Apparently he isn’t yet, since nobody has thought fit to say so here. So perhaps a rephrasing will help:
When will the forking of McCain happen? What else can McCain do to make sure he loses this election? Does Obama, who clinched the nomination months ago, even have to do anything at all to make sure he wins in November? Or is it enough to simply assume McCain will blow it somehow (and how?), or that the electoral vote will take care of itself ?
Since the nomination is settled and we have been in general-election mode for some months now, certainly some thoughts should have percolated to the surface about what happens next. Can we begin to share some of them, perhaps?
Here it is, then: No, he’s not forked, nor will he be until Election Day. He’s been in the game too long, and made too many friends in the Beltway Bubble media, to have to pay the price for any major gaffes (just look at the way he’s skated on Hagee). He’ll have the support of the large number of voters who think the Iraq war was not a bad idea, just badly executed, and can still be salvaged. He’ll have the “Dems will raise your taxes” vote. He’ll be able to let the doubts about Obama’s substance continue to percolate into Conventional Wisdom. He won’t have to deal with being reflexively hated by any sizeable chunk of people. He’ll have the advantage of facing yet another Dem candidate whose supporters think the nomination is the prize, and lack a focus and strategy for November. He may not be able to win by much, but win he can. He’ll have the advantage of his supporters feeling unified by a leader, while smugly watching the self-proclaimed morally-superior Dems engage in the fun of tearing down one of their own strongest leaders.
To be perfectly honest, yeah i think hes pretty damn forked. Hes been coasting basically unopposed so far but the moment Obamas focus shifts to him it won’t be pretty. Obama has a huge financial advantage, a LOT of people on the ground ready to go on every single state (which is i guess one thing we can thank Hillary for), and you simply can’t discount the anti-republican sentiment going into the elections. Personally i think its going to be a landslide of epic proportions.
That usually means nominating the wrong candidate or running a horrible campaign, or both as it happened the last elections. I don’t think either of those is a possibility this time.
I doubt the anti-Republican sentiment will go further than 6 or 8 Senate seats and 40-50 House seats, tops. Don’t forget the deep-rooted American tradition of ticket-splitting - we generally *want * different parties in control, as yet another layer of checks and balances. The GOP’s pending deep and apparently long-term loss of Congress, regardless of its reasons, ISTM works in McCain’s favor, as it would for any Republican.
They say that a week is a long time in politics, but I really don’t see how McCain can compete with Obama unless the latter makes a major gaffe. But I’m looking forward to finding out.
No, this is not a fait accompli. To use your favored electoral vote predictor, there are currently about the same “strongly Dem” as “strongly GOP” and many of those may be “strong” at this point but very subject to change over the next several months. Polling data is old and the show hasn’t even had the warm-up band take the stage.
Obama has previously made it clear that he wants to go for a fifty state strategy (rather than the 50 percent plus one approach). This spread the floor approach comes with greater risk along with greater potential for gain. There are many states that he could win by a nose or lose by a nose when all is said and done. He lose them all and it is all of us who are forked.
My read of that map is that there are quite a few state that are “barely GOP”, “weak GOP” and even “strong GOP” that Obama will make real contests of, probably even winning a few of them. I see little of that in the other direction, with the possible exception of PA and OH.
McCain will have more limited resources - both in money and in people power - compared to past GOP Presidential runs and by far compared to Obama. He will need to focus on defending his must wins and aim hard to secure Florida, and pull off Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. He will have to balance between toadying to the rabid right and appealing to the middle; keeping him off-balance and revealing him as a flip-flopper will be one of Team Obama’s main tactics.
It is early and Obama has weathered some serious “vetting” yet come out better positioned than Kerry was at this point, even among Appalchians. McCain has had very little negative to deal with yet. The fight with Clinton has indeed honed Obama into a sharper instrument - better at debating and ready for any attempts to Swiftboat. It has created grassroot organizations across the country ready to lock and load.
I won’t celebrate until after the general is held and final tallies are in, but I see Obama pulling it out handily when all is said and done.
I’ve asked this many times before, but, what the Hell, I’ll try again: assuming that Team Clinton fails to pull off the miracle that Bill still says is possible with a win in Puerto Rico and Montana, are you in to help Obama beat McCain in November?
Have you not grasped it yet? That’s the only one I know of, and I’ve pointed out problems with it in threads I know you’ve read. Unless you can point to another with more credible data, you have no basis other than snark to call it my “favorite”. But if that’s all you got …
And even so, a claim that the data, such as it is, will change polarity in the next few months needs some backing to support it. Precedent is a good kind of backing; claiming that this year is qualitatively different in some vague (but hopeful) way is not.
One thing the aforementioned precedent tells us, if only we’re listening, is that if he gets FL, he only needs *either * OH or PA. How’re ya feelin’ about that?
Nope. He’s got the rabid right, at least enough of them to win where he needs to. What else are they going to do - indulge in the same sort of navelgazing moral crusade as the Dems who went for Nader?
Recent primary results and the polls for the remaining ones, the only relevant data, would show exactly the opposite.
I’ve indulged you by answering that silly question enough times already . So I’ll ask you one instead: Under the same assumptions, what could Obama say and do, and what can the vociferous Hillary-haters who support him say and do, to induce Clinton supporters to vote for him anyway? And when would you plan to start?
40-50 House Seats? Color me goggle-eyed amazed. 20-25 is more like it. 30 at the outside. I just don’t see enough vulnerable incumbents and opens to make up that sort of slide.
6-8 Senate seats I can see. It looks bad over there for several of them. But it still isn’t like to get to cloture 60 this cycle.
I suspect the only reason he skated on Hagee was that the media was too interested in getting ratings by continuing the fight between Obama and Clinton… not through any of his own political imperviousness. He just got lucky. I wouldn’t use this as an indicator of his electability.
I meant in the extreme case. But it’s possible, if the bottom drops out, and with another Iraq disaster or deepening recession it certainly could.
The point is that if ticket-splitting voters (which is the bulk of them) *expect * a solidly-Dem Congress, they’ll have an incentive to go with a Rep President. We won’t know now solidly Dem that is until the polls close, anyway. lightnin’, that’s the point - McCain didn’t get lucky. He had the benefit of a press corps that is always looking for a scandal to blow up, and reason to appear to be even-handed in how they do it, but even so they let him skate. That isn’t luck, it was predictable as part of a pattern established over years - a pattern that isn’t likely to change in the next few months.
I disagree- I think that, until now, he’s benefited from the media-engendered Obama/Clinton feud. The media had no reason to go after him- compared to Obama/Clinton, he was boring. Once Hillary’s (finally) out of the picture, he’ll be fair game. I suspect he’s got a lot more skeletons in his closet than Obama, and when the MSM needs ratings again, he’ll be in their sights just as much as Obama is, currently. We’ve already seen some hints of that these past few weeks- rumblings about his wife’s tax records and his health records, for example.
Elvis so once again you won’t answer that simple question prefering instead to claim you’ve answered it before. Cite please. Please quote me where you’ve answered it before. Maybe you have and I have missed it. Tis possible.
But of course I’ll play. (And not hold my breath.) If Obama was losing by as much as Hillary has been losing then he would have conceded and thrown his support to Hillary long ago. If he hadn’t he would have been ridiculed beyond belief. I would be expecting him to say that Clinton won fair and square and be out there working to rally support to her cause. Some Hillary haters would not be swayed but many would come round in the end partly because of Obama’s urging. Team Hillary would make a cold-hearted calculation if they felt that his being number two on the ticket would help or hurt their chances and he’d decide if he wanted it if offered. I have no idea if that would occur or not.
Speaking for myself, as someone who has never liked Hillary, I had already come round to voting for her if she won. I didn’t start out that way. Donating to her campaign, probably not. She would be the better of the choices that remained.
BTW electoral-vote.com is not alone. SUSA is in the business too. Their most recent calls it Obama 280 to 258. But of course that data goes back to March. FiveThirtyEight also has Obama winning. The point is that while the consensus is that Obama would win by the most recent predictions I wouldn’t put too much stock in it this early in the game, either way. None have any capacity of being too much more credible than reading tea leaves. Or judging the outcome of a world series by how a few of the batters did in warm-ups before a play-off game.
Obama’s pure presence in all fifty states and some territories built up by this primary season will make his nationawide appeal more…nationwide for lack of a better word. He has tried and true on the ground people and field offices already set-up. And with a percentage of Clinton folk coming on board because they loath another republican presidency more than Mr.Obama - I think Obama has the advantage to actually bring this home.
To the OP - I’ve been waiting to talk with folks on this board who supported Hillary, about Obama against McCain. So thank you for starting this thread. I think in the coming months, discussions will be interesting, as we many of us are on the same team, but had different coaches for awhile, now some of us are all rooting for the same guy.
Oh, it must also be said that one distinct advantage of Obama’s riskier 50 state strategy is that he will do much more to help down ticket than one that doesn’t contest many states. If he wins he will win with a much more friendly Congress than Hillary would have as he’ll help bring out the votes in Red states to pick up a few seats that might otherwise stay Red.
I am just as confident that Hillary could have won too. She’d do the safe 50 plus one approach and could likely win Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. She’d not compete in many states that Obama will. And as pointed out Obama would have helped bring his supporters to the table.
If it means that much to you, you can use the Search function by your own fucking self. :rolleyes:
When do you plan to start? :dubious:
The question was about what Obama and his supporters would say or do to win over Clinton supporters. Your answer is neither related nor responsive. That raises doubt about your (if not his) ability even to recognize that it would have to be done, however painful it would be for you.
Have you had a look at the assumptions it has to make in order to reach that conclusion (which is its purpose)? IF the youth vote increases by 40% over Kerry’s, IF the black vote increases by some other percentage, and so forth, THEN 538 says Obama wins. And with fractional electoral votes at that!
You have a flawed understanding of the meaning of the word “prediction”, in addition to all the other difficulties with topicality you have demonstrated to all of us recently.
Once again, though, if you discard the only data you have, you’re free to say anything you like.
If Republicans cannot hold on to house seats in crimson red Mississippi, they are looking at a blowout of epic proportions in November. The same goes for McSame.
Ah yes. The old standby of claiming something and then refusing to provide the cite saying search for it yourself. You have made a claim that you have told me what you’ll do “enough times already” - unless zero (which is not a plural) qualifies as “enough times” then your claim seems to be specious. Again I may have missed it and my search agility is limited. But I have tried to find you telling me or anyone even once and I cannot find it at all. Surely you can remember one of the times when you said it and find it easily? :rolleyes:
If you do want to play with “the only data we have” then we have Obama winning by electoral-vote.com data and by SUSA’s data and by fivethirtyeight’s data. You are free to discard them if you wish and say anything you like.
Let me try to answer your questions explicitly one by one so not to exceed you ability to comprehend.
“Under the same assumptions, what could Obama say and do…”
He could and would have conceded and asked his supporters to work for Hillary long ago if he was similarly far behind. It would have been silly for him to not do so.
“… and what can the vociferous Hillary-haters who support him say and do, to induce Clinton supporters to vote for him anyway?”
They can follow Obama’s lead here and give Hillary respect even if they feel that she does not deserve it. Let the process play itself out. Those who are true Hillary haters need to shut the fuck up about it and let the Hillary supporters decide if they can support Obama over McCain despite the bad blood that has been spilled by supporters of both Democratic camps. This does not mean that she gets carte blanche to say or do anything with impunity, but the Obama side needs to give space and time for healing to happen. We need to identify our shared interests and goals and hope that Hillary supporters recognize that Hillary is right when she says that the differences between her and Obama are nothing compared to the differences between either of them and McCain. Those Obama supporters who are undeclared supers need to refrain from coming out fast enough to finish it before the primaries are over which would be perceived as pushing her out.
