The Obama Coaliation

The Clinton people are working off of the electoral map that we’ve seen since 2000. Some states are blue. Others are red, and Democrats have to fight like hell to pick up a swing state, or two.

I think this cycle is going to be different.

Obama may well lose Ohio and Florida. That’s OK, as Kerry didn’t win either state and was very close to being elected.

But, it appears that Obama will have a great chance at picking up a few southern states like Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, thanks, in part to a heavy African-American turnout.

Young voters will also play a big role in Obama’s election, much as they did in his nomination.

… voters over 45 have decreased as a share of the electorate by 10 points compared to 2004, and that voters over 65 have decreased by over 20 percent. In a state-by-state analysis of twenty-three contests, he found that the over-45 and over-65 votes decreased in 21 states.

Compare this to the 18-29 year old vote, which increased in all twenty-three states, and increased as a share of the overall electorate by more than 50 percent.

Clearly, there’s been no comparable “senior surge.”The importance of the largely Obama-inspired youth surge for the future of the political landscape cannot be downplayed.

Obama has been able to do what other insurgent Democratic candidates we incapable of doing. He’s actually getting new voters to the polls. Bradley and Dean were both counting on new voters, they they both failed where Obama has succeeded.

So in the fall, look for Obama to win some states where Democrats usually don’t win: New Mexico, Colorado, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia. Any one of those plus the Kerry states will put Obama over the top.

Younger voters will help get us over 270 electoral votes as will an historic African-American turnout. And pursuing and winning back Clinton Democrats, some rural voters and independents will help Obama win in a landslide.

We can and we will.

Has McCain Support Reached Its Ceiling?

Maybe:

In fact, both Clinton and Obama performed almost exactly the same against McCain throughout–polling virtually even with him, at around 45 percent–no matter how popular or unpopular either was within the Democratic primary electorate.

But shouldn’t McCain actually be doing badly, given the state of the economy and the war? And doesn’t that just prove how damaging this campaign has been? As long as Clinton and Obama are fighting each other, the eventual nominee can’t attack McCain effectively. He’s getting a free ride.

Well, maybe. But look at those graphs again. If McCain is getting a free ride, it doesn’t seem to be doing much good. He’s running no stronger against either candidate than he was before the Wright story, Bittergate, or the Bosnia controversy.

It’s possible McCain’s numbers are stagnant simply because Clinton and Obama soaking up all of the media attention. But there may be another explanation, one I know I’ve read elsewhere (maybe in a Gallup analysis, though I can’t find it now): That 45 percent figure represents a ceiling of his support.

I’ve wondered about this. In the polling I’ve seen, McCain seems to be tied with both Clinton and Obama at a time when the two Democrats have been going at each other while getting something of a free ride from the media. Voters vaguely know that they like McCain, based on his ‘maverick’ reputation he earned during the 2000 GOP primaries.

But at the same time, people haven’t been reminded or informed of McCain’s policies and history (he wants to stay in Iraq, he doesn’t understand economics,  his temper, or his membership in the Keating Five, and more) and haven’t yet closely associated him with the George W. Bush legacy which remains wildly unpopular among voters.

It may be that McCain will be able to maintain his level of support and increase it enough to win. But if he’s tied with both of the Democratic candidates during a period when he has received little media coverage doesn’t bode well for him.

Photo of the Day

From Yahoo!:

PHILADELPHIA – Hillary Rodham Clinton ground out a gritty victory in the Pennsylvania primary Tuesday night, defeating Barack Obama and staving off elimination in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Disappointing, but not surprising.

Roseanne Is Mad at You

Why I do this, I have no idea, except that I really enjoy my irritainment. I read Free Republic, Taylor Marsh’s blog, and Townhall.com for the same reason.

Of course, I’m talking about Roseanne’s blog. Yes, that Roseanne: the domestic goddess who had her own sitcom back in the 90s.

To read her blog when she writes about Hillary is to venture into a strange and unknown world where Hillary is the best thing EVER and where blog posts are usually no longer than a sentence or two and where capital letters are not welcome.

Let’s take a look at this post she wrote on April 3 about Randi Rhodes’ words (if you’re not familiar with that issues, click here):

what randhi rhodes said

(calling the working class’s candidate a whore) was equivilent to using the N-word in reference to Obama. How women can allow themselves to implode and spew out horrifying misogynism at a woman who has reached higher than any other woman ever has is the reason the dems will not win the presidential election.

Hillary has reached higher than any other woman? If you’re speaking about American women only, well, Senators Boxer, Feinstein, Mikulski, and Landrieu have all been in the senate longer than Clinton, so haven’t they, in a senatorial sense “reached higher than any other woman?” Don’t Janet Napolitano and Kathleen Sebelius (both accomplished and popular governors) have the right kind of executive experiences to become president, and thus have “reached higher?”

Haven’t Madeline Albright and Condoleezza Rice “reached higher” than Hillary?

Does Nancy Pelosi count? What about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Barbara Jordan?

And internationally? Indira Ghandi, Michelle Bachelet, Margaret Thatcher, and Angela Merkel might disagree.

Every bit of this is the fault of Howard Dean, John Edwards, john kerry, bill richardson, Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama’s boy’s club. I am ashamed of what passes for “progressive”. It is the left wing anti female taliban.

Uh, no. Rhodes is responsible for her own words, no matter how reprehensible those words were. She said them as a comedian and certainly was not influenced by the “anti female taliban.”

The purge of feminists from the Democrat party continues…do not be deceived! The entire party has nothing but contempt for its female and blue collar base…they need to clean up their act in order to win will in November!

Sigh.

Roseanne, there is no purge of feminists from the “Democrat party” (and BTW, why do you use that right-wing phrase “Democrat party?” It’s the Democratic Party. Democrat is a noun, Democratic is an adjective, just in case you weren’t sure). When elected, I am certain that Obama will place many women in cabinet positions and there is still a good chance that he might even pick a woman as a running mate (I happen to think that Sebelius would be an excellent choice).

I am convinced that there will be a woman president in this country before I die. It’s simply inevitable, and that will be good for women and the country.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Clinton will be that woman.

Many Democratic voters don’t like the idea of having two-family rule in this country for 28 years. Surely, you must agree that there are good people worthy to be president whose last names are not Clinton or Bush.

Other Democrats oppose Clinton for her vote on the war. That’s a serious issue. It’s not that she caused the invasion of Iraq, but rather that she supported it and now claims that Bush tricked her into voting that way. In the buildup to the war, I knew Bush was lying, why didn’t she?

Another subset of Democrats would rather that Clinton not get the nomination because they don’t want to have to re-live the drama of the Bill Clinton years.

But perhaps most importantly, most Obama voters think that he is the best candidate. No, it’s not his “turn,” but we’re Democrats and have never been ones to nominate the person whose “turn” it is. If that were the case, Lieberman would have been the nominee in 2004. Obama supporters tend to be behind him because they believe he has the right kind of experience, ideas, and temperament to be a good president, if not a great one.

So, please, you can hate Obama all you want. Do your damnedest to help Clinton get the nomination.

But please, don’t equate support for Obama with misogyny.

Obama’s Plan to Reshape the Electorate

I like it.

From Politico:

Bringing new voters to the polls “is going to be a very big part of how we win,” said Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, in an interview. “Barack’s appeal to independent voters is also going to be key.”

Hildebrand said the campaign is likely to turn its attention and the energy of its massive volunteer army this fall on registering African-American voters, and voters under 35 years old, in key states.

“Can it change the math in Ohio? Very much so,” he said. “If you look at the vote spread between Bush and Kerry in 2004 – we could potentially erase that.”

One of the things I learned about politics in my involvement in past campaigns was that it’s never a good idea to rely on people who have never voted. Though during the campaign, they might appear to be motivated, they tend not to show up; there’s a reason they haven’t voted before.  Jerry Brown, Bill Bradley, and Howard Dean were all going to ride the wave of first-time voters to electoral victories.

We all know how those campaigns turned out.

But in this primary season, Obama has largely relied on young and first-time voters and he is on the brink of winning the Democratic nomination. There’s something different about Obama and I don’t know if that’s because of his message and compelling narrative or if it’s because  his campaign is so adept at organizing and getting people to the polls. I imagine it’s a little bit of both.

What I like about this strategy is that given the campaign’s track record is that they can do it and possibly reshape the electoral map by increasing turnout and votes among under-represented communities. I think it’s very doable.