Fork Hillary 3: The Final Forking

Great Debates
1681

In a country that elected Bush to serve two terms and mentions of Reagan still draw reverent comments, and given the events of the past few months, does anyone really think that the voters are going to pick a liberal black Democrat in a landslide?

This will be a close race at best. And if Obama (assuming the nomination is his, which is still not a dead certainty) finishes campaigning in the fall with anything less than a double-digit lead in the polls, there should be a lot of nail-biting around here on election night (based on people’s tendency to lie to pollsters about willingness to vote for Obama).

I hope these two really are opponents in the fall. It’d be so nice to have a choice beyond reluctantly selecting the lesser of two evils.

1682

Since you said that, I really wanted to share this CNN item. I read it last night and thought it was very funny.

Clinton campaign: We’re ahead in the popular vote
Terry McAuliffe says Clinton took the lead last night, showing that voters like her better.
“Is he right?” CNN asks. “That depends on which measure of the popular vote is used.”
Clinton is losing in the overall vote, whether Florida and Michigan are in or out. BUT! If you include Florida and Michigan and exclude those pesky 15 caucus states - then she’s winning! At last, her campaign has made a clear case to the superdelegates.

1683

Color me skeptical and cautious.

I think the more telling numbers are those from states which held their primary elections while the Republican nomination was still in doubt. (I.e., Super Tuesday and before.) After McCain wrapped things up, Republican voters were freed to participate in the Democratic primaries. (And I’m not necessarily ascribing this to malicious intent on their part. Hell, I crossed over to vote for McCain in the 2000 Georgia primary, since Gore was a lock for the Dems. I wasn’t doing it to cause mischief. I just thought McCain would be better than Bush in the event Gore didn’t win. I was planning, all the time, to vote for Gore in the general election.)

Let’s look at Georgia, where we had an energized electorate for the primary. The Secretary of State had to desperately seek extra poll workers to handle the volume of voters, and voter registrations jumped ahead of the primary. Even so, the total number of Democratic primary voters was 1,034,273. Well below the 1,366,149 Kerry received in the 2004 general election.

And it wasn’t just a Southern thing. California turned out 4,794,846 Democratic primary voters, whereas Kerry received 6,745,485 votes there in the 2004 general election.

(Those numbers don’t alarm me, since primary voters usually turn out in much smaller numbers than general election voters. The numbers of primary voters are up considerably over a typical year, showing that voters really are following the race intently.)

I think post-Super-Tuesday, we are seeing a lot of Republicans turning out for Democratic primaries. (Again, not necessarily out of any malicious intent, or because Rush told 'em to.)

1684

How many people thought the same about John Kerry in 2004? What’s different this time around? I don’t mean that to be snarky. I ask as someone who is genuinely curious and is still undecided as to who to vote for come November.

1685

Hear, hear!

Well said.

Count me in as another who expects that this November’s election is not really going to be all that close. Democrats are motivated beyond belief and starting to feel empowered in a way they haven’t since 1992, whereas Republicans are in a free fall. They won’t fall far, but far enough, I suspect, that quite a few would-be McCain supporters aren’t going to bother to vote, a number of moderate Republicans are going to switch to Obama, and Democrats are going to come out in droves. Few democrats will be voting for Nader or McCain, including very few Clinton supporters (once their disappointment wears.)

This is going to be a good year for Democrats, it seems to me. May they use their political capital wisely.

1686

My numbers were a bit off (becasue I didn’t take into account also-ran Democrats). Total Democratic turnout in the California primary was 5,206,338. Still well below the 6,745,485 votes Kerry received there in the '04 general election.

1687

Speaking as one who must own up to having actually thought that for awhile, how much company did I have? I don’t recall its having been a widespread view.

1688

I was genuinely sad when Kerry got the nomination. I thought he was the worst possible choice in the field.

1689

I hope you’re right, but don’t count your elections until Diebold has their say.

-Joe

1690

Obama isn’t Kerry. Kerry ran a terrible campaign and let Rove define him without fighting back. Unlike Kerry, Obama had to get tough against Hillary and that has prepped him for the fall race and also made things like Wright to be old news. Kerry could have won in 2004 (actually he did, except for the crooked Ohio election), but he just didn’t play the game the way it has to be played. Add to that the fact that the Republicans are not united behind McCain and Obama is in a much superior position than Kerry ever was in.

1691

It’s true that a lot of people expressed that belief on these boards in '08. Not me. I was skeptical. Kerry was a stiff campaigner, who was prepared to write off the South and much of the West in the general election. To top that off, he had an aloof and patrician air about him. I never though he had a chance.

Several things are different this time:

[ul][li]The economy is in, or headed for, the toilet.[/li][li]Republicans have nominated a guy who is a Middle East hawk at a time when the electorate is war-weary.[/li][li]Obama is not Kerry. He is charismatic, and he is not ceding states to the Republicans.[/li][li]Black voters will likely turn out in record numbers.[/li][li]The “Republican” brand is a low ebb.[/li][li]A new generation of voters is excited about politics, and they are voting Democratic in large numbers. (The Daily Show generation.)[/ul][/li]
That’s not to say it will be easy. Obama is a black man, and that presents hurdles. Witness West Virginia. Still, I feel much better about Democratic chances now than I did in '04. Not as unrealistically optimistic as some, but optimistic nonetheless. I predict an Obama win, but it will be close in terms of electoral votes.

1692

Just my experience but I was also one of those who wanted Bush out of office badly but when Kerry got the nod felt fairly confident the Dems made a tragic error.

Sadly, it sucks to be right sometimes.

1693

Please note Jack that I at least am talking about the possibility of an electoral landslide, not a popular vote one. And not up to Reagan’s second term levels but similar. He just has to win Indiana by 0.1% to get its electoral votes. He and McCain have not yet begun to fight and it is close. Even Wall Street is donating much more to Obama than to McCain. McCain does not excite any element of his base. He’ll get that 32 or so percent that still approve of Bush - mostly. Some of them will stay home. And some will come out because of whatever Swiftboating (Wright/flag pin/Muslim/egghead/elitist/latte drinker/arugula eater) gets pulled out and more to vote against the uppity Black guy and some against the dang Libruls. But he has the resources (both financial and tempermental) to fight it. He’ll force McCain to defend all over and McCain won’t have the resources (financial or tempermental :)) to do it.

What will be the themes?

Economic. Wall Street is donating to Obama, former SEC commissioners are endorsing him, McCain doesn’t understand economics by his own admission and has tied himself to failed Bush plans. Let’s face it, the incumbent party is at a disadvantage in bad economic times even when the candidate is knowledgeble.

The war. Some will be attracted to McCain’s pride and service and his promise “to win.” More see this war as not mere bad execution but a bad decision badly executed.

Who will deliver on their mutually promised post partisan America? Who will take action on issues dear to the middle like global warming has become? McCain would win there against any one else but Obama.

Image. Head to head, in debates, in town meetings, on the trail and at the stumps, this will be JFK vs Nixon for the modern world. Obama tall and vibrant. McCain curmudgeonly cantakerous fumbling if he goes off script.

spoke my recollection is that contested primaries usually have less than half of what comes out for the general. So let’s use Georgia. Republican turn-out was 954K compared to 1.9 million that came out Republican in the last general, about 50%. Yet Dem turn-out was over a million, 75% of the last general’s turn-out. Conneticut, to pick an early contested one at random, 25% turn-out for the Pubbies, and a modest but still much larger over 40% on the Dem side. More than twice as many turned out to vote Democratic. Even Tennessee had more come out to vote in the Democratic primary than came out for the Republican one and that was on Super Tuesday when all was in play. Tennessee! That went Red by something like 14% last time!

McCain will need to defend even states that are traditionally solidly red once this really gets going and he will lose some of them despite that.

Never thought Kerry would win big. Had hoped for him to win narrow.

1694

DSeid, I agree that Democratic voters are unusually energized this year, and that’s great. All I’m saying is that we need to be cautious in analyzing post-Super-Tuesday numbers, and should temper our optimism accordingly.

I predict another squeaker in terms of electoral votes. I predict an Obama win, but we’re gonna have to work for it.

(We still have to take disgruntled Hillary supporters into account, too. I have a couple of hard-core feminist cousins who are saying they won’t vote for Obama in the general. I hope they’ll see the light and change their minds.)

1695

I remain skeptical that Obama can achieve a landslide for this very reason. I very much believed that Bush would lose against anyone the Democrats nominated in 2004 and was genuinely shocked when it didn’t happen.

Granted I would be pleased with an Obama blowout but would be plenty satisfied with just an electoral majority.

1696

I agree. In fact, I wouldn’t bet against a Reaganeque whitewash. Unless a significant skeleton appears in his closet or McCain picks an absolute blinder of a VP-nominee. Obama is charismatic, positive, energetic, intelligent, quick-witted, and congenial. And he’s got something of the air of JFK. Think of JFK’s speech starting the moon program and put Obama in his stead.

1697

Here’s the deal, for me…

First I think we’re all going to be highly impressed with Obama in the general. He’s had to pull his punches with Hillary, because he knows he’ll need their support in the general. But every now and again, he comes out and smacks her around a bit just to show everyone that he can.

Take a look at this Edwards endorsement. How about that timing? Just when Hillary needed to bask in some good news for once, he comes along and steals her show. Calculating. That’s Obama in a nutshell. He’s pretty damn good at politics, and is going to show us all what he’s made of in the next few months. McCain is going to look like the Washington Generals to his Globetrotter. Ever notice that Obama has an amazing ability to defuse stupid bullshit? Like the flag pin nonsense. When questioned about it he took a stand. He doesn’t cave in to the bullshit theater that politics has become. And just when the media had accepted that he doesn’t wear it, he starts to wear one, just to show them he’ll wear one on his terms and you better respect it. Incidentally, the one he wears these days is a gift from some veteran I believe.

Obama vs. Kerry? Too much to list really, but I’ll try.

First and foremost, the meme is really hard to stop once it gets started. Negative memes kill. The meme is, without a doubt, that the Republicans will lose in November. The defeat in MS-01 is a true harbinger of doom for the Republicans. In 04 there wasn’t this feeling of the Republican brand being shit. It seems as if they’ve run out of tricks.

Second, Bush was helped significantly with gay-marriage amendments in crucial states like Ohio. Those can only happen once. Ohio can’t re-ban it.

Third, Bush had an approval rating of just enough to win. Now he’s at 30 percent. McCain doesn’t know where to go really. He tries so hard to get the Xian right to like him, but they never will. He isn’t, after all, one of them. That’s all that matters to them. Pandering doesn’t work. While you can get these people’s support through issues, they also heavily favor character judgements. Bush was one of them. McCain isn’t evangelical.

Fourth, Kerry didn’t have the primary battle Obama had. Looking back, I think this has been better for Obama than it has been for McCain. A lot of bad stuff has come out, but the good news is that there are very few surprises left. McCain’s years in the Senate are going to be far too easy to attack. Plus the guy’s got a hot temper. I see him making several gaffes.

1698

Four superdelegates declare for Obama so far today:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/15/obama-picks-up-four-more-superdelegates/

1699

Mr. Obama is a natural politician, as was Mr. Clinton. Ms. Clinton is not natural, she has to study at it; spontaneity and ease are not in her catalogue. IMHO, of course.

When I say Mr. Obama is a “natural politician” I don’t mean it as a criticism. Natural also means “genuine”.

1700

spoke-, that’s (your post #1691) what I would’ve written, almost word for word. I think this is Obama’s general election to lose, and I am cautiously optimistic that he’s gonna win. But it won’t be easy.

CNN.com says that six of Edwards’s superdelegates will be endorsing Obama in the next day or so.