I used numbers from the web site FiveHundredThirtyEight.com (highly recommended for political sabermatricians) to break the states into seven categories. The first category is "Solid Blue": these are states that either Clinton or Obama would have at least a 90% certainty of carrying. There are 7 such states (CA, NY, MA, RI, VT and DC) with a total of 112 electoral votes (e.v.). The next category, "Solid Red", is for the states neither Clinton nor Obama can carry more than 10% of the time. This group contains 12 states (TX, GA, AZ, LA, AL, OK, KS, NE, MS, UT, ID and WY), and also has a total of exactly 112 e.v.
The remaining states are "in play", in the sense that either Clinton or Obama (usually both) have realistic chance to win, as well as a realistic chance of losing. I broke these states into five groups. There are 7 states (with 109 e.v.) where Clinton is a lot stronger than Obama, where "a lot" is defined as having at least a 20% greater chance of winning. These include many of the crucial "swing states" of recent electoral history, and they form the basis of Clinton's best arguments that she is more electable. Clinton is indeed a lot stronger in FL, PA, OH, MO, TN, KY, WV and AR.
Obama is a lot stronger than Clinton in 6 medium-sized states with a total of 58 e.v.: VA, WI, WA, CO, OR and IA. So far, the analysis seems to favor Clinton, as the states where she clearly runs better than Obama have almost twice as many e.v. as the states where he is clearly stronger (109 > 58).
However, there are also states where either Clinton or Obama has a real, but not decisive edge (an advantage of more than 5%, but less than 20%, in the candidate's chances of winning the state). Obama is somewhat better than Clinton in 12 states with 83 e.v. (IL, IN, MN, MD, CT, NM, HI, ND, SD, DE, MT and AK). Clinton is somewhat better than Obama in just 3 states with 24 e.v. (NC, NV, and NH).
That leaves 3 states with 40 e.v., that are at least nominally "in play" where neither Clinton nor Obama has a clear advantage over the other: NJ, MI and SC. Of course, NJ and SC lean strongly, blue and red respectively. MI is the only real swing state where Clinton and Obama are on an equal footing.
Overall, Clinton has an advantage over Obama in 11 states (with 109+23=132 e.v.); Obama has the edge in 18 states (with 58+83=131 e.v.). He is unlikely to win a few of the states where she is better: notably AR, WV, KY, and even FL.
* * * * *
To get to the necessary 270 electoral votes to win, Obama would need to carry:
The Solid Blue states (112 e.v.)
IL (21), NJ (15), WA (11), MD (10), MN (10), OR (7), CT (7), HI (4), RI (4), DE (3). All these are safe states for Obama. (92 e.v.)
PA (21), WI (10), CO (9), NM (5). All of these are swing states where Obama currently leads McCain. (45 e.v.)
Those states get him to 249 e.v. He needs 21 more, from among:
OH (20), MI (17), VA (13), IN (11), NV (5), NH (4). True swing states for Obama (70 e.v.)
FL (27), NC (15), MO (11), ND (3). "Reach" states, where Obama could run up the score in a blowout win (56 e.v.)
* * * * *
To get to 270 e.v., Clinton would need to win:
The Solid Blue states (112 e.v.)
NJ (15), AR (6), RI (4). These too are safe states for Clinton. (25 e.v.)
FL (27), IL (21), PA (21), OH (20), WA (11), MD (10), MN (10), CT (7), OR (7), NM (5), WV (5), NV (5), HI (4), DE (3). All of these are states where Clinton currently leads McCain. (156 e.v.)
Those states get her to 293 e.v., more than enough to win. And she could realistically get more, from among:
MI (17), MO (11), IN (11), WI (10), KY (8), IA (7), NH (4). True swing states for Clinton (68 e.v.)
NC (15), TN (11), CO (9). "Reach" states, where Clinton could run up the score in a blowout win (35 e.v.)
* * * * *
To summarize, either Obama or Clinton could reasonably win the Electoral College using these numbers. Clinton could win with just the states she has now, whereas Obama can't say that: Advantage Clinton. On the other hand, Obama's base of safe states is significantly larger than Clinton's (204 e.v. > 137). But all in all, this level of Electoral College analysis does favor Clinton's electability over Obama's.
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Am I entirely persuaded? No, I'm not, for several reasons. For one thing, it's much too early to look at polls to determine who is going to win in November. Also, it has been several weeks now that Obama's attacks have been primarily directed against McCain. Ever since North Carolina and Indiana, Hillary Clinton has been running pretty much unopposed, which I think tends to inflate her polling numbers beyond what they would be if a real nomination contest were still underway. Finally, I am convinced that if Clinton was somehow able to persuade the superdelegates to wrest the nomination away from Obama, the result would be a disastrously divided convention. I do not think Clinton could win in that scenario.
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If I don't believe Clinton can win, then what, I hear you asking, is the point of this exercise?
First, I want to acknowledge that Clinton people can do math, and that there is some genuine substance to Clinton's electability arguments. (I went into this little project thinking that there was less to her arguments than I now believe there is.)
Second, I want to point out how crucial a swing state Michigan is, especially if Obama is the nominee. I'm quite afraid Hillary Clinton is going to be tempted to demagogue the Michigan primary results, vetoing any reasonable compromise, to the point that it will seriously hurt Obama's chances of winning that state. She shouldn't do this, for her own sake as well as the party's. The party will not forgive her if she is seen as the Ralph Nader of 2008 -- the person who, for the sake of her ego, cost the Democrats the election.
Third, I want to focus my fellow Obama's suporters on the highly solvable but crucial problem of getting Obama past 270. That is going to mean working long, hard and respectfully to bring Clinton's supporters on board. Please, let's save the victory laps for November. It's going to mean we can't simply dismiss as "old politics" anything anyone tells us that we'd rather not hear. It's going to mean doing everything we can to win in Ohio and Michigan, the two most winnable big swing states for Obama. And I know a lot of my fellow Obamaphiles don't want to hear this, but I believe it's going to mean naming a Clinton loyalist to the ticket.
Let's all try to remember the salutory example of Karl ("You have your math; I have the math") Rove. Let's not kid ourselves -- we're going to have to be smart and realistic, as well as idealistic, if we're going to win in November.
In 2000, on an Canadian television talking-heads show called "The Editors", Dean had denounced the Iowa caucuses as ''dominated by special interests,'' arguing that they ''don't represent the centrist tendencies of the American people, they represent the extremes.'' Dean went on to say that the caucus process was too time-consuming and inconvenient for many people: ''Say I'm a guy who's got to work for a living, and I've got kids,'' he said on the show. ''On a Saturday, is it easy for me to go cast a ballot and spend 15 minutes doing it, or do I have to sit in a caucus for eight hours?''
The fallout in Iowa proved toxic. When the story broke on January 9, 2004, Dean was leading the polls in Iowa. Two weeks later, on January 24, he finished a weak third, behind John Kerry and John Edwards. Now Dean's anti-caucus comments were not his campaign's only late misstep -- Dean got into a negative advertising mudfight with fourth-place finisher Richard Gephardt, which ended up hurting them both, allowing Kerry and Edwards to 'rise above the fray'. But Dean's videotaped remarks, which were widely interpreted as a dis of the caucus-going populace, were a critical factor in Dean's surprise loss. (Later that evening, at what was intended to be his victory rally, he made an exuberant speech that concluded with his infamous "Dean Scream", and just like that, his campaign was effectively finished.)
* * * * *
What is the moral of this mini-lesson in recent political history? Well, consider what Hillary Clinton and her spokespeople have said about the Iowa caucuses this year:
Mark Penn, then Clinton's chief strategist, publicly and repeatedly dismissed caucus states as "insignificant".
Clinton herself disparaged liberal activist groups such as MoveOn.org, claiming that they dominated the caucuses with their unrepresentative and elitist views.
The Clinton campaign has repeatedly promoted the idea that superdelegates should base their decision-making on total national popular vote -- a metric that favors primary states over caucus states, and that effectively disenfranchises the caucus states that don't keep track of popular vote: Nevada, Maine, Washington, and... yup, you guessed it, Iowa.
One can make a case for the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary -- they offer long-shot "insurgent" candidates like Jimmy Carter and Mike Huckabee the chance to compete on a retail basis against better-funded "establishment" candidates. Certainly the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire take their role in the process very seriously, and guard their early-in-the-process privileged position jealously.
If Iowa Democratic voters were incensed with Howard Dean for his perceived slights, made years earlier on an obscure regional panel-discussion show, how can anyone imagine that they will be eager to forgive Hillary Clinton for what she said so much more forcefully, publicly, and frequently, this year?
I mean it. I am 100% in earnest here.
There. Now I've done it, you are thinking: Drunk the dregs of the Kool-Aid. Entered full-scale denial mode. Severed the last fleeting threads that tethered me to objective reality.
I know. In the real world, Barack Obama got clobbered, absolutely pasted by Hillary Clinton last night, losing by the breathtaking margin of 67%-26%. Not counting Arkansas, he never lost anything like this badly before. How could anyone in their right mind honestly spin this as a good night?
I'll give six reasons, plus a bonus seventh reason based on events that happened this morning.
Ain't nowhere for Obama to go from here but up. The narrative next week becomes more positive, and not only because it almost by definition has to. Obama will lose by a lot in Kentucky, but not ear as bad as in West Virginia. He will win Oregon by about the same margin he loses Kentucky. That will give him an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, and that in turn will bring the "Pelosi club" superdelegates off the fence.
Obama learned what happens when you don't show up for an election. What happens is, you lose, badly. Following his big NC win, Obama took a casual victory lap, barely showing his face in West Virginia in the two weeks before they voted. Here comes my one article of blind faith, as opposed to reasoned observation: He won't make that mistake again.
West Virginia is the White equivalent of D.C. If Jesse Jackson won a late primary in D.C., the rest of the party would take that for what it was worth. I realize it would probably infuriate the good voters of West Virginia to hear this, but the rest of the country largely discounts their "Hill/Bill-y" perspective. Everybody needs to remember that Hillary Clinton is an "identity" candidate in this race, as much as Barack Obama is. No -- more so: He is consciously reaching out to the Democratic constituencies that he hasn't persuaded, while she is targeting her appeal more narrowly, toward the voters she already has.
West Virginia didn't vote
against Barack Obama; they voted for Hillary Clinton. It's
true that a lot of petulant Clinton supporters insist in exit polls
that they would vote for McCain, or not at all, unless their
candidate is nominated. Forgive me, folks, but this is a little like
a 4-year-old's threat that if he doesn't get what he wants, he'll
just hold his breath till he turns blue. It's just not something a
serious Democrat would say. (And yes, that goes equally for the
smaller portion of Obama supporters who wouldn't vote for Clinton if she were to be the nominee.) Anyway, come
November none of this is goimg to happen, because:
Hillary has said she will
work hard on behalf of the Party's nominee. Yes, she's still running hard, but she's not cheap-shotting Obama the way she was earlier in the campaign ("Shame on you, Barack Obama!") And she has signaled in both her Indiana and her West Virginia victory speeches, that she knows Obama will be the nominee, and she will work for him.
We won another very red House seat. In a Mississippi district that went 62% for Bush, the Democrat, Travis Childers, won last night. And not just won -- won going away. Childers won 54% of the vote, even with the Republicans pulling out their big guns -- Dick Cheney, Haley Barbour -- and running ads that tried to tie Childers to Obama. This was the biggest news of the evening. It clearly foretells that this could well be a swing election of historic proportions. Even before last night, Newt Gingrich was warning that this was likely to be a disastrous election for the GOP. This morning Republican incumbents by the dozens have got to be suffering indigestion, and the uncommitted Democratic superdelegates, many of whom are House members themselves, have to be breathing easier.
If Hillary Clinton had any secret cache of superdelegates to release, this morning would have been the time to start trotting them out. Here is my seventh bit of excellent news for Obama: It didn't happen. She gained only one super endorsement (from a Tennessee add-on), while Obama picked up 2-1/2 more votes. Hillary's superdelegate death by a thousand cuts continues.
In short, on what was arguably his worst election night of the campaign, Obama's chances of being nominated have hardly budged. I'd rate them 99.5% today, versus 99.8% yesterday. And his chances of winning in November -- and perhaps even getting an overwhelming electoral mandate -- are notably better today than they were at the beginning of the week.
On Wednesday, Hillary Clinton's campaign staff found the biggest, most extravagantly gas-sucking behemoth of a pickup truck they possibly could, to pose her in. This was a carefully staged photo op -- not only was the gas station preselected, but so was the specific pump she was to use. The truck she rode in did not belong to her workingman host, but to his boss -- supposedly the employee's own truck wasn't large enough to accommodate her Secret Service escort, though I didn't see any security people in the truck with them. (Maybe someone was crouching down in the truck's spacious cab.)
What messages was her campaign trying to convey?
The obvious, overt message was that at nearly $4.00 a gallon, gas costs more than it should, and that (like her redemptive husband before her) she feels our pain. She repeated her endorsement of John McCain's 3-month "gas tax holiday" idea, even though it has been slammed as a total giveaway to OPEC and the oil industry, even by her own supporters (see Krugman). As if, at $3.82 a gallon, gas would feel like a bargain!
She told her working class constituency, and by extension all Americans, that they should be able to drive whatever the hell vehicle they want, regardless of its impact on the economy, or the environment, or our national security -- not to mention their own pocketbooks.
Senator Clinton's motorcade consisted of a flotilla of identically large SUV's. By riding in what was unmistakably the biggest vehicle in the parade, she demonstrated her "testicular fortitude", as surely as if she had challenged her pansy primary opponent to a demolition derby in his effete Volvo.
What was proved by this stunt? Well, now we know for sure that it has been decades since Hilary Clinton pumped her own gas, or her own coffee. But in real life, does anyone here believe that Sen. Clinton has ever in her life regularly ridden in any sort of pickup, or that she really shares the values of the target market of such a truck?
Let me be clear here -- I'm not putting down the millions of Americans who want or need to drive a pick-up truck. I am saying that the vehicle Sen. Clinton chose to commute in was a workingman's Fantasy Island ride, and an in-your-face expression of conspicuous consumption.
The whole exercise stands as a symbol of Clinton's hollow, deeply dishonest campaign.
The obvious, overt message was that at nearly $4.00 a gallon, gas costs more than it should, and that (like her redemptive husband before her) she feels our pain. She repeated her endorsement of John McCain's 3-month "gas tax holiday" idea, even though it has been slammed as a total giveaway to OPEC and the oil industry, even by her own supporters (Krugman). As if, at $3.78 a gallon, gas would feel like a bargain!
She told her working class constituency, and by extension all Americans, that they should be able to drive whatever the hell vehicle they want, regardless of their impact on the economy, or the environment, or our national security -- not to mention their own pocketbooks.
Senator Clinton's motorcade
consisted of a small fleet of identically large SUV's. By riding in what was
unmistakably the biggest vehicle in the parade, she demonstrated her
"testicular fortitude", as surely as if she had challenged
her pansy primary opponent to a demolition derby in his effete
Volvo. (Or, as I am sure the Secret Service saw it, the campaign had pasted a large "Candidate is Here" target on the vehicle, which as far as I know was not fully armored.)
What was proved by this stunt? Well,
now we know that it's been decades since Hilary Clinton pumped her
own gas, or her own coffee.
Now in real life, how many people here believe that Sen. Clinton has ever in her life regularly ridden in any sort of pickup, or that she really shares the values of the target market of such a truck? The whole exercise stands as a metaphor for her deeply dishonest campaign.
Josn Marshall writes today: "Looking back over how this race has shaken out, I have serious questions whether the proportional system is the best way to go, at least if the other party is going the winner-take-all route. If you grant that there's an advantage in coming to a decision early, the proportional system really does make it terribly hard for either candidate in a close race to put it away."
Actually that's only half of the structural problem. It's the combination of proportional delegate selection plus the large number of superdelegates -- 20% of the total. That makes it theoretically possible for the superdelegates to veto the nomination of the elected-delegate leader, unless that candidate has a 62.5% supermajority of the elected delegates.
As we have seen, in a close two-person race, it is very difficult to win 5/8 of the elected delegates under the proportional representation system. In a three- or four-person contest, it would be nigh impossible. (Imagine if Edwards had continued with a Huckabee-style low-budget guerrilla campaign. He'd have gotten his 15-20% of the voters and delegates, and might even have emerged the fifth-ballot compromise nominee, after a lot of bitter Obama-Clinton convention fratricide.)
One thing is clear for next time: either the proportional rules need to be relaxed for states that vote late in the nominating process, or the numerical influence of the superdelegates needs to be scaled back dramatically.
Sen. Clinton yesterday held a rally in Detroit, warning, "If the Democrats send the message that we don't care about your votes, I'm sure John McCain and the Republicans would be happy to have them."
Calling John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, a good friend and a “distinguished man with a great history of service to our country,” Hillary Clinton said, “Both of us will be on that stage having crossed that threshold. That is a critical criterion for the next Democratic nominee to deal with.”
Since by her own standard she has already "crossed that threshold," logically it can only be "a critical criterion for the next Democratic nominee to deal with" if that nominee is Barack Obama.
“You don't believe that Senator Clinton's a lesbian?” Kroft asked Sen. Obama.
“Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that. I take her on the basis of what she says. And, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that,” he replied.
“You said you'd take Senator Clinton at her word that she's not…a lesbian. You don't believe that she's…” Kroft said.
“No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know,” he said.
“It's just scurrilous…?” Kroft inquired.
“Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors, that I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time,” Obama said.
