Much was made during the primary of Clinton's regular lead over Obama
among Hispanic voters in large swing states.  Given that McCain is
one of the few Republicans not to run on  a platform of explicit
xenophobia, it was therefore put forward that McCain's appeal to
Hispanics combined with Obama's (putative) lack of appeal among
Hispanics could amount to a real problem for Obama in the GE.  So,
today's NBC/WSJ poll
offers the first real post-primary look at that question and what do
they find?  Obama leads McCain among Hispanic voters 62% to
28%.  That is to say, Obama is winning this demographic by more
than 2 to 1.



He is also winning women voters 52 to 33, Catholic voters 47 to 40 and
blue collar voters 47 to 42.  In other words, all of those
supposedly problematic demographics are coming together behind
him.  For all of the hand-wringing ballyhoo, it seems that the
fact that certain democrats would not vote for Obama in the primary did
not imply that they likewise would not vote for him in the GE. 
Just thought that you might like to know that...

I have a theory.  I am no genius and have no special connections to either campaign or the DNC, so my theory is nothing more than my own interpretation of the same data available to all of us.  In other words, if it seems implausible to you, please do not think "on the other hand, he might know something that I do not."  I assure you, I know nothing more than you do, whoever you are.

I am, however, perplexed by the sight of a high-level Clinton surrogate floating a trial balloon concerning a unity ticket at a time when 1) Sen Clinton is obviously in such a weak state that such an overture cannot be understood as an invitation to a Clinton/Obama ticket and 2) Clinton is simultaneously still making arguments suggesting that she plans to beat Obama.  This is a strange and paradoxical state of affairs.  One does not ordinarily bid for the VP's slot by attacking the candidate with whom one hopes to run, and yet McAuliffe's "what a great idea" can hardly be seen as anything but a bid for just that.  What is going on?

Here is my theory: Clinton wants to be president.  This is hardly a shocking insight.  If she did not want to be president, she would not have run.  She is faced with a real difficulty in attaining that goal, however, by this point.  It is clear that she will not win the nomination in 2008, and it equally clear that she would fare no better as a 3rd party candidate than any other 3rd party candidate has ever fared.  As such, she has no realistic path left to the presidency in 2008.

2016, however, is a long ways off.  Countless precedents have shown that her odds would be long if she were to wait those eight years (remember Dick Gephardt?).  Far better if she could make another go of it in 2012.  Much talk has been given to the idea that she is running so as to weaken him enough to ensure his loss this time around, so that she might run against McCain in 2012, but this is rather problematic.  She would alienate a lot of people whose support she would need by adopting that strategy (even more than she already has), thus weakening, not strengthening, her present position.

What if, however, she could create a situation now which would ensure that Obama would have to choose her as his running mate.  If she could plant enough fears of a party schism in the minds of the remaining super delegates such that they would precondition their support of him on his taking her as his VP.  Because he would need her, instead of merely wanting her, she would be in a strong bargaining position.  She could use this position to insist on concessions from him.  The more dire the prospects, the more strongly the supers would insist and thus the more drastic the concessions she could extract - up to and including the concession that he agree only to run for the one term and then cede the way to her in 2012 and promise to campaign on her behalf.  This is the end-game which explains the paradoxical mix of full-throttle campaigning for the top of the ticket and overtures for the bottom position.

Why do I write this?  Well, for what else does the internet exist except to document the random musings of every nitwit's idle mind and (if lucky) engage feedback on the same.  So, what do you think?  Does this theory seem a plausible hypothesis to account for the observed data which we have at hand?  If you do find it plausible, does it fill you with admiration, or foreboding, or any other particular response?  I am interested to read what others think.

1) Either Barack Obama's or Hillary Clinton's presidency would
represent a historic first.  As such, the odds are pretty good
that either would end up on the money.  Which denominations of
bills/coins should each one get?



2) Gary Trudeau used a blank space to indicate George H.W. Bush, a
white quail feather to indicate Dan Quayle, a waffle to indicate Bill
Clinton, a bomb with a lit fuse to indicate Newt Gingrich and a Roman
centurion's helmet to indicate George W Bush.  What should Trudeau
use to indicate McCain?  Obama?  Hillary Clinton?



Remember, if you enjoy chewing the fat over questions as trivial as
these, be sure to click the "recommend" so that this post lasts long
enough for others to be similarly afflicted.

A few penséss that have come to mind as a result of the exchanges of the last few days:



1) When did "limosine liberals" become an epithet on the tongues of democrats?  I can understand why a republican
like Spiro Agnew might use this sort of language, but what is this sort
of rhetoric meant to achieve in the mouth of a democrat?



2) How is Clinton (or her supporters like Terry McAuliffe or Joe
Wilson) any less a "limosine liberal" than Obama or (his supporters
like Ted Kennedy or John Kerry)?



3) When did the Teamsters, the Boilermakers, the Service Employees, the
Culinary Workers and the Food and Commercial Workers become something
other than salt-of-the-earth blue collar types?  I can tell you
that I have played bagpipe gigs at Teamster meetings and at Yacht
clubs, and the two fora are not especially similar to each other.



4) If Clinton really does represent "the common man" while Obama stands only for "the liberal elite," then why is Clinton the one parrotting McCain right now?  Is McCain
also the defender of the common man?  In a similar vein, why are
the republicans training so much fire on Sen Obama but ignoring Sen
Clinton entirely?  Are we seriously to understand that the
Republican Party is become the party of the proletariat?

Well, everyone knows how I will answer this question.  I am a Kool-Aid drunk Obamabot.  Of course I
think that Clinton is the bigger gamble.  It seems to me, however,
that the "Obama cannot win" line is only half the story.  What
about Clinton's prospects.

Recent poll results serve to confirm the anecdotal storyline that
Clinton's support among black voters is soft and getting softer. 
First came the Quinnipac study
from last week which showed her favorable ratings among black voters
down to 52% and her unfavorables up at 42%.  Now today brings us
tidings from Rasmussen that Clinton only wins 59% of black voter support in a hypothetical match-up against McCain.

In other words, two independant lines of evidence suggest that Clinton
can only expect to bring in about half as many black votes as democrats
count on to win.  So, imagining that to be the case, what are the
implications of such a hypothetical development.

According to CNN's results and exit polls from 2004, Kerry lost OH by ~119K votes. Black voters are estimated to have cast
~484K votes for Kerry in that election. In other words, Clinton would
have enough trouble coming up with the 120K necessary to turn OH around
if one assumes that every last Kerry voter
shows up to vote for
her. Assume, however, that only 60% of Kerry's black voters are
inclined vote for Clinton.  Suddenly she needs not ~119K, but 409K to flip this state blue.

Kerry won PA by only ~144K votes. Black voters are estimated to
have cast ~630K votes for Kerry in that election. Once again, imagine
that just 40% of those voter decide to sit this one out and all of a
sudden Clinton needs to replace ~108K voters in order to hang on to
that which Kerry carried in 2004.

Kerry lost FL to Bush by ~381K votes.  Black voters are estimated
to have cast ~785K ballots for Kerry in that election.  If only
60% of those voters show up this time around she needs 695K more voters than Kerry was able to dig up in order to flip this state into the blue column.

Even IL, a solid blue state, went for Kerry by only ~546K votes. 
Black voters are estimated to have cast ~469K of those Kerry
votes.  If 60% of those voters (and remember, IL is Obama's home
state, so the folks in IL are disproportionately more likely than the
national average to be upset by a hypothetical Obama primary loss) that
would put McCain theoretically within ~734K of stealing IL from us, far
closer a margin than any democrat ought to feel smug about.

With that in mind, does Clinton really look like more of a sure thing than Obama?

This is a question for those who think that the popular vote ought to
count for something - should non-states count in that popular vote
tally.  I notice that, at present, RCP is including the
totals from places like the Virgin Islands and American Samoa in their
popular vote totals, although these numbers amount to very
little.  I notice, however, that Greg Sargent was tossing around
the figure of ~900K voters expected in the PR primary in June. 
That is a significant chunk of votes.  Given that these folks get
0 electoral votes, however, I am given to wonder whether it makes sense
to count them in the popular vote totals.



What do you think?  Should it be counted?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

Much ado has recently been made about Sen Obama's demonstrated
inability to win over certain important segments of the democratic
base, viz. blue collar whites, older voters (especially older
women) and hispanics.  These exit poll trends have given rise to a
particular argument about Sen Obama's electability that runs to the
effect that, because he will not be able to energize important segments
of the democratic base, he will not be able to win critical swing
states like PA & OH in November.



As Mr Marshall points out on the front page, this argument is
problematic.  It is premised on the unspoken assumption that
because a given voter votes for X instead of Y in a primary, said voter
will be unwilling to vote for Y in the GE despite the fact that this
voter shares a party affiliation with Y; the truth of this assumption
is far from intuitively obvious.



For present purposes, however, I am not interested in exploring the accuracy of that premise.  Let us grant it arguendo. 
It seems to me that observations about Obama's ability to rally parts
of the traditional democratic base are true as far as they go, but they
only go halfway to where the Clinton supporter making the pitch
described above needs to go.  Such a person needs not only to
prove that Sen Obama cannot win the votes of certain core
constituencies in November, but also that Sen Clinton can win the votes of all democratic core constituencies.



With that in mind, I would like to turn the readers attention to the recent series of exit polls conducted in PA
by the good folks at Quinnipac.  I pay specific attention to these
because they treat of very recent data, and thus can be expected to
give us information about how voters are feeling right now, after several weeks of bitter, internecine struggle.



It appears that as the months of March and April wore on, African
Americans have begun to sour on Sen Clinton rather remarkably.  By
the end of the poll (Apr 21) her favorable rating was at only 52% and
her unfavorable rating at 42%.  In other words, the historic good
will of African Americans towards the Clintons has given way (at least
in PA) to a distinct ambivalence.  Moreover, it seems that she has
not hit bottom yet; between Apr 13 and 21 (the end of the tracking
period), her favorables fell 6 pts and her unfavorables grew 12.



African Americans are just as important an element of the democratic
base as are blue-collar whites.  No democrat will be able to carry
swing states like OH, MI or FL without strong turnout among black
voters in those states, and favorability ratings like those do not
augur well for Sen Clinton's ability to achieve a strong turnout. 
In other words, if we really care to play the game of extrapolating
from present day primary results to results in November, Clinton is no
stronger by the "electability" measure than is Obama.

Not really, but I notice that with each passing minute the legend of
her victory-in-the-face-of-unprecedented-obstacles seems to grow in the
writings of Gotalife, RStephen, Matthew Weaver, & al.  By the end of the day I fully expect to read that she won despite being outspent 100:1.



So, might I ask where you folks making this claim are getting your numbers?  The published reports that I have been able to dig up with a quick google search
claim that Obama spent $11,246,573 in PA while Clinton spent $4,852,541
on the same race.  That comes to a margin of 2.3 to 1.



Mind you, that is still an impressive margin of outspending.  Her
victory in the face of that sort of disadvantage really is
impressive.  As such, why the need to exagerate it?  You
simply make her accomplishment look smaller by comparison to the mythic
narrative you are crafting to replace the reality of the race.

So said Sen Clinton this morning in an interview with Matt Lauer.  But is it true?  Who knows?



Sen Clinton's claim is based upon a popular vote tabulation which
includes MI & FL but omits IA, NV, ME & WA.  That is
because those last four states do not release vote totals, just totals
of delegates elected for each candidate.  Because no totals are
released from those states, there are no numbers to compute in the
popular vote calculations.  That said, some number of people did
actually vote in those states, and Obama won three of those four. 
As such, and given the very slim margin of Sen Clinton's hypothetical
popular vote lead (only ~122K), it is entirely possible that even with
MI & FL included and even in light of the PA votes, more people
have voted (to date) for Sen Obama than for Sen Clinton.  Indeed,
when RCP sets down to estimate the vote totals in IA, NV, ME & WA and includes those estimates in the count, Obama is back on top by ~317K.



Is it squirrley to include those estimates?  Sure, but no more
squirrley than including FL & MI.  In other words, Sen
Clinton's assertion is more spin than substance.  Given that the
popular vote only matters as a means of convincing super-delegates to
support one candidate or the other, I am not especially impressed that
this is going to make much of an impression on the supers.  If you were a superdelegate, would you
be much impressed by a number which is only sustainable if you include
two highly irregular elections but ignore four perfectly honest ones?

... to Sen Clinton's latest ad. I leave the reader to draw his/her own conclusions.

I have been confidently predicting for weeks now that Indiana would go
for Obama.  I thought that even before I made the trip to canvas
there a few weeks back, but getting out and knocking on doors in
Indianapolis only made me even more convinced of the claim.  As
such, I was pleased but not surprised to see that Survey USA
has just released a poll showing the state flipping over to an Obama
lead.  My track records as a prophet is rather spotty, but I am
going on record now to say that this will be the new trend in IN polls
and that Obama will go on to win Indiana on May 6, albeit only by
single digits.

Evidently this is something that one needs to establish with certainty
if one wishes to run for president, so I thought that I would just get
out ahead of the curve here in preparation for my candidacy in 2016 and
say that I believe in the American flag.  I have seen it with my
own eyes and will swear on a stack of Bibles that it exists.



I also believe in mom, the flag (well, that is redundant I suppose,
given the first paragraph) and apple pie - somewhere between 32% and
56% more than my opponents believe in those things.  And Jesus
really is my co-pilot (seriously, Jesus Moreno down the street and I carpool together all the time).



All right, I hope that is settled now.  When Charles Gibson cuts
to the videotaped question (or hologram, or whatever they are using at
that distant date in the future), I am going to reference this blog
post, and I hope that all of you will call in to back me up - Greg
DeLassus believes in the American flag, and all of that other jazz.

I notice that the bulk of the recommended posts right now consist of
essays penned by my fellow Obama supporters criticizing Sen Clinton
(often in rather harsh terms).  I would submit that this sort of
thing is really not helpful.  Obama is a democrat; Clinton is a
democrat.  We are on the same side here, and we really should not
be attacking each other.  The last thing that we need in November
is a bitter schism in the party.  I think that one of the surest
ways to achieve that severely undesirable split, however, is to
antagonize Sen Clinton's supporters.  There is much to be lost and
little to be gained in that course of action.  As such, I am going
to post a few things about Sen Clinton and her campaign that I have
come to admire. I invite my fellow Obama supporters to do the
same.  I would ask, however, that you keep it sincere; no
backhanded compliments on the order of "you don't sweat much for a fat
guy."



1) Sen Clinton has done a remarkable job of increasing democratic
turnout this season.  This is surely a good thing for the party
overall, and Sen Clinton should be commended for it.



2) I am much obliged to her for bringing up the subject of crime. 
I was rather surprised that the issue had not been much discussed
sooner in the campaign season, but better late than never and we have
her to thank for it.



3) I think that she would make an excellent president.  I think
that the large number of people who are obviously inspired by the idea
of her candidacy (as evidenced by the extreme closeness of this race)
stand as a testament to her abilities.  We are lucky to have her
in this party.



I plan to come back to this later with more specific points, but at the
moment I need to get back to work.  Meanwhile, I hope that others
among my Obama supporting fellows will leap in with contributions in
the meantime.

This seems like such an obvious topic that I find it hard to believe
that no one has blogged on it yet, but I do not find any such post in
my (rather brief) search of the archives, so I thought that I would
write a post myself.  One way or another, there is going to be an
empty senate seat in Jan 2009.  Whether McCain, Clinton or Obama
wins, somebody who is in the senate now will not be in the senate
then.  As such, a new senator will have to be chosen to fill that
slot.  We are fortunate in that all three states in question (NY,
IL and AZ) have democratic governors, so that seat will almost
certainly be filled by a democrat.



With that in mind, who would you like to see fill that seat?  More
to the point, whom do you <i>expect</i> to be
selected?  Here is your chance to make a prediction and enjoy the
glory of bragging rights if you get it right next Jan.



My picks:



1) AZ - I predict that Gov Napolitano will pick Rep Gabrielle Giffords
(this is a complete guess; I know nothing about AZ, and while I would
like for Gov Napolitano to appoint herself, that seems unlikely, so I
just reached for the name of the only other AZ democrat in my memory).

2) IL - I predict that Gov Blajoejvich will appoint Atty Gen Lisa
Madigan because she is 1) very popular statewide and 2) a possible
primary rival to himself next go around.  Also, I rather like Lisa
Madigan myself and think that she has proven a rather capable and
intelligent public servant.

3) NY - I predict that Gov Paterson will appoint Andrew Cuomo (this, like my AZ pick, is mostly an uninformed guess).

With all of the hoopla on this board of late surrounding the
fluctuations in PA polls, I thought that it might be of some interest
to consult Obama's projection spreadsheet
from a few months ago.  These projections have proven remarkably
prescient, especially given that many states which were accurately
predicted were totally unpolled at the time that this list was
compiled.  The Obama campaign's delegate predictions are
especially good, and rarely more than 2 delegates off-base (as can be
seen by comparing the projections in the above link with the actual
totals available on the Green Papers). 
With that in mind, if you look at the columns you will see that Obama's
people predicted a 52%/47% Clinton victory, which results in a net
delegate advantage of 8 for Clinton.  This is actually somewhat
optimistic at present, given that RCP shows Obama's support hovering consistently in the low
40s, but there are still a few weeks for him to bring that number up,
so I guess that we will see.  In any event, this provides an
interesting contrast with Obama's own claim that anything less than a
10 pt victory would be a good showing for him, given that this
spreadsheet predicts a mere 5 pt gap.  It will be interesting to
see if this prediction proves as reliable as so many of the other
predictions in this list.



Also worth noting is that this spreadsheet shows Obama winning IN
53%/46%, with a six delegate advantage resulting.  It will be
interesting to see if that comes true as well.  Finally, I see
that this spreadsheet predicts that Obama will win NC 53%/45%, which is
far smaller a margin than the current polls
predict, so evidently Sen Obama's campaign foresees a reservoir of
support in NC for Sen Clinton which the pollsters are not picking up
(at least not yet).