Obama Failing to Make the Grade in Nevada
After massive effort, he’s still trailing McCain for Nevada’s must-win five electoral votes. Details over at Battle Born Politics.
11 comments June 15th, 2008
Posts with the tag 'Electoral College'
Obama Has Trouble in Michigan
This is a must-win State for Obama - pretty much its a case of “no Michigan, no White House” for Obama…and yet in recent polling, according to Real Clear Politics, McCain has a slight lead.
Now, one has to expect that in heavily unionised Michigan Obama will eventually emerge the winner - but it seems pretty clear that Obama will have to fight for it, and that is bad news…any time and money spent fighting to hold is time and money which can’t be spent trying to poach in GOP territory.
As per usual, I still say the GOP has a long, hard road in front of it - but there’s no reason for any GOPer to be gloomy.
4 comments May 30th, 2008
Obama’s Problem With the Democratic Vote
Certainly, Obama has locked down the African American vote and the upper class white vote - but these two constituencies invariably vote Democratic. Obama’s got two problems - how to get the rest of the Democratic vote (blue collar workers, Jewish voters), while also poaching a bit into McCain’s GOP base. Poaching GOPers is going to be rough - but it might prove just as rough for Obama to lock down the normal Democratic vote, as Mark Hemmingway points out over at NRO’s The Corner:
From Marc Ambinder:
Gallup’s tracking finds that 61% of all Jewish voters would choose Barack Obama in a general election versus John McCain, only a smidge less than the percentage who would choose Clinton over McCain (66%).
Caveat: Jews have voted for the Democrat in much higher proportions — John Kerry took 76% of the Jewish vote; Al Gore took 79% of the Jewish vote.
What this suggests is that McCain attracts more than an average Republican’s share of Jewish voters — not that Obama repels him.
With all due respect to Ambinder who’s a talented reporter, I think he’s dead wrong on that last point. If he’d read my article in the latest NRODT, he’d know that it’s entirely likely Obama has real problems with Jewish voters. For some time now, many in the Jewish community been openly discussing the problems they have with Obama’s stance on Israel, as well as that of his advisors. And certainly his long association with former PLO spokesmen Rashid Khalidi isn’t helping. If McCain pulls down 39-40% of the Jewish vote in the election that would be remarkable — no Republican has done that since Reagan in 1980. Also, the Jewish vote could have serious electoral consequences. Aside from Florida, some three percent of Pennsyvania’s population is Jewish.
McCain getting 40% of the Jewish vote would likely put Florida entirely out of reach for Obama, and that means Ohio would become a “must win” State, just as it turned out for Kerry in 2004. But as noted, with a high Jewish population in Pennsylvania - especially when coupled with Pennsylvania’s large blue collar and rural vote - that State might fall out of Obama’s reach…and that would make…well, heck…it would make Virginia and West Virginia “must win” States for Obama. In other words, if McCain can seriously eat into Obama’s normal Democrat Jewish vote in November, it will complicate Obama’s quest for 270 electoral votes quite a bit.
Now, fellow GOPers, this is some good news - and it is just about time that Jewish Americans (at least, those who care at all about Judaism and/or Israel) ceased their support for a Democratic party ever more enthralled to a left growing increasingly anti-Semitic. But it is just that - some good news; some cause for positive thinking…but it isn’t a done deal, not by a long shot. Prying lose 40% of the Jewish vote will not be easy, and it will be up to McCain - and the rest of us GOPers - to demonstrate that a switch to the GOP is in accordance with overall Jewish belief. A high hill to climb - but lets start climbing it.
19 comments May 8th, 2008
Turning Pennsylvania and Michigan Red?
Details over at Blogs for John McCain’s Victory.
16 comments March 13th, 2008
Campaign ‘08: Entirely Up in the Air
My view is that no one really has a clue how this year’s campaign will turn out - just in the fact that Hillary is on the ropes on March 1st, rather than prepping for her coronation and Democratic nominee in August, we have a strong indicator that conventional wisdom is insufficient in figuring out where we’re headed. Michael Barone makes some excellent points on this subject:
In or around 1995, these alignments froze into place and pretty much stayed there for 10 years. Helping to freeze them were particular personal characteristics of the two dominant political figures of these times, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
But now Bush is not on the ballot and Hillary Clinton’s flagging campaign has been sending her husband to places like Chillicothe, Ohio. John McCain does not have the Texas swagger and up-front religious commitment that turned many voters away from Bush and his party. Barack Obama does not seem to have the wobbly moral compass that turned many voters away from Clinton and his party.
The demographic factor most highly correlated with voting behavior in 2000 and 2004 was religion, or depth of religious belief. Within each relevant religious group, the more observant tended to vote Republican and the less observant Democratic. That may no longer be the case. Voters may well split along other lines, as voters in industrial states once split along lines of income or union membership, and voters in states with heavy early 20th century immigration split along sectarian lines (Catholic Democrats versus Protestant Republicans).
If I were running the McCain or Obama campaign, I would be doing in-depth polling and focus groups in 30 to 40 states and nationally, as well, trying to determine which voting groups are moving or moveable toward my candidate and which are moving or moveable the other way. I would certainly not be writing off states that were lost by my party’s 2000 and 2004 nominees by 5 percent or more, and I would not assume that states they carried by that much were in the bag. It’s time to throw out the old map and search for clues to what the new map will look like.
Clearly, John McCain will win Utah, much as Barack Obama will win Vermont - the really, really Red and Blue States will stay Red or Blue; but any State which is not starkly Red or Blue is, at least at this moment, up for grabs. In 2004, the States won by 5 percentage points or less are: New Hampshire (4), Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10), Ohio (20), Michigan (17), Oregon (7), New Mexico (5), Florida (27), Nevada (5), Colorado (9), Pennsylvania (21). That is 135 electoral votes which are changable - 66 won by the GOP, 69 won by the Democrats - and there are some States won by less than 10 percentage points (Connecticut, Missouri, eg) which can also be put into play if the right steps are taken and the right circumstances eventuate.
The hill to climb is stil higher for the Democrats - they have to take away from the GOP just to win, while any States taken away from them by the GOP just makes it harder, but the GOP cannot count on winning GW’s States from 2004 - there will be battles where none thought to find any. To put it into easy terms - we could have Obama losing Pennsylvania and still getting elected President; we could have McCain losing Ohio and still getting elected President. These are unthinkable scenarios in relation to 2000 and 2004, but they could be very realistic in 2008.
It is this dawning realisation of the volatility in American politics which makes GOPers heave a sigh of relief that McCain now has 5 months to craft a plan for the fall…while Democrats are talking up how Hillary will have to pack it in unless she wins by a substantial margin in Texas and Ohio on Tuesday…she wouldn’t have to pack it in, of course, but Democratic leaders very much want this nomination process over as soon as possible because the longer it goes on, the harder it will be to get things rolling for a very difficult fall campaign.
As I said at the start of this process - buckle in for a long, exciting political ride in 2008.
12 comments March 2nd, 2008
Electoral Math, 101
In the end, it is all about getting to 270 electoral votes - and John Fund points out that while the Democrats have the wind at their backs heading into the general election, the facts on the ground indicate that it likely will be a close fought race, and a narrow win for whomever comes out on top. Why? Here’s why:
In some ways Mr. McCain resembles Nicolas Sarkozy, the French conservative who won last year’s presidential election even though the retiring president, Jacques Chirac, was unpopular and a member of his own party. “Like Sarko, who was of Chirac’s party but not of Chirac, America’s swing voters have intuited over the years that there is little love lost between McCain and George Bush,” says the blog Race42008.
Mr. Sarkozy was able to convince a majority of French voters that he represented real change that would improve conditions, while his socialist rival, Segolene Royal, represented risky change that could make matters worse. That is precisely the challenge Mr. McCain faces this year against Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
When you hear that the demise of the Republicans is a foregone conclusion, remember that when the campaign is joined this fall and voters will have to make real choices about the direction of the country, the result is likely to be close. Recall that pundits were ready to crown Michael Dukakis the winner of the 1988 election after he opened up a 17-point edge over George H.W. Bush. In 2000, they declared the race over around Labor Day after Al Gore opened up a clear lead over George W. Bush.
Given that polls show Mr. McCain is currently in a dead heat against either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton, it would be wise for the pundits to show a little humility this year. The Democratic strategists I talk to believe the race will be hard-fought and close, regardless of the direction the economy or the war in Iraq takes.
As Fund points out, Democratic victory could hinge on taking Ohio - where the name of the GOP is currently mud; voila!, Demcorats win 272-266…but if New Hampshire swings back GOP (and Kerry only very, very narrowly won it in 2004), then its GOP by 270-268. And McCain could win Ohio. And Pennsylvania. And Connecticut. And Minnesota. And Michigan. And California (polls show a statistical tie between Hillary and McCain in California) Of course, McCain could also lose New Mexico. And Nevada. And Colorado. And Iowa. But the main thing to remember - for a Democrat to win, they have to hold on to ALL of the States Kerry won in 2004, and take away States President Bush won in 2004. Not an impossible task, but not an easy one, either. Any State which McCain takes from the Kerry ‘04 collumn vastly complicates Democratic efforts to get to 270 electoral votes - and even if Democrats have to fight hard for Kerry States (as is going to be likely in places like pro-life but moderate Pennsylvania), that in and of itself will make poaching difficult.
It ain’t over ’till its over, boys and girls. Sure, Democrats could roll on to a blowout, landslide victory in November. Polling doesn’t indicate this will be the case, but anything is possible in politics. Even a GOP victory. My advice to you Democrats, however, is to assume that you’ve already won and just keep talking to each other in your echo chamber about how great it will be to have the anti-Bush in the White House.
73 comments February 11th, 2008
