Something to Consider about Obama and McCain
Michael Barone takes note:
What makes this presidential election different from all other presidential elections? And different from what we expected when the year began?
First, neither party’s presumptive nominee was chosen by massive support from primary voters, as John Kerry was in 2004, George W. Bush in 2000, or Bill Clinton in 1992.
That may not seem obvious in the case of John McCain, who effectively clinched the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. But look at the numbers: In January, McCain won New Hampshire 37 percent to 32 percent, South Carolina 33 to 30 percent, and Florida 36 to 31 percent. On Super Tuesday, he won more than 50 percent only in states that were essentially uncontested: Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. He won Missouri by only 33 percent to 32 percent and California by only 42 percent to 35 percent, but won big delegate margins because of Republicans’ winner-take-all rules…
…As for Barack Obama, at this writing he leads Hillary Clinton by 153 in “pledged delegates,” those chosen in primaries and caucuses. But about 90 percent of this lead — between 130 and 140 delegates — came in caucuses, where the enthusiasm of his followers and the inexplicable failure of the Clinton campaign to mobilize hers gave him big victories.
We know from the nonbinding “beauty contest” primaries in Washington in February and in Nebraska on May 13 that Obama would have won much smaller margins in primaries in those states — and much smaller delegate margins, thanks to the Democrats’ proportional representation rules.
While either man may end up being the choice of the people in November, neither of them are really the enthusiastic choice of their respective political parties - both have problems with the base, as it were. The trouble for Obama is that his strength is on the left, which makes it harder for him to pull in the center, while McCain’s strength (to the dismay of many on the right) is in the center, thus making it easier for McCain to cobble together the requisite 270 electoral votes. Now, don’t get me wrong, McCain still has the much more uphill fight to win than Obama, but Obama isn’t going to coast downhill to the White House…he’s going to have to fight very, very hard if he wants to win.
Barone also notes that money has been nearly worthless in 2008 as far as moving votes - Romney vastly outspent McCain, and still lost; Obama vastly outspent Hillary, and still came up short in such states as Ohio and Pennsylvania. What this means for the fall is unknown - but it could be that the yapping of political ads has gone on so long that people tune them out…on the other hand, if Obama or McCain can come up with a really good, very different sort of ad, it might carry far more weight than any ad in the past ever did. It could also be that ideological affinities have hardened, the unaffiliated voters are shrinking in number and the ads are really just preaching to the respective choirs.
As I’ve been saying since before the election cycle started, its going to be a strange election year - and it may end up being as watershed as the 1860 or 1932 elections were. Remain buckled in and enjoy what will likely be an increasingly wild ride.
3 comments May 17th, 2008
