am
This hypothetical match-up beats yours any day of the week.
March 8, 2008 at 4:31 pm
After the massacre of February 5, for Hillary to succeed would’ve required a Democratic version of Bush’s victory over Gore in 2000. The numbers just weren’t there for her to win legitimately. David defeated Goliath but the media colluded with the Clintons to create an image of viability. What Barack did was deliver a political version of the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.
The real question for Senator Obama and you is does Barack take this tarnished prize or does he leave Washington and stage a successful run for governor of Illinois and seek redemption in 2012 or 2016? It is undeniable that HRC has endorsed the Republican challenger over Obama. She can’t take that back. But has the Democratic leadership, by its silence, also done the same? Wouldn’t Barack merely be a sacrificial lamb or scapegoat in the fall campaign? Shouldn’t he let Hillary take the fall?
March 9, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Your are discounting something that no one in the mainstream or any other media will talk about. In the general election polls will be unreliable up to a 10%% swing or higer(admittedly pure speculation on my part)because of false results, that is to say, some will tell pollsters that Obama’s race or Clinton’s gender is not a consideration. we know that even in “democratic states such as New York and Mass” this is not true,they will not vote for a black candidate in a genral election. They couldn’t even do it in the primary. NO southern stae will vote for Hillary Clinton,I don’t care what any poll says, not eben Arkansas. You can book it. I hope I’m wrong.
March 9, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Please excuse the spelling errors above.
March 12, 2008 at 4:36 am
Sorry about the delay in moderating posts. I’m new with this, and didn’t even realize there were any.
To MikeL Yes, I realize that polls are unreliable, that the Bradley effect comes into play (New Hampshire?) with non-white men, etc. However, I still think it’s interesting. I wanted to delve further into my logic and still hope to sometime over the weekend.
To Submariner: I’m not familiar with much about Hagel other than he is a libertarian leaning Republican who has ripped the Bush administration on FISA, supports troop withdrawal, and voted for “guest worker” program. I’d like to learn a little more about him. I’ll try to tackle it fuller in my next post.